Here is what my /etc/resolv.conf looks like, the two DNS servers are defined correctly as it the search domain.
domain andrewlin.com
namesserver 10.10.10.11
namesserver 10.10.11.13
search andrewlin.com
The gateway was defined in /etc/defaultrouter.
10.10.0.1
It seems that ping did not know how to resolve an address. I was also not able to surf the internet with the Firefox browser in the Sun Java Desktop System for Soalris. All symptoms indicated that the nsswitch.conf did not have the correct environment defined. The /etc/nsswitch.conf file defines which services are to used to retrieve information such as hostnames, password files, and group files. So in this case for the command ping and firefox which wants to resolve and address, it will check the nsswitch.conf file to see what services to use.

Below are the lines I changed in /etc/nsswitch.conf, by adding dns to the end of each lines.
hosts: files dns
ipnodes: files dns
I am now able to ping and surf the internet without any issues.

I then checked the log files for more information, and below are the messages I saw.
[root@esx4-server /]# cat /var/log/messages
Oct 26 10:32:30 esx4-server vobd: Oct 26 10:32:30.936: 159470608100us: [esx.problem.vmfs.nfs.mount.connect.failed] Failed to mount to server 192.20.66.88 mount point /VMLibrary/. Error: Unable to connect to NFS server.
Oct 26 11:36:50 esx4-server kernel: [162970.448490] portmap: server localhost not responding, timed out
Oct 26 11:36:50 esx4-server kernel: [162970.453525] RPC: failed to contact portmap (errno -5).
From the log file I was able to determine that the pormap service was not started. It is required to map to a remote NFS directory. I then proceeded with starting the protmap service.
service portmap start

To esure that the service starts automatically when the server reboots use the below command.
chkconfig portmap on
You may also have to stop the firewall service on the esx server with the command service firewall stop. To prevent it from starting after a reboot, chkconfig firewall off.

After logging into the XSCF console, power on the server.
XSCF> poweron -d 0
DomainIDs to power on:00
Continue? [y|n] :y

Switch to the server console.
XSCF> console -d 0
Connect to DomainID 0?[y|n] :y

Devalias will list all devices which can be booted.
{0} ok devalias
cdrom /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/disk@4,0:f
net /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0/network@4
disk /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/disk@0
name aliases

To boot from the disk, use the boot command.
{0} ok boot disk
Boot device: /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/disk@0 File and args:
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_141444-09 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved
Use is subject to license terms.
Hostname: andrew_lin

Switch back to the XSCF console with
#. will bring you back to the XSCF console.

To list the default boot device use the printenv command.
ok printenv boot-device
boot-device = /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/disk@w50060e80058c7b10,1:a

If you wanted to change the default boot device, use the setenv boot-device command.
ok setenv boot-device device[n]

Save the changes with reset-all.
ok reset-all

I will explain how to recover a Solaris 10 server from hardware replicated SAN disk. It took me sometime to figure out how to boot up from the replicated SAN LUN (disk), and many more hours to understand why the steps I applied works.

In this example I have a SUN SPARC M3000 server with two Qlogic fiber channel cards (HBA) installed in the PCI solts. The HBAs were already configured to connect to the SAN disk (LUN). This LUN contained the replicated copy of a production Slaris 10 server. The production server had two ZFS pool residing in a single LUN.

Using the Solaris 10 installation CD boot up the Sparc server into single user mode.

boot cdrom -s

The first thing you need to do is to see if the HBAs are working. The connected status indictes that communication between the server and switch is working. There are two HBAs installed for redundancy, both connected to the same LUN.

# luxadm -e port
/devices/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0:devctl CONNECTED
/devices/pci@1,700000/pci@0/pci@0/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0:devctl CONNECTED

Now you need to find out if the SAN disk is visible from the server. Even though both HBAs are connected to the same SAN disk, you will see two separate SAN disks in the results below. It just means there are two paths to the SAN.

# luxadm probe
No Network Array enclosures found in /dev/es

Found Fibre Channel device(s):
Node WWN:50060e80058c7b10 Device Type:Disk device
Logical Path:/dev/rdsk/c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s2
Node WWN:50060e80058c7b00 Device Type:Disk device
Logical Path:/dev/rdsk/c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s2

In the above example the first LUN is c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s2. This is the logical device name which is a symbolic link to the physical device name stored in the /devices directory. Logical device names contain the controller number(c2), target number (t50060E80058C7B10), disk number (d1), and slice number (s2).

The next step is to find out how the disk is partitioned, the format command will give you that information. You need this information to understand how to boot up the disk.

# format
Searching for disks…done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c1t50060E80058C7B10d1 1066>/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b10,1

1. c2t50060E80058C7B00d1 1066>/pci@1,700000/pci@0/pci@0/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b00,1

Select the first disk 0.

Specify disk (enter its number): 0
selecting c1t50060E80058C7B10d1
[disk formatted]

FORMAT MENU:
disk – select a disk
type – select (define) a disk type
partition – select (define) a partition table
current – describe the current disk
format – format and analyze the disk
repair – repair a defective sector
label – write label to the disk
analyze – surface analysis
defect – defect list management
backup – search for backup labels
verify – read and display labels
save – save new disk/partition definitions
inquiry – show vendor, product and revision
volname – set 8-character volume name
! – execute , then return
quit

Display the labels and slices (partitions). In Solaris each slice is treated as a separate physical disk. In the below example you can tell that the disk is labeled as VTOC (Volume Table of Contents) because you can see the cylinders. VTOC is also known as SMI label. If the disk was labeled with EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface), then you would see sectors instead of cylinders. Partition 0 (slice 0) holds the operating system files, the boot disk. Please note that you cannot boot from a disk with EFI label. Slice 2 is the entire physical disk because it contains all cylinders, 0 – 65532.

format> verify

Primary label contents:

Volume name = <
ascii name =
pcyl = 65535
ncyl = 65533
acyl = 2
nhead = 15
nsect = 1066
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 root wm 0 – 3356 25.60GB (3357/0/0) 53678430
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wm 0 – 65532 499.66GB (65533/0/0) 1047872670
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 3357 – 65532 474.07GB (62176/0/0) 994194240

Here is what we know so far, we know that the disk name is c1t50060E80058C7B10d1. Slice 0 on this disk contains the boot files. The physical path for this disk is /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b10,1. Now we need to find out the physical path for Slice 0.

I know that the disk contains ZFS filesystems because it is a replica of the production disk. When a ZFS filesystem is moved to a different SPARC server it must first be imported because the hostid is different.

List the ZFS pool contained on the disk using the zpool import command. There are two ZFS pools in the below example, epool and rpool. Take a note of the status and action.

# zpool import
pool: epool
id: 16865366839830765202
state: ONLINE
status: The pool was last accessed by another system.
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier and the ‘-f’ flag.
see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-EY
config:

epool ONLINE
c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s7 ONLINE

pool: rpool
id: 10594898920105832331
state: ONLINE
status: The pool was last accessed by another system.
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier and the ‘-f’ flag.
see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-EY
config:

rpool ONLINE
c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s0 ONLINE

Import the pool with the zpool import command. The options -a will import all the ZFS pools it can find, the -f option will force the import. If you do not specify the force option, then the import may fail with the error “cannot import ‘rpool’: pool may be in use from other system, it was last accessed by server name (hostid: 123456)”. Ignore the error message about failed to create mountpoint.

# zpool import -af
cannot mount ‘/epool’: failed to create mountpoint
cannot mount ‘/rpool’: failed to create mountpoint

List the imported ZFS pools.

# zpool list
NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
epool 472G 260G 212G 55% ONLINE -
rpool 25.5G 5.75G 19.8G 22% ONLINE -

List the ZFS filesystems. In the example below notice the mountpoint / is mounted on the zfs filesystem rpool/ROOT/zfsboot. This is the boot partition, it resides in rpool.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 260G 205G 21K /epool
rpool 7.74G 17.4G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.74G 17.4G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.74G 17.4G 4.48G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 139M 17.4G 105M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.4G 1.00G -
rpool/swap 2.00G 19.4G 16K -

Change the mountpoint for rpoo/ROOT/zfsboot to /mnt so you can mount it to read the contents.

# zfs set mountpoint=/mnt rpool/ROOT/zfsboot

Confirm that the mountpoint was changed.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 260G 205G 21K /epool
rpool 7.74G 17.4G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.74G 17.4G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.74G 17.4G 4.48G /mnt
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 139M 17.4G 105M /mnt/var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.4G 1.00G -
rpool/swap 2.00G 19.4G 16K -

Now mount rpool/ROOT/zfsboot.

# zfs mount rpool/ROOT/zfsboot

List the logical disks.

# cd /dev/dsk
# ls
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s0 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s0
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s1 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s1
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s2 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s2
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s3 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s3
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s4 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s4
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s5 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s5
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s6 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s6
c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s7 c2t50060E80058C7B00d1s7

As stated earlier the physical path for the disk we are looking for is /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b10,1. The boot slice is 0. We can derive from the physical path that the disk name is 50060e80058c7b10. We also know from the output of the format command that the physical disk 50060e80058c7b10 maps to the logical disk c1t50060E80058C7B10d1. Therefore we can derive that the logical boot disk is c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s0.

Now find out what physical path c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s0 is a symbolic link for and that is your complete boot path. In the below example the boot path starts at the first slash (/) right after /devices. It is /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b10,1:a. You need to replace ssd@ with disk@ when entering the path into EEPROM.

# ls -l c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 82 Jul 5 10:21 c1t50060E80058C7B10d1s0 ->
../../devices/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/ssd@w50060e80058c7b10,1:a

If you have more than one ZFS pool the non root pool may not get mounted upon booting up the server, as in this example. You may get the below error.

SUNW-MSG-ID: ZFS-8000-D3, TYPE: Fault, VER: 1, SEVERITY: Major
EVENT-TIME: Mon Jul 5 11:54:14 EDT 2010
PLATFORM: SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise, CSN: PX654321, HOSTNAME: Andrew-Lin
SOURCE: zfs-diagnosis, REV: 1.0
EVENT-ID: 33e5a9f1-49ac-6ebc-f2a9-dff25dea6b86
DESC: A ZFS device failed. Refer to http://sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-D3 for more information.
AUTO-RESPONSE: No automated response will occur.
IMPACT: Fault tolerance of the pool may be compromised.
REC-ACTION: Run ‘zpool status -x’ and replace the bad device.

http://sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-D3fameserverq9{root}: zpool status -x
pool: epool
state: UNAVAIL
status: One or more devices could not be opened. There are insufficient
replicas for the pool to continue functioning.
action: Attach the missing device and online it using ‘zpool online’.
see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-3C
scrub: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
epool UNAVAIL 0 0 0 insufficient replicas
c3t60060E8005652C000000652C00002100d0s7 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 cannot open

The above error is caused by the zpool.cache file. This file contains the old paths of the disks from the previous server. The default behavior of Solaris 10 is to read the path from the zpool.cache file to speed up the boot sequence. You should delete this file and the system will recreate a fresh one during the boot up sequence.

Below are the steps to rename the zpool.cache file.

# cd /mnt/etc/zfs
# ls
zpool.cache
# mv zpool.cache zpool.cache.old

Now you need to reverse the changed you applied to the mountpoint earlier. Make sure that you change directory out of /mnt to /, otherwise the set mountpoint command will fail with the error device busy. Ignore the cannot mount ‘/’: directory is not empty message.

# zfs set mountpoint=/ rpool/ROOT/zfsboot
cannot mount ‘/’: directory is not empty
property may be set but unable to remount filesystem

Confirm that the mount points were changed.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 260G 205G 21K /epool
rpool 7.74G 17.4G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.74G 17.4G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.74G 17.4G 4.48G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 139M 17.4G 105M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.4G 1.00G -
rpool/swap 2.00G 19.4G 16K -

Shutdown the server.

# init 0

Now set the boot device in EEPROM.

setenv boot-device /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/SUNW,qlc@0/fp@0,0/disk@w50060e80058c7b10,1:a

The server is ready to be booted with the boot command.

{0} ok boot

First list the NIC installed and active on the Solaris 9 server.

# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=1000849 mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
hme0: flags=1000843 mtu 1500 index 2
inet 162.10.1.11 netmask ffff0000 broadcast 162.10.255.255
ether 8:0:20:c4:8c:87

There is one network card installed and active, hme0.

# ndd -get /dev/hme link_mode
1

Interpretation:
0 — half-duplex
1 — full-duplex

# ndd -get /dev/hme link_speed
1

Interpretation:
0 — 10 Mbit
1 — 100 Mbit
1000 — 1 Gbit

To query a different NIC, such as hme1, set the “instance” to 1, and then perform the link_mode and link_speed queries above.

# ndd -set /dev/hme instance 1

The ndd commands above must be run as root.

The first thing to do is determine the available disk and slice. Use the format command to list the disks and slices.

# format
Searching for disks…done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0t0d0
/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/sd@0,0
1. c0t1d0
/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/sd@1,0
2. c3t60060E8005652C000000652C00002100d0
/scsi_vhci/ssd@g60060e8005652c000000652c00002100
Specify disk (enter its number):

# zpool create epool c3t60060E8005652C000000652C00002100d0s7

This will create the zfs pool called epool on disk c3t60060E8005652C000000652C00002100d0, slice 7.

Confirm that the pool was created with the command zpool list.

bash-3.00# zpool list
NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
epool 472G 174K 472G 0% ONLINE -
rpool 25.5G 5.41G 20.1G 21% ONLINE -

Create a snapshot of /export and /export/home. The -r option created a recursive snapshot, so you do not have to manually create the snapshot for /export/home as well.

# zfs snapshot -r rpool/export@snapshot

Confirm that the snapshots were crearted, they are rpool/export@snapshot and rpool/export/home@snapshot.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 72K 465G 21K /epool
rpool 7.41G 17.7G 97K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.41G 17.7G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.41G 17.7G 4.35G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 69.2M 17.7G 69.2M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.7G 1.00G -
rpool/export 44K 17.7G 23K /export
rpool/export@snapshot 0 – 23K -
rpool/export/home 21K 17.7G 21K /export/home
rpool/export/home@snapshot 0 – 21K -
rpool/swap 2G 19.7G 16K -

Now restore the snapshots to the new zfs pool called epool.

# zfs send rpool/export@snapshot | zfs receive epool/export
# zfs send rpool/export/home@snapshot | zfs receive epool/export/home

Confirm that the snapshots were restored to epool.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 134K 465G 23K /epool
epool/export 44K 465G 23K /epool/export
epool/export@snapshot 0 – 23K -
epool/export/home 21K 465G 21K /epool/export/home
epool/export/home@snapshot 0 – 21K -
rpool 7.41G 17.7G 97K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.41G 17.7G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.41G 17.7G 4.35G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 69.2M 17.7G 69.2M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.7G 1.00G -
rpool/export 44K 17.7G 23K /export
rpool/export@snapshot 0 – 23K -
rpool/export/home 21K 17.7G 21K /export/home
rpool/export/home@snapshot 0 – 21K -
rpool/swap 2G 19.7G 16K -

Now you need to redirect the mount points for /export and /export/home. They are still pointing to rpool/export and rpool/export/home. List the mount points with the zfs mount command.

# zfs mount
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var /var
epool /epool
rpool/export /export
rpool/export/home /export/home
rpool /rpool
epool/export /epool/export
epool/export/home /epool/export/home

Unmount /export and /export/home becasue they are currently mounted.

# zfs unmount /export/home
# zfs unmount /export

Now redirect the mount point /export to epool/export.

# zfs set mountpoint=/export epool/export

Redirect the mount point /export/home to epool/export/home.

# zfs set mountpoint=/export/home epool/export/home

Confirm the changes.

# zfs mount
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var /var
epool /epool
rpool /rpool
epool/export /export
epool/export/home /export/home

Reboot the server for the changes to take effect.

After the server restarts list the filesystems to confirm the changes.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 219K 465G 21K /epool
epool/export 84K 465G 23K /export
epool/export@snapshot 21K – 23K -
epool/export/home 40K 465G 22K /export/home
epool/export/home@snapshot 18K – 21K -
rpool 7.42G 17.7G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.42G 17.7G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.42G 17.7G 4.35G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 69.3M 17.7G 69.3M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.7G 1.00G -
rpool/export 75K 17.7G 23K /export
rpool/export@snapshot 16K – 23K -
rpool/export/home 36K 17.7G 21K /export/home
rpool/export/home@snapshot 15K – 21K -
rpool/swap 2G 19.7G 16K -

You need to delete the old /export and /export/home which are pointing to rpool/export and rpool/export/home respectively.

# zfs destroy -r rpool/export

Confirm the filesystems were deleted.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 219K 465G 21K /epool
epool/export 84K 465G 23K /export
epool/export@snapshot 21K – 23K -
epool/export/home 40K 465G 22K /export/home
epool/export/home@snapshot 18K – 21K -
rpool 7.42G 17.7G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.42G 17.7G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.42G 17.7G 4.35G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 69.3M 17.7G 69.3M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.7G 1.00G -
rpool/swap 2G 19.7G 16K -

Delete the snapshots to free up space in the zfs pool rpool.

# zfs destroy epool/export@snapshot
# zfs destroy epool/export/home@snapshot

Confirm the snapshots were deleted.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
epool 153K 465G 21K /epool
epool/export 45K 465G 23K /export
epool/export/home 22K 465G 22K /export/home
rpool 7.42G 17.7G 99K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.42G 17.7G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot 4.42G 17.7G 4.35G /
rpool/ROOT/zfsboot/var 69.3M 17.7G 69.3M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 17.7G 1.00G -
rpool/swap 2G 19.7G 16K -

I will explain how to create a ZFS root pool snapshot and the steps to restore it to new hardware. This is a tried and tested procedure which I created. I could not find a complete documentation to do this on the internet, this took me a few days to figure out.

First create a NFS share on the remote server to store the snapshots. Let’s call this server remote-server.

For example create a filesystem.

# zfs create rpool/snaps

Share rpool/snaps.

# zfs set sharenfs=rw rpool/snaps

Check to see if share created properly.

# share
- /rpool/snaps rw “” “”

To create a recursive snapshot of the root pool on the server you wish to backup, logon as root. For this exercise let’s call this server prod-server.

List the current ZFS filesystems.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 7.43G 41.1G 97K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.43G 41.1G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a 4.43G 41.1G 4.36G /
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a/var 69.1M 41.1G 69.1M /var
rpool/dump 1.00G 41.1G 1.00G –
rpool/export 44K 41.1G 23K /export
rpool/export/home 21K 41.1G 21K /export/home
rpool/swap 2G 43.1G 16K –

Create recursive snapshots of the root pool.

# zfs snapshot –r rpool@backup

List the ZFS filesystems, you should see the snapshots.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 7.43G 41.1G 97K /rpool
rpool@backup 0 – 97K –
rpool/ROOT 4.43G 41.1G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT@backup 0 – 21K –
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a 4.43G 41.1G 4.36G /
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a@backup 244K – 4.36G –
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a/var 69.2M 41.1G 69.1M /var
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a/var@backup 40.5K – 69.1M –
rpool/dump 1.00G 41.1G 1.00G –
rpool/dump@backup 0 – 1.00G –
rpool/export 44K 41.1G 23K /export
rpool/export@backup 0 – 23K –
rpool/export/home 21K 41.1G 21K /export/home
rpool/export/home@backup 0 – 21K –
rpool/swap 2.00G 43.1G 16K –
rpool/swap@backup 0 – 16K –

Send the root pool snapshot to remote-server.

#Zfs send –Rv rpool@backup > /net/remote-server/rpool/snaps/rpool.backup

On the server you wish to restore the snapshot to, boot up with the Solaris installation CD in single user mode.

ok boot cdrom –s

Configure the NIC

# ifconfig bge0 10.55.99.22 netmask 255.255.0.0 up

Mount NFS share on remote-server using remote server’s IP.

# mount -f nfs 10.55.99.33:/rpool/snaps /mnt

If the disk drive is new then ensure it is labeled as SMI and a slice 0 exist. This slice needs to be big enough to restore to. Use format –e command to create the slices and label the disk.

#format –e
Select disk number, partition, print.
A SMI labeled disk should look similar to the below example.

Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 65533 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 root wm 0 – 9262 49.43GB (9263/0/0) 103652970
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wm 0 – 65532 349.67GB (65533/0/0) 733314270
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 9263 – 65532 300.25GB (56270/0/0) 629661300

Create the ZFS root pool. C0t0d0 is the disk and the S0 at the end is slice 0.

#zpool create -f -o failmode=continue -R /a -m legacy -o cachefile=/etc/zfs/zpool.cache rpool c0t0d0s0

Check to see if the pool was created.

# zpool list
NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
rpool 49.2G 5.45G 43.8G 11% ONLINE –

Restore the root pool snapshot. This step will take some time depending on the size of the snapshot.

# cat /mnt/rpool.backup | zfs receive -Fdu rpool

Check to see if the restore was successful.

# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 5.43G 128G 97K /a/rpool
rpool@backup 0 – 97K –
rpool/ROOT 4.43G 128G 21K legacy
rpool/ROOT@backup 0 – 21K –
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a 4.43G 128G 4.36G /a
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a@backup 0 – 4.36G –
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a/var 69.1M 128G 69.1M /a/var
rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a/var@backup 0 – 69.1M –
rpool/dump 1.00G 128G 1.00G –
rpool/dump@backup 0 – 1.00G –
rpool/export 44K 128G 23K /a/export
rpool/export@backup 0 – 23K –
rpool/export/home 21K 128G 21K /a/export/home
rpool/export/home@backup 0 – 21K –
rpool/swap 16K 128G 16K –
rpool/swap@backup 0 – 16K –

Set the bootfs property on the root pool BE.

#zpool set bootfs=rpool/ROOT/s10s_u8wos_08a rpool

Determine the platform name, you will need it for the next step.

# uname -i
SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise

Install the boot blocks on the new disk, insert the result of uname -i. On a SPARC server.

#installboot -F zfs /usr/platform/SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/ c0t0d0s0

On an x86 server. Note, I only tested my procedures on a SPARC server, but it should work on a x86 server as well.

# installgrub /boot/grub/stage1 /boot/grub/stage2 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

You are done, reboot the system.

#init 6

If the server does not boot up, then ensure that the disk you choose is the default boot device. If you need to find out how to do that then see this article, http://www.gamescheat.ca/2010/03/changing-the-default-boot-device-on-a-sparc-server/.

List the bootable devices with the devalias command,

ok devalias
cdrom /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/disk@4,0:f
net /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@1/pci@0/network@4
disk /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@0/scsi@0/disk@0
name aliases

List the current boot device.

ok printenv boot-device
boot-device = disk

Change the boot device from disk to network.

ok setenv boot-device net
boot-device = net

Verify the change.

ok printenv boot-device
boot-device = net

Save the change.

ok reset-all

After the server rests, boot from he device

ok boot

# swap -l
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 32,9 16 8425712 8425712

The output has five columns:
path
The path name for the swap area.

dev
The major/minor device number in decimal if it is a block special device; zeroes otherwise.

swaplo
The swaplow value for the area in 512-byte blocks.

blocks
The swaplen value for the area in 512-byte blocks.

free
The number of 512-byte blocks in this area that are not currently allocated.

To find the status of total swap usage use the -s option.

# swap -s
total: 180928k bytes allocated + 28456k reserved = 209384k used, 10691424k available

List the status of all the swap areas. The output has five columns:

path
The path name for the swap area.

dev
The major/minor device number in decimal if it is a block special device; zeroes otherwise.

swaplo
The swaplow value for the area in 512-byte blocks.

blocks
The swaplen value for the area in 512-byte blocks.

free
The number of 512-byte blocks in this area that are not currently allocated.

The total amount of swap space in bytes currently allocated for use as backing store.

reserved
The total amount of swap space in bytes not currently allocated, but claimed by memory mappings for possible future use.

used
The total amount of swap space in bytes that is either allocated or reserved.

available
The total swap space in bytes that is currently available for future reservation and allocation.

These numbers include swap space from all configured swap areas as listed by the -l option, as well swap space in the form of physical memory.

Add the ip address and server name to the host file.

vi /etc/hosts
10.0.0.10 server-name

Select the interface you want, your server may have more than one network interfaces.

vi /etc/hostname.bge0
10.0.0.10 netmask 255.255.255.0

Change the node name

vi /etc/nodename
server-name

Add the gateway ip address

vi /etc/defaultrouter
10.0.0.1

Add the DNS servers ip addresses

vi /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 168.20.0.10
nameserver 168.20.10.22

Add the network address

vi /etc/netmasks
10.0.0.0 255.255.255.0

Now reboot the server.