Storix Software SBAdmin Solaris System Recovery Guide - Manual (Page 7)

Storix System Backup Administrator 7 Version 8.2 Solaris System Recovery Guide
2. Creating Boot Media for System
Installation
The SBAdmin Backup Administrator User Interface provides a very simple procedure for creating boot media,
which is described in this section. This interface may be used to create boot CDROM images, network boot
images, or can configure a local hard disk to boot to the system recovery process. This interface may create
any of the boot media types. Also refer to the stmakeboot command in the
Commands Reference Guide ,
which may be run on any client to make bootable media directly from that system.
When to Create Boot Media
It is generally a good idea to create bootable media for each individual system that is backed up using
SBAdmin. While not always a requirement, this ensures the boot media is fully compatible with the backup to be
restored. Multiple systems that have identical operating system release levels and program support may share
the same boot media.
If you attempt to boot from media created using one Solaris release (i.e. Solaris 10 release 4), then attempt to
install the system from a backup that was running under release 6, you may run into problems during or after
the installation completes. This is because the devices and filesystems created during the system recovery will
be later accessed by a different Solaris kernel version that may not be compatible or provide the proper support.
For this reason, the SBAdmin Installation process provides strong warnings if you boot from a different release
level kernel than was running at the time the backup was created. The installation process also verifies that
your boot media contains the device and filesystem support that is required to install the system, based on
those devices or filesystems that were in use at the time of the backup. If the support is not provided by the
bootable media, you will be required to remove or change those devices or filesystems that are not supported.
If you have multiple systems, all running the same release level (but not necessary the exact same device
support), it is generally safe to use the same boot media to boot and install different systems. Because the boot
media is probably the most important boot media you will ever need, it is probably a good idea to keep at least
one spare or create boot media of different types.
When You Should Create New Boot Media
1. Any time your operating system updates. Even if the Solaris version or release level does not change,
support for devices, filesystems and other programs required to rebuild may have been added,
changed or removed, possibly creating an incompatibility between the system created during the
SBAdmin system installation process and the running Solaris system after the installation is completed.
2. Any time you install a new release level of SBAdmin System Backup Administrator . A release level
would be the second level of the version number (i.e. “3” in 6.3.0.0). Although we try to maintain
compatibility between current and past versions, there may be times when a new feature supported by
the backup software also adds new support to the system recovery process. Since the system recovery
programs are written to your boot media, you will need to remake the boot media to make sure you are
using the latest installation programs.
Creating System Installation Boot Media
To create the boot media, select Utilities->Create System Installation Media->(CDROM, Network, Hard Disk
or Tape Boot Images) from the menu bar in the administrator main menu. If using a Network Administrator,
you will be prompted to select the client on which the boot media will be created. Note that the boot media is