Patching a Miniroot Image on the Solaris 10 OS for x86 or SPARC Platforms

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Patching a Miniroot Image on the Solaris 10 OS for x86 or SPARC Platforms

February, 2009

This article describes how to install the latest Kernel Update patch, or any patch, to a SPARC or x86 miniroot image for the JumpStart installation program.

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Comments (18)

 

  1. Mar 02, 2009

    pghsteelers says:

    Has anyone successfully completed the steps for patching the mini-root? I need ...

    Has anyone successfully completed the steps for patching the mini-root? I need to patch the mini-root of Solaris 10 update 6. This image is located on a Solaris 10 update 5 machine, but according to the instructions, this shouldn't be a big deal, just have to extract the root_archive to a /tmp location. I am having problems once I get to the
    #svccfg -s commands.

    The system reports the following:

    svc.configd: Fatal error: /export/mr/etc/svc/repository.db: integrity check failed. Details in /etc/svc/volatile/db_errors
    svccfg: Repository server failed (exit 102).

    Can someone please help with this issue?

    1. Mar 03, 2009

      eoconnor says:

      Hi Could you post the exact steps including the unpack of the u6 miniroot. Enda

      Hi
      Could you post the exact steps including the unpack of the u6 miniroot.

      Enda

      1. Mar 03, 2009

        eoconnor says:

        H if the system is running update 5 ( 5/08 ) then you do need to: 1 patch to 137...

        H
        if the system is running update 5 ( 5/08 ) then you do need to:
        1 patch to 137137-09 level in order to have root_archive command that is referenced in
        Patching a SPARC Miniroot of Solaris 10 10/08 and Later Releases, step 3.
        2. download 137137-09 extrat root_archive to some location, say /tmp/root_arhive and use that instead.

        But first option is the preferred route.

        Enda

        1. Mar 03, 2009

          pghsteelers says:

          Thanks for the info. I will work on updating to SOL10U6 on my jumpstart server ...

          Thanks for the info. I will work on updating to SOL10U6 on my jumpstart server and then retry.

  2. Mar 24, 2009

    jdickens_wi says:

    if you have Sol10u6 installed on a ZFS root, lu upgrades becomes a really quick ...

    if you have Sol10u6 installed on a ZFS root, lu upgrades becomes a really quick and easy solution to patching and thanks to ZFS no need to deal with miniroots or other stuff because you are just storing deltas, just lucreate ; luupgrade; luactivate; init 6 ... and ready to use your newly patched system

    1. Apr 22, 2009

      onestop says:

      Not sure if any had issues with DHCP jumpstart. I had some issues and followed t...

      Not sure if any had issues with DHCP jumpstart. I had some issues and followed this process, worked out good for me. I had to patch the mini-root to 138888-03, for a successful jumpstart, though.

      Every thing has been given in my below link:

      http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10686886

      AV

  3. Jul 07

    jcasale says:

    Great article, can you comment on the correct steps to add a network driver as w...

    Great article, can you comment on the correct steps to add a network driver as well? No matter what I do, the commands always complete but it never works? I have tried pkgadd and add_drv with no luck.
    Thanks!

    1. Jul 08

      eoconnor says:

      Hi what driver are you adding exactly, and what steps are you using, I assume pk...

      Hi
      what driver are you adding exactly, and what steps are you using, I assume pkgadd is being invoked here.
      Enda

      1. Jul 08

        jcasale says:

        Its a junky Marvell Yukon. I have tried both add_drv and pkgadd, but I will con...

        Its a junky Marvell Yukon.

        I have tried both add_drv and pkgadd, but I will continue with pkgadd, I tried these steps:

        cd /export/install/media/sol-10-u7-ga-x86/boot
        /boot/solaris/bin/root_archive unpack x86.miniroot /tmp/mr
        cp /root/drivers/skgesol_x86v8.19.1.3.tar /tmp/

        1. Drop existing SkyConnect.
          #pkgrm -R /tmp/mr/ SK98sol (Didn't work?)
        2. Mine unpacks with a lock file, which makes add/rem_drv fail...
          rm /tmp/mr/tmp/*.lck
          cd /tmp/mr
          rem_drv -b /tmp/mr sk98sol
          grep sk98sol etc/driver_classes etc/name_to_major etc/driver_aliases
        3. Add new x86 pkg.
          cd /tmp
          tar -xf skgesol_x86v8.19.1.3.tar
        4. Choose "no" to configuring IP address, I assume the miniroot sets this up when it loads?
          pkgadd -R /tmp/mr -d . SKGEsol
        5. etc/driver_classes didn't contain a reference, but neither did a working running system?
          grep skge etc/driver_classes etc/name_to_major etc/driver_aliases
        6. Repack miniroot.
          cd /export/install/media/sol-10-u7-ga-x86/boot
          mv x86.miniroot x86.miniroot.orig
          /boot/solaris/bin/root_archive pack x86.miniroot /tmp/mr

        Didn't help, but I just found this article after hours of searching: http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.unix.solaris/2006-09/msg00740.html
        So as expected, netsrategy revealed it didn't know what to use. Making my own, It couldn't get an ip, so adding the last script didn't help either.
        I can see that the nic never gets loaded as the lights don't come on? So was the driver install bad, or is the fix in the url not working :/

        modinfo |grep skg showed nothing? I am guessing the driver isn't loading still?

        Thanks for the response!
        jlc

  4. Aug 31

    SunTzuJedi says:

    Seeing as the current page (and what appears to be a complete replica of it on d...

    Seeing as the current page (and what appears to be a complete replica of it on docs.sun.com for patching the 05/09 miniroot) cannot possibly work, you might want to look here:

    http://jeffhigham.blogspot.com/2007/04/adding-pxe-boot-drivers-to-solaris.html

    You've not gotten the pci-id's into the miniroot which is why your adapter is
    not functional.

    HTH

    1. Sep 01

      eoconnor says:

      Hi please clarify what you mean by "cannot possibly work", if you read the previ...

      Hi
      please clarify what you mean by "cannot possibly work", if you read the previous comments etc, it has worked, it's a doc for patching a miniroot, nothing else, it does not cover adding drivers outside of patches. it has been tested and this doc has worked for many people. If there is something that does not work in this document please clarify what exactly it is and the steps you performed, do not just blindly state that it "cannot work" without first saying why not, doesn't help me make corrections/clarifications.
      Enda

      1. Sep 01

        SunTzuJedi says:

        Freshly installed ZFS root S10U7 and patched V240 with a fresh S10U6 X86 jumpsta...

        Freshly installed ZFS root S10U7 and patched V240 with a fresh S10U6 X86 jumpstart image installed.

        The uncompressed miniroot fails to be recognized, can't be mounted, and can't be unrolled.

        As for adding drivers and other such maintenance, I think it's very short-sighted to claim that
        this in only for patching, when the addition of drivers uses the high level procedure, with only
        minor modifications to make the new driver recognized.

        1. Sep 01

          eoconnor says:

          Hi One cannot unroll x86 images on sparc though, big vs little edian problem and...

          Hi
          One cannot unroll x86 images on sparc though, big vs little edian problem and all, nothing to do with zfs,more that lofiadm etc on sparc cannot deal with little endian from x86. Messy but you need to unpack x86 miniroots on x86 unfortunately, which works fine on zfs or ufs by the way.

          I wrote the doc to cover just patching as that was our pain area.
          Enda

          1. Sep 01

            SunTzuJedi says:

            Is there an existing bug on that, and any hope of this being fixed? Maybe the ...

            Is there an existing bug on that, and any hope of this being fixed?

            Maybe the root_archive script should have some smarts to not fail trying to lofi mount an x86 image on sparc (and vice versa if that doesn't work either) instead of emitting what appears to be a dubious error. If it states you can't currently mount x86 on sparc, or vice versa, I wouldn't have wasted hours debugging said script, and re-generating my install image, before giving up and going to the only x86 box in that data center, duplicating all the work I had just done.

            And I don't recall seeing anything that states that this is not supported for cross platform in the Wiki page or chpater 7 of the Solaris 10 Network Installation Guide (05/09) [doc 820-8012]

            Sorry for the lack of explanation. After fighting an x4500 for months, and getting ready for an x4540 upgrade and having problems with patching the jumpstart image, I was on a bit of a short fuse.

            1. Sep 01

              eoconnor says:

              Hi So this document already does state: # If you need to run the /boot/solaris/...

              Hi
              So this document already does state:
              #
              If you need to run the /boot/solaris/bin/root_archive command (applying 137137-09 to the miniroot, patching a miniroot for the Solaris 10 10/08 OS or later release, or patching an x86 miniroot), then the command must be run on the same architecture as the install image. That is, if the install image is SPARC based, then the root_archive must be run on a SPARC system. The same applies to x86; if the image is x86 based, root_archive must be run on an x86 system.

              The following is an example of trying to unpack a miniroot for the Solaris 10 10/08 OS for SPARC platforms on an x86 JumpStart server:

              $ pfexec /boot/solaris/bin/root_archive unpackmedia /export/images/SPARC/solaris_10_u6 /export/images/SPARC/mr
              Unknown_fstyp (no matches)
              invalid root archive
              /boot/solaris/bin/root_archive[10]: /export/images/SPARC/mr/usr: not found
              #

              #end doc

              In general even if you could extract the archive applying say an x86 patch like 137138-09 or 118855-36 that relies on grub commands etc to a x86 miniroot from SPARC system would almost certainly fail, as their patch scripts would rely on grub commands etc that do not exist on SPARC.

              Enda

  5. Oct 06

    drol says:

    I've got some script snippets I've used in the past to create customised .iso im...

    I've got some script snippets I've used in the past to create customised .iso images for our deployments - these have worked find with all versions of the OS 08/07 and earlier ... in essence this is:

    • rip the raw file system from the DVD with dd or equivalent
    • unpack the HSFS portion of the file system
    • modify the to taste
    • recreate the .iso with mkisofs

    The mkisofs line is similar to:

    mkisofs -R -d -allow-leading-dots -l -graft-points \
  -sparc-boot s1.ufs,s2.ufs,s3.ufs,s4.ufs,s5.ufs \
  -exclude-list exclude -o custom.iso cdroot

    Whilst that works fine for 08/07, how would I construct the .iso image for 10/08 or later which include the miniroot environment and don't (as far as I can see) have the same sparc-boot slices as in the mkisofs line above?

    I have been following this thread to add a required patch to our miniroot and that seems to have gone OK but unfortunately I want a real DVD to ship to a remote site and boot from so need to create a working bootable .iso ...

    A Google search turns up articles that mention procedures for Solaris 9 or Solaris 10 up to 08/07 using similar methods to that described above but nothing of substance for later versions of the OS ... if anyone has pointers to where this information could be found, it would be great to add them to this article ...

    Regards,
    Malcolm

    1. Oct 06

      drol says:

      I suspect I've answered my own question - I've found the following: http://fo...

      I suspect I've answered my own question - I've found the following:

      http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5349350

      Looks like the appropriate mkisofs options are:

      mkisofs -G cdroot/boot/hsfs.bootblock -B ... \
  -l -ldots -R -N -D -V SOL_10_1008_SPARC \
  -o custom.iso cdroot

      season to taste. Note that the '-B ...' is correct - the ... filename is special and tells mkisofs to alias all the Sun boot slices into the main ISO9660 slice.

      Am trying this now, so will see how I get on.

      Regards,
      Malcolm

      1. Oct 08

        eoconnor says:

        Hi The following has detailed instructions on burnign a post newboot iso to dvd ...

        Hi The following has detailed instructions on burnign a post newboot iso to dvd http://blogs.sun.com/jcecere/entry/creating_a_customized_boot_dvd

        should have all you want.

        Enda

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