Hi,
I hope I am answering the right question - but I assume you want to know why a
BE will not boot until it is luactivated. The answer is that luactivate does
several things that cannot be done with an lucreate. These changes include
messing with the vtoc, changing the active fdisk partition, creating the boot
archive, changing the contents of the x86 boot partition (if it exists). etc.
etc. All of these must be done when a) the system is coming down and b) after a
clear indication from the user that this is the BE he wants to boot next.
a) is needed because let us say you want to generate the boot archive at
lucreate time. Then you subsequently go and apply a patch to the ABE. The
contents of the ABE's / filesystem has changed but the boot archive is not
updated. Similarly you don't want to update the contents of the x86 boot
partition or mess with the vtoc when the system is up and running
b) is needed because the user may create multiple BEs via lucreate. You want a
clear indication from the user as to which BE he wants to boot (and not the
last one he created.)
Vikram
----- Original Message ----
From: Uwe Dippel <udip...@gmail.com>
To: install-discuss at opensolaris.org
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 7:22:01 AM
Subject: Re: [install-discuss] I want to understand 'Boot Environment'!
We don't speak the same language, sorry. I am not asking what else I could do,
or that it would not work. I am trying to understand why it would not work. To
me, what is the purpose of a BE, if it will not boot? Wouldn't it be nice to
have a BE to which one can simply boot when disaster occurs? No?
The man-page says
The following are some of the tasks you can perform with
Live Upgrade software:
o You can make one or more copies of the currently
running system.
Fine but what for, except of a possible upgrade. The word 'copy' is misleading,
since it won't boot.
[i]that is not what the Live Upgrade technology is for[/i]. I got it know. Did
you get the point, that it was fabulous if it did provide a bootable
environment?
Okay, for the sake of the argument, if there was a good reason for not making a
system 'to be moved around' (what for, by the way, since it is FOSS?), then it
still would be a much nicer and safer way to live_upgrade(5), if a BE was
actually bootable per se. We read about failing BEs up and down, and always too
late, since a reboot is required and cumbersome repair if a BE fails after
luactivate and init 6. (Just read the instructions at the end of luactivate,
which never fit to the full screen, in any case, so that the user can't even
take note.)
Again, what could be the reason, that a BE is not bootable, neither before nor
after the luupgrade? What would be wrong with a BE being a self-contained
entity (on the same hardware, the same box, because of /devices)?
Thanks,
Uwe
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