Less Known Solaris features: Jumpstart Enterprise Toolkit - Part 8: Preparing the first installation

Now you have to copy your Solaris install media. Obviously you need the Solaris files before you can install them to a system via network. You can do this on two ways.

From a mounted DVD media

When you already have burned media, you can use it for the copy process. Just put it into the drive, the volume managment mounts it and you can copy it from thre.

<br />
# /opt/SUNWjet/bin/copy_solaris_media -d /export/install/media/solaris/x86/nv87 -n nv87 /cdrom/sol_11_x86<br />
Copying Solaris image....<br />
Verifying target directory...<br />
Calculating the required disk space for the Solaris_11 product<br />
Calculating space required for the installation boot image<br />
Copying the CD image to disk...<br />
Copying Install Boot Image hierarchy...<br />
Copying /boot netboot hierarchy...<br />
Install Server setup complete
Added Solaris image nv87 at the following location:<br />
        Media:          /export/install/media/solaris/x86/nv87
removing directory /export/install/media/solaris/x86/911<br />
#<br />

Let´s disect the command: -d specifies the target, where you copy the operating system. -n specifies a name for this media. From now on you refer this solaris media as nv87 in the templates for JET. At the end you specify the location, where the media is located at the moment.

From a .iso file

Okay, you´ve downloaded your Solaris media. You don´t have to burn it, you can use the \verb=.iso= files directly:

# ./copy_solaris_media -d /export/install/media/solaris/x86/sol10u5 -n sol10u5 -i /export/home/jmoekamp sol-10-u5-ga-x86-dvd.iso<br />
Created loopback device /dev/lofi/1 for /export/home/jmoekamp/sol-10-u5-ga-x86-dvd.iso<br />
mounted /export/home/jmoekamp/sol-10-u5-ga-x86-dvd.iso at /export/install/media/solaris/x86/790/slices/s0 (of type hsfs)<br />
Copying Solaris image....<br />
Verifying target directory...<br />
Calculating the required disk space for the Solaris_10 product<br />
Calculating space required for the installation boot image<br />
Copying the CD image to disk...<br />
Copying Install Boot Image hierarchy...<br />
Copying /boot x86 netboot hierarchy...<br />
Install Server setup complete
Added Solaris image sol10u5 at the following location:<br />
        Media:          /export/install/media/solaris/x86/sol10u5
Unmounting /export/install/media/solaris/x86/790/slices/s0<br />
removing device /dev/lofi/1<br />
removing directory /export/install/media/solaris/x86/790<br />

The command line for using a .iso file is quite similar. You just specify with the -i that an .iso file has to be used and in which directory it should search for it. The last parameter is the name of the .iso file itself. The system mounts the dvd image by using the loopback facility of Solaris and copies the media to it´s target location afterwards.

Looking up the existing Solaris versions

JET provides script to lookup the versions of Solaris you´ve copied to your Jumpstart Server. With the list_solaris_locations script you look up the version and the location of your solaris medias.

# ./list_solaris_locations<br />
Version         Location<br />
-------         --------<br />
nv87            /export/install/media/solaris/x86/nv87<br />
sol10u5         /export/install/media/solaris/x86/sol10u5