dual boot solaris/solaris zfs file system


 
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Operating Systems Solaris dual boot solaris/solaris zfs file system
# 1  
Old 11-28-2011
dual boot solaris/solaris zfs file system

Hi,

I am running into a some problems creating a dual boot system of 2 solaris instances using ZFS file system and I was wondering if someone can help me out.

First some back ground. I have been asked to change the file system of our server from UFS to ZFS. Currently we are using Solaris 10/09 release (x86) using an Areca raid controller. This controller is configured into a raid 5 system and 1 single passthrough system on the same controller. The file system currently used is UFS. Which is ok, and the configuration of the grub boot settings at start up is fairly simple and basic.
The main raid5 system is booting from hd0 (c1t0d0s0) and the passthrough from hd1 (c1t1d0s0). Setting this up in menu.lst is simple.
The reason for the passthrough disk to be present is to have this instance running as emergency backup, with the latest available back up from the main raid5 instance.
Twice a day there is a backup script running on the raid5 system that copies all the information over to the passthrough disk (including servername, IP, routing etc).
Using UFS and mounting points, this is simple.

However, i have been asked to change the UFS file system for our new servers to ZFS. So clean install of the solaris OS etc.
This I have done and I have created several file system under the main rpoool.
This I did for both the raid5 system and the passthrough disk.
Both disks look like this:

NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 13.4G 132G 36K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.39G 132G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/s10x_u8wos_08a 4.39G 132G 4.39G /
rpool/dump 2.00G 132G 2.00G -
rpool/export 44K 132G 23K /export
rpool/export/home 21K 132G 21K /export/home
rpool/swap 2G 134G 98.9M -
rpool/usr3 24K 10.0G 24K /usr3
rpool/wtllog 122K 72.0G 122K /wtllog
rpool/wtlsw 239M 82.8G 239M /wtlsw

The problem I have now, is that i don't know how to configure menu.list in order to have the 3 options in the grub boot menu.
i need to have the following menu:
1- boot main production
2- boot from passthrough disk
3- boot fail safe

option 1 and 3 are automatically created by the installation of the OS. But how do i get the proper settings for booting completely from the passthrough?
(using UFS makes the creating of the boot order and execution in menu.lst easy by selecting either hd0 or hd1).

I went through the forum already and did a google search, but what i find is mainly dual boot between solaris and windows systems or linux.

Any help or direction to an online article for this problem is highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance and best Regards,

Epco
# 2  
Old 11-28-2011
Wouldn't it be easier to just mirror both disks?
# 3  
Old 11-28-2011
Hi Bartus11,

Unfortunately this is not possible. That's just the issue. The passthrough will contain a few more bits of software which shouldn't be on the main raid5 system. Mirroring would take those away. I do need to have to boot completely from the passthrough disk and not touch the main raid5 system. SmilieSmilie

Epco
# 4  
Old 11-28-2011
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