SUMMARY: miniroot for solaris 2.3

From: Maureen Kemp (mkemp@panama.gislab.teale.ca.gov)
Date: Thu Jun 09 1994 - 00:27:10 CDT


I asked:
>
> Is there a Solaris 2.3 equivalent of booting from the miniroot? I have been
> looking through the manuals and see no mention of this. If this is documented
> please let me know where to find it. I will summarize.
>

Well, yes and no. In 4.1.3 you booted off of the CD and then loaded the mini-
root into your swap partition. You then "booted from the miniroot".

In solaris things are different. You still boot off of the CD, but according
to those who responded, this loads a mini version of solaris directly into
memory. It does not require use of your swap partition. Several mentioned
that this is better as there are more commands available. I was specifically
interested in mounting partitions for emergency restores in the root and
usr partitions. Evidently this is possible but I have not had a chance to
verify.

The proper way to do this? There seems to be a few variations on this.

  From: worsham@aer.com (Robert D. Worsham)
  Booting from the CD will bring up the closest equivalent. After booting,
  you can ignore the SunInstall window and open up a another window from
  which miniroot type functions can be performed.

  From: worsham@aer.com (Robert D. Worsham)
      also: glenn@uniq.com.au (Glenn Satchell - Uniq Professional Services)
      also: cfougere@diva.fr (Cathy)
  Insert Solaris Cd in caddy/drive and...
  From the ok prompt (PROM monitor mode):
  boot cdrom -s
  boots to single user shell.

  From: pallas@oclc.org (George Pallas)
      also: dave@goose.ca.pdc.com (dave)
  boot cdrom -sw
 
  From: Gyula Szokoly <szgyula@pha.jhu.edu>
  boot cdrom -s
  or just boot from the CD and quit the install after a few questions.
 
  From: dmaccara@bank-banque-canada.ca (Donn MacCara)
  I do not think think there is a miniroot as such. However, when you
  boot from the CD and answer questions as to the IP address, time zone,
  etc you do not have to proceed with an installation. You can open a
  cmdtool and do whatever maintenance such as disk repairs that you would
  normally use miniroot for in the old days - basically running under a
  full blown Solaris.
  (If you are working from a dumb terminal of course it doesn't fire up
  OpenWindows, but in that case you have the option of exiting from the
  installation process.)
 
  From: Integrated Technologies <intech@tigger.jvnc.net> Steve Aldous
  There is no longer "miniroot" in Solaris. when you boot to cdrom, you are
  placed in the new "miniroot environment. fill out the first 10 forms (I think
  it is 10) and then exit to shell. you are in miniroot.
 
No respondent mentioned any documentation source for any of this, but a few
noted that they had learned about this in a class.

An interesting tidbit about swap on Solaris from Casper Dik <casper@fwi.uva.nl>
 
  You don't need a swap disk for Solaris, because swap is the total of
  memory + disk. Even with a swap partition, there is swap space. This
  swap (in memory) space is used for programs but also for /tmp which
  contains, e.g., the device files.
 
  So, you boot from CD and all the files you change are in tmpfs.
  It's much more flexible than the miniroot.
 
My thanks to all who responded!
 
From: worsham@aer.com (Robert D. Worsham)
From: kurt.stype@babss.COM (Kurt Stype)
From: dmaccara@bank-banque-canada.ca (Donn MacCara)
From: hanson@pogo.fnal.gov (Steve Hanson)
From: Integrated Technologies <intech@tigger.jvnc.net>
From: Casper Dik <casper@fwi.uva.nl>
From: m1rcd00@FRB.GOV
From: pallas@oclc.org (George Pallas)
From: glenn@uniq.com.au (Glenn Satchell - Uniq Professional Services)
From: cfougere@diva.fr (Cathy)
From: geturner@aer.com (George E. Turner)
From: mcostel@mach10.utica1.kaman.com (Mark Costello)
From: dave@goose.ca.pdc.com (dave)
From: Gyula Szokoly <szgyula@pha.jhu.edu>
From: Steve Elliott <se@computing.lancaster.ac.uk>
From: steve@cegelecproj.co.uk (Steve_Kilbane)
From: epl@Kodak.COM (Gene Loriot (epl@Caps.Kodak.COM.))

===============================================================================
= Maureen Kemp =
= __@ Teale Data Center =
= _'\<,_ GIS Technology Center =
- __(*)/ (*)___ mkemp@gislab.teale.ca.gov =
===============================================================================



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