Provisioning Oracle Solaris 11

Lists the provisioning tasks.

The following information is in this section:

• About Oracle Solaris 11 and Provisioning

• Steps for Oracle Solaris 11 Provisioning Plan

• Specifying Common Oracle Solaris 11 Parameters

• Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile

• Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Configuration Profile

• Provisioning an OS Using a User-Defined MAC Address

About Oracle Solaris 11 and Provisioning

Oracle Solaris 11 uses a new OS provisioning technology, called the Automated Installer. This feature replaces the older JumpStart Enterprise Toolkit (JET) technology that Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center uses to provision earlier versions of Oracle Solaris.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center reduces the complexity by using a local copy of the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Library on the Enterprise Controller and creating an Automated Installer server on the Proxy Controller for your use.

Note:

To provision an Oracle Solaris 11 operating system, the Enterprise Controller and Proxy Controller must both be running on an Oracle Solaris 11 operating system. The repository resides on the Enterprise Controller and the Automated Installer server resides on the Proxy Controller. When the Enterprise Controller and Proxy Controller are not running on Oracle Solaris 11, the Oracle Solaris 11 library and OS provisioning actions are not available.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center can create and run multiple installadm services on the same Proxy Controller, one for each solaris-auto-install mini root. For example, Oracle Solaris 11, 11.1, 11.1.6.4.0, or whenever the solaris-auto-install version increases in an SRU (Support Repository Update). An SRU is a package of bug fixes and updates that releases on a regular basis. SRUs eliminate the ad hoc patching from Oracle Solaris 10 and earlier versions of the operating system. Each Oracle Solaris SRU builds upon, and only contains the changes from, the preceding Oracle Solaris 11 update. Oracle Solaris 11 uses a 5-digit taxonomy to define the SRU. The digits represent Release.Update.SRU.Build.Respin. For example, Oracle Solaris 11.1.6.4.0.

The Oracle Solaris 11 network architecture is significantly different from previous releases of Oracle Solaris. The implementation, the names of the network interfaces, the commands, and the methods for administering and configuring them is different from previous versions of Oracle Solaris. These changes were introduced to bring a more consistent and integrated experience to network administration, particularly as administrators add more-complex configurations including link aggregation, bridging, load balancing, or virtual networks. In addition to the traditional fixed networking configuration, Oracle Solaris 11 introduced automatic network configuration through network profiles.

The OS Provisioning and OS Configuration profiles that you use for provisioning Oracle Solaris 11 contain all of the information needed, such as type of target, OS image, time zone and language setup disk partitions, naming services and network details. With Oracle Solaris 11, you can define link aggregations or IPMP groups for advanced networking.

You can provision Oracle Solaris 11 zones as part of the OS installation. After a system is bootstrapped with a minimized operating system, the operating system is installed from the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Update Library in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. The zones are provisioned during the initial system reboot after the base operating system is installed.

Steps for Oracle Solaris 11 Provisioning Plan

Steps to provision Oracle Solaris 11.

Note:

When you create the plan, both the OS Provisioning profile and the OS Configuration profile must have the same platform subtype, either Solaris SPARC or Solaris x86.

Prerequisites

Lists the prerequisites to follow before you provision the operating system.

Perform the following before you provision the operating system:

• Verify that the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Library is configured on the Enterprise Controller and the package you want is available in the library.

  If the image is not in the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Library, import the OS image.

  As an alternative, you can use a custom manifest. You do this when you want to install a site-specific file system or OS version.

  Note:

  Uploading the packages from Oracle to the library can take several hours.

• (Optional) Edit an existing OS Provisioning profile or create a new profile.

• Discover the service processors of the target systems.

• Verify that any scripts the profile uses are in a directory that the Enterprise Controller can access. You can save scripts in a local directory of the Enterprise Controller, or in a directory that the Enterprise Controller mounts using NFS.

• When you are provisioning a dynamic system domain of an M-Series server, the domain must have an IP address.

Note:

It is a good practice to place the systems that you are going to provision in Maintenance Mode so that you can take the system offline without generating alerts and incidents.

Steps to Provision Oracle Solaris 11

Procedure to provision Oracle Solaris 11 operating system.

1. Create an Oracle Solaris 11 Provisioning profile.
2. Create an Oracle Solaris Configuration profile.
3. Create a deployment plan that uses Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning and OS Configuration profiles, or verify that a plan and profiles are available and configured with the parameters you want to use.
4. Discover the service processor of the target system.
5. Place the asset in Maintenance Mode to prevent events related to a system going offline.
6. Select the deployment plan and define the targets for the plan. The target must be an x86 server or WAN boot-capable SPARC server. Review the configuration parameters and make any last minute changes in the plan before applying the plan to the target system.

Set SRU Version

When you provision the operating system, you can use the same SRU version that you selected when creating a profile to be used for provisioning.

Perform the following steps to set the SRU version.

1. In the Navigation pane, click Administration, then click Enterprise Controller.

2. In the center pane, click the Configuration tab.

3. In the Configuration Management section, select OS Provisioning from the Subsystem drop-down list.

4. Scroll down to useSRUVersion. The value is set to false by default.

   • To set the same SRU version that you selected in the profile to be used for provisioning your operating system, set the value to true.

Specifying Common Oracle Solaris 11 Parameters

Oracle Solaris 11 uses some components for OS provisioning.

The following components are used for provisioning an operating system:

• Oracle Solaris 11 Software Library: A local version of the software package repository. You can update the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Library, as needed, and then provision multiple systems without using a network connection to Oracle for each provisioning job.

• Installation manifest: Defines the system configuration, including what software to install and details on the virtualized environments to provision. A default manifest is included with each Image Packaging System (IPS) software repository.

  As an alternative, you can prepare a custom manifest, as described in About Using a Custom Manifest to Provision an OS in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Configure Reference.

• DCHP or WAN boot connection

  • x86 client: Requires a DHCP connection.

  • SPARC client: Requires a DHCP or WAN boot connection. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center automatically sets up WAN boot connection.

Note:

Oracle Solaris 11 only supports a ISC DHCP Server. Oracle Solaris DHCP Server is not supported.

Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile

You can create multiple profiles to respond to subtle variations in hardware attributes, software profiles, or your organization's requirements.

When you create an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning profile, you select the architecture, either SPARC or x86, to display the boot image and distribution for your architecture. You must provide non-root user credentials and root user credentials. You can only use non-root user credentials to login or SSH to the client after install.

Oracle Solaris 11 System Software Groups

Oracle Solaris 11 provides three system software group packages that install different sets of packages appropriate for a larger server, a smaller server or non-global zone, or a graphical desktop environment.

The boot image is associated with the software group.

As shown in Figure 7-16, you must select one of the following software groups:

• large-server: Provides common network services for an enterprise server. This group package also contains hardware drivers that are required for servers, such as InfiniBand drivers.

• small-server: Provides a smaller set of packages to be installed on a small server or non-global zone.

• desktop: Provides the GNOME desktop environment and other GUI tools such as web browsers and mail. It also includes drivers for graphics and audio devices.

Figure 7-16 System Software Groups

Description of "Figure 7-16 System Software Groups"

See the Oracle Solaris 11 Package Lists documentation for a detailed comparison of the three packages and list of contents.

Oracle Solaris 11 Feature Software Groups

The boot image might have additional software groups that you can select, such as trusted-desktop, storage-server and storage-nas.

Each group has a tool tip that describes the group, as shown in Figure 7-17. You can select one or more of these groups.

Figure 7-17 Feature Software Groups

Description of "Figure 7-17 Feature Software Groups"

To install the operating system on an iSCSI disk, select the Use iSCSI Disk option when you create the profile, then specify the iSCSI disk settings. When you use this option, you must provide the following parameters when you deploy the OS Provisioning plan:

• Storage server IP

• SCSI disk LUN

Note:

When you specify the naming service in the OS Provisioning profile, each IP address in the Name Server field must be entered in a new row. IP addresses 0.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.255 are allowed. In the Domain Name Search List field, enter each domain name, such as 1domain.com and 2domain. com, on a new line.

Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Update Profile for Provisioning

You can create an update profile to install a specific Oracle Solaris 11 version or package, uninstall a package, or install a script. First, create a user-defined Oracle Solaris 11 Update Profile to define the action. When you create or edit an OS Provisioning profile, you can add your OS Update profile.

This example shows how to create an OS Update profile that installs the Firefox Extensions package.

1. Expand Plan Management in the Navigation pane, then select Update Profiles under Profiles and Policies.
2. Click New Profile.
3. Enter a name and description for the profile, then select Solaris 11 as the Type.
4. Select Distribution, Category, View, and Version from the Search Criteria. Select Show Only Support Repository Updates to further filter the list. The available search criteria are determined by your selection. In this example, select Applications/Plug-ins and Run-times from the Category menu and Latest Versions. A list of available packages appears on the right side of the page.
5. Highlight the package. Click the View Details icon, which is the first icon, to get more information about your selection. To add the package components to the Profile Contents, select the components, then click the Install icon.

   Figure 7-18 Create OS Update Profile

   
   Description of "Figure 7-18 Create OS Update Profile"
6. Click Create OS Update Profile. The profile appears in the list of Update profiles.

Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 Provisioning Profile

You can use the default profiles, copy a default profile to create a new profile, or create a new profile.

See the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Provisioning Oracle Solaris 11 Operating System document for how to create an OS provisioning profile, an OS Configuration profile, and a Provision OS deployment plan to complete a provisioning job.

This example shows how to create a new profile to provision a system with Oracle Solaris SPARC.

1. Expand Plan Management in the Navigation pane, then select OS Provisioning in the Profiles and Policies tree.
2. Click Create Profile in the Actions pane.
3. Name the profile and complete the profile description. A detailed description will help when determining which profile to use when several are available. Select Solaris x86 or Solaris SPARC from the Subtype and Target Type options, then click Next. Logical Domain is also supported for custom manifest.

   Figure 7-19 Identify Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile

   
   Description of "Figure 7-19 Identify Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile"
4. Select the OS image, OS Image Version, and Software group. Optionally, you can select a user-defined Solaris 11 Update profile. Click Next.

   Figure 7-20 Specify OSP Parameters

   
   Description of "Figure 7-20 Specify OSP Parameters"

   If you are using a custom manifest, enable the Use custom manifest option. When you select this option, a step is added to the wizard so that you can specify the location of the custom manifest, as shown in Figure 7-21.

   Figure 7-21 Location of a Custom Manifest

   
   Description of "Figure 7-21 Location of a Custom Manifest"

   Although not required, it is a good practice to identify profiles and plans that use custom manifests by using a naming convention.

5. Edit the OS Setup parameters for language, time zone, terminal type, console serial port and baud rate, and NFS4 Domain, as needed. Enter a password for root in the Root Password and Confirm Password fields. Click Next.

   • Language: Select a language from the list.

   • Time Zone: Specify the time zone for the OS.

   • Terminal Type: Select a terminal type from the list.

   • Console Serial Port: To monitor the installation using a serial connection, select the correct console serial port device.

   • Console Baud Rate: To monitor the installation using a serial connection, select the correct serial port device baud rate.

   • NFS4 Domain: Enter the NFS4 domain name that the target system will use. The dynamic value for NFSv4 domain name enables the NFSv4 domain to be derived dynamically, at run time, based on the naming service configuration. You can also provide valid domain name to hard code the value for NFSv4 domain.

   • Password: Enter the root password for the root user on systems provisioned using this profile. Re-enter the password for confirmation. The default password is admin.

   • Manual Net Boot: Select this option when you want to manually control booting from the network. When you select this option, you are prompted to manually boot the system before the provisioning job completes.

     • For DHCP servers: Use the boot net - install command to manually boot the system over the network.

     • For WAN boot servers: Set the WAN boot parameters in the Open Boot PROM (OBP) before running the boot net - install command.

       Note:

       The client-ID value of the WAN boot parameters must use the following format: 01<macaddress>. For example, client-id=0100123FF4E56E.

   Figure 7-22 Specify OS Setup

   
   Description of "Figure 7-22 Specify OS Setup"
6. Specify the User Account details by entering a user name and password, then click Next.
7. On the Specify iSCSI Disk Image page, select the Use iSCSI Disk check box if you want to use an iSCSI disk for OS provisioning. When you select Use iSCSI Disk, another check box appears. Select Manually Specify iSCSI Disk to manually define the iSCSI disk resource assignments later. Click Next.

   Figure 7-23 Specify iSCSI Disk Usage

   
   Description of "Figure 7-23 Specify iSCSI Disk Usage"

   Note:

   To assign a volume group and automatically create a new iSCSI disk, the DSL library must be attached to the server.

8. Review and edit the default file system layout, then click Next.

   This example uses the default file system layout. To specify changes to the default File System space, click the size field for the file system, and redefine.

   Figure 7-24 Specify File System Layout

   
   Description of "Figure 7-24 Specify File System Layout"
9. Select the Naming Service as None, DNS, NIS, or LDAP, then click Next.
   
   Description of the illustration GUID-A6DC5EFD-F19D-46C5-8617-6E8F1D37B106-default.gif

   When using a naming service, select the service and complete the required fields.

10. Review the parameters and click Finish to create the OS Provisioning profile for provisioning Oracle Solaris 11 operating system.

    Figure 7-25 Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile Summary

    
    Description of "Figure 7-25 Oracle Solaris 11 OS Provisioning Profile Summary"

The profile appears in the center pane and in the Profiles and Policies section of Plan Management.

Creating an Oracle Solaris 11 OS Configuration Profile

The OS Configuration profile defines the networking configuration. You can use advanced networking configurations for Oracle Solaris.

When you create a configuration profile for Oracle Solaris, you can configure the following advanced networking options:

• Link aggregation: Provides high availability and higher throughput by aggregating multiple interfaces at the MAC layer. Link aggregation enables you to combine the capacity of multiple full-duplex Ethernet links into a single logical link.

• IP Multipathing (IPMP): Provides features such as higher availability at the IP layer. IPMP enables you to configure multiple IP interfaces into a single IPMP group.

You can implement both Link Aggregation and IPMP methods on the same network because they work at different layers of the network stack.

After you create the profiles, you create a deployment plan to apply the profiles. As part of applying the plan, you can change the options that you defined earlier in the profiles.

Note:

When you specify the network interfaces, select an interface for the controller from a list of 32 interfaces. The 32 interfaces that appear in the wizard are all possible network interfaces, not available interfaces. Your network administrator can give you the list of available networks. By default, the first interface listed is the boot interface.

Creating an OS Configuration Profile

Procedure to create an OS Configuration Profile.

1. Expand Plan Management in the Navigation pane, then select OS Configuration in the Profiles and Policies tree.

2. Click Create Profile in the Actions pane.

3. Name the profile and complete the profile description. A detailed description will help when determining which profile to use when several are available. Select Solaris x86 or Solaris SPARC from the Subtype and Target Type options, then click Next.

   Figure 7-26 Identify Oracle Solaris 11 OS Configuration Profile

   
   Description of "Figure 7-26 Identify Oracle Solaris 11 OS Configuration Profile"

4. Click Next to accept the default selection to Automatically manage with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center and Deploy the Agent Controller. This option provides the most robust management capabilities.

   Figure 7-27 OS Management

   
   Description of "Figure 7-27 OS Management"

5. Specify the networking you want to establish for the target system.

   • Use Link Aggregation, go to Step 6.

   • Use IPMP, go to Step 7.

   • None, go to Step 8.

   Figure 7-28 Specify Networking

   
   Description of "Figure 7-28 Specify Networking"

6. If you selected Link Aggregation in Step 5, complete the following steps for each link aggregation:

   1. Specify the Link Aggregation parameters.

      Figure 7-29 Specify Link Aggregations

      
      Description of "Figure 7-29 Specify Link Aggregations"

   2. Specify the Link Aggregation interfaces for each Link Aggregation.

      The 32 interfaces that appear in the list (net_0 - net_31) are possible network interfaces, not available interfaces. Contact your network administrator for a list of available interfaces.

      Figure 7-30 Specify Link Aggregation Interfaces

      
      Description of "Figure 7-30 Specify Link Aggregation Interfaces"

   3. Go to Step 9.

7. If you selected Use IPMP in Step 5, complete the IPMP parameters.

   1. Complete the Failure Detection method, either Link-Based or Link Based + Probe Based, and the number of interfaces.

      Figure 7-31 Specify IPMP Groups

      
      Description of "Figure 7-31 Specify IPMP Groups"

   2. Specify the interface. Select the check boxes to define the IPMP configuration for Failover and Standby Interface. Select Assign IP Address to assign the IP address.

      Figure 7-32 Specify IPMP Interfaces

      
      Description of "Figure 7-32 Specify IPMP Interfaces"

   3. Go to Step 9.

8. If you selected None for Networking in Step 5, define the network interfaces that you want to use on the operating system. The boot interface is typically net_0, as shown in Figure 7-33. You define the IP address when you apply the plan to a target system. Click the Add icon to add other interfaces.

   Figure 7-33 Specify Network Interfaces

   
   Description of "Figure 7-33 Specify Network Interfaces"

9. Review the Summary page, then click Finish. The new configuration appears in the table in the center pane. Click the profile to view the details.