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Unit 3 – Installing Unit 3 – Installing SolarisSolaris

Randy Marchany

VA Tech Computing Center

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Introduction

Solaris 8 versions– Platform Editions – SPARC, Intel– International Edition – multilingual versions in

European and Asian languages– Hardware Releases – labeled MM/YY, for

example, Solaris 8 2/02. Updated editions with new device driver, updated patches, etc.

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Installation Options

Interactive – GUI driven and the one I use the most. Only installs the OS and no other products.

Web Start 3.0 – JAVA powered GUI that installs the OS and any other packages.

Network Install – install from a server. Used more in the labs and quite effective in rebuilding systems quickly. Allows multiple systems to be installed simultaneously.

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Installation Options

Default JumpStart – allows a new system to be installed under a default setup.

Custom Jumpstart – sysadmin defines the configuration for various models and the system is tailored to that configuration automatically.

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Installation Requirements

Platforms – SPARC or Intel/X86. See www.sparc.com for a list of other manufacturers.

Disk Space – full blown Solaris requires 2.5GB. Most systems ship with a 20GB drive so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Memory – 128MB minimum but preferably 256MB.

Hardware – attached CDROM or network interface card (NIC).

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Software Packages

Pkginfo file – contains info about the package, its title, purpose, version.

Pkgmap file – contains the names, locations, sizes and permissions of all of the files.

Preinstall script – queries the installer about what components to install, where to install them and how to configure them

Binary files – the actual executable binaries Removal script – ensures all components are

removed

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Software Cluster

A collection of several packages that logically belong together.

Examples:– Common Desktop Environment– High Performance Cluster– Freeware cluster

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Software Groups

Core – SUNWCreq, minimum required software for a system to run. No man pages, GUI, Java, compiler/development tools. Takes up about 700MB of disk.

End-user – SUNWCuser, generally considered for a desktop workstation. Core, GUI, Java, man pages, WWW browser. Uses 1.2GB of disk.

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Software Groups

Developer – SUNWCprog, contains all of the previous groups plus programming tools, software libraries, include files, etc. Uses about 1.9GB of disk

Entire – SUNWCall, all of the above plus WWW server, DHCP server, NFS and freeware utilities. Requires about 2GB.

Entire + OEM – SUNWCxall, all of the above plus HW drivers for OEM equipment. Use this if you’re not sure what HW will be installed on the system. Uses about 2.9GB of disk.

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Sample Scenarios

Installing a desktop for a user who only runs remote applications

Install end-user software group on the system

Installing a desktop for a software developer

Install the developer software group

Installing a www server system

Install the entire distribution or entire/OEM group

Old system, 2 GB hard drive

Install Core operating environment

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Preinstallation Planning

Decide if your system is a client, standalone or server.– Client – part or all of the Solaris OS is on

another system.– Standalone – all of Solaris is on the system– Server – provides some form of service to

other systems – NFS, etc.

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Preinstallation Planning

Networked? Most likely, Yes– Get hostname, IP address, subnet mask,

default gateway information, DNS server locations

– Have this information ahead of time.

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System Installation

Power On Sequence– POST – ensures all the HW is connected and

working– Prom environment variable auto-boot? Should

be set to FALSE.– When you get the OK prompt, insert the OS cd

and enter ‘boot cdrom’ to start the installation process

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System Installation

You’ll be prompted for the following: Networked? Yes DCHP? No Hostname? Enter fully qualified host name IP address? Enter your assigned address Subnet mask? Enter your subnet mask IPv6? Yes but you can say No Type of service? Select OTHER or NONE.

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System Installation

Enter geographic region, date/time, root password information when prompted.

Power management? No! Proxy server? N/A in most cases Confirmation Screen? Read the information

carefully and if it’s accurate, hit CONFIRM. Remember, you can always start over from the beginning if you want.

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System Installation

Default or custom install? Select default unless you know what you’re doing.

If you choose Custom Install:– Select the internationalization option– Select the Products you want– Select 64 bit support unless you have specific

applications that can’t run in that environment.– Select the appropriate software group to be installed

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Disk Configuration

Complicated because the defaults are never enough and if you don’t get it right during installation, you’ll have to reinstall later to fix it.

We reviewed the basics in an earlier unit. The first screen has 2 windows.

– Left window contains available disks– Right window contains the disks you’ve selected for

the install. You can spread the OS across multiple disks if you want. No gain from that, however.

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Disk Configuration

Carefully check the selected boot disk. Click NEXT to go to the next screen.

This window contains the default disk layout. I never use these values. – Press MODIFY to change the disk layout.

Have an idea of what you want ahead of time.– Advantage of spreading filesystems across

partitions is that backups are easier to do.

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Disk Configuration

Some recommendations: / - 128MB minimum /var – 2GB minimum, syslogs are stored here by

default so you want enough space to hold them /opt – 2-2.5GB minimum, this is the default

location for all Solaris system software packages. You need this much space for compilers, freeware tools, etc.

/home – size as needed for your users

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System Installation - Final

Once you’ve laid out the file systems, you will then get a confirmation screen listing all of the information you’ve entered so far.

Review the information and if it’s correct, press the INSTALL NOW button. Note, that up to this point, your old system is still preserved. You could abort the install process and reboot under the old, existing system.

Once you hit the INSTALL NOW button, you’re committed.

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Software Packages, Clusters, Groups

Solaris 8 software is organized into 3 components.

Package – collection of files and information necessary install software. A compiler is an example.

Cluster – logical collection of software such as windowing software.

Group – collection of clusters