Travis Angle
Ann Duffy
Adam Fuller
Roger Smith
Rajiv Zutshi
Assignment 10
INSTALLATION OF SOLARIS 7
(Intel Platform Edition)
Introduction & Summary: (Travis Angle & Roger Smith)
We chose to install the Solaris 7 operating system because it was the last installation
on magenta.ils.unc.edu. This installation was highly risky as it required us to
completely destroy any existing information on the current system. Solaris 7 is the
newest release in Sun Microsystem's line of operating systems and the installation
appeared to be a challenging exercise. This installation was performed via CD-ROM.
The Solaris 7 Operating System includes the following major components:
1. The core operating system, which includes the kernel, APIs, commands and
libraries.
2. Networking software based on open standards, such as TCP/IP and NFS to ensure
interoperability with other platforms.
3. JavaTM Virtual Machine that includes the JavaTM Development Kit (JDK) for writing
Java applications running on Solaris.
4. System diagnostic and analysis tools.
5. Support for both SPARC and Intel, and 32- and 64-bit hardware.
6. CDE/Desktop that includes the windowing environment and graphical user interface.
Narrative: (Ann Duffy & Rajiv Zutshi)
1. Checked our server for available disk space by typing free -m at
command line. This command was run while we were still running Linux.
2. Decided to fdisk our drive using DOS because we need 700 MB of free
space for the Solaris installation.
3. We inserted the Device Configuration Assistant program (floppy disk), which identified
all system hardware. Then it displayed install choices.
4. We chose to do the Solaris Interactive Installation. It began by booting the Unix
kernel and configuring devices.
5. We decided to choose English for the language of installation.
6. We configured the networking options and completed the system identification process.
7. We have one root partition and we chose the autolayout default values to create our
three partitions under root.
8. System setup - we configured the default values so that the file system and disk layout
is as follows:
/ 106 MB
swap 80 MB
/usr 691 MB
/export/home 1118 MB
9. For an hour or more we waited for the system to run the installation process. After it
went back to the initial screen, we pulled the CD-ROM out, and decided to reboot from the
hard disk.
10. At this point it prompted us for the root password.
11. To test our system out, we logged into ruby and then pinged magenta. We got no
response and immediately thought we had made some kind of error during the network
configuration process.
12. We began to speculate that perhaps we had chosen the wrong naming service during the installation process. During the installation, we were presented with four options for a naming service: NIS, NIS+,, none, other. We were under the impression that the naming service being descibed was directly related to DNS. We chose the "other" option and later realized that DNS had nothing to do with the naming service. After further consultation and with the light of hindsight, we realized that we should have chosen the "none" option.
13. We proceeded to investigate why were weren't connected to the network. We had pinged magenta earlier and had gotten no answer but then we pinged some of the other servers - green, cyan -- and got no answer from those servers either. We suspected that there might be a physical connection problem. We checked under our terminal for loose wires, etc. Lo and behold the hub had been unplugged. After plugging it back in to the socket, magenta responded to our ping calls and we were networked (HOORAY!!)
14. We then tried to add a user to our system but were not able to, so we proceeded to track down the Sun Solaris Administration Manual to check into how to add a user. We did not know whether the process of adding a user was radically different from Linux. The useradd command was not available in /sbin or /bin, so we tried adding the user directly into the /etc/passwd file but still had no luck. We changed the users home directory from /home to /export/home in /etc/passwd but we kept getting the same error:
#passwd rajiv After several attempts, we were unable to add a user. The only user on the
system was root, so our new system allowed for a console-only login.
NB. No Script File is available for this installation
Functionality: (Adam Fuller)
As root we were able to traverse the file system. We were able to shutdown and reboot magenta sucessfully. In addition it was interesting to note that editors like pico and emacs were not installed automatically in the default installation as they were with Linux. Luckily we were proficient in using vi so we could edit the file system through the console. Also we were unable to use the tc shell and were limited to using the csh or bash. It is difficult to compare Solaris 7 and Linux as we did not have much opportunity to interact with our new Solaris machine. However, our interest in the extremely logical UNIX OS has been sparked and we will continue to use UNIX over NT whenever possible.