Managing Diskless Clients (Tasks)
This chapter describes how to manage diskless clients in the Solaris environment.
For information on the procedures associated with managing diskless clients, see "Managing Diskless Clients (Task Map)".
For overview information on managing diskless clients, see Chapter 7, Managing Server and Client Support (Overview).
For information about managing clients with Solstice AdminSuite™ software, see Solstice AdminSuite 2.3 Administration Guide.
Managing Diskless Clients (Task Map)
The following table identifies the procedures needed to manage diskless clients.
Task | Description | For Instructions |
|---|---|---|
1. (Optional) Remove existing diskless client support | If you have existing diskless clients that were added with the Solstice AdminSuite product, remove the diskless client support and OS services with the admhostdel and admhostmod commands before installing the Solaris 9 release. | Solstice AdminSuite 2.3 Administration Guide |
3. (Optional) Enable Solaris Management Console logging to view diskless client error messages | Choose Log Viewer from the console main window to view diskless client error messages. | |
4. Prepare for adding a diskless client | Verify supported releases and identify the platform, mediapath, and cluster (or software group) of each diskless client. | |
5. Add required OS services to an OS server | Add the OS services for the diskless clients you want to support with the smosservice command. You must identify the platform, media path, and each diskless client platform that you want to support. | |
6. Add a diskless client | Add diskless client support by specifying all required information with the smdiskless command. | |
7. Boot the diskless client | Verify that the diskless client support is successfully added by booting the diskless client. | |
8. (Optional) Delete diskless client support | Delete support for a diskless client if it is no longer required. | |
9. (Optional) Delete OS services for a diskless client | Delete OS services for a diskless client if they are no longer needed. | |
10. (Optional) Patch OS services | Add, delete, list, or synchronize patches for diskless client OS services. |
Managing Diskless Clients
These sections describe the procedures needed to manage diskless clients.
Keep the following key points in mind when managing diskless clients:
The Solaris installation program doesn't prompt you to set up diskless client support. You must manually create an /export partition to support diskless clients. You create the /export partition during or after the installation process.
The /export partition must contains a minimum of 800-1000 Mbytes, depending upon the number of clients supported. For specific information, see "Disk Space Requirements for OS Servers".
The name service identified in the smosservice or smdiskless commands must match the primary name service identified in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file. If you don't specify a name service in the smdiskless or smosservice commands, the default name service is files.
After you determine the platform, media path, and cluster for each diskless client, you are ready to add OS services. The following directories are created and populated for each OS service that you add:
/export/Solaris_version/Solaris_version_instruction_set.all (symbolic link to /export/exec/Solaris_version/Solaris_version_instruction_set.all)
/export/Solaris_version
/export/Solaris_version/var
/export/Solaris_version/opt
/export/share
/export/root/templates/Solaris_version
/export/root/clone
/export/root/clone/Solaris_version
/export/root/clone/Solaris_version/machine_class
The following default directories are created and populated on the OS server for each diskless client that you add:
/export/root/diskless_client
/export/swap/diskless_client
/tftpboot/diskless_client_ipaddress_in_hex/export/dump/diskless_client (if you specify the -x dump option)
Note - You can modify the default locations of the root, /swap, and /dump directories by using the -x option. However, do not create these directories under the /export file system.
How to Prepare for Adding Diskless Clients
Make sure that the system intended to be the OS service is running a supported release. Also verify that the combination of OS server release and diskless client release is supported.
When you use the smosservice add command to add OS services, you must specify the platform, mediapath, and cluster (or software group) of each diskless client platform that you want to support.
Verify that the intended OS server and diskless client will be running a combination of Solaris releases that are supported.
For more information, see "OS Server and Diskless Client Support Information".
Identify the diskless client platform by using this format:
instruction_set.machine_class.Solaris_version
For example:
sparc.sun4u.Solaris_9
The following are the possible platform options:
instruction_set
machine_class
Solaris_version
sparc
sun4d*, sun4c*, sun4m, sun4u,
Solaris_9, Solaris_8, Solaris_2.7, Solaris_2.6
i386
i86pc
Solaris_9, Solaris_8, Solaris_2.7, Solaris_2.6
* The sun4c architecture is not supported in the Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 releases. The sun4d architecture is not supported in the Solaris 9 release.
Identify the media path, which is the full path to the disk image that contains the operating system that you want to install for the diskless client.
The Solaris 9 operating environment is delivered on multiple CDs. However, you cannot use the smosservice command to load OS services from a multiple CD distribution. You must run the scripts that are found on the Solaris 9 software CDs (and optional Language CD) to do the following:
Create an install image on a server. For information on setting up an install server, refer to Solaris 9 Installation Guide.
Load the required OS services from the CD image using one of the following scripts:
CD 1 of 2 - /cdrom/cdrom0/s0/Solaris_9/Tools/setup_install_server
CD 2 of 2 - /cdrom/cdrom0/s0/Solaris_9/Tools/add_to_install_server
Language CD - /cdrom/cdrom0/s0/Solaris_9/Tools/add_to_install_server
For example, if you are using the setup_install_server script from the Solaris 9 Software 1 of 2 SPARC Platform Edition CD on a locally connected CD-ROM device, the syntax looks something like this:
# mkdir /export/install/sparc_9 # cd /cd_mount_point/Solaris_9/Tools # ./setup_install_server /export/install/sparc_9
After the Solaris CD image is installed on the disk, specify the disk image path. For example:
/net/export/install/sparc_9
Identify the SUNWCXall cluster when you add OS services.
You must use the same cluster for diskless clients that run the same operating environment on the same system (SPARC or IA).
For example, consider the following diskless clients:
sparc.sun4m.Solaris_9
sparc.sun4u.Solaris_9
To set up these diskless clients, you would need to specify the SUNWCXall cluster for each diskless client because the sun4u and sun4m systems require the SUNWCXall cluster. In addition, diskless clients that run the same operating environment (in this situation, Solaris_9) on the same system must use the same cluster.
Note - If you are using a sun4u system, or if you are using a system with an accelerated 8-bit color memory frame buffer (cgsix), you must specify SUNWCXall as the cluster.