SUMMARY: Flash Archive issues

Thanks to Andrew Hay and Daniel Lorenzini for their responses.  Suggestions
from them and Sun support ranged from using JumpStart to putting the
archives on one of the hard disks in the machine.

Unfortunately, although we use JumpStart pretty extensively, I can't put a
JumpStart server on these particular machines.  The hard disk idea is a
pretty good one, although if the box goes up in smoke then it doesn't help
so much.  The "official" Sun support answer vis a vis having an archive
split over multiple CDs was: "...at this time there is no way to do this.
[The engineers] said they will revisit this in Solaris 10."  That makes
putting the archive on hard drive pretty attractive, and is the direction I
will be pursuing.

My other problem (with the unrecognized archive CD) was apparently that I
had written the CD with the archive down one level from the root of the CD.
Of course, the docs don't indicate that the archive has to be at the root
level, but when I re-wrote the CD with the archive at the root it worked as
expected.

My original question follows.

Regards,
/charles

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Homan, Charles (NE) 
> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 11:53 AM
> To: 'sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org'
> Subject: Flash Archive issues
> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> I have two Flash Archive issues.  The first is an 
> installation problem.  The second is a production question.
> 
> 
> I am attempting to get a working configuration wherein I can 
> boot from a CD, then install the system with a flash archive 
> on a (different) CD.  I seem to have hit a roadblack.  I am 
> using the Solaris 8 HW 2/02 media kit, as well as a Solaris 9 
> media kit.  My Flash Archive is Solaris 8 HW 2/02 - although 
> I'm not getting that far, so I doubt it matters. ;-)
> 
> There are two cases where the installation from CD doesn't 
> work, and in both cases I am (*gasp*) following the 
> instructions in the manual (Advanced Installation Guide, pp. 
> 136-8.)  More's the fool me for reading the directions, I guess...
> 
> Case 1) Boot from the Webstart Installation CD, go through 
> system ID, etc.  It re-boots from mini-kernel.  At the 
> "Specify Media" panel I choose "CD-ROM".  The system ejects 
> the Installation CD, and I put in my flash archive CD.  The 
> system looks at it, and rejects it because it doesn't contain Solaris.
> 
> I have tried the Solaris 9 Webstart Installation CD, and it 
> exhibits the same behavior.  I even tried to fake it out by 
> telling it I had an FTP archive so it would let me choose 
> other Flash Archives.  It gave me a second media selection 
> panel for my "other Flash Archives", which behaved exactly 
> the same as the "Specify Media" panel did.
> 
> Case 2) Boot from the software 1 of 2 CD with 'boot cdrom - 
> w'.  Go through system ID, etc. to the point where I can 
> choose the media for my Flash Archive.  I choose "local 
> device", and follow the example on the screen to give it the 
> path to my CD-ROM drive (/dev/dsk/c0t6d0s0) and the path on 
> the CD to my archive.  It does not give me the chance to swap 
> the CD, but just looks on the Software 1 of 2 CD for my 
> archive, and - of course - can't find it.
> 
> The Flash Archive CD in question worked fine when booted from 
> the network.  (Solaris 8 2/02 image, installed from the very 
> CDs I am trying to boot the machine from.)  So I know the 
> archive is readable, etc., I just can't get the installation 
> program to look at it.
> 
> Am I doing something wrong?  Has anyone else seen this 
> problem?  Is there a fix, or at least a workaround?
> 
> 
> 
> The second issue is, "How can I make a Flash Archive span 
> multiple CD-ROMs?"  In the fully installed configuration 
> (including tools, not data) we will be approaching 4 GB to 
> archive, which even compressed will take up several CDs.  How 
> do I go about this?  Do I need to split the archive, or can I 
> somehow write on consecutive CDs?  (I don't see a way to do 
> the latter with "cdrw".)  Sadly, the "target" machines won't 
> have DVD drives on them, or I would just go that route.
> 
> 
> 
> Any help will be greatly appreciated, and I will summarize.
> 
> Regards,
> /charles
> 
> ObDisclaimer: Any opinions contained herein are mine and are 
> not the property - or responsibility - of General Dynamics C4 Systems.
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