How To Use archiveadm and Solaris Unified Archive in Solaris 11.2 and higher (Doc ID 1958197.1)

Last updated on JANUARY 13, 2023

Applies to:

Solaris x64/x86 Operating System - Version 11.2 and later
Solaris Operating System - Version 11.2 and later
Oracle Solaris on x86-64 (64-bit)
Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)

Purpose

This document explains usage of archiveadm in Solaris 11.2 and higher

Scope

System Administration Commands archiveadm(1M)

DESCRIPTION
The archiveadm utility provides users with functionality to create system archive images of a running Solaris system for
the purposes of system cloning and recovery. The utility may also be used to retrieve information about archives, once
created, and also to create bootable media from an archive.

A Solaris Unified Archive is a multi-system archive based upon Solaris Boot Environments and ZFS data streams.
A Unified Archive contains one or more systems which are selected during archive creation.
Each system may be encapsulated in its own archive within the overall Unified Archive, so that systems may later be selectively deployed.
Alternatively, a single monolithic archive may be created which results in a singly-deployable archive with multiple embedded systems.

Once created, Solaris Unified Archives may be deployed by the Solaris Automated Installer or by the Solaris Zones software utilities.

For more information please see archiveadm(1M) or Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.2