Solaris 10 u9 - jumpstart flash installation

1. Creating flash archive

For creating the flar archive for the root filesystem one should reboot the system into single user mode or if not possible disable as much application as possible (to avoid changes on the filesystem done during archive creation). The command below create the flar archive in the /export/flash directory. The archive is to be compressed (-c), without /export/flash directory (-x):

# mkdir /export/flash
# cd /export/flash
# flarcreate -n flash_all -c -R / -x /export/flash inst_x86


2. Copy flar image to the jumpstart server
   
3. Configuring jumpstart

The initial configuration of the jumpstart server has been described in my previous post. The only configuration change is referred to the profile:

# cat x86-class
install_type flash_install
archive_location nfs 192.168.1.135:/export/home/install/flash/inst_x86
partitioning explicit
filesys mirror c1t0d0s0 c1t1d0s0 5120 /
filesys mirror c1t0d0s1 c1t1d0s1 2048 swap
filesys mirror c1t0d0s4 c1t1d0s4 6656 /var
filesys mirror c1t0d0s5 c1t1d0s5 6656 /usr
filesys mirror c1t0d0s6 c1t1d0s6 10240 /export
filesys mirror c1t0d0s7 c1t1d0s7 free /u01
metadb c1t0d0s3 count 5
metadb c1t1d0s3 count 5

Please double check if the flar archive directory is available via NFS otherwise the client will not be able to access it during jumpstart installation.


4. Start the client machine
   

Now the automatic installation from the flar archive should be started. As far as the time is concerned - in my case it took about 30 minutes for the same installation as in the jumpstart article and 30 minutes for creating the archive. I will summarize both methods in separate article - right now I have to go to sleep ;)