I'm trying to create a flash archive for cloning purpose.
in the master system are several files that are larger than 4 GB which means standard cpio utility won't handle these files. I tried to use -L pax option with flarcreate but the -L pax option doesn't exist!
how can we update this command to have this -L pax utility?
Maybe you have Solaris 9 (SunOS 5.9)
or a very early version of Solaris 10 (SunOS 5.10)?
cat /etc/release
uname -sr
Copying over a newer binary to an old Solaris (with old link libraries) is unlikely to work.
(The opposite would likely work, because of the backward compatibility in Solaris.)
You can try it nevertheless - give it a new name, do not overwrite the original!!
The proper way is to install a bunch of patches or a patch cluster (patch set).
It might work if you are clever in looking at the errors and copying over any required libs or recompiling on the working box for a static binary with no shared libs.
But all this kind of hacking around requires more skills than @F.Mattar has demonstrated so far.
Anyway ... as I am not a Solaris user for a long time, I cannot comment further
Normally I spend my time trying things and testing and learning if things work or not.
Having followed this story from the beginning (how to clone a Solaris 10 system), I can think of three or four possible options now (perhaps taking yet another tangent!)
You could boot from CD into single user, mount your hard drive root filesystem on /a (all Solaris CD/DVD boot media has a /a), and then carefully copy the flarcreate from the CD to flarcreate2 on the hard disk. As @MadeInGermany strongly recommends, do not delete the original. I'm not sure what, if any, interdependancies there are and/or whether the flarcreate is a binary or script file. You could then boot the good machine normally and try flarcreate2 with pax to see if it works. However, it means messing with a production box which is definitely not recommended.
Perhaps there is a way of officially updating/upgrading the flarcreate package from repository. I haven't researched that one.
You could boot the good machine from CD into single user to a root prompt. Then (1) plumb and configure the network interface, (2) mount the remote NFS handle on /mnt, (3) mount your hard disk root filesystem on /a as readonly (plus mount any other filesystems if there are any - I'd have to look at screenshots from your previous topics to know), and (4) create a flash archive of the hard drive (using '-R /a' switch to tell it where the root of the system is; you don't want it archiving the CDrom). Then you would have the pax option available to use.
Boot from CD into single user. Plumb and configure network interface. Mount remote NFS handle on /mnt. Find the device name of the whole raw hard drive (using 'format') and specifying the whole drive (always slice s2), send the sector-by-sector image (using 'dd') of the hard disk to NFS storage (assuming it's at least 80GB). You wouldn't even need to mount the hard disk filesystem(s) to access the raw hard drive. This would allow you to boot the bad machine from CD, configure network and mount NFS, and read the image back to that machine.
Phew!! You have options but I still favor using flash archive because (1) it's the official cloning tool, and (2) once you have the archive you can recreate the whole system at any time using a flash install.
If any moderators or Solaris experts can see anything wrong with what I've said please do chime in.
Regarding patches,
a single patch (applied with patchadd) might not install, instead tell you that it needs another patch, that in turn might need another patch, ...
You can try to auto-fetch/install the dependent patches with the tool PCA
Or download a recommended patch cluster from Oracle (I think Oracle names it patchset).
A patch cluster updates everything in the OS.
I have something to mention first. I made a mistake when I said the executable files I found were 8 GB. Each file was around 8 MB.
I have also checked Disk space information and there wasn't anything near 4 GB or more.
I have done the flarcreate one more time and will start installation on the bad machine tomorrow since I forgot CD 1 in the office.
I will check the whole system and disk space information and observe any differences with respect to the good machine. If it wasn't the same or at least the main control system doesn't launch at start-up/login, I shall implement the suggested steps you guys recommended.
Thank you all for your efforts so far. I am a member in other types of forums in my field of interest (industrial automation). Honestly, I have never seen such active support and amazing efforts.
If we're getting to see some success with creating the archive I would recommend that you boot the system into single user from the hard drive:
ok> boot -s
to do the flash archive which should insure that no databases are open and no apps are running when the flash is created. Keep the flash you've already created by using a different archive name, e.g. archive_single_user.flar
Thank you for your kind words about this community.
Really I wanted to drop this suggestion from the moment I read the system should be as inacrive as possible. But didn't want to sound more ignorant out here . I thought, since you haven't said it, then maybe I'm missing something. Anyway, I have two flash archives now(Backup and Backup two). I tried to close Anyway app that was open before I did it the second time. But I will do it in single user mode after I test one installation on the bad machine first.
Edit: I tried to find a single note in the online resources saying it can be done in single user mode, but I failed to find one.
Yes, you are right. I/we could have suggested this earlier, however, you might find that the network interface isn't up and running in single user and I just wanted to get the flash archive process tested. I think originally if you were faced with no network configured it would have defeated you but, after all the learning you have done, if the network interface bge0 needs to be plumbed, up, set ip address, etc, that's no problem for you now, I hope. You've come a long way with this!!! Well done!!
Yes, and whilst we are talking about network interfaces, if you are going to attempt a flash install on the bad box and it succeeds, have your wits about you when you boot it up if the install routine hasn't invited you to change the ip address. Otherwise, it could boot up with the same ip address as the good box thereby completely confusing any intelligent network switch that sees two nodes with the same ip address on different ports. The switch could crash which is not a great event in a production setting.
When I was a novice I had times when I wondered why my network had suddenly totally gone down, not realizing that I'd just caused it myself! Just be aware of what you are doing.