Using Solaris Volume Manager Commands

Use the lucreate command rather than Solaris Volume Manager commands to manipulate volumes on inactive boot environments. The Solaris Volume Manager software has no knowledge of boot environments, whereas the lucreate command contains checks that prevent you from inadvertently destroying a boot environment. For example, lucreate prevents you from overwriting or deleting a Solaris Volume Manager volume.

However, if you have already used Solaris Volume Manager software to create complex Solaris Volume Manager concatenations, stripes, and mirrors, you must use Solaris Volume Manager software to manipulate them. Solaris Live Upgrade is aware of these components and supports their use. Before using Solaris Volume Manager commands that can create, modify, or destroy volume components, use the lustatus or lufslist commands. These commands can determine which Solaris Volume Manager volumes contain file systems that are in use by a Solaris Live Upgrade boot environment.

Guidelines for Selecting a Slice for a Swap File System

Configuring Swap for the New Boot Environment

You can configure a swap slice in three ways using the lucreate command with the -m option:

• If you do not specify a swap slice, the swap slices belonging to the current boot environment are configured for the new boot environment.

• If you specify one or more swap slices, these slices are the only swap slices that are used by the new boot environment. The two boot environments do not share any swap slices.

• You can specify to both share a swap slice and add a new slice for swap.

The following examples show the three ways of configuring swap. The current boot environment is configured with the root (/) file system on c0t0d0s0. The swap file system is on c0t0d0s1.

• In the following example, no swap slice is specified. The new boot environment contains the root (/) file system on c0t1d0s0. Swap is shared between the current and new boot environment on c0t0d0s1.

  # lucreate -n be2 -m /:c0t1d0s0:ufs

  
  

• In the following example, a swap slice is specified. The new boot environment contains the root (/) file system on c0t1d0s0. A new swap file system is created on c0t1d0s1. No swap slice is shared between the current and new boot environment.

  # lucreate -n be2 -m /:c0t1d0s0:ufs -m -:c0t1d0s1:swap

  
  

• In the following example, a swap slice is added and another swap slice is shared between the two boot environments. The new boot environment contains the root (/) file system on c0t1d0s0. A new swap slice is created on c0t1d0s1. The swap slice on c0t0d0s1 is shared between the current and new boot environment.

  # lucreate -n be2 -m /:c0t1d0s0:ufs -m -:shared:swap -m -:c0t1d0s1:swap

  
  

Failed Boot Environment Creation If Swap Is In Use

A boot environment creation fails if the swap slice is being used by any boot environment except for the current boot environment. If the boot environment was created using the -s option, the alternate-source boot environment can be using the swap slice, but not any other boot environment.

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 that are 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 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 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 another 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 from the Solaris 8 release to the Solaris 9 release and share /home, you could run the lucreate command with the -m option. You could create a Solaris 8 release with /home as a separate file system on its own slice. Then run the lucreate command with the -m option again to duplicate that boot environment. This third boot environment can then be upgraded 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 File System Types.

Customizing a New Boot Environment's Content

When you create a new boot environment, some directories and files can be excluded from a copy to the new boot environment. If you have excluded a directory, you can also re-include specified subdirectories or files under the excluded directory. These subdirectories or files that have been restored are then copied to the new boot environment. For example, you could exclude from the copy all files and directories in /etc/mail, but include all files and directories in /etc/mail/staff. The following command copies the staff subdirectory to the new boot environment.

# lucreate -n second_disk -x /etc/mail -y /etc/mail/staff

Caution - Use the file-exclusion options with caution. Do not remove files or directories that are required by the system.

The following table lists the lucreate command options for removing and restoring directories and files.

For examples of customizing the directories and files when creating a boot environment, see To Create a Boot Environment and Customize the Content (Command-Line Interface).

Synchronizing Files Between Boot Environments

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 critical system files and directories might be copied from the last-active boot environment to the boot environment being booted. Those files and directories that have changed are copied.

Adding Files to the /etc/lu/synclist

Solaris Live Upgrade checks for critical files that have changed. If these files' content is not the same in both boot environments, they are copied from the active boot environment to the new boot environment. Synchronizing is meant for critical files such as /etc/passwd or /etc/group files that might have changed since the new boot environment was created.

The /etc/lu/synclist file contains a list of directories and files that are synchronized. In some instances, you might want to copy other files from the active boot environment to the new boot environment. You can add directories and files to /etc/lu/synclist if necessary.

Adding files not listed in the /etc/lu/synclist could cause a system to become unbootable. The synchronization process only copies files and creates directories. The process does not remove files and directories.

The following example of the /etc/lu/synclist file shows the standard directories and files that are synchronized for this system.

/var/mail                    OVERWRITE
/var/spool/mqueue            OVERWRITE
/var/spool/cron/crontabs     OVERWRITE
/var/dhcp                    OVERWRITE
/etc/passwd                  OVERWRITE
/etc/shadow                  OVERWRITE
/etc/opasswd                 OVERWRITE
/etc/oshadow                 OVERWRITE
/etc/group                   OVERWRITE
/etc/pwhist                  OVERWRITE
/etc/default/passwd          OVERWRITE
/etc/dfs                     OVERWRITE
/var/log/syslog              APPEND
/var/adm/messages            APPEND

Examples of directories and files that might be appropriate to add to the synclist file are the following:

/var/yp                    OVERWRITE
/etc/mail                  OVERWRITE
/etc/resolv.conf           OVERWRITE
/etc/domainname            OVERWRITE

The synclist file entries can be files or directories. The second field is the method of updating that occurs on the activation of the boot environment. There are three methods for updating the files:

• OVERWRITE -- The contents of the active boot environment's file overwrites the contents of the new boot environment file. OVERWRITE is the default action if no action is specified in the second field. If the entry is a directory, all subdirectories are copied. All files are overwritten. The new boot environment file has the same date, mode, and ownership as the same file on the previous boot environment.

• APPEND -- The contents of the active boot environment's file are added to the end of the new boot environment's file. This might lead to duplicate entries in the file. Directories cannot be listed as APPEND. The new boot environment file has the same date, mode, and ownership as the same file on the previous boot environment.

• PREPEND -- The contents of the active boot environment's file are added to the beginning of the new boot environment's file. This might lead to duplicate entries in the file. Directories can not be listed as PREPEND. The new boot environment file has the same date, mode, and ownership as the same file on the previous boot environment.

Forcing a Synchronization Between Boot Environments

The first time you boot from a newly created boot environment, Solaris Live Upgrade synchronizes the new boot environment with the boot environment that was last active. After this initial boot and synchronization, Solaris Live Upgrade does not perform a synchronization unless requested.

• To force synchronization using the CUI, you type yes when prompted

• To force synchronization using the CLI, you use the luactivate command with the -s option

You might want to force a synchronization if you are maintaining multiple versions of the Solaris operating environment. You might want changes in files such as email or passwd/group to be in the boot environment you are activating to. If you force a synchronization, Solaris Live Upgrade checks for conflicts between files that are subject to synchronization. When the new boot environment is booted and a conflict is detected, a warning is issued and the files are not synchronized. Activation can be completed successfully, in spite of such a conflict. A conflict can occur if you make changes to the same file on both the new boot environment and the active boot environment. For example, you make changes to the /etc/passwd file on the original boot environment. Then you make other changes to /etc/passwd file on the new boot environment. The synchronization process cannot choose which file to copy for the synchronization.

Caution - Use this option with great care, because you might not be aware or in control of changes that might have occurred in the last-active boot environment. For example, if you were running Solaris 9 software on your current boot environment and booted back to a Solaris 7 release with a forced synchronization, files could be changed on the 7 release. Because files are dependent on the release of the operating environment, the boot to the Solaris 7 release could fail because the Solaris 9 files might not be compatible with the Solaris 7 files.