Solaris installation Step by step guide to Solaris installation Solaris installation poses a challenges to the new Solaris sysadmins who have never done the installation of Solaris before . Though the installation itself is simple and straight forward but doing it the first time comes with its own anxiety associated with  unexplored and unknown things .  The idea of this article is to introduce you with the procedure and sequence of event  Solaris installation to build enough confidence to finish the installation on your own. Table of contents 1. Before you begin  2. Getting Started 3. Starting the installation 4. OS distributions & disk configuration 5. After Installation 6. Next Steps   1. Before you begin For Solaris installation on standalone Sun machine you need the following besides sun cpu :   A) Sun Monitor and Sun Keyboard OR For carrying the installation through the serial port A of Sun (ttya) Dumb Terminal or PC with serial port communication software like HyperTerminal   AND A null modem cable ( Pin 2 & 3 crossed 5 common ground in 9 Pin to 9 pin ; Pin 7 is common ground in 25 Pin connector ) connecting sun's serial port A with PC serial port.   B) You will also require a IP address, netmask and a host name for your system. 2. Getting Started Installation starts at OK> prompt & you can get to ok> using any of the following method : 1. by pressing Stop A key sequence on a Sun Keyboard. 2. typing #init 0 if your system boots up directly . 3. Pressing ctrl-break or shift-break on a pc keyboard if using pc as    console through serial port. 4. If auto-boot feature is enabled system directly boots up    and gives you a # prompt .You can disable auto-boot so next time it     stays at ok prompt for starting installation.    #/usr/platform/sun4u/bin/eeprom auto-boot?=false    reboot the system.

3. Starting the installation

Insert the installation media - OS CD in CD drive and type boot cdrom at ok> prompt .

Ok>boot cdrom

The first phase begins with system identification   and gathers information about the system from the the user .System starts booting up and after initialization it asks for language and locale also terminal type in case of PC/terminal

   Select your locale and DEC VT100 terminal type for terminal selection

   Further installation through the terminal require response to the

   selections through ESC and function keys and space bar which are

   mentioned on the installation screen.

On the next screens, you are to identify the system as networked or    non-networked, and set the default time zone and date/time. After this following host information is required :

        A) A host name for the system

        B) Whether the system is networked if yes you will have to 

           provide the IP address & netmask of this machine.

 

Next you will be asked to select the name services

Name services

[    ]                      NIS+

[    ]                      NIS

[    ]                      DNS

[X ]                        None

Select the service if you have complete details like domain names etc or select none to configure after installation.

You have to select a distribution type from among the choices choices

4. OS distribution & Disk configuration

After identification is complete the installation process proceeds on to the OS and disk configuration and need your input for these settings. Selection depends on role of your machine 

Typical space requirement for Solaris 7 is given here.

[   ] Entire Distribution plus OEM support 64-bit 1242.00 MB (F4 to Customize

[X] Entire Distribution 64-bit .....…...….1215.00 MB

[   ] Developer System Support 64-bit.... 1154.00 MB

[   ] End User System Support 64-bit .….. 765.00 MB

[   ] Core System Support .............. .334.00 MB

• Entire distribution with OEM has all software with some third party software
• Entire distribution  has all software without   third party software .
• Developer system has run time libraries for C software etc.
• End user has  X windows and CDE environment .
• Core system is without X windows softwares etc.

If you are not sure select entire distribution.

You will be presented with choice to select the boot disk among the disks present in the system ,unless you have reasons  select the c0t0d0 at boot disk.

[   ] c0t1d0 (17269 MB) 17269 MB

overlap partition represents entire disk and is slice s2 of the disk.

If any of the disk contain a preexisting partition you will be given a choice to  preserve the partition .

Next the current layout is given ( if existing ) and you are asked to select between Automatic and Custom layout of disk partitions.

• Automatic layout make a single partition of entire boot disk .
• Customize option gives and option to create the partitions and select the sizes .

• Additional space is required in /var & /home  if server is to handle  mail and printing as mail and print files are formed in /var & if the user home directories are to be located on /home partition

A sample partition table may look like following . 

> The swap partition size depends on the size of RAM in the system if you are not sure of its size keep it double the RAM or more than RAM in the system.

> If you are not sure of individual partition sizes of   /    , /usr   /opt & /var make one partition as / and keep its size sufficiently higher than the distribution size you have selected in earlier steps . Always keep in mind the future software that you might have to install like compilers applications etc and log files that will be generated and accumulate in /var directory or partition.

After you have specified the partition sizes it gives summary and error if any

one more question is asked about rebooting

[X] Auto Reboot

[  ] Manual Reboot

Afterwards it starts configuring disk making partitions and installing software indicating the progress in a table .

After the installation is complete it customizes system files , devices ,logs , installs patches which are there in OS CD for that release. You can install recommended  latest patches later

System then  reboots or ask you to reboot depending upon the choice selected earlier .

5. After Installation

After rebooting it asks for new root passed and  comes to console prompt where you can login as root install patches ,additional softwares , make user etc. etc.

6. Next Steps 

This  article  covered installation process in Solaris .Installation is the starting task of all the sysadmin activities to be carried out later like user creation , network configuration etc. While most of the sysadmin aspects are covered in this site still it pays to have a  system administration book handy .   There are some good books available on unix and Solaris administration  which broaden your understanding of Solaris & unix and there by helping  in your day today work and providing you satisfaction of work.

Following books available for online buying from Amazon.com . You should have following two books in your bookshelf  for ready reference  if you are involved in Unix system administration  . 

• Essential System Administration, Third Edition by Æleen Frisch
• Solaris Operating Environment Boot Camp by David Rhodes, Dominic Butler
• Solaris Essential Reference by John Mulligan      
• A Practical Guide to Solaris by Mark G Sober  
• Solaris Guide for Windows NT Administrators Tom Bialaski 

If you are  interested in knowing more about unix  its architecture & internals you can choose the books from following list of selected best  books in this field  :

• Design of the UNIX Operating System (Prentice Hall Software Series) (Textbook Binding) by Maurice J. Bach
• UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers  by Uresh Vahalia
• UNIX(R) Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching for Kernel Programmers by Curt Schimmel
• Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment by W. Richard Stevens
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (Second Edition) by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
• Unix Network Programming by W. Richard Stevens

• Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love
• Understanding the Linux Kernel (2nd Edition) by Daniel P. Bovet
• The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System (Unix and Open Systems Series.) by Marshall Kirk McKusick

If you already own these books the amazon display panel below shows some of the best-selling books for System Administration  and you can choose the book here or visit my other website besttechbooks.com for more books on domain name service  from Amazon.com.

Copyright © 2000-2007 , Adminschoice.com . All Rights Reserved. Site Comment/Suggestions   Privacy

Post a Comment about this article :