Saturday 14 September 2013

Performing a Text-based Base Installation of Oracle Solaris 11.1 x86-64 Cloud Operating System in VMware Player 6.0 on Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit

Oracle Solaris 11.1 is the industry's first cloud operating system for enterprises. With over 7+ years of development, 2700 projects, 400 unique innovations and roughly 750+ customers, Oracle Solaris 11.1 becomes one of the world's best data center/cloud operating systems. It can run on any system, provide high service, high availability and can secure mission critical applications. You do not have to install and administer packages any more, pay no license fees, have no restrictions, or any extra costs, and more importantly, involve no more 3 hour maintenance windows.

Oracle Solaris 11.1 also supports full operating system, network and storage virtualization with Solaris containers called Zones, virtual NICs and the industry's most advanced ZFS file system format.

In my tutorial below, I will demonstrate to you how to install a base version of Oracle Solaris 11.1 x86-64 in VMware Player 6.0 using the simple text-based installer -
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Time Duration: Around 30 Minutes.

Prerequisites:
1. Downloading the Text Install ISO file available at the following link:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html?ssSourceSiteId=ocomen
2. Downloading and Installing VMware Player 6.0 available at the following link:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads
3. At least a dual-core computer to run the virtual machine with 2-4 GB of dedicated memory.
4. At least 16 GB of available hard drive space.
5. A Network Interface Card or a WiFi USB Adapter.

Installation Process:

1. Create a new virtual machine in VMware Player 6.0 with the following specifications:
A. Memory: At least 2 GB.
B. Processors: At least 2 processor cores.
C. Hard Disk (SCSI): At least 16 GB in size.
D. CD/DVD (IDE): Use ISO image file - sol-11_1-text-x86.iso
E. Network Adapter: Bridged (Automatic) with replicate physical network connection state, for a discrete IP address.
F. Display: Auto detect.

2. Power up the virtual machine with the ISO file, and the following screen will be displayed -

The above screenshot indicates that the virtual machine is booting from the Solaris 11.1 DVD.
This may take a few minutes, so kindly be patient ...

3. The next screen will ask you to select the keyboard layout for the installation -

By default, the 'US-English' keyboard layout gets selected. You may change the keyboard layout as per your requirement by entering the correct integer from the menu, else just press enter to continue.

4. The next screen will ask you to choose the language for the installation -

By default, the language that gets selected is 'English'. You may change the language as per your requirement by entering the correct integer from the menu, else just press enter to continue.

5. The Oracle Solaris Installation menu will load -

There are five options in the menu -
1. Install Oracle Solaris: It allows the system administrator to install the cloud operating system.
2. Install Additional Drivers: It allows the system administrator to install additional drivers.
3. Shell: It loads the default shell (i.e. bash).
4. Terminal Type: It allows the system administrator to change the type of terminal. By default, it is 'sun-color'.
5. Reboot: It reboots the system (i.e. reboots the virtual machine).

We have to select option 1 to install the operating system, and press enter.

6. The Oracle Solaris text installer will load and display the welcome screen:

Read the instructions on the screen, and press function key F2 to continue. You can avail the help menu by pressing the function key F6, or even exit the installer by pressing the function key F9.

Press the function key F2 to continue the installation.

7. The next screen will present the available discovery methods for disks -

You have two options here -
A. Local Disks: It is used to discover local disks.
B. iSCSI: It is used to discover iSCSI Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs).

We have to select option (A) and press the function key F2.

8. The next screen displays the available disks for installation -

The minimum disk size should be 2.9 GB, but the recommended disk size is 4.9 GB.
Select the right disk and press the function key F2 to continue.

Note: If GPT partitions are not found, then a default GPT partition table will be created, as indicated by the screenshot.

9. The next screen will allow you to install the operating system on either the whole disk or a GPT partition on the disk -

Select 'Use the entire disk', and press the function key F2.

10. The next screen allows you to assign a hostname to the server and configure the ethernet network connection -

Kindly enter the hostname in the 'Computer Name' field, and select 'Manually' to manually configure the wired ethernet network connection.
Press the function key F2 to progress.

11. You will be asked to enter some network related information for the connection -

By default, the Network Interface Card (NIC) name will be 'net0'.
Kindly enter a static IP address that you wish to assign to the server, so that it can communicate smoothly across the network, enter the subnet mask (by default, 255.255.255.0) of the router, and also enter the IP address of the router on this subnet (by default, 192.168.2.1).

Press the function key F2 to continue.

12. The next screen allows you to indicate whether the system should use the DNS name service, or not -

We will configure the DNS name service by selecting 'Configure DNS', and press the function key F2 to proceed.

13. The next screen will allow you to enter the DNS server addresses:

We can enter up to three DNS server IP addresses - the default one being the router's IP address.
Press the function key F2 to continue once you enter the IP addresses.

14. The next screen allows you to set up the DNS search list:

We can enter up to six domains that will be searched when a DNS query is made - the default one being the local domain.

Press the function key F2 to continue once you enter the domain names.

15. The next screen will allow you to configure an alternate name service for the system -

You may use either LDAP or NIS as an alternate name service if required, or even choose not to configure an alternate name service by choosing 'None'.

Press the function key F2 to continue.

16. The next screen allows you to choose the desired time zone region for the system -

Select the region that contains your time zone, and press the function key F2 to continue.

17. The next screen allows you to choose the time zone location for the system -

Select the location that contains your time zone, and press the function key F2 to continue.

18. The next screen allows you to select the time zone for the system -

Select your time zone, and press the function key F2 to continue.

19. The next screen allows you to enter the date and time information for the system -

Kindly enter the necessary date and time information, noting the fact that the time is in 24 hour format. Press the function key F2 to continue.

20. The next screen allows you to create the default administrator of the system -

You have to enter the system root password and create the system's default administrator account.
Kindly note that 'root' is not a user in Oracle Solaris 11.1, but a role that can be assigned to users that need root privileges. By default, the system's default user account inherits the 'root' role.

Kindly also note that the text-based installer does not allow you to specify a default administrator username of more than 8 characters, as shown below -

Press the function key F2 to continue once you have entered the necessary information.

21. The next screen allows you to specify the registration information for Oracle support -

You may enter your My Oracle Support email address and password in case you wish to receive security updates for the system. Kindly visit the following link for more information - http://www.oracle.com/goto/solarisautoreg

Press the function key F2 to continue.

You may even simply choose to skip registration by leaving the fields blank -

In that case, you will have to press the function key F2 again to continue.

22. The next screen will present the installation summary:

Kindly review the information before proceeding.
If you have any changes to make, then press the function key F3 to go back and make them, since once you let the installation begin, you cannot revert your action!

Press the function key F2 to begin the installation process.

23. The installation will begin as indicated by the below screenshot:

The installation will progress gradually ...


The installation will take some time to complete ...



24. Once the installation completes, the last screen of the setup will load -

You can either reboot to start the newly installed operating system or quit the installer in case if you want to perform additional tasks before rebooting.

The installation log is, by default, available at /system/volatile/install_log during installation. After reboot, it can be found at /var/log/install/install_log.

Optionally, you can even view it now by pressing the function key F4 -

Press the function key F3 to go back and then press the function key F8 to reboot.

25. The system will reboot as indicated below -

You will get a message - 'solaris reboot: initiated by root' - stating that a reboot is occurring.

Once the reboot occurs, GRUB will load a list of available operating systems -

Press the enter key to continue, or wait for 30 seconds for autoload ...

The Oracle Solaris 11.1 console login will load -

You may test the login by entering your credentials.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the base version of Oracle Solaris 11.1 x86-64 Cloud Operating System in VMware Player 6.0 using the text-based installer on Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit!

Hope you had a good time reading the article! :)


 

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