Table of Contents
This section describes new or changed diskless client features in this Solaris release. For a complete listing of new Solaris features and a description of Solaris releases, see What’s New in Solaris Express .
Solaris
Express 5/06: The set_nfs4_domain script
that was delivered in the Solaris 10 OS is no longer used to set the NFSv4
domain. To set the NVSv4 domain, add the new nfs4_domain keyword
to the diskless client's sysidcfg file. Note that if
the nfs4_domain keyword exists in the sysidcfg file,
the first boot of a diskless client sets the domain accordingly.
For more information, see Preconfiguring With the sysidcfg File in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations .
Solaris Express 6/05: GRUB based booting has been implemented on x86 based systems in this Solaris release. GRUB based booting was introduced in the Solaris 10 1/06 release.
GRUB based booting is not available on SPARC based systems in this Solaris release.
The following feature enhancements are part of the new diskless boot scheme:
The OS server is now capable of serving multiple Solaris releases simultaneously.
With the new diskless boot scheme, you can perform a pxegrub based network boot , where multiple releases are presented to a client from the GRUB menu.
Vendor-specific options are now specified in the boot archive.
In previous releases, client-specific boot properties, typically defined
in the bootenv.rc file, were provided by using vendor-specific
options for the DHCP setup. The total length of the information that was required
frequently exceeded the limit in the DHCP specification.
With
the boot new scheme, this information is part of the boot archive. The PXE/DHCP
server is only required to provide the server IP address, the boot file, pxegrub, and possibly a client-specific menu file, through Site
Option 150.
Solaris Express 6/05: The smdiskless command
is used to set up diskless clients. Previously, the smdiskless command
set up the root (/) and /usr file
systems, then exported these file systems to the client through NFS. To boot
the client, you would additionally need to configure the /tftpboot area
manually. This manual step is no longer a requirement for setting up a diskless
client. The smdiskless command now automatically invokes
a script in the /usr/sadm/lib/wbem/config_tftp file,
which prepares the /tftpboot area for a PXE boot.
After running the smdiskless command, the /tftpboot/01
ethernet-address file is displayed as
a link to pxegrub and the /tftpboot/menu.lst.01
ethernet-address file, which contains the GRUB menu entry. The ethernet-address in this instance is 01, followed by the Ethernet
address of the client network interface. When supplying the Ethernet address
of the client network interface, use uppercase letters and do not include
colons.
The boot archive of the diskless client is automatically updated during shutdown. If the client's boot archive is out of date when it is shut down, you might need to run the following command from the OS server to update the boot archive:
# bootadm update-archive -f -R /export/root/host-name
where host-name is the host name of the client
system.
For more information, see How to Boot the Failsafe Archive to Forcibly Update a Corrupt Boot Archive and the bootadm ( 1M ) man page.
This information applies to both SPARC based and x86 based OS servers that are serving x86 based clients.
For more information on setting up and configuring DHCP, see Chapter 14, Configuring the DHCP Service (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: IP Services .
For more information on how to manage diskless clients in the GRUB boot environment, see How to Boot a Diskless Client With GRUB and Chapter 11, GRUB Based Booting (Tasks).