This note is just an early warning of changes that are expected to arrive in build 111a, in order to fix
6440 Build 106 installer fails to start in 512 MB environment http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=6440 Briefly, we're splitting the boot archive for the live CD into separate 32- and 64-bit archives, which buys back a large chunk of memory, sufficient to overcome the bloat that's crept in since 2008.11. However, we will be able to retain the single, global CD image that we started shipping in build 109, as the implementation only grows the CD by about 9 MB, leaving us at somewhere around 670 MB. This fix will entail changes to the Distribution Constructor, in order to build such an image, and the live CD installer, which now has to deal with the split root archives. The most visible portion of the change, and hence the reason John's cc'ed here, is the existence of two boot archives; we'll use the standard module$ GRUB command to resolve $ISADIR and find the correct archive. Since they have to move, anyway, I've relocated the boot archive from /boot/boot_archive to /platform/i86pc/boot_archive and /platform/i86pc/amd64/boot_archive, respectively. I don't expect that this is a huge problem for xVM to adjust for, but John, please speak up ASAP if it is. Note that this change *only* applies to the live CD; the automated install image will continue to use a single, combined boot archive located at /boot/boot_archive. This avoids changes to the installadm tools which I'd prefer not to take on at this point in the release. The change to the installer turns out to be smaller than one might expect, because we can use the root_archive command to unpack the boot archive that is *not* booted into the target image, and then run the existing transfer module to overlay on top of that. I've opted to do this in the orchestrator at the moment, rather than in the transfer module, but might change my mind on that before I'm finished. I've posted a webrev of my work-in-progress for those who might be exceptionally curious or find it easier to figure out from the code than my description; there is still cleanup work to be done and so I'm not asking for review at this point. http://cr.opensolaris.org/~dminer/slim_6440/ Holler with questions or comments. Dave
