Historically, the Oracle Solaris OS has been installed on a boot disk configured with an SMI VTOC disk label. Starting with the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS, the OS is installed on a boot disk that is configured with an extensible firmware interface (EFI) GUID partition table (GPT) disk label by default. Except for UltraSPARC T2, UltraSPARC T2 Plus, and SPARC T3 servers, the current system firmware versions of all supported servers support EFI labels.
The following servers cannot boot from a disk that has an EFI GPT disk label:
UltraSPARC T2, UltraSPARC T2 Plus, and SPARC T3 servers no matter which system firmware version is used
SPARC T4 servers that run system firmware versions prior to 8.4.0
SPARC T5, SPARC M5, and SPARC M6 servers that run system firmware versions prior to 9.1.0
SPARC T7 and SPARC M7 series servers that run system firmware versions prior to 9.4.3
So, an Oracle Solaris 11.1 boot disk that is created on an up-to-date SPARC T4, SPARC T5, SPARC M5, SPARC M6, SPARC T7, or SPARC M7 series server cannot be used on older servers or on servers that run older firmware.
This limitation restrains the ability to use either cold or live migration to move a domain from a recent server to an older server. This limitation also prevents you from using an EFI GPT boot disk image on an older server.
To determine whether an Oracle Solaris 11.1 boot disk is compatible with your server and its firmware, ensure that the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS is installed on a disk that is configured with an SMI VTOC disk label.
To maintain backward compatibility with systems that run older firmware, use one of the following procedures. Otherwise, the boot disk uses the EFI GPT disk label by default. These procedures show how to ensure that the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS is installed on a boot disk with an SMI VTOC disk label on a SPARC T4 server with at least system firmware version 8.4.0, on a SPARC T5, SPARC M5, or SPARC M6 server with at least system firmware version 9.1.0, and on a SPARC T7 or SPARC M7 series server with at least system firmware version 9.4.3.
Solution 1: Remove the gpt property so that the firmware does not report that it supports EFI.
From the OpenBoot PROM prompt, disable automatic booting and reset the system to be installed.
ok setenv auto-boot? false ok reset-all
After the system resets, it returns to the ok prompt.
Change to the /packages/disk-label directory and remove the gpt property.
ok cd /packages/disk-label ok " gpt" delete-property
Begin the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS installation.
For example, perform a network installation:
ok boot net - install
Solution 2: Use the format -e command to write an SMI VTOC label on the disk to be installed with the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS.
Write an SMI VTOC label on the disk.
For example, select the label option and specify the SMI label:
# format -e c1d0 format> label [0] SMI Label [1] EFI Label Specify Label type[1]: 0
Configure the disk with a slice 0 and slice 2 that cover the entire disk.
The disk should have no other partitions. For example:
format> partition partition> print Current partition table (unnamed): Total disk cylinders available: 14087 + 2 (reserved cylinders) Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks 0 root wm 0 - 14086 136.71GB (14087/0/0) 286698624 1 unassigned wu 0 0 (0/0/0) 0 2 backup wu 0 - 14086 136.71GB (14087/0/0) 286698624 3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0 4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0 5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0 6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0 7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
Re-write the SMI VTOC disk label.
partition> label [0] SMI Label [1] EFI Label Specify Label type[0]: 0 Ready to label disk, continue? y
Configure your Oracle Solaris Automatic Installer (AI) to install the Oracle Solaris OS on slice 0 of the boot disk.
Change the <disk> excerpt in the AI manifest as follows:
<target>
<disk whole_disk="true">
<disk_keyword key="boot_disk"/>
<slice name="0" in_zpool="rpool"/>
</disk>
[...]
</target>Perform the installation of the Oracle Solaris 11.1 OS.