I am not sure what the difference, but over in this link below, it seems like the pboot, and bootblk is store on s2 (which is think emcompass s8) as well.
There's probably some confusion generated because there's more than one possible boot loader. You can use Sun (Oracle) own boot block(s) or use Grub. There are also other possibilities utilising the system BIOS if the hardware supports EFI.
The documentation links provided above are for different boot loaders; one uses 'installboot' and the other 'installgrub'.
Basically, follow the documentation for whichever boot loader you want to use. As already implied by Jlliagre, these commands aren't stupid and will place the bootblock(s) where they're needed. It's not a dangerous process.
I intended to start everything from scratch, including a new harddisk.. So i am not sure if i need to install a boot blk, and if so, where do i install it ? s0, s2, s8.
The point I would make is that 'installboot' and 'installgrub' are intelligent commands well aware of what you are trying to do, ie, write out boot sectors. You would use the raw disk device as the argument
/dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s?
Irrespective of whether you use s0, s2 or s8 the commands are not going to write the boot blocks to a slice. They know that it's the physical drive that needs the boot sectors.
Having said that I normally use s2 which represents the whole disk, but to answer your question, I don't think it matters.
This is not to detract from the dialogue that you are having with jlliagre about what you are trying to achieve , which is a good question.
Installing Solaris on the new disk should take care of everything, including installing the appropriate boot loader on the suitable slice. Note that since 2006 the boot loader is always Grub with x86.
Grub is composed of several parts, the first one is usually on the beginning of the disk (MBR) but not necessarily, the second one is on the beginning of a slice (stage 2) and the third one is composed of files located on the file system in that slice.
In any case, you shouldn't worry about installing Grub yourself, that will be done under the cover by the installer.
Typical scenarios under which the boot block would need to be manually installed is when someone mirror a boot boot disk or when an OS file system or root pool backup is being restored on a new disk. You doesn't look to be in either of these cases.
By the way, you failed to answer about which Solaris version you are using. The documentation link you posted is about Solaris 10. Why aren't you using Solaris 11?
The latest is Solaris 11.3 which was just released yesterday.
q1) As you mentioned, Grub is the bootloader for X86, so stage 1 is in MBR, stage2 is in the beginning of the slice (which i think you are referring to active partition - in X86 term) -- so that would be s2 in the partition actually - right ?
q2) Also you mentioned that a installing a bootblock is normally done when someone mirror a bootdisk, but doesn't the original bootdisk already contain the bootblk, which will be mirror over already ? why do we need to manually do install the bootblock again ?
q3) Lastly, I always wondered as i am reading about Solaris Volume Manager, how do i install an OS on a mirror disk without installing the OS 1st ? (i mean how do we use SVM to create a mirror system disk for installing the OS onto it without installing the OS 1st)
Sorry for the noob questions.
Yea i am using Solaris 10 1/13. I didn't thought about upgrading to 11 yet as i am thinking of starting humbly before i fly.. (but seems like i cant even managed 10 now)...
for q2) if i am mirroring every slice in the whole disk, isn't the bootblock also mirrored over ?
for q3) yeap, but i foreseen i will still be handling a bunch of solaris 10 servers for the coming 1-2 years, can you shed some light on how do we actually do a mirror disk before installing solaris ? (so that the solaris OS is installed on top of the mirror disk)
q3: Either you are mirroring an already installed Solaris instance or you are installing Solaris from scratch on a new disk, you can't do both on the same disk.