Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade (Tasks)

This chapter explains how to use Solaris Live Upgrade to upgrade and activate an inactive boot environment. It also explains how to recover from an activation failure. This chapter contains the following sections:

• Task Map: Upgrading a Boot Environment

• Upgrading a Boot Environment

• Installing Solaris Flash Archives on a Boot Environment

• Activating a Boot Environment

• Failure Recovery: Falling Back to the Original Boot Environment (Command-Line Interface)

You can use Solaris Live Upgrade with menus or by using the command-line interface (CLI). Procedures are documented for both interfaces. These procedures do not exhaust the possibilities for using Solaris Live Upgrade. For more information about commands, see Chapter 39, Solaris Live Upgrade (Command Reference) and the appropriate man pages, which more fully document CLI options.

Task Map: Upgrading a Boot Environment

Table 36-1 Task Map: Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade

Upgrading a Boot Environment

Use the Upgrade menu or luupgrade command to upgrade a boot environment. This section provides the procedure for upgrading an inactive boot environment from files that are located on the following media:

• NFS server

• Local file

• Local tape

• Local device, including DVD or CD

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  Note - If the installation requires more than one CD, you must use the command-line interface procedure for upgrading. See To Upgrade an Operating System Image From Multiple CDs (Command-Line Interface).

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Guidelines for Upgrading

When you upgrade a boot environment with the latest operating environment, you do not affect the active boot environment. The new files merge with the inactive boot environment critical file systems, but shareable file systems are not changed.

Rather than upgrading, if you have created a Solaris Flash archive, you could install the archive on an inactive boot environment. The new files overwrite the inactive boot environment critical file systems, but shareable file systems are not changed. See Installing Solaris Flash Archives on a Boot Environment.

You can upgrade an inactive boot environment that contains any combination of physical disk slices, Solaris Volume Manager volumes, or Veritas Volume Manager volumes. The slice that is chosen for the root (/) file system must be a single-slice concatenation that is included in a RAID-1 volume (mirror). For procedures about creating a boot environment with mirrored file systems, see To Create a Boot Environment With RAID-1 Volumes (Mirrors) (Command-Line Interface).

Adding and Removing Packages With Solaris Live Upgrade

Caution - When upgrading and adding and removing packages or patches, Solaris Live Upgrade requires packages or patches that comply with the SVR4 advanced packaging guidelines. While Sun packages conform to these guidelines, Sun cannot guarantee the conformance of packages from third-party vendors. If a package violates these guidelines, the package can cause the package-addition software to fail or can alter the active boot environment.

For more information on adding and removing packages with Solaris Live Upgrade, see the following:

• For planning information, see Managing Packages and Patches With Solaris Live Upgrade.

• For information on the command and options, see the man page, luupgrade(1M).

• For more information on packaging requirements, see Appendix G, Additional SVR4 Packaging Requirements (Reference).

To Upgrade an Operating System Image on a Boot Environment (Character Interface)

To upgrade by using this procedure, you must use only one CD, a DVD, or a combined installation image. For an installation that requires more than one CD, you must use the procedure: To Upgrade an Operating System Image From Multiple CDs (Command-Line Interface).

1. From the Solaris Live Upgrade main menu, select Upgrade.

   The Upgrade menu screen is displayed.

2. Type the new boot environment's name.

3. Type the path to where the Solaris installation image is located.

   Installation Media Type	Description
   Network File System	Specify the path to the network file system where the installation image is located.
   Local file	Specify the path to the local file system where the installation image is located.
   Local tape	Specify the local tape device and the position on the tape where the installation image is located.
   Local device, DVD, or CD	Specify the local device and the path to the installation image.

   • If you are using DVD or one CD, type the path to that disc, as in this example:

     Package Media: /cdrom/Solaris_9/s0

     
     

   • If you have a combined image on the network, type the path to the network file system as in this example:

     Package Media: /net/installmachine/export/Solaris_9/os_image

     
     

4. To upgrade, press F3.

5. When the upgrade is completed, the main menu is displayed.

To Upgrade an Operating System Image on a Boot Environment (Command-Line Interface)

To upgrade by using this procedure, you must use only one CD, a DVD, or a combined installation image. If the installation requires more than one CD, you must use the procedure: To Upgrade an Operating System Image From Multiple CDs (Command-Line Interface).

1. Log in as superuser.

2. Indicate the boot environment to upgrade and the path to the installation software by typing:

   # luupgrade -u -n BE_name -s os_image_path

   
   

   -u	Upgrades an operating system image on a boot environment
   -n BE_name	Specifies the name of the boot environment that is to be upgraded
   -s os_image_path	Specifies the path name of a directory that contains an operating system image

   Example 36-1 Upgrading an Operating System Image on a Boot Environment (Command-Line Interface)

   In this example, the second_disk boot environment is upgraded.

   # luupgrade -u -n second_disk \ -s /net/installmachine/export/Solaris_9/OS_image