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I often disable the GUI login on my Solaris machines for simplicity, so they just sit at the console login prompt. This presents a problem because by default Solaris sends logs to the console via /dev/sysmsg. This means that system errors, kernel and authentication notices are right out there for the world to see. So I like to redirect these logs to a more secure location (and keep my console nice and pretty).

The config file is /etc/syslog.conf. Comment out the line:

*.err;kern.notice;auth.notice                  /dev/sysmsg

by putting a # in front of it, or point to a new file location.

You should notice that most of these messages are being captured by the line below it as well and are being sent to /var/adm/messages. That’s a good place for these logs so leave that. However, it’s not capturing the auth.notice messages. Look a bit further down the file and you’ll see an ‘auth.notice’ line that’s commented out. Uncomment that line (make sure loghost is set in /etc/hosts) and your auth messages should be sent to /var/log/authlog. Which is a much nicer location than the console don’t you think?

User errors are defined further down the file and it also has an entry for logging user errors to /dev/sysmsg so you can comment that out as well if desired.

Boot to the Solaris DVD and at the GRUB menu select Solaris (it’s the default option)

At the next menu choose ‘Solaris Interactive Text’ either desktop or console. I chose #4, the console session because it loads faster.

The installer asks you a few network and configuration questions first. For simplicity I’ll just list my summary:

Networked: Yes
Use DHCP: No
Host name: gibbs
IP address: 150.252.xxx.xxx
System part of a subnet: Yes
Netmask: 255.255.xxx.xxx
Enable IPv6: No
Default Route: Specify one
Router IP Address: 150.252.xxx.xxx
Configure Kerberos Security: No
Name service: DNS
Domain name: acu.edu
Server address(es): 150.252.xxx.xxx
150.252.xxx.xxx
Search domain(s): acu.edu
NFSv4 Domain Name: << Value to be derived dynamically >>
Time zone: Central Time
(US/Central)
Date and time: 2008-11-03 14:14:00

After entering the root password the screen goes blank for a few seconds, some scripts start executing, then the installation screen comes back.

1. Select the “Standard” installation
2. Automatically eject CD/DVD
3. Auto Reboot
4. Accept the license agreement
5. Select any extra regional support
6. Select POSIX C (C)
7. Select None for Web Start products
8. Select ZFS for the filesystem
9. Select Entire Distribution
10. Select disk to install on

Configure the ZFS settings. I changed the swap size to 2G and left everything else default.

ZFS Pool Name: rpool
ZFS Root Dataset Name: s10x_u6wos07b
ZFS Pool Size (in MB): 39214
Size of Swap Area (in MB): 2048
Size of Dump Area (in MB): 1024
Keep / and /var combined

Add remote mounts if you have any and begin installation!

So apparently when I wrote part 1, I completely forgot about the zone configuration - which needs to be done in order to use any networking services.

So to configure the zone you need to log into the zone’s ‘console’ after booting it for the first time.

# zlogin -C myzone

If you don’t see anything hit enter. You should be presented with a terminal choice. After that it should be pretty standard system configuration questions.

Alternatively, this can be automated by creating a sysidcfg file and placing it in /etc

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