Figure 33-4 shows a new boot environment with a RAID-1 volume (mirror) that is created on two physical disks. The following command created the new boot environment and the mirror.

# lucreate -n second_disk -m /:/dev/md/dsk/d30:mirror,ufs \ 
-m /:c0t1d0s0,d31:attach -m /:c0t2d0s0,d32:attach \ 
-m -:c0t1d0s1:swap -m -:c0t2d0s1:swap  

This command performs the following tasks:

• Creates a new boot environment, second_disk.

• Creates a mirror d30 and configures a UFS file system.

• Creates a single-device concatenation on slice 0 of each physical disk. The concatenations are named d31 and d32.

• Adds the two concatenations to mirror d30.

• Copies the root (/) file system to the mirror.

• Configures files systems for swap on slice 1 of each physical disk.

Figure 33-4 Create a Boot Environment and Create a Mirror

Figure 33-5 shows a new boot environment that contains a RAID-1 volume (mirror). The following command created the new boot environment and the mirror.

# lucreate -n second_disk -m /:/dev/md/dsk/d20:ufs,mirror \ 
-m /:/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0:detach,attach,preserve

This command performs the following tasks:

• Creates a new boot environment, second_disk.

• Breaks mirror d10 and detaches concatenation d12.

• Preserves the contents of concatenation d12 and file systems are not copied.

• Creates a new mirror d20. You now have two one-way mirrors d10 and d20.

• Attaches concatenation d12 to mirror d20.

Figure 33-5 Create a Boot Environment and Use the Existing Submirror

Upgrading a Boot Environment

After you have created a boot environment, you can perform an upgrade on the boot environment. As part of that upgrade, the boot environment can contain RAID-1 volumes (mirrors) for any file systems. The upgrade does not affect any files in the active boot environment. When you are ready, you activate the new boot environment, which then becomes the current boot environment.

• For procedures about upgrading a boot environment, see Chapter 36, Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade (Tasks).

• For an example of upgrading a boot environment with mirrored file systems, see Example of Detaching and Upgrading One Side of a RAID 1 Volume (Mirror) (Command-Line Interface).

Figure 33-6 shows an upgrade to an inactive boot environment.

Figure 33-6 Upgrading an Inactive Boot Environment

Rather than an upgrade, you can install a Solaris Flash archive on a boot environment. The Solaris Flash installation feature enables you to create a single reference installation of the Solaris operating environment on a system. This system is called the master system. Then, you can replicate that installation on a number of systems that are called clone systems. In this situation, the inactive boot environment is a clone. When you install the Solaris Flash archive on a system, the archive replaces all the files on the existing boot environment as an initial installation would.

For procedures on installing a Solaris Flash archive, see Installing Solaris Flash Archives on a Boot Environment.

Figure 33-7 shows an installation of a Solaris Flash archive on an inactive boot environment.

Figure 33-7 Installing a Solaris Flash Archive

Activating a Boot Environment

When you are ready to switch and make the new boot environment active, you quickly activate the new boot environment and reboot. Files are synchronized between boot environments the first time that you boot a newly created boot environment. "Synchronize" means that certain system files and directories are copied from the last-active boot environment to the boot environment being booted. When you reboot the system, the configuration that you installed on the new boot environment is active. The original boot environment then becomes an inactive boot environment.

• For procedures about activating a boot environment, see Activating a Boot Environment.

• For information about synchronizing the active and inactive boot environment, see Synchronizing Files Between Boot Environments.

Figure 33-8 shows a switch after a reboot from an inactive to an active boot environment.

Figure 33-8 Activating an Inactive Boot Environment

Fall Back to the Original Boot Environment

If a failure occurs, you can quickly fall back to the original boot environment with an activation and reboot. You could fall back to the original boot environment for the following reasons:

• If the new boot environment cannot be booted

• If the new environment boots but does not work completely

• If you are not satisfied with the results

The use of fallback takes only the time to reboot the system, which is much quicker than backing up and restoring the original. The new boot environment that failed to boot is preserved. The failure can then be analyzed. You can only fall back to the boot environment that was used by luactivate to activate the new boot environment.

You fall back to the previous boot environment the following ways:

• If the new boot environment boots successfully, but you are not happy with the results, you run the luactivate command with the name of the previous boot environment and reboot.

• If the new boot environment does not boot, you boot the fallback boot environment in single-user mode and run the luactivate command and reboot.

• If you cannot boot in single-user mode, do one of the following:

  • Boot from DVD or CD media or a net installation image.

  • Mount the root (/) file system on the fallback boot environment.

  • Run the luactivate command and reboot.

For procedures to fall back, see Failure Recovery: Falling Back to the Original Boot Environment (Command-Line Interface).

Figure 33-9 shows the switch that is made when you reboot to fallback.

Figure 33-9 Fallback to the Original Boot Environment