I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
to jumpstart a sparc machine?

I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?

So I have 5 different questions in this post - hope to get a reply.

kartikvashishta108 wrote:
> I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
> Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
> wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
> How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
> jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
> earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
> to jumpstart a sparc machine?

Solaris is now distributed only on DVDs.  CD images are available for 
download or were the last time I looked.  If you have a CDRW drive you 
can burn your own.  For best results burn at the lowest available speed.

If you can get a DVD drive for your system, It's well worth it! 
Installing from a DVD requires a minimum of manual intervention; you 
have to supply the basic configuration information: root password, how 
you want the disk partitioned, node name, IP address, subnet mask. . . .
Go to lunch.  When you get back the installation should be done or 
nearly done!  Installing from CDs is slower, there are something like 
five CD's and it wants a new one every fifteen minutes.

> 
> I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
> off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?

Was that bootable DVD a DVD-R or DVD-RW?  These are not always reliable.
The common wisdom is to burn them at the lowest available speed.  If 
that doesn't work, buy a DVD from Sun.  The cost is nominal and you may 
get it free depending on the policy of the week! ;-)

If you don't have a local DVD drive, you can Jumpstart from a machine 
that does have a local drive.

In article <0a3e760b-7e68-40dc-8992-13f8a2c9fd83@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
kartikvashishta108  <kartik.unix@gmail.com> wrote:
>I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
>Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
>wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
>How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
>jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
>earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
>to jumpstart a sparc machine?
>
Jumpstart is your friend.  And yes, you can use a Solaris x86 server
to install Sparc Solaris.  

You can (I think) still download CD images from Sun.  But my U2's and
U60's got upgrade installs from an Ultra 20 M2 server.  Downloaded the
DVD iso image, used lofiadm, ran setup_install_server, added my boxes
to the install pool, and away we went.

>I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
>off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?
>
Not surprising, if you are using locally-generated media.  Just use
Jumpstart and avoid the whole problem.

Hank

kartikvashishta108 <kartik.unix@gmail.com> writes:
>I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
>Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
>wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
>How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
>jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
>earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
>to jumpstart a sparc machine?

Back when I managed this class of systems, I got a Pioneer DVD-ROM in
an external SCSI case (Maybe a DVD-305S?). Made my life so much
easier. Of course, you'd need the appropriate cabling as well, but
thats all so legacy, it should be readily available cheaply.  You
still may have to play with the blk-size jumper, but I don't remember
any longer for this particular drive. Probably not.  Those systems all
listed have external SCSI ports and should be able to boot DVD-ROMs.

The time savings from having to babysit and watch for CD-ROM changes
pays for itself in no time. Our environment wasn't too homogenous 
to allow for an easy Jumpstart setup, and its was pretty low-volume
for installs any way. 

If these systems are running now and you are looking to upgrade them, 
look into LiveUpgrade instead? You can do a lofi mount and do inplace
upgrades off an ISO image. 

>I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
>off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?

Nothing special. Make sure the disk you burn comes out good, try
different media, try burning it at low speed, not max speed. 

Hi,

kartikvashishta108 wrote:
> I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
> Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
> wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
> How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
> jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
> earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
> to jumpstart a sparc machine?
> 
> I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
> off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?
> 
> So I have 5 different questions in this post - hope to get a reply.
> 
Jumpstart is very, just covered in comp.sys.sun.hardware look for 
Subject "DVD drive for Blade 1000?"

Date should be 18/12/09

/michael

In article <0a3e760b-7e68-40dc-8992-13f8a2c9fd83@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
	kartikvashishta108 <kartik.unix@gmail.com> writes:
> I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
> Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
> wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?

CD images are no longer produced. The effort to produce and test them
was very high, and the number of CD downloads had dropped to pretty much
nothing.

> How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
> jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
> earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
> to jumpstart a sparc machine?

Yes.

-- 
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Jan 18, 10:32 am, kartikvashishta108 <kartik.u...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
> Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
> wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
> How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
> jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
> earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
> to jumpstart a sparc machine?
>
> I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
> off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?
>
> So I have 5 different questions in this post - hope to get a reply.

If you have the disk space available, you can load the iso image onto
the machine
you are going to upgrade and mount it with lofiadm.  Something along
these
lines:

# ls /export/nfs/s10/u8
sol-10-u8-companion-ga.iso  sol-10-u8-ga-sparc-dvd.iso  sol-10-u8-ga-
x86-dvd.iso
# lofiadm -a /export/nfs/s10/u8/sol-10-u8-ga-sparc-dvd.iso /dev/lofi/
1
# mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt

We do that all the time when we don't want to go out to the data
centres to stick a new DVD
into the jumpstart machine.

On Jan 20, 11:32=A0pm, chuckers <chucker...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 18, 10:32 am, kartikvashishta108 <kartik.u...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
> > Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
> > wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?
> > How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
> > jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
> > earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
> > to jumpstart a sparc machine?
>
> > I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
> > off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?
>
> > So I have 5 different questions in this post - hope to get a reply.
>
> If you have the disk space available, you can load the iso image onto
> the machine
> you are going to upgrade and mount it with lofiadm. =A0Something along
> these
> lines:
>
> # ls /export/nfs/s10/u8
> sol-10-u8-companion-ga.iso =A0sol-10-u8-ga-sparc-dvd.iso =A0sol-10-u8-ga-
> x86-dvd.iso
> # lofiadm -a /export/nfs/s10/u8/sol-10-u8-ga-sparc-dvd.iso /dev/lofi/
> 1
> # mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
>
> We do that all the time when we don't want to go out to the data
> centres to stick a new DVD
> into the jumpstart machine.

Can I use an x86 to jumpstart a sparc system. I tried it and failed,
I'd like to be sure it works before trying again. Please advise.

In article <2af32f92-22c4-4287-b32e-8aa737580843@h2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>,
kartikvashishta108  <kartik.unix@gmail.com> wrote:
>Can I use an x86 to jumpstart a sparc system. I tried it and failed,

Yes.

>I'd like to be sure it works before trying again. Please advise.

Which set of instructions are you using to build your Jumpstart
server on your Solaris x86 host?

At which step are you failing?

John
groenveld@acm.org

kartikvashishta108 wrote:
> On Jan 20, 11:32 pm, chuckers <chucker...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jan 18, 10:32 am, kartikvashishta108 <kartik.u...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have some Ultra 60's, E250/450/420 systems. The 10/09 release of
>>> Solaris 10 is NOT available in CD format - I'll be glad to be proved
>>> wrong. I do not have DVD drives for these systems. Are CD's available?

CDs are available only if you burn your own.  Sun dropped CDROM as a 
distribution medium several years ago.  I bought some DVD drives on 
E-Bay and installed them.
>>> How do I install the latest Solaris 10 release - any way other than
>>> jumpstart? And can I use an jumpstart server which itself runs on an
>>> earlier release to install the latest release? Can I use an x86 server
>>> to jumpstart a sparc machine?

In principle, Jumpstart should work.  I've never tried!

>>> I do have a E420R which has a dvd drive but I could not get it to boot
>>> off of a bootable dvd.....any ideas on what needs to be done?

Where did  you get the bootable DVD?  If you burned your own I'm not 
surprised that it didn't work.  Some CD and DVD drives DO NOT like CDR 
or DVDR media!  It may be due to insufficient error handling in the Open 
Boot PROM.

If you are burning your own CD/DVD media try using lowest available 
speed; historically it has helped in many cases.

<snip>