Step-by-step Solaris 10 update 9 install with networking

Discussions about using Solaris guests in VirtualBox.
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JMaille
Posts: 4
Joined: 21. May 2010, 15:59
Primary OS: Solaris
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Solaris

Step-by-step Solaris 10 update 9 install with networking

Post by JMaille »

I’ve noticed a lot of people having problems installing Solaris 10 x86 in Virtual Box and successfully getting everything to work the way they want. Setting up networking seems to be a frequent issue. Having installed Solaris on a lot of different types of physical hardware and setting up a lot of Solaris Virtual Machines, I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I have gotten it to work. I thought it might be useful to others that aren’t as familiar with performing Solaris installs to provide step-by-step instructions that will at least get them started.

Good or bad, the Solaris installation procedure is more complicated than most Linux installations. This is likely because the installation process allows you much more freedom to customize than most OS installation processes. Again, good or bad, for Solaris 11 Oracle has decided (in my opinion) to “dumb down” the process and make it less versatile but much easier to run. However, if you want to do a Solaris 10 install you are left with a complicated installer that isn’t always obvious.


The following is a step-by-step set of instructions for installing Solaris 10 Update 9 into a VM. If you are using Update 8 or earlier, some of the dialogs will be different, but similar enough that this should still be useful. I hope this helps, if not, oh well.

How to do a basic install of Solaris 10 x86 in Virtual Box such that networking will work:

1) Create a VM with a virtual disk size of at least 20GB, preferably larger.
In Virtual Box set the VM parameters as follows:
Base memory: >=1GB
VT-x/AMD-V: enabled
Nested Paging: enabled
Video memory: >=64MB
Networking: NAT or Bridged Adapter

Unless you really understand how your local network is setup and works and you know that Solaris 10 has drivers for the chipset of your physical systems network interface, you probably want to use NAT.

If you don’t use NAT, in the following instructions, “e1000g0” may be replaced with a different chipset identifier.

2) Attach the sol-10u9-ga-x86-dvd.iso file to the virtual CD/DVD drive.

3) Start the VM.

4) At the initial GRUB menu select the Solaris entry and hit Enter to start the boot.

5) At the first startup menu, do one of the following:
Select option 1 “Solaris Interactive (default)” for an NFS file system
or
Select option 3 “Solaris Interactive Text (Desktop session)” or Option 4 “Solaris Interactive Text (Console session)” if you want to have a ZFS file system

If you don’t select anything, in about 30 seconds option 1 will be auto selected.

For this explanation we will assume you let it time out and the installation process will continue with a “Solaris Interactive” install.

6) When the “Configure Keyboard Layout” is displayed use the up and down arrow keys to move the cursor and the space bar to select the language type of your keyboard. Then hit the F2 key to continue.

7) A “USB keyboard discovering…” screen may be displayed. Hit Enter to continue.

8) If everything is working okay the windowing system will start. A text window will be displayed in the upper left corner of the display with “If the screen is legible, press ENTER in this window.” Move the cursor into the window and hit the Enter key.

9) “Select a Language” will now be displayed. This is the language the installer runs in, not the language the OS will be configured for. Enter the numeric value of the language you want to use and hit Enter. For example, enter 0 for English.

10) The Solaris System Identification Configuration program will now start and a “Welcome” screen will be displayed. Select “Next”

11) On the “Network Connectivity” dialog select “Networked” and “Next”

12) Configuring Solaris for DHCP isn’t “basic” and this is a “basic” set of instructions, so, on the “DHCP for e1000g0” dialog select “No” and “Next”.

13) On the “Host Name for e1000g0” dialog enter a host name for your system and then select “Next”

14) On the “IP Address for e1000g0” dialog enter the IP address you want to use for your system. If you selected NAT for the VM’s networking you probably want to use an IP address of 10.0.2.15 unless you have reconfigured VirtualBox to use a different IP for NAT. If you are using Bridged Adapter networking, you want to use an IP address that will be valid for your local network. What would be valid for your local network depends on the configuration of your network.

15) On the “Netmask for e1000g0” dialog the netmask will be pre-populated with 255.255.255.0. Leave this alone if you are using NAT. If you’re using a Bridged Adapter change it to the netmask that is correct for your LAN. Select “Next.”

16) On the “IPv6 for e1000g0” dialog select “No” unless you know you will need IPv6. Then select “Next.”

17) On the “Select the Default Route for e1000g0” dialog select “None” and select “Next.” We will configure this later.

18) On the “Kerberos” dialog select “No” and “Next.”

19) On the “Name Service” dialog select “None” and “Next.” We will configure DNS later.

20) On the “NFSv4 Domain Name” dialog select “Use the NFSv4 domain derived by the system” and select “Next.”

21) On the “Time Zone” dialog select “Geographic Continent/Country/Region” and “Next.”

22) On the “Continent and Country” dialog expand the appropriate region until you find the time zone you want, then click on the time zone so it is highlighted and select “Next.”

23) “On the “Date and Time” dialog the values should be pre-populated with your system date and time. Select “Next.”

24) On the “Root Password” dialog enter a root password for the system. You must enter it twice. Solaris 10 does not natively have a “sudo” command and no other default accounts are created at install time so remember the password you enter. It can be easily reset, but how to do that won’t be explained her. Once you enter a password select “Next.”

25) On the “Enable Remote Services” dialog select “Yes” and then “Next.”

26) On the “Oracle Solaris Auto Registration” dialog deselect the “I would like to register My Oracle Support Information” and the select “Next.” The assumption here is that you do not have an “Oracle Solaris Premier Support for Operating Systems” contract. If you do, you can register your system later, if you want. (This dialog is not displayed for Solaris 10 Update 8 and earlier.)

27) On the “Oracle Solaris Auto Registration” dialog leave the text fields blank and select “Next.” (This dialog is not displayed for Solaris 10 Update 8 and earlier.)

28) On the “Confirm Information Dialog” check the information you entered and then select “back” to go fix things if you find an error or select “Confirm” to complete the system identification and move on to the installation program.

29) On the Solaris installation program “Welcome” dialog select “Next.”

30) On the “Installer Options” dialog select “Yes” for the reboot and media ejection options and select “Next.”

31) On the “Notice” dialog select “OK”

32) On the “Specify Media” dialog select “CD/DVD” and then “Next.”

33) On the “License” dialog read the license select “Accept” and then select “Next.” Notice that you are agreeing to a license that isn’t presented here. It might be a good idea to go find it and actually read it.

34) On the “Select Type of Install” dialog select “Custom Install” and then “Next.”

35) On the “Select Software Localizations” dialog open the appropriate localizations you want to install and select “Next.” I usually just select “English (United States) (en_US).

36) On the “Select System Locale” dialog select the locale you want to use as a default then select “Next.”

37) On the “Additional Products” dialog select “None” and then “Next.”

38) On the “Select Solaris Software Group” dialog select “Entire Group Plus OEM” under “Default Packages” and then select “Next.” If you’re familiar with Solaris packages and what you don’t need to install feel free to select something else. But if you’re that familiar with Solaris you probably don’t need this set of instructions.

39) On the “Disk Selection” dialog your virtual disk should already be in the “Selected Disks” column. Select “Next.”

40) On the “Select Disks for fdisk Partition Customization” your virtual disk should already be selected. Select “Next.”

41) On the “Customize fdisk Partitions – Disk c0t0d0” dialog select “Next.”

42) On the “Lay Out File Systems” dialog you can modify the layout of the disk slices. If this is your first Solaris install, leave it alone and select “Next.”

43) On the “Ready to Install” dialog select “Install Now.” Oracle Solaris 10 will now be installed to the virtual hard drive. This may take a while, how long will depend on your system performance. I have successfully “paused” a VM during this and even suspended one over a weekend and still had a successful install. But if this is your first try I would advise against it.

44) Once the install is complete a “Pause” dialog will be displayed, select “Continue.” The “Pause” dialog will be repeated twice more, select “Continue” each time. The virtual machine will reboot.

45) When the Grub menu is displayed, select “Close” from the VirtualBox “Machine” menu and then power off the virtual machine.

46) Remove the virtual install DVD from the Virtual DVD drive.

47) Boot the virtual machine.

48) Let the Grub menu time out and the Solaris virtual machine will boot.

49) Once the log on screen is displayed log in with the user name “root” and the root password entered during installation.

50) On the “Welcome to Oracle Solaris” screen select “Java Desktop System, Release 3” and then select “OK.”

51) Allow the “Loading System Information” dialog to continue until the “Solaris Registration Wizard” dialog displays.

52) Resize and move the “Solaris Registration Wizard” dialog until the “Next” and “Cancel” buttons are visible. Select “Cancel.”

53) Select “Yes” in the “Cancel Registration?” dialog.

54) Select “Close” in the “About the GNOME Desktop” dialog.

55) Right click in the background of the display and select “Opnen Terminal” in the pop-up menu.

56) At this point you need to determine the IP address of your router and the IP address of the DNS servers you intend to use. If you are using NAT then the default router IP is 10.0.2.2. If you are using a Bridged Adapter it will depend on how your network is set up, but a typical value would be 192.168.1.1. If you are using NAT the DNS server should be 10.0.2.3, but I would suggest finding the actual DNS servers of your ISP. One way to find the default router and DNS servers is by executing ipconfig /all in a Command Prompt on a connected Windows system.

In the Terminal window enter the following commands:
cd /etc
echo {defaultrouterIP} > defaultrouter
echo “nameserver 10.0.2.3” > resolv.conf
echo “nameserver {DNSserverIP1} >> resolv.conf
echo “nameserver {DNSserverIP2} >> resolv.conf
where you substitute the IP address of your router for {defaultrouterIP} and the IP address of your ISPs DNS servers for {DNSserverIP1} and {DNSserverIP2}.

For example, if you using NAT and the IP addresses of your ISPs DNS servers are 65.95.155.1 and 65.95.154.1 you would enter:
cd /etc
echo 10.0.2.2 > defaultrouter
echo “nameserver 10.0.2.3” > resolv.conf
echo “nameserver 65.95.155.1 >> resolv.conf
echo “nameserver 65.95.154.1 >> resolv.conf
(By the way, don’t use the IPs above for you ISPs DNS servers, I made them up.)

57) Replace the name service configuration file with one set up for DNS by entering the following commands in the Terminal:
rm nsswitch.conf
cp nsswitch.dns nsswitch.conf

58) Left click on the “Launch” button of the Gnome desktop and select “Log out root” in the pop-up menu.

59) Select the “Restart the Computer” item in the “Are you sure you want to log out?” dialog, and then select “OK.” The system will reboot.

60) After the system reboots, log in as root again.

61) Wait for the “Loading System Information” dialog to complete and the “Solaris Registration Wizard” dialog to display.

62) At this point your “networking” should be functioning and you can bring up the FireFox browser to check it. You can also register your Solaris installation if you want – and if you have a Solaris support contract from Oracle. A support contract costs about $150 per year per CPU for “Sun branded” hardware and $1000 per year per CPU for “non-Sun branded” hardware. Contact your local Oracle sales representative for more information.

63) Select “Install Guest Additions…” from the VirtualBox “Devices” menu. The automounter will mount the CD image and the File Browser will automatically open a view of the CD image contents.

64) Right click in the desktop background and select “Open Terminal” in the pop-up menu.

65) In the terminal window enter the following commands to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions:
cd /cdrom/cdrom0
pkgadd –d ./VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg

66) In response to the package add tool query, enter a value of “1” and hit Enter.

67) In response to the “Do you want to continue…” query enter “y” and hit Enter.

68) When the installation of the package “SUNWvboxguest” is complete, enter the following command in the terminal:
cd /

69) Right click the Guest Additions CD icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the pop-up menu.

70) Select “CD/DVD Devices >> Remove disk from virtual drive” from the Virtual Box “Devices” menu.

71) Left click on the “Launch” button of the Gnome desktop and select “Log out root” in the pop-up menu.

72) Select the “Restart the Computer” item in the “Are you sure you want to log out?” dialog, and then select “OK.” The system will reboot.


Since the Solaris 10 installation program is so versatile there are other ways to accomplish the same system setup shown here.

If you have already installed Solaris but networking is not working correctly, or you simply want to change the hostname or IP address, it’s better to not attempt to reconfigure the system files directly. Log in as root and in a command terminal enter the command “sys-unconfig”. All system identification information will be cleared and then the system will reboot. When the system starts the System Identification Configuration program will rerun starting at about Step 10 above.

Once you have completed your system installation you may want to patch your OS with the latest system and security patches. Oracle provides Solaris security patch clusters on an approximately bi-weekly basis and major patch roll-ups on a quarterly basis. These are available at Oracle’s support website – if you have a valid, current Oracle Solaris support contract. As mentioned above, a support contract costs about $150 per year per CPU for “Sun branded” hardware and $1000 per year per CPU for “non-Sun branded” hardware. Contact your local Oracle sales representative for more information. Patches are also available via the “Update Manager” tool – if your system is registered with a valid support contract.
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