This chapter describes system requirements to install or upgrade to the Solaris OS. General guidelines for planning the disk space and default swap space allocation are also provided. This chapter contains the following sections:System Requirements and Recommendations Allocating Disk and Swap Space Upgrade Planning Locale Values Platform Names and Groups Partitioning Recommendations How to Find the Version of the Solaris OS That Your System Is Running Requirement Type Size Memory to install or upgrade SPARC: 512 MB is the recommended size. 128 MB is the minimum size. x86: 512 MB is the recommended size. 256 MB is the minimum size. Some optional installation features are enabled only when sufficient memory is present. For example, if your system has insufficient memory and you install from a DVD, you install through the Solaris installation program 's text installer, not through the GUI. For more information about these memory requirements, see Table 4–2. Swap area 512 MB is the default size.You might need to customize the swap space. Swap space is based on the size of the system's hard disk. Processor requirements SPARC: 200–MHz or faster processor is required. x86: 120–MHz or faster processor is recommended. Hardware floating-point support is required. You can choose to install the software with a GUI or with or without a windowing environment. If there is sufficient memory, the GUI is displayed by default. Other environments are displayed by default if memory is insufficient for the GUI. You can override defaults with the nowin or text boot options. But, you are limited by the amount of memory in your system or by installing remotely. Also if the Solaris installation program does not detect a video adapter, it automatically displays in a console-based environment. Table 4–2 describes these environments and lists minimal memory requirements for displaying them. Memory Type of Installation Description SPARC: 64–511 MB x86: 256–511 MB Text-based Contains no graphics, but provides a window and the ability to open other windows. If you install by using the text boot option and the system has enough memory, you are installing in a windowing environment. If you are installing remotely through a tip line or using the nowin boot option, you are limited to the console-based installation. SPARC: 512 MB or greater x86: 512 MB GUI-based Provides windows, pull-down menus, buttons, scrollbars, and iconic images. Before you install the Solaris software, you can determine if your system has enough disk space by doing some high-level planning.Planning disk space is different for everyone. Consider allocating space for the following conditions, depending on your needs.Conditions for Space Allocations Description File systems For each file system that you create, allocate an additional 30 percent more disk space than you need to enable you to upgrade to future Solaris versions. By default, the Solaris installation methods create only root (/) and /swap. When space is allocated for OS services, the /export directory is also created. If you are upgrading to a major Solaris release, you might need to reslice your system or allocate double the space that you need at installation time. If you are upgrading to an update, you could prevent having to reslice your system by allocating extra disk space for future upgrades. A Solaris update release needs approximately 10 percent more disk space than the previous release. You can allocate an additional 30 percent of disk space for each file system to allow space for several Solaris updates. The /var file system If you intend to use the crash dump feature savecore1M, allocate double the amount of your physical memory in the /var file system. Swap The Solaris installation program allocates a default swap area of 512 MB under the following conditions:If you use the installation program's automatic layout of disk slices If you avoid manually changing the size of the swap slice By default, the Solaris installation programs allocate swap space by placing swap so that it starts at the first available disk cylinder (typically cylinder 0 on SPARC based systems). This placement provides maximum space for the root (/) file system during the default disk layout and enables the growth of the root (/) file system during an upgrade. If you think you might need to expand the swap area in the future, you can place the swap slice so that it starts at another disk cylinder by using one of the following methods. For the Solaris installation program, you can customize the disk layout in cylinder mode and manually assign the swap slice to the desired location. For the custom JumpStart installation program, you can assign the swap slice in the profile file. For more information about the JumpStart profile file, see Creating a Profile in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations. For an overview of the swap space, see Chapter 20, Configuring Additional Swap Space (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. A server that is providing home directory file systems By default, home directories are usually located in the /export file system. The Solaris software group you are installing A software group is a grouping of software packages. When you are planning disk space, remember that you can add or remove individual software packages from the software group that you select. For information about software groups, see Disk Space Recommendations for Software Groups. Upgrade If you are using Solaris Live Upgrade to upgrade an inactive boot environment and want information about disk space planning, see Solaris Live Upgrade Disk Space Requirements in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning If you are using the Solaris installation program or custom Jumpstart to plan disk space, see Upgrading With Disk Space Reallocation If you have non-global zones installed on a system, see Disk Space Requirements for Non-Global Zones Language support For example, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. If you plan to install a single language, allocate approximately 0.7 GB of additional disk space for the language. If you plan to install all language supports, you need to allocate up to approximately 2.5 GB of additional disk space for the language supports, depending on the software group you install. Printing or mail support Allocate additional space. Additional software or third-party software Allocate additional space. The Solaris software groups are collections of Solaris packages. Each software group includes support for different functions and hardware drivers. For an initial installation, you select the software group to install, based on the functions that you want to perform on the system. For an upgrade, you must upgrade to a software group that is installed on the system. For example, if you previously installed the End User Solaris Software Group on your system, you cannot use the upgrade option to upgrade to the Developer Solaris Software Group. However, during the upgrade you can add software to the system that is not part of the currently installed software group. When you are installing the Solaris software, you can choose to add or remove packages from the Solaris software group that you selected. When you are selecting which packages to add or remove, you need to know about software dependencies and how the Solaris software is packaged.The following figure shows the grouping of software packages. Reduced Network Support contains the minimal number of packages and Entire Solaris Software Group Plus OEM Support contains all the packages.

The context describes the illustration.

Table 4–4 lists the Solaris software groups and the recommended amount of disk space that you need to install each group.The disk space recommendations in Table 4–4 include space for the following items.Swap space Patches Additional software packages You might find that the software groups require less disk space than the amount that is listed in this table. Software Group Description Recommended Disk Space Entire Solaris Software Group Plus OEM Support Contains the packages for the Entire Solaris Software Group plus additional hardware drivers, including drivers for hardware that is not on the system at the time of installation. 6.8 GB Entire Solaris Software Group Contains the packages for the Developer Solaris Software Group and additional software that is needed for servers. 6.7 GB Developer Solaris Software Group Contains the packages for the End User Solaris Software Group plus additional support for software development. The additional software development support includes libraries, include files, man pages, and programming tools. Compilers are not included. 6.6 GB End User Solaris Software Group Contains the packages that provide the minimum code that is required to boot and run a networked Solaris system and the Common Desktop Environment. 5.3 GB Core System Support Software Group Contains the packages that provide the minimum code that is required to boot and run a networked Solaris system. 2.0 GB Reduced Network Support Software Group Contains the packages that provide the minimum code that is required to boot and run a Solaris system with limited network service support. The Reduced Network Support Software Group provides a multiuser text-based console and system administration utilities. This software group also enables the system to recognize network interfaces, but does not activate network services. 2.0 GB You can upgrade a system by using one of three different upgrade methods: Solaris Live Upgrade, the Solaris installation program, and custom JumpStart. Current Solaris OS Solaris Upgrade Methods Solaris 8, Solaris 9, Solaris 10 Solaris Live Upgrade – Upgrades a system by creating and upgrading a copy of the running system The Solaris installation program – Provides an interactive upgrade with a graphical user interface or command-line interface Custom JumpStart method – Provides an automated upgrade The following table lists limitations when you upgrade a system under some conditions.Issue Description Upgrading to a different software group You cannot upgrade your system to a software group that is not installed on the system. For example, if you previously installed the End User Solaris Software Group on your system, you cannot use the upgrade option to upgrade to the Developer Solaris Software Group. However, during the upgrade you can add software to the system that is not part of the currently installed software group. Upgrading when non-global zones are installed You can upgrade a system that has non-global zones installed with the Solaris installation program, Solaris Live Upgrade or JumpStart. The following limitations apply:Solaris Live Upgrade is the recommend program to upgrade or patch a system. Other upgrade programs might require extensive upgrade time, because the time required to complete the upgrade increases linearly with the number of installed non-global zones. If you are patching a system with Solaris Live Upgrade, you do not have to take the system to single-user mode and you can maximize your system's uptime. When you use a Solaris Flash archive to install, an archive that contains non-global zones is not properly installed on your system. Upgrading with Veritas file systems The Solaris interactive installation and custom JumpStart programs do not present you with the opportunity to upgrade a system when you are using Veritas VxVM file systems under these conditions:If the root file system to be upgraded is under Veritas control. For example, if the root (/) file system is mounted on a /dev/vx/... device. If any Solaris software is installed on any file system that is under Veritas control. For example, if the /usr file system is mounted on a /dev/vx/... device. To upgrade when Veritas VxVM is configured, use one of the following methods: Use Solaris Live Upgrade with this procedure, System Panics When Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade Running Veritas VxVm in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning. If you have non-global zones installed, you must migrate the affected file systems from VxVM file systems to UFS file systems. You cannot use the Solaris Live Upgrade procedure in the previous procedure. You can perform a standard interactive upgrade with the Solaris installation program or an unattended upgrade with the custom JumpStart installation method. Solaris Live Upgrade enables you to upgrade a running system.Upgrade Program Description For More Information Solaris Live Upgrade Enables you to create a copy of the currently running system. The copy can be upgraded and then a reboot switches the upgraded copy to become the currently running system. Using Solaris Live Upgrade reduces the downtime that is required to upgrade the Solaris OS. Also, Solaris Live Upgrade can prevent problems with upgrading. An example is the ability to recover from an upgrade if the power fails, because the copy being upgraded is not the currently running system. To plan for disk space allocation when using Solaris Live Upgrade, see Solaris Live Upgrade Requirements in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning. The Solaris installation program Guides you through an upgrade with an interactive GUI. Chapter 2, Installing With the Solaris Installation Program (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Basic Installations. Custom JumpStart program Provides an automated upgrade. A profile file and optional preinstallation and postinstallation scripts provide the information required. When creating a custom JumpStart profile for an upgrade, specify install_type upgrade. You must test the custom JumpStart profile against the system's disk configuration and currently installed software before you upgrade. Use the pfinstall D command on the system that you are upgrading to test the profile. You cannot test an upgrade profile by using a disk configuration file. For more information about testing the upgrade option, refer to Testing a Profile in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations For more information about creating a upgrade profile, see Profile Examples in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations For more information about performing an upgrade, see Performing a Custom JumpStart Installation in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations The Solaris Flash installation feature provides a method of creating a copy of the whole installation from a master system that can be replicated on many clone systems. This copy is called a Solaris Flash archive. You can install an archive by using any installation program.A Solaris Flash archive cannot be properly created when a non-global zone is installed. The Solaris Flash feature is not compatible with Solaris Zones partitioning technology. If you create a Solaris Flash archive, the resulting archive is not installed properly when the archive is deployed under these conditions:The archive is created in a non-global zone The archive is created in a global zone that has non-global zones installed The default copy method that is used when you create a Solaris Flash archive is the pax utility. The flarcreate command uses the pax utility to create an archive without size limitations on individual files. Individual file sizes can be greater than 4 Gbytes. The flarcreate command with the L cpio option creates a cpio archive. This option is useful for backward compatibility.For information about installing an archive, see the following table.Solaris Live Upgrade Installing Solaris Flash Archives on a Boot Environment in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning Custom JumpStart To Prepare to Install a Solaris Flash Archive With a Custom JumpStart Installation in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations Solaris interactive installation Chapter 4, Installing and Administering Solaris Flash Archives (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Flash Archives (Creation and Installation) WANboot Chapter 12, Installing With WAN Boot (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations The upgrade option in the Solaris installation program and the upgrade keyword in the custom JumpStart program provide the ability to reallocate disk space. This reallocation automatically changes the sizes of the disk slices. You can reallocate disk space if the current file systems do not have enough space for the upgrade. For example, file systems might need more space for the upgrade for the following reasons: The Solaris software group that is currently installed on the system contains new software in the new release. Any new software that is included in a software group is automatically selected to be installed during the upgrade. The size of the existing software on the system has increased in the new release. The auto-layout feature attempts to reallocate the disk space to accommodate the new size requirements of the file system. Initially, auto-layout attempts to reallocate space, based on a set of default constraints. If auto-layout cannot reallocate space, you must change the constraints on the file systems. Auto-layout does not have the ability to “grow” file systems. Auto-layout reallocates space by the following process:Backing up required files on the file systems that need to change. Repartitioning the disks on the basis of the file system changes. Restoring the backup files before the upgrade happens. If you are using the Solaris installation program, and auto-layout cannot determine how to reallocate the disk space, you must use the custom JumpStart program to upgrade. If you are using the custom JumpStart method to upgrade and you create an upgrade profile, disk space might be a concern. If the current file systems do not contain enough disk space for the upgrade, you can use the backup_media and layout_constraint keywords to reallocate disk space. For an example of how to use the backup_media and layout_constraint keywords in a profile, refer to Profile Examples in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations. Backing up your existing file systems before you upgrade to the Solaris OS is highly recommended. If you copy file systems to removable media, such as tape, you can safeguard against data loss, damage, or corruption.For detailed instructions to back up your system, refer to Chapter 23, Backing Up and Restoring File Systems (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. To backup your system when non-global zones are installed, see Chapter 26, Solaris Zones Administration (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Solaris Zones. In previous releases, the restart mechanism enabled you to continue an upgrade after a loss of power or other similar problem. Starting with the Solaris Express 2/07 release, the restart mechanism is unreliable. If you have a problem, your upgrade might not restart. Starting with the Solaris Express 7/06 release, the generic installation has been changed so that all network services except Secure Shell are disabled or restricted to respond to local requests only. This change minimizes the potential vulnerabilities a remote attacker might try to exploit. In addition, the change provides a base for customers to enable only the services they require.For Solaris Express releases, the hardening changes are automatically applied whenever a fresh install is performed. This effect is achieved by invoking the netservices command from the SMF upgrade file found in /var/svc/profile. Behavior is unchanged if the system is upgraded.Numerous services are fully disabled. Other services are still enabled, but these services are restricted to local connections only. The Secure Shell remains fully enabled.For example, the following table lists network services that, for the Solaris 10 11/06 release, are restricted to local connections.Service FMRI Property rpcbind svc:/network/rpc/bind config/local_only syslogd svc:/system/system-log config/log_from_remote sendmail svc:/network/smtp:sendmail config/local_only smcwebserver svc:/system/webconsole:console options/tcp_listen WBEM svc:/application/management/wbem options/tcp_listen X server svc:/application/x11/x11-server options/tcp_listen dtlogin svc:/application/graphical-login/cde-login dtlogin/args ToolTalk svc:/network/rpccde-ttdbserver:tcp proto=ticotsord dtcm svc:/network/rpccde-calendar-manager proto=ticits BSD print svc:/application/print/rfc1179:default bind_addr=localhost With the restricted network security feature, all of the affected services are controlled by the Service Management Framework (SMF). Any individual network service can be enabled after an initial installation by using the svcadm and svccfg commands. The netservices1M command can be used to switch the service startup behavior.For further information about revising security settings, see How to Create an SMF Profile in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration. See also the following man pages.netservices1M svcadm1M svccfg1M commands. As a part of your installation, you can preconfigure the locale that you want the system to use. A locale determines how online information is displayed in a specific language and specific region. A language might also include more than one locale to accommodate regional differences, such as differences in the format of date and time, numeric and monetary conventions, and spelling. You can preconfigure the system locale in a custom JumpStart profile or in the sysidcfg file.Task For More Information Setting the locale in a profile Creating a Profile in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations Setting the locale in the sysidcfg file Preconfiguring With the sysidcfg File in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations List of locale values International Language Environments Guide When you are adding clients for a network installation, you must know your system architecture (platform group). If you are writing a custom JumpStart installation rules file, you need to know the platform name.Some examples of platform names and groups follow. For a full list of SPARC based systems, see Solaris Sun Hardware Platform Guide at .System Platform Name Platform Group Sun Fire T2000 sun4v Sun Blade SUNW,Sun-Blade-100 sun4u x86 based i86pc i86pc On a running system, you can also use the uname -i command to determine a system's platform name or the uname -m command to determine a system's platform group. When using the Solaris OS on x86 based systems, follow these guidelines for partitioning your system.The Solaris installation program uses a default boot-disk partition layout. These partitions are called fdisk partitions. An fdisk partition is a logical partition of a disk drive that is dedicated to a particular operating system on x86 based systems. To install the Solaris software, you must set up at least one Solaris fdisk partition on an x86 based system. x86 based systems allow up to four different fdisk partitions on a disk. These partitions can be used to hold individual operating systems. Each operating system must be located on a unique fdisk partition. A system can only have one Solaris fdisk partition per disk.Partitions Partition Name Partition Size First partition (on some systems) Diagnostic or Service partition Existing size on system. Second partition (on some systems) x86 boot partition If you are performing an initial installation, this partition is not created. If you upgrade and your system does not have an existing x86 boot partition, this partition is not created. If you upgrade and your system has an x86 boot partition:If the partition is required to bootstrap from one boot device to another, the x86 boot partition is preserved on the system. If the partition is not required to boot additional boot devices, the x86 boot partition is removed. The contents of the partition are moved to the root partition. Third partition Solaris OS partition Remaining space on the boot disk. The Solaris installation program uses a default boot-disk partition layout to accommodate the diagnostic or Service partition. If your system currently includes a diagnostic or Service partition, the default boot-disk partition layout enables you to preserve this partition.If you install the Solaris OS on an x86 based system that does not currently include a diagnostic or Service partition, the installation program does not create a new diagnostic or Service partition by default. If you want to create a diagnostic or Service partition on your system, see your hardware documentation. To see the version of Solaris software that is running on your system, type either of the following commands. $ uname -aThe cat command provides more detailed information.$ cat /etc/release