Installing Solaris Indiana as Xen domU (guest) on Ubuntu

Why?

If you have any sense, you've already virtualized your DC. And if you have a lack of cents, you've standardized on Xen based on a commodity Linux like Debian, Ubuntu, Centos/Red Hat or openSUSE/SLES. Solaris/ZFS still fits well in that environment as an iscsi or nfs server.

Plus, it's cool.

Prerequisites

I'm assuming you already have a working Xen 3 install on Linux, and that you have some familiarity with creating and running Xen guests. I'm using Ubuntu 7.10 and the xen-hypervisor-3.1 package. Here's details on the hardware.

Getting down to business

1. Download the iso from http://www.opensolaris.com/get/index.html
2. Mount the iso in your dom0: mount -o loop os200805.iso /mnt
3. Copy the install kernel and ramdisk into your dom0 file system:

   cp /mnt/platform/i86xpv/kernel/amd64/unix /home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/unix
   cp /mnt/boot/x86.microroot /home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/x86.microroot

4. Create a xen conf file for the installation. It should look something like this, and dear god please change /dev/changeme to a meaningful block device on your system. Bonus points for using a different mac address.

   name = 'solaris-indiana'
   memory = '1024'
   disk = [ 'file:/dev/changeme,0,w', 'file:/home/xen/iso/os200805.iso,6:cdrom,r' ]
   kernel = '/home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/unix'
   ramdisk = '/home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/x86.microroot'
   extra = '/platform/i86xpv/kernel/amd64/unix - nowin -B install_media=cdrom'
   vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:0c:61:50,bridge=xenbr0' ]

5. Start the domain:

   xm create -c sol-indiana-install.cfg

6. Select keyboard layout, then your language
7. Login as jack/jack
8. Type ifconfig -a to find your ip address assigned by dhcp
9. Login remotely with ssh -X jack@[ip address]
10. Start the install process: su root -c gui-install (when prompted the root password is 'opensolaris')
11. Go through the install process, and at the end choose quit rather than reboot
12. Use scp to copy boot_archive to dom0 disk:

    scp /a/platform/i86pc/amd64/boot_archive root@[dom u ip address]:/home/xen/kern els/sol-indiana/boot_archive

13. Shutdown the solaris instance: su root -c 'halt'
14. Create a new config file (sol-indiana.cfg):

    name = 'solaris-indiana'
    memory = '1024'
    disk = [ 'file:/dev/changme,0,w' ]
    kernel = '/home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/unix'
    ramdisk = '/home/xen/kernels/sol-indiana/boot_archive'
    extra = '/platform/i86xpv/kernel/amd64/unix -B zfs-bootfs=rpool/27'
    vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:0c:61:50,bridge=xenbr0' ]

15. Start it back up: xm create -c sol-indiana.cfg