Automated Solaris installs

One of my friend asked me today how to JumpStart system so he can install Solaris 10. The reason? It's much faster to install system over a network using JumpStart technology then using CD/DVD. And it's non-interactive (depends on configuration) and fully repeatable which is really useful on servers.

I've just found nice BluePrint article on Configuring JumpStart Servers to Provision Sun x86-64 Systems.
You can find more BluePrint articles about JumpStart here.
And of course there's a documentation on http://docs.sun.com on Solaris 10 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations.

Cookbook for JumpStart:


Below method is a quick summary only without explaining anything. For more info look at above URLs.
It works on SPARC using RARP. If you want to JumpStart x86 system you have to configure PXE
and DHCP (look at URLs at the beginning of this post).
It assumes that both install server and client are on the same local network.
There are probably more assumptions.
There are other options available - like Flash archives, Live Upgrade, etc.
These are really nice features - so if you are really serious about automated installing
lot of servers - go and read about these features at least.


    First we have to mount DVD ISO with Solaris 10.
    It's nice that now Sun provides both DVD and CD ISOs.
    Now you can mount and setup install server on one architecture
    for another - for example setup install server entirely on SPARC
    for x86/x64 and SPARC platforms without x86/x64 platform.
    Second I prefer using ISOs - it's just faster that way and don't
    have to burn CD/DVD.  

    lofiadm -a `pwd`/s10-GA-DVD-ISO_IMAGE
    mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt/install  # /dev/lofi/1 - look here
    cd /mnt/install/Solaris_10/Tools
    ./setup_install_server /install/s10-ga-sparc
    cd /install/s10-ga-sparc/Solaris_10/Tools
    mkdir /install/jumpstart
    ./add_install_client -c js_server:/install/jumpstart -p si_server:/install/jumpstart client sun4u

     where:  js_server is a jumpstart server
             si_server is a sysidcfg server
             client - hostname for a client being to install

     I usually have js_sevrver = si_server = some_ip

     for example:
       ./add_install_client -c 192.168.1.1:/install/jumpstart -p 192.168.1.1:/install/jumpstart test sun4u

     Above script will enable RARP, tftp and bootparams daemons. If you don't like it
     you can set up all this manually of course - look at URLs I pointed out at
     the beginning of this post.

     Now you have to create sysidcfg file in /install/jumpstart
     $ cat sysidcfg
     terminal=vt100
     system_locale=C
     timezone=Europe/Warsaw
     security_policy=NONE
     name_service=NONE
     network_interface=PRIMARY
     {netmask=255.255.255.0
     protocol_ipv6=no
     default_route=NONE}
     timeserver=localhost
     root_password=encrypted_password

     Then create rules file in the same directory:
     $ cat rules
     arch sparc = s10_sparc_profile -

     Now create file s10_sparc_profile, minimum would be:
     $ cat s10_sparc_profile
     install_type    initial_install
     system_type     server
     cluster         SUNWCreq      # Core system
     partitioning    explicit
     filesys         c0t0d0s0 2048 swap
     filesys         c0t0d0s1 2048 /
     filesys         c0t0d0s3 4096 /var
     filesys         c0t0d0s4 4096 /opt

     This is minimal and will install Core distribution. Normally I add here:
     package         SUNWbash
     package         SUNWdoc
     ...
     ...
     package         SUNWatfsu delete
     ...
     ...

     and so on

     Now copy /install/s10-ga-sparc/Solaris_10/Misc/jumpstart_sample/check to /install/jumpstart
     and run:
               ./check -r rules -p /install/s10-ga-sparc/
               Validating rules...
               Validating profile s10_sparc_profile...
               The custom JumpStart configuration is ok.


     Now on sparc client from OBP issue: boot net - install


    If you want to get rid of NFSv4 domain question after restart then put in finish script:

       touch /a/etc/.NFS4inst_state.domain

    Or better use Misc/jumpstart_sample/set_nfs4_domain script.

    Thanks to Trinisan from #solaris on irc.freenode.org for this NFSv4 trick.