On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 14:53 -0700, Jerry Gilliam wrote: > Peter Memishian has pointed out that the statement that > /etc/path_to_inst is a "pure cache" is not correct. > It is true that a functional instance file can be rebuilt > but solaris does rely on the instance number ordering > in the instance file not to change, otherwise devices > could be renumbered. Additions to the instance file > aren't necessary to boot, because the earlier version > must have been bootable too. And since changes are > cumulative, any additions in the updated file can be merged > without needing manual intervention. Hence a discrepancy > between the two instance files is not cause to invalidate > the archive.
I think it would be helpful to come up with a revision to section 6.6 which captures the higher-level requirement more crisply. I suspect that zpool.cache may be in much the same boat; as I understand it, it's not, strictly speaking a cache (if you blow it away, you have to re-import pools). I'd hope that it would be sufficient for the zpool.cache in the archive to describe the root pool (which at present is limited to a single mirror set), and that configuration for other pools could be pulled out of the actual copy in the root filesystem.
