Practical guide for minimalistic Solaris installation

Practical guide for minimalistic Solaris installation

Contents

• 1 Preamble


• 2 Installation


• 3 Install additional packages (SUNWCssh, SUNWladm, SUNWxcu6)


• 4 Generate ssh server keys


• 5 install additional packages


• 6 install java SDK packages


• 7 Final notes


• 8 Remarks

Preamble

When you install Solaris (and any other UNIX/Linux) in generally there are 2 ways: make full install of all packages from media and install as little as possible. Each of the ways have pros and cons, but discussion about this is outside the theme of this text. This article is directed to create custom, minimalistic installation of Solaris 10. For security resons we will use ssh as “communication” way, for support of international charsets we will install en_US.UTF-8 codepage, but for compatibility will set the default language to C

Installation

We will start core installation and after this add the packages and clusters: SUNWCssh, SUNWladm, SUNWxcu6. Of course is possible to add the packages and clusters on time of the installation and get ssh key generation done on the time of first boot. But for demonstration we will do this work on “hard” way i.e. install packages and generate keys by hand. Do not forget to edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to enable root logins via ssh. I know this can is security problem, but for tests is OK. As Software Group choose Core Group. Set disk map as follow

/ - 2048 /opt – 2048 swap - =RAM /home – 64

The above disk layout is just example, for your installation follow rules, defined in your company or by policies from product you want to install later (for filesystems sizing take a look here:

http://imagia.in/?p=459


 

Install additional packages (SUNWCssh, SUNWladm, SUNWxcu6)

Mount CDROM (DVDROM) and install package. Be aware the order is important.

mount –o ro –F hsfs /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0 /mnt cd /mnt/Solaris_10/Products pkgadd –d . SUNWsshcu SUNWsshr SUNWsshu SUNWsshdr SUNWsshdu pkgadd –d . SUNWxcu4 SUNWxcu6 pkgadd –d . SUNWladm

Generate ssh server keys

cd /etc/ssh ssh-keygen –t rsa –f ssh_host_rsa_key ssh-keygen –t dsa –f ssh_host_dsa_key svcadm enable ssh

In process of generation when ask for password just press enter. The length of the keys is 768 bits. Change it in case of need.

install additional packages

pkgadd -d . SUNWctpls pkgadd -d . SUNWmfrun pkgadd -d . SUNWxwrtl pkgadd -d . SUNWxwice pkgadd -d . SUNWxwfnt pkgadd -d . SUNWxwplr pkgadd -d . SUNWxwplt pkgadd -d . SUNWbtool pkgadd -d . SUNWarc pkgadd -d . SUNWhea pkgadd -d . SUNWtoo pkgadd -d . SUNWlibmr pkgadd -d . SUNWlibm pkgadd -d . SUNWlibms pkgadd -d . SUNWsprot pkgadd -d . SUNWi1of pkgadd -d . SUNWi1cs pkgadd -d . SUNWeurf pkgadd -d . SUNWi15rf pkgadd -d . SUNWi15cs pkgadd -d . SUNWxwfnt pkgadd -d . SUNWadmfr pkgadd -d . SUNWadmc pkgadd -d . SUNWadmfw pkgadd -d . SUNWadmr pkgadd -d . SUNWadmap

Part of the packages are need for i18n support, part are need for installing and running java, the rest are need for proper Oracle (database server/client) installation. Of course you can decide for self, but most of them are need for installation and running almost every additional software. Again be aware the order is important.

install java SDK packages

When you need java (JRE/JDK) you can install it on 2 different ways: from standard packages and download and install from SUN site. If you need to track changes and patch it the simplest way is to use java, bundled in installation. But if you need to run some specific version for some software you can download it from SUN site (see remark #1), copy it on special place (even under directory tree of the product and set JAVA_HOME and PATH variables.

pkgadd -d . SUNWj5rt pkgadd -d . SUNWj5man pkgadd -d . SUNWj5cfg pkgadd -d . SUNWj5dev

Final notes

This article give you just start point. For your product maybe you will need additional packages. The advantage of this type of installation is you have less packages to care (change, patch) about, you get only 500 MB disk space of installation, you get only 30 processes (may vary) started and only 150 MB memory occupied (may vary too).

Remarks

1. On the SUN Java site you can see two kind of packages: jdk-6u4-solaris-i586.sh and jdk-6u4-solaris-i586.tar.Z (names are just examples). Difference between them is the first archive (.sh) after agree with license create directory with java files you can move (directory) wherever you want (see listing).

# ls -l drwxrwxr-x 10 root root 687 Dec 14 15:08 jdk1.6.0_04

The second archive (tar.Z) create few directories, containing packages you can install with pkgadd program (see listing).

# ls -l -r--r--r-- 1 10 143 4140 Dec 14 17:15 COPYRIGHT -r--r--r-- 1 10 143 14097 Dec 14 17:15 LICENSE -r--r--r-- 1 10 143 28599 Dec 14 17:15 README.html drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6cfg drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6dev drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6dmo drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6jmp drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6man drwxr-xr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWj6rt drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-client drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-common drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-core drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-demo drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-docs drwxrwxr-x 4 10 143 226 Dec 14 17:14 SUNWjavadb-javadoc