Using VM for Network Install Failing

If this question has been answered, please provide a link.

We have several Old Solaris stations that don't have a DVD but a CD. We are required to upgrade the OS on these systems from Solaris 8 to Solaris 10, and since Solaris 10 no longer provides CD's we were thinking of doing a network install.

We created an x86 Solaris 10 1/13 VM (VMware on Workstation 12 hosted on RHEL). We followed the instructions to create an install server that is on the same subnet but without named services or DHCP.

When trying to boot the client on the network we are getting an ARP/RARP error (one message). From researching this error on the web we thought that the server wasn't configured correctly. Once going through several checklists to see if the server is configured correctly with the client, it still continues.

We are able to ping between the VM and the workstation. But, the VM can telnet to the workstation where the workstation cannot telnet to the VM. I'm wondering if there is something blocking the ports?

The firewall on the host is turned off (at least that's what I'm told). The VM doesn't have any IP filtering (which is the firewall if I understand this correctly). So, what else are we missing?

Thanks

See this Oracle page about network boot errors and their solutions.

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/821-0437/troubleshooting-32526/index.html

As a last resort I can provide you images of Solaris 10 CD set. Of course, it won't be the last/latest version 10 but you could do updates afterwards.

Well, this sucks pond water. Tried responding and it doesn't show. Anyway...

Thanks for the offer of the CD's. We found some Solaris 10 CD (3/05) and was able to do a fresh install on the machine. We tried doing an upgrade, but there is only 256MB of RAM and 20GB of HDD was unsuccessful. We were then sent a DVD ISO for U8 and now trying to upgrade that machine.

While researching the ARP/RARP error message we came across several solutions to resolve the problem. Once checking the files that are called out, the information they contain appears correct.

One item that was mentioned was the architecture when executing the add_install_client. We used the sun4u as the platform group since the client is a SPARC system. Should we have used the x86 architecture since the server is x86?

The architecture field should be what the client is and not what the server is.