Hi all, found a way to get osol 2009.06 onto an unsupported SPARC system, and
it's pretty simple actually. Caveat is that you have to have a supported SPARC
system already installed with 200906 to hijack the install from. Optionally, I
guess I could make a zfs send stream for the poor sods who have no supported
boxes at all, as that was me before I begged for a production outage to get my
first one up. If you need this, just say so and I'll make a torrent or
something.
Anyway, brief synopsis:
1) Boot the target system with a fairly current Nevada release CD. Get it up
to the point where you've got an IP address and can get on the net.
2) Ensure you have a SMI label on your target's rootdisk (use format -e if not)
and create a root zpool on your preferred rootdisk. i.e. zpool create -f rpool
cXtXdXsX.
3) Take a look at the zfs layout on the source machine and make the target
machine look the same; i.e. zfs create rpool/ROOT/opensolaris.
4) Zfs send the source's root filesystem to the target. This is fiddly because
there's limited functionality in the Solaris Nevada install DVD, and that
doesn't include tasty stuff like ssh. Here's the way I did it:
4a) Turn on svc:/network/shell:default on the source box and turn off any
semblance of security by adding the line "+ +" (without the quotes) to
/etc/hosts.equiv (note that you mustn't do this unless you're on a well
isolated test network and/or don't care at all about security -- it means that
the box allows any user from any host to log in without password.)
4b) take a snapshot of the source's rpool/ROOT/opensolaris filesystem: zfs
snapshot rpool/ROOT/opensolaris at preDup
4c) from the target box, rsh to the source, zfs send the root fs and pipe it to
zfs receive on the target, i.e. rsh -l jack pfexec zfs send
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris at preDup | zfs receive -F rpool/ROOT/opensolaris. This
took like five minutes or so to transfer the 3.88GB root fs over my 100Mb
network.
5) grab proper bootblock from the source box and write it. Might as well use
rcp since we have stuff wide open and flapping in the breeze already: rcp jack
at 172.16.99.99:/platform/sun4u/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk . ; installboot -F zfs
bootblk /dev/rdsk/cXtXdXsX
6) modify the target's rpool bootfs property, i.e. zpool set
bootfs=rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
7) reboot the target and watch the fun.
Note that this is a Saturday morning experiment while waiting for the
kids to wake up, so ymmv. Also, I now have a Guinness in hand and just typed
all of this in from memory, and so may have missed something and made numerous
syntax errors. But I guess that's what you get with 'unsupported' :) . That
said, my SunBlade 2000 has never been happier! Feel free to reply here if you
require clarification(s) or if I missed something. Oh, and don't forget to
undo the atrociously insecure rsh mods on BOTH boxes before allowing them to
see the light of day.
enjoy!
jake
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