Guidelines for Selecting Slices for root (/) Mirrors and Metadevices
You can use Solaris Live Upgrade on a system that is currently using either Solaris Volume Manager metadevices or Veritas Volume Manager VxVM volumes. The source boot environment can be contained on any combination of physical disk slices, Solaris Volume Manager metadevices, or Veritas Volume Manager volumes. When creating a new boot environment, the slice chosen for the root (/) file system for the new boot environment can be either a physical disk slice or a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice. If you choose a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice for the root file system, the metadevice must be either a stripe with only a single disk or a mirror on a single-disk stripe. See metaroot(1M) for more details.
You cannot use a Veritas VxFS volume for the root (/) file system when creating a new boot environment. For any file system except the root (/) file system, you can use either a physical disk slice, a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice, or a Veritas VXFS volume.
Table 31-2 describes the acceptable disk configurations for creating a boot environment when using metadevices or volumes.
Table 31-2 Acceptable Slices for Metadevices or Volumes
Product | Source Slice | If Target is a Metadevice for a root (/) File System | If Target is not a root (/) File System, but is for /usr, /var, or /opt |
|---|---|---|---|
Solaris Volume Manger | For the root (/) file system, the source can be a metadevice or physical slice | The root (/) file system, must be either a stripe with only a single disk or a mirror on a single-disk stripe | Other file systems can be either a physical slice or metadevice |
Veritas VxVM Volume Manager | For the root (/) file system, the source can be a volume or physical slice | The root (/) file system, cannot be a VsVM volume; root (/) must be a physical slice | Other file systems can be either a physical slice or volume |
When creating a new boot environment, the lucreate -m command recognizes the following three types of devices only:
A physical slice in the form of /dev/dsk/cnumtnumdnumsnum
A Solaris Volume Manager metadevice in the form of /dev/md/dsk/dnum
A Veritas VxFS volume in the form of /dev/vx/dsk/volume_name
Using boot environments with metadevices or volumes has special considerations when upgrading or installing a flash archive, see "Upgrading Metadevices and Volumes" for details.
Note - If you have problems upgrading with Veritas VxVM, see "System Panics When Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade Running Veritas VxVm".
Guidelines for Selecting a Slice for a swap File System
The swap slice cannot be in use by any boot environment except the current boot environment or if the -s option is used, the source boot environment. The boot environment creation fails if the swap slice is being used by any other boot environment, whether the slice contains a swap, ufs, or any other file system.
Guidelines for Selecting Slices for Shareable File Systems
Solaris Live Upgrade copies the entire contents of a slice to the designated new boot environment slice. You might want some large file systems on that slice to be shared between boot environments rather than copied to conserve space and copying time. File systems critical to the operating environment such as root (/) and /var must be copied. File systems such as /home are not critical file systems and could be shared between boot environments. Shareable file systems must be user-defined file systems and on separate swap slices on both the active and new boot environments. You can reconfigure the disk several ways depending on your needs.
You can reslice the disk before creating the new boot environment and put the shareable file system on its own slice. For example, if root (/), /var, and /home are all on the same slice, reconfigure the disk and put /home on its own slice. When you create any new boot environments, /home is shared with the new boot environment by default.
If you want to share a directory, the directory must be split off to its own slice. The directory is then a file system that can be shared with other boot environment. You can use the lucreate command with the -m option to create a new boot environment and split a directory off to its own slice. But, the new file system cannot yet be shared with the original boot environment. You need to run the lucreate command with the -m option again to create another boot environment. The two new boot environments can then share the directory.
For example, if you wanted to upgrade to from Solaris 8 to Solaris 9 release and share /home, you could run the lucreate command with the -m option to create a Solaris 8 release with /home as a separate file system on its own slice. Then run the lucreate command with the -m again to duplicate that boot environment. This third boot environment can then be upgrade to the Solaris 9 release. /home is shared between the Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 releases.
For a description of shareable and critical file systems, see "Creating a Boot Environment Overview".
Using Solaris Live Upgrade From a Remote System
When viewing the character interface remotely, such as over a tip line, you might need to set the TERM environment variable to VT220. Also, when using the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), set the value of the TERM variable to dtterm, rather than xterm.