This is not so much a question of a specific problem, than one of concepts and
limitations.
If you look at the various posts of mine in here, I asked at different times on
essentially the same topic: What constitutes a Boot Environment; in the meaning
of 'how complete is it', can it be transferred?'. One of my questions was, why
can I not transfer a full slice to another machine? The answers given were not
fully on-topic, like 'use flash archive'.
I also asked about the comprehensive BE ('is it?'), when suggesting that - if
it was comprehensive - ought to be bootable (e.g. VirtualBox). The answer,
again, was a tad off-topic: 'boot from grub'!
Also, with respect to liveupgrade, I do understand lucreate, as to write the
current '/' to another slice. But I am told, you can't simply boot that. My
question: why would that be?
Then one can liveupgrade, fine, and then it is done? No, it seems: luactivate
is needed. I'd understand, that some metadata need to be adjusted, like mounts
and grub. is it bootable, then? No, I am told, one definitively needs some init
6. I still don't know why. I would like to understand this. I can do that with
OpenBSD and Linux (of course, minus the liveupgrade), but as system admin I
find it most suitable that partitions can be moved, and booted to (no need
telling me slices are different, that arguments won't invalidate my question).
Or slices, on BSD. When I look at my mount:
/dev/dsk/c1d0s4 15G 8.5G 6.1G 59% /
/dev/dsk/c1d0s7 42G 36G 5.5G 87% /export/home
I have two slices that I use. Why would those not be straightforward mountable
(like from grub menu?). If I lucreate /dev/dsk/c1d0s5, why not that one? I
could understand if it was done on purpose, to avoid illegal cloning. But as of
now, it seems SUN moves to FOSS. Nothing better and easier than allowing the
creation of a BE, for whatever purpose, eventually backup, and then copying all
data, and - voilà - , there it is, readily bootable. Even in a VM. After a
luupgrade, no need to shut down, all the init 6 - hassle that tends tends to
fail here and there (luckily not only with me), requiring arcane action; but
rather just starting a VirtualBox, and see it coming up or not (without the
/export/home).
I am asking also on the grounds, that to my understanding, a fully
self-contained BE after lucreate or luupgrade would very much increase the
attractiveness of OpenSolaris. It would simplify testing of an upgrade, just as
deployment (at least on a bunch of identical hardware, like in a students'
lab). No, please, don't tell me 'flash archive is much better'. That may be the
case, but as of now, we have procedures in place to dump/restore full
partitions and slices, and I am still curious why a Solaris slice doesn't seem
to like the handling as a slice as a fully self-contained (boot-)entity.
Thanks,
Uwe
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