Sun Netra X1 -- Netbooting and Installing Solaris 10/08 by Brendan Horan

Oh yes.. there are more Netra's at my place then you can poke a dead stick at.

The baby to the Netra T1 is the X1 it is smaller in fact its smaller then my Nortel network switches! Sun System Handbook : X1

This little device is a little more "consumer" grade. It takes standard ECC SD-RAM (pc-133) and standard IDE drives. Has two network ports, and no PCI slot. I have already modded the X1's fans.

So this guide will be about net booting Solaris 10 and installing over the network from another Soalris 10 machine. For ease of deployment I'll be using a Sun Sparc Enterprise 3000 of mine as described and set up in previous posts. By all means you can mix up your arch. So you can deploy SPARC arch from x86 and vise versa. I just like using the E3000.

This summary is taken from the Solaris 10 10/08 install guides I've made a summary on how to install Solaris 10 via net boot for a good friend.

I'll be using the ZFS pool i set up in the previous article called "store". Note :-

That I won't be using DHCP for this as sun makes it "hard" for you when your not using the Solaris DHCP server.
This is by far the quick and easy way of net booting Solaris 10. You can do so so much more take a look though the Sun install guides
Make sure your PROM is up to date, I've had some odd things happen with old PROM versions. Apply PROM patch 111952-03

Insert the Solaris 10 Install DVD or mount the ISO.. See below Sometimes I like to use the ISO image.. Create a fake device pointing t the ISO :

# lofiadm -a /home/username/solaris.iso /dev/lofi/1
# mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt/dvd

Create a directory to deploy from ( this will hold the install media)

# cd /store/store
# mkdir -p deploy

Change to Tools directory on the DVD and run the install server command :

# /mnt/dvd/Solaris_10/Tools/
# ./setup_install_server /store/store/deploy/ ( the last directory you be the directory we made in step 2)

It should print the following :-

Verifying target directory...
Calculating the required disk space for the Solaris_10 product
Calculating space required for the installation boot image
Copying the CD image to disk...
Copying Install Boot Image hierarchy...
Copying /boot netboot hierarchy...
Install Server setup complete

Set up the boot server :

# mkdir -p /store/store/boot
# cd /mnt/dvd/Solaris_10/Tools/
# ./setup_install_server -b /store/store/boot/

It will print :-

Verifying target directory...
Calculating space required for the installation boot image
Copying Solaris_10 Tools hierarchy...
Copying Install Boot Image hierarchy...
Copying /boot netboot hierarchy...
Install Server setup complete

You need to add the MAC address of the client to be net booted into the /etc/ethers file :

# touch /etc/ethers
# vi /etc/ethers.

Add the following :

MAC.ADDRES CLIENT_NAME
xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx X1

Edit the Host file to make the name above resolvable.

# vi /etc/hosts

Add the following (replace with your Ip and domain)

192.168.0.xx   X1      x1.undersys.net

Now lets add the X1 into the Solaris "install Client" :

# cd /store/store/deploy/Solaris_10/Tools/
# ./add_install_client X1 sun4u (where X1 is the name and sun4u is arch type)

It should print something like this :-

making /tftpboot
enabling tftp in /etc/inetd.conf
Converting /etc/inetd.conf
enabling network/tftp/udp6 service
enabling network/rarp service
enabling network/rpc/bootparams service
updating /etc/bootparams
copying boot file to /tftpboot/inetboot.SUN4U.Solaris_10-1

Connect to your X1 via serial console and make sure you've got a network cable plugged into "net 0" Issue the following commands at the "ok" prompt :

ok boot net

If all has gone well you should see something like this.. ( note the ARP/RARP timeouts are normal) :

Resetting ...Sun Netra X1 (UltraSPARC-IIe 400MHz), No Keyboard
OpenBoot 4.0, 640 MB memory installed, Serial #xxxxxxxx.
Ethernet address x:x:x:x:x:xx, Host ID: xxxxxxxx.
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Requesting Internet address for x:x:xx:x:xx:xx
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_137137-09 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Configuring devices.
Using RPC Bootparams for network configuration information.
Attempting to configure interface dmfe1...
Skipped interface dmfe1
Attempting to configure interface dmfe0...
Configured interface dmfe0
Reading ZFS config: done.
Setting up Java. Please wait...
NOTE: Not enough memory for graphical installation.  Graphical installation
requires 768 MB of memory.  Found 640 MB of memory.
Reverting to text-based installation.
Serial console, reverting to text install
Beginning system identification...
Searching for configuration file(s)...
Search complete.
Discovering additional network configuration...

Just after this you will be asked for install language and terminal type. Make sure you select the right terminal emulation type, since i am using mincom and its set to VT102 I've selected option 3 "DEC VT100" If you select the wrong type you won't see the install menu's correctly.

We should now be seeing the text mode install for Solaris 10. You should now be able to follow the normal install prompts and menu's to install Solaris as we did on the E3000. Only thing diffrent will be install souce will be set up as NFS and pre populated with the install server IP and NFS share name.