Solaris Flash image creation and installation

Creation and deployment of flar image:

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Before deploying the flar image, you need to be sure that the clone system should have the same hardware. Flar image created on x86 can not be deployed onto SPARC hardware. Filesystem should have enough space to store the flar image. Now the question is how much space its required to create Flar image.

Run df -h and check the used space for all the filesystem which needs to be added to determine the space required to create flar image.

Creating a flar image

#flar create -n Sol10 -c /var/opt/Sol10.flar

Where Sol10 and Sol10.flar can be of different name.

To view the metadata(means the contents) of the flar image

#flar info -l  /var/opt/Sol10.flar

Once you create the flar image it can be deployed using nfs, http, ftp and local tape. 

I will explain here a simple step how a flar image can be deployed using nfs

As you see above the flar image name is "sol10.flar" located in /var/opt

Share /var/opt as a nfs share

#share -F nfs -d "Nfs share for flar image" /var/opt. That's it you are done with the server having flar image shared.

Installing the flar image:

Pre-requisite:

1. Hardware has to be the same as machine on which flar image is created.
2. Obviously should be on the network.

Boot the server using CDROM considering that you don't have the jumpstart server.

Select Interactive install( i.e option 1)

And continue with the installation process which i believe all are aware of it.

Stop when you are in the below steps.

Here you need to select the second option "Network File System"

You need to provide the absolute the path the flar image. "server" is the name of the server where flar image is located. Instead of server name, provide the IP address of the server.


So you are done, once you click on next, the installer will install the image,and finally prompt you to reboot the server once its completed.