On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:03 PM, Alexander J. Maidak <ajmaidak at mchsi.com> wrote: > A long time ago back in the dark ages an admin in my shop read this Sun > blueprint: www.sun.com/blueprints/0802/816-7587-10.pdf > > Following this he created a highly customized the Jumpstart process and > net-install miniroot adding scripts and a netbackup client. This created > a really good bare metal restore process that has been used for years. > > Fast-foward to 2007 I ported this process to the Solaris 10 installer, a > less then simple task. ?The SPARC newboot process with the 10/08 > installer added even more quirks. ?Maybe there would have been a better > way to solve this, but sometimes when you have an highly scripted and > automated process that you're using to maintain 100's of servers its > hard to leave it all behind. ?Following usenet groups and OpenSolaris > forums I don't think my site is unique in customizing the S10 miniroot > and Jumpstart installer. > > The point of this story is that if the Jumpstart installer and > net-install miniroot were Open Source this is something that I think the > Sysadmin comminity would be interested in working on and contributing > too b/c it greatly impacts they're daily jobs. ?It may be a legacy mess, > but its a legacy mess we're quite invested in.
Back when code was first being opened, jumpstart, live upgrade, and patchadd were the areas I was most interested in seeing open. Needless to say I have been disappointed about the way things have gone in this area. Now that it is pretty clear that new innovation in S10 is winding down and S10++ will completely replace these areas, I'm less inclined to focus on these legacy areas. To a certain degree, this means that I have just given up on being able to use OpenSolaris to make Solaris better. Hopefully this isn't repeated in S10++. In order to encourage sysadmins to help make the new technology right before it gets entrenched, I've invited sysadmins to join the caiman (re-)design discussions that are happening now. http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/sysadmin-discuss/2009-May/002703.html -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
