SUMMARY: Using bootdisk from Ultra-1 on SPARCstation 4

From: Jimmy De Laet (jimmy.delaet@just.fgov.be)
Date: Wed Jul 28 1999 - 09:41:33 CDT


Thanks to
        Davin Milun
        Olivier Giraud
        scott r kulp

The best solution to my problem however came from Mike Dubman. He writes:

I suggest you the following process to avoid looking for missing files or dirs:

1. Prepare the master disk on Ultra1 (install OS,patches,soft...)
2. connect another disk to ultra1
3. dd from master to second disk
4. connect newly copied disk to sparc4
5. insert CD disk with same OS on sparc4 and "boot cdrom"
6. select "upgrade" option - it will only update *must* kernel/drivers
files/dirs.
    ( it takes smth like 2 hours on fast cd drive)
7. Now you have ready master disk for sparc4 platform
8. copy (dd) this disk for all sparc4 from your ultra1.

This solution seems to work, but not always. I tried it on the same system
with 2 differents disks ( same size and same layout ). With the first it
worked, with the second it didn't. I didn't have time to research what was the
cause of the problem with the second one, maybe in the first after I've
finished going around the country and installing the new disks ....

> I've recently been ordered to upgrade our servers to Solaris 7. At the
> same time we're also upgrading all the software on them to the latest
> versions. Problem is that the sites are to far apart to install via the
> network. The servers can also not be taken offline to do the upgrade.
> The solution we finally choose for was to buy new harddisks, install the new
> software on them and them connect to the local servers and instruct the
> servers to boot from that moment off the new disk.
> We tested this and it seems to work.
>
> Problem is that to prepare the disks I only have an Ultra-1 and half of the
> machines are SPARCstation 4's. These 2 systems are incompatible in their
> booting, so my SPARCstation 4's won't boot from the disk made by an Ultra-1.
> I discovered that with 'installboot' I could write the correct boot-file on
> the disk. These is however only the first part of the boot-stage and I can't
> find out how to make the modifications for the second bootstage.
>
> I know it has to do with the /platform and /usr/platform directories. When I
> look at the bootdisk only the software for sun4u systems ( i.e. Ultra-1 )
> appears. I tried copying the the rest of these directories from the boot-cd
> but this doesn't work.
>
> Can anybody tell me if their is a package I can use to install the second
> stage boot for a SPARCstation 4 of how to do it manually from my Ultra-1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Jimmy De Laet - jimmy.delaet@just.fgov.be

 People who think they're perfect are very annoying
        to those of us who really are
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