>>In cell alw.nih.gov, we will soon face upgrading from sun4c_41 to sun4c_413
>>on several hundred Sparc stations running as AFS clients. Does anyone have
>>experience with using the package system to replace one OS with another
>>version? I expect that a package file could be developed to install onto
>>sun4c_41 a minimal set of sun4c_413 system files which could then be rebooted
>>to a working system on which we can do our standard depot/package configuration. But
>how much trial and error might be involved to discover the minimal set
>>of bootable files? Do you have any experience or tools you can share?
Yes, We've done exactly that here at NRL using package. I installed
a vanilla SunOS 4.1.3 on a Sparcstation, then used "find" to list
all files in the system, trimmed the ones that shouldn't be touched
like some files in /etc (and I removed all files in /dev, tho that
could be done, too) I then used emacs macros to create a package
script to install the new operating system on clients. The one
"gotcha" you need to be aware of is make sure you re-install the
boot block before you re-boot!!!!
We've actually taken this and scaled it up by writing scripts
around package, creating a bunch of these proto-package-scripts
for things like X11, kerberos login authentication, SunOS and
allowed systems administrators to "subscribe" to these services
and package then keeps them all updated. It seems to be working well.
I'd be happy to talk with you about this and you're certainly
welcome to use any of our scripts, call or E-mail!
-Rick (202)404-7024 (finger me for other numbers!)
