Hy,
I've a Solaris machine without cdrom drive, where I have to install Solaris 8. To mention is, that Solaris 10 is preloaded on it, so I can work in a shell. Also I have a windows laptop installed as an nfs-server, that has a cdrom. So I copied the solaris cd to windows and shared a folder called solariscd-rom and mounted it via nfs-server. I had to copie the contens into a separate folder to have write permission on my solaris machin after the mount. This mount is working.
Now the problem: I have the contents of the cd mounted on my solaris machine, but how can I install it know? I can't do a boot cdrom as I'm used to. Because it isn't in the cdrom drive. Which file do I have to execute to start the installation? Or if I have to boot, how can I do that?

Thanks
janine

Why do you want to install Solaris 8 instead of 10 ?
Is this machine H/W supported on Solaris 8 ?
Is this a PC or a SPARC based machine ?

Because we work at the office with Solaris 8 and all machines have to be installed with the same OS version, so, there is no choice.
And yes, it is supported on Solaris 8.
It is a SPARC based machine.

Thanks for replying so soon

Why are you using a PC as a boot server if you have Solaris 8 machines available on your network ?

Because, we have to be able to do this ether when we are in the office, or onside. And when I am at the customers I only have my laptop with Windows available. I know I could install Solaris on my laptop as well and do a JumpStart, but I really would prefer to do this with NFS.

You can install from a WebStart flar archive through nfs or http.
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806...gp82jsf?a=view

There's the onside problem again. When we are onside, internet connection is not granted.

Can windows even read all of the ufs partitions on the cd?

No need for an internet connection, you can use flash archives in a three step operation:
- you create the file on the Sparc reference server
- you copy this file to your Windows PC
- you move this PC where the target Sparc server is located and install from the local network and NFS

Sorry, I haven't written back earlier, but I was onside for the last two weeks and had something else to do as well.
WebStart flash would probably have been a very good solution if every solaris machine had to be installed the same way, but they don't. Our customers have all their special needs and therfore other configurations.
Isn't there a way I can change the cdrom-path or something like that. So that it looks like /server-cdrom is the cdrom and not /cdrom/cdrom0, so I could boot from /server-cdrom?

It won't work, as to install the O/S, you first need to (re)boot on it, and at that time NFS mounts are lost.

What about purchasing an external CD-ROM drive or going the jumpstart way ?

Thanks, I know that for shure. No, as I said, I copied the whole installation CD to the HD. I only used the same name as the mounted folder, to show you what I was talking about.


External CD-Rom would be too intricate. Imagine all employees needed to take an external cd-rom with them in addition to their laptop, suitcases and hardware for the customer. No, I'd rather choose to make JumpStart. But as long as there is hope, I'll try with NFS.

The best solution would probably be to stay with Solaris 10, which is guaranteed to be compatible with Solaris 8, better performs in every area, and have nice new features.

Downgrading is almost always a mistake, as anyway you'll have one day to switch to the new O/S release, should it only be because of new H/W support.