Rebuilding Boot Archive in Solaris 10.

Rebuilding Boot Archive in Solaris 10.

Boot-archive, introduced in Solaris 10 10/08 (update 6) which is similar to the initrd in Linux. Boot-Archive is collection of core kernel modules and configuration files packed in either UFS or ISOFS format.

bash-3.00#  svcs -a | grep boot-archive

online         10:59:59 svc:/system/boot-archive:default

online         11:00:13 svc:/system/boot-archive-update:default

bash-3.00#

Above mentioned are the services that manages the boot-archive

You may land up into situations were you have to build the boot-archive or sometime the boot-archive is corrupt and you have recreate the boot-archive.

When you face such problem boot server either in Failsafe mode, cd/dvd media, or a network image in single user mod

ok > boot -F failsafe

ok > boot cdrom -s

ok > boot net -s

If your machine is x86 based then you simply select the failsafe option from the grub menu.

NOTE : I had updated boot-archive on the x86 system.

While booting from failsafe select yes when prompted to mount ZFS root under /a

Remove old archive

# rm /a/platform/i86pc/boot_archive

Update boot-archive

#bootadm update-archive -f -R /a

-R altroot -  Operation is applied to an alternate root path

#reboot

System will boot from updated boot-archive

You can check the content of boot-archive

bash-3.00# bootadm list-archive

etc/rtc_config

etc/system

etc/name_to_major

etc/driver_aliases

etc/name_to_sysnum

etc/dacf.conf

etc/driver_classes

etc/path_to_inst

etc/mach

etc/cluster/nodeid

etc/devices/devid_cache

etc/devices/mdi_scsi_vhci_cache

etc/devices/mdi_ib_cache

kernel

platform/i86pc/biosint

platform/i86pc/kernel

platform/i86pc/ucode/GenuineIntel

platform/i86pc/ucode/AuthenticAMD

platform/i86hvm

boot/solaris/bootenv.rc

boot/solaris/devicedb/master

boot/acpi/tables

bash-3.00#

You can also check the content of boot-archive (x86 only)

bash-3.00# bootadm list-menu

The location for the active GRUB menu is: /boot/grub/menu.lst

default 0

timeout 10

0 Solaris 10 9/10 s10x_u9wos_14a X86

1 Solaris failsafe

bash-3.00#

Here I am having only 2 options one to boot system normally and other for failsafe.

Switching the GRUB default (x86 only)

bash-3.00# bootadm set-menu default=1

Here the 1 option will be selected from the menu list.