Upgrade Planning
You can upgrade a system by using one of three different upgrade
methods: Solaris Live Upgrade, the Solaris installation program, and custom JumpStart.
Table 4-5 Solaris Upgrade Methods
Current Solaris
OS |
Solaris Upgrade Methods |
|---|
Solaris 8, Solaris 9, Solaris 10 |
Solaris Live Upgrade – Upgrades a system by creating and upgrading a copy of the running system The Solaris installation program – Provides an interactive upgrade with a graphical user interface or command-line interface Custom JumpStart method – Provides an automated upgrade
|
Upgrade Limitations
The following table lists limitations when you upgrade a system under some conditions.
Issue |
Description |
|---|
Upgrading
to a different software group |
You cannot upgrade your system to a software
group that is not installed on the system. For example, if you previously
installed the End User Solaris Software Group on your system, you cannot use
the upgrade option to upgrade to the Developer Solaris Software Group. However, during
the upgrade you can add software to the system that is not part
of the currently installed software group. |
Upgrading when non-global zones are installed |
You can upgrade
a system that has non-global zones installed with the Solaris installation program, Solaris
Live Upgrade or JumpStart. The following limitations apply:
Solaris Live Upgrade is the recommend program to upgrade or patch a system. Other upgrade programs might require extensive upgrade time, because the time required to complete the upgrade increases linearly with the number of installed non-global zones. If you are patching a system with Solaris Live Upgrade, you do not have to take the system to single-user mode and you can maximize your system's uptime. When you use a Solaris Flash archive to install, an archive that contains non-global zones is not properly installed on your system.
|
Upgrading with Veritas file systems |
The Solaris
interactive installation and custom JumpStart programs do not present you with the
opportunity to upgrade a system when you are using Veritas VxVM file systems
under these conditions:
If the root file system to be upgraded is under Veritas control. For example, if the root (/) file system is mounted on a /dev/vx/... device. If any Solaris software is installed on any file system that is under Veritas control. For example, if the /usr file system is mounted on a /dev/vx/... device.
To upgrade when Veritas VxVM is configured, use one of
the following methods:
|
Upgrade Programs
You can perform a standard interactive upgrade with the Solaris installation program or
an unattended upgrade with the custom JumpStart installation method. Solaris Live Upgrade enables
you to upgrade a running system.
Upgrade Program |
Description |
For More Information |
|---|
Solaris Live Upgrade |
Enables you
to create a copy of the currently running system. The copy can be
upgraded and then a reboot switches the upgraded copy to become the currently
running system. Using Solaris Live Upgrade reduces the downtime that is required to
upgrade the Solaris OS. Also, Solaris Live Upgrade can prevent problems with upgrading.
An example is the ability to recover from an upgrade if the power
fails, because the copy being upgraded is not the currently running system. |
To
plan for disk space allocation when using Solaris Live Upgrade, see Solaris Live Upgrade Requirements in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning. |
The
Solaris installation program |
Guides you through an upgrade with an interactive GUI.
|
Chapter 2, Installing With the Solaris Installation Program (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Basic Installations. |
Custom JumpStart program |
Provides an automated upgrade. A profile file and optional preinstallation and
postinstallation scripts provide the information required. When creating a custom JumpStart profile for
an upgrade, specify install_type upgrade. You must test the custom JumpStart profile against the
system's disk configuration and currently installed software before you upgrade. Use the pfinstall -D
command on the system that you are upgrading to test the profile. You
cannot test an upgrade profile by using a disk configuration file. |
|
Installing a Solaris Flash Archive Instead of Upgrading
The Solaris Flash installation feature provides a method of creating a copy of
the whole installation from a master system that can be replicated on many
clone systems. This copy is called a Solaris Flash archive. You can install
an archive by using any installation program.
Caution - A Solaris Flash archive cannot be properly created when a non-global zone is
installed. The Solaris Flash feature is not compatible with Solaris Zones partitioning
technology. If you create a Solaris Flash archive, the resulting archive is
not installed properly when the archive is deployed under these conditions:
Creating an Archive That Contains Large Files
The default copy method that is used when you create a Solaris
Flash archive is the pax utility. The flarcreate command uses the pax utility to
create an archive without size limitations on individual files. Individual file sizes can
be greater than 4 Gbytes. The flarcreate command with the -L cpio option creates a
cpio archive. This option is useful for backward compatibility.
For information about installing an archive, see the following table.
Upgrading With Disk Space Reallocation
The upgrade option in the Solaris installation program and the upgrade keyword
in the custom JumpStart program provide the ability to reallocate disk space.
This reallocation automatically changes the sizes of the disk slices. You can reallocate
disk space if the current file systems do not have enough space for
the upgrade. For example, file systems might need more space for the upgrade
for the following reasons:
The Solaris software group that is currently installed on the system contains new software in the new release. Any new software that is included in a software group is automatically selected to be installed during the upgrade.
The size of the existing software on the system has increased in the new release.
The auto-layout feature attempts to reallocate the disk space to accommodate the new
size requirements of the file system. Initially, auto-layout attempts to reallocate space,
based on a set of default constraints. If auto-layout cannot reallocate
space, you must change the constraints on the file systems.
Note - Auto-layout does not have the ability to “grow” file systems. Auto-layout reallocates space
by the following process:
Backing up required files on the file systems that need to change.
Repartitioning the disks on the basis of the file system changes.
Restoring the backup files before the upgrade happens.
If you are using the Solaris installation program, and auto-layout cannot determine how to reallocate the disk space, you must use the custom JumpStart program to upgrade.
If you are using the custom JumpStart method to upgrade and you create an upgrade profile, disk space might be a concern. If the current file systems do not contain enough disk space for the upgrade, you can use the backup_media and layout_constraint keywords to reallocate disk space. For an example of how to use the backup_media and layout_constraint keywords in a profile, refer to Profile Examples in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations.
Backing Up And Restarting Systems For an Upgrade
Backing up your existing file systems before you upgrade to the Solaris
OS is highly recommended. If you copy file systems to removable media,
such as tape, you can safeguard against data loss, damage, or corruption.
In previous releases, the restart mechanism enabled you to continue an upgrade after
a loss of power or other similar problem. Starting with the Solaris Express
2/07 release, the restart mechanism is unreliable. If you have a
problem, your upgrade might not restart.
