SUMMARY: Upgrade 2.3 - 2.4

From: Guy NILLES 547611 (GNILLES@restena.lu)
Date: Fri Dec 30 1994 - 10:27:52 CST


Subject: Summary Upgrade 2.3 - 2.4

Original Message :

> I'm trying to upgrade my SPARC Station 2 under Solaris 2.3 to 2.4
>The problem is that I never receive an upgrade button. I enter some
>informations like system name, IP address, ... date and the system want to
>begin an Initial (complete) installation. I found the manuals not so
clear
>about the requirements for an upgrade, I have more than 25MB free under /
>and more than 80MB free under /usr. Is anybody already meet the same
>problem, or can tell me the real requirements for an upgrade.

The solution :

Well, I found the problem some times after I send the mail : for an upgrade

to be possible, SOLARIS looks in the file /var/sadm/softinfo/INST_RELEASE
to look the current OS version. To do that, the installation software
mount the root filesystem on /a, the problem I got was that sadm was a link

to /usr/sadm. So, when the installation program looks in /a/var/sadm, it
founds nothing... and decide to do a new and total installation.
I put back the sadm directory on / and it works now.

I receive a very interesting mail from Yves HARDY (yves@suntech.abcomp.be)
which I think will be very interesting for the others :

 ( Merci Yves ... toujours aussi correct, toujours aussi complet )

Hi boys,

        I already encountered the same problem with Solaris 2.3. In fact,
the
problem comes from /var self. To solve your problem check this :

1. Make sure root is on slice 0
2. Verify /var is either directly under root or a separate partition, NOT
A
   LINK <-- VERY IMPORTANT !!!

3. The following files must exist and be comple :

   /var/sadm/softinfo/INST_RELEASE
  /var/sadm/install/contents

   If the files don't exist anymore, reinstall first the following packages
:

   SUNWhinst and SUNWcsr

4. In a particular case, /var/sadm was a separate partition
   which sunupgrade did not know how to handle, so
   /var/sadm/softinfo/INST_RELEASE did not exist when var was mounted

5. Try to upgrade your Operating System, you will see it will works fine
and
   you will be able to upgrade your system.

Explanation :
-----------

The most important file to upgrade your Operating System is the
INST_RELEASE,
this file contains three paramters :

OS=Solaris
VERSION=2.3
REV=0

In fact, if you want to upgrade your system, during the booting of your
cdrom,
the sysidtool command will read the contents of this file to know the
Operating
System you're using currently and also the version you're using actually.
If the file doesn't exist or if you made a symbolik link between /var ->
/usr
(for example) the system won't be able to retrieve the informations needed
to
upgrade your system and you won't be able to upgrade your system.

In fact, the sysidtool program will return a value smaller than 0.
I'm sure your problem will be solved if you follow my procedure explained
above.

Best Regards,

Yves Hardy from AB Computers in Belgium.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        
Others suggestions (and thanks) are listed here :

---------------------------------------
>From Fred TRUE (ftp@maxell.att.com)

We've found that if you have Online:Disksuite active (ie: active
metadevices
or just the driver in /kernel/drv) the upgrade button will not appear. To
solve this, deactivate ODS for the upgrade, then reconfigure the devices
with metainit (you should not lose data if you reconfigure exactly as the
devices were before).

If you don't have ODS installed, I don't know...

Regards,
Fred

--
Fred True                               "My name is Ozymandias, King of 
Kings:
AT&T High Tech Database Development      Look on my works, ye Mighty,
ft@maxwell.att.com                       and despair!"
ftrue@attmail.com                               -P. B. Shelley

---------------------------------------

>From Gavin MALTBY (gavin@DURBAN.VECTOR.CO.ZA)

Hi,

I had this on the early access 2.4. Your / or /usr partition is not large enough to accomodate the selection you've made. It didn't handle this elegantly---just bombed me to the initial option. using the charcter interface was worse!

Cheers

gavin

---------------------------------------

>From anchi@starbase.Neosoft.COM

When it determines that your system is upgradable, it will say so later and display an upgrade option.

Anchi

---------------------------------------

I just receive a Mail from Casper DIK (casper@fwi.uva.nl) that I have not included here, but he points me on the right think...thanks Casper you were right.

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