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Using Flash Archive in the Solaris OS for Disaster Recovery, Part 2

Joseph Gan, February 2006

After my article Using Flash Archive in the Solaris Operating System for Disaster Recovery was published on the Sun BigAdmin web site, a few people asked me how to use Solaris Flash to recover between the disparate server platforms. Most importantly, I've been asked this question: "What if those platforms initially haven't installed as Entire Distribution +OEM Software group?"

First of all, the system hardware specifications for both primary and recovery servers must have the same minimum supported Solaris Operating System versions or higher, especially when the primary server is older than the recovery one. For example, if you want to recover a Sun Fire V880 server onto a Sun Fire V440 server, you have to ensure the OS on the Sun Fire V880 server is the Solaris 8 7/03 OS or higher because that is the minimum OS requirement for the Sun Fire V440 server.

Next, you have to ensure the primary server has the right Solaris software group installed to support the newer platforms. As I mentioned in my last article, the best way is to install Entire Distribution +OEM Software Group. But what if the primary server installed with the software distribution groups other than the Entire Plus OEM?

There are two ways to determine what distribution of the OS was installed on the machine.

1) One is to use the following commands:

$ cd /var/sadm/system/admin

$ ls -al
total 120
drwxr-xr-x 3 root sys 512 Jul 30 2003 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root sys 512 Jul 30 2003 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 55072 Jul 30 2003 .clustertoc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 623 Jul 30 2003 .platform
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18 Jul 30 2003 CLUSTER
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27 Jul 30 2003 INST_RELEASE
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 512 Jul 30 2003 services

To determine which cluster configuration has been installed on the system, you can use this command:

$ cat /var/sadm/system/admin/CLUSTER

The CLUSTER file will tell you what distribution was selected when installing the OS. The possible list is as follows:

SUNWCreq: core
SUNWCuser: end user distribution
SUNWCprog: developer distribution
SUNWCall: entire distribution
SUNWCXall: entire distribution plus OEM support

To view the names of the cluster configurations, perform this command:

$ grep METACLUSTER /var/sadm/system/admin/.clustertoc
METACLUSTER=SUNWCXall
METACLUSTER=SUNWCall
METACLUSTER=SUNWCprog
METACLUSTER=SUNWCuser
METACLUSTER=SUNWCreq
METACLUSTER=SUNWCrnet
METACLUSTER=SUNWCmreq

Note: The metacluster SUNWCmreq is a hidden metacluster. It allows you to create a minimal core metacluster by de-selecting packages from the core metacluster.

2) The other way to determine the distribution of the OS is by using the Solaris 7 3/99 software release or newer. You can use the Solaris Product Registry tool to list installed and registered software packages in detail.

To view the Product Registry, type /usr/bin/prodreg at the command line. The Registry main window appears, and you can find each individual package as shown in the following image.

Figure 1: Product Registry
(Click to Enlarge)

For instance, if you have Entire Distribution System Support Software Group installed and you want to upgrade to OEM, you may need to add extra packages from the installation CDs or DVDs manually in order to meet the requirements. As an example, below are some of the packages you might have to add, plus all the dependent packages:

system SUNWafb Elite3D Graphics System Software/Device Driver
system SUNWafbcf Elite3D Graphics Configuration Software
system SUNWafbr Elite3D Graphics System Software (Root)
application SUNWafbw Elite3D Graphics Window System Support
system SUNWcvc Network Console
system SUNWcvcr Network Console daemon
system SUNWdrr Dynamic Reconfiguration Modules for Sun Enterprise 10000
system SUNWffb Creator Graphics System Software/Device Driver
application SUNWffbcf Creator Graphics Configuration Software
application SUNWffbw Creator Graphics Window System Support
system SUNWidn Inter-Domain Network Modules for Sun Enterprise 10000
system SUNWidnd Internationalized Domain Name Support Developer Files
system SUNWidnl Internationalized Domain Name Support Library Files
system SUNWidnu Internationalized Domain Name Support Utilities
system SUNWifp Sun Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop Device Driver
system SUNWifph Sun Fibre Channel Arbirated Loop Driver Header Files
system TSIpgx PGX32 (Raptor GFX) System Software/Device Driver v4.0
application TSIpgxw PGX32 (Raptor GFX) X Window System Support v4.0
........

Once you have done all this, the machine will be ready for creating a Flash Archive.

You can find the list of packages in different distributions on http://docs.sun.com. For the latest information on the Solaris OS, go to that site and search for "Solaris X Operating Environment Package List." Replace "X" with 9 or 10. You should get a full list of packages with the details.

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