On 3/28/07, Dave Miner <Dave.Miner at sun.com> wrote:
>
> Reviewing the blog entry you're referring to[1], yes, it's true,
> although it's a fairly fine distinction. Flash isn't a classic backup
> solution, as for most people backup means getting back *all* of the
> files *exactly* as they were at the time of the backup. Flash doesn't
But it would be a fairly trivial change to make to support this mode
of operation. Flash archives typically have multiple sections. A
section could be created that includes an archive of the files that
normally get destroyed. Another section could be created to contain a
jumpstart profile[1] that would partition the disks appropriately as
well as contain JASS or JET to perform the necessary customizations
(e. g. soft partitions, tweaking eeprom settings, re-applying the
sysidconfig-related files, etc.) that are typically outside of the
scope of what flash archives do.
[1] The jumpstart profile could be extracted via a special begin
script that extracts this section from the flar. This extracted
profile would be treated as a derived profile in the current jumpstart
architecture.
> On the other hand, some people find flash to be a better choice for some
> cases where backup has been the solution in the past; for example,
> disaster recovery scenarios, where you may not necessarily have an
> identical system on which to do the restore, but can come up with one
> that's similar enough to get things going again.
Most certainly - ideally the "special begin script" mentioned above
would either look at boot arguments or ask the user what to do about
this. If a hardware mismatch is found, it could even do things like
say:
Your old boot environment consisted of the following devices:
Device Mount Size Used
+ d0 / 10 GB 3 GB
d1 c0t0d0s0
d2 c1t0d0s0
- d10 swap 16 GB
Available disk devices are:
Device Size
1. c1t0d0 72 GB
2. c1t1d0 72 GB
Select the devices to use for d0 [1,2]: 1,2
Your old network devices were:
ce0 10.0.1.2
ce1 10.0.1.57
Available network devices are:
Device Link State Position
1. bge0 Link OK System board
2. bge1 No Link System board
3. e1000g0 Link OK PCI slot 3
Select the network device for 10.0.1.2 [bge0]:
There's a laundry list of enhancements at least as good as this that I
would file if I had any real hope that they would be worked on by Sun
or the community[2]. As it is, really easy changes like "use gzip
instead of compress" and really important things like "allow a single
flar to work on sun4u and sun4v" seem to have no traction.
[2] Not trying to exclude myself. I have a very strong interest in
these areas and would contribute as time and employer sponsorship
allows.
Are there any parts of flash that can be opened? Any interface specs,
ARC cases, etc? These would be great improvements that the community
could work on.
Mike
--
Mike Gerdts
http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
