Data Missing From A Solaris 10 Branded zone Flash Archive (Doc ID 2818657.1)

Last updated on SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

Applies to:

Symptoms

While logged into a Solaris 10 branded zone:

# flarcreate -n s10zone.flar -S /mnt/s10zone.flar

Deploy the flar on another system:

# zonecfg -z s10zone -f s10zone.cfg

# zoneadm -z s10zone install -a /var/tmp/s10zone.flar

# zoneadm -z s10zone boot

The /export/home directories are missing in the newly deployed zone.

Changes

Note that a Solaris 10 branded zone runs on a Solaris 11 system which in itself introduces changes, however let's start by reviewing the Solaris 10 documentation:

From: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26505_01/html/E28040/flashoverview-1.html#scrolltoc
Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 Installation Guide: Flash Archives (Creation and Installation) Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 Information Library
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Planning Your Flash Archive Installation

Before you create and install a flash archive, you must make some decisions about how you want to install the Oracle Solaris OS on your systems. The first time that you install a system, you install with a full archive that is an initial installation. After a system has been installed with an archive, the system can be updated with a differential archive. The differential archive installs only the differences between two archives.

Review the following limitations before creating and installing a flash archive.

Table 2-1 Limitations When Creating and Installing a Flash Archive

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The Solaris 10 documentation reports that Flash Archives are not compatible with non-global zones however, from the flarcreate man page:

# man flarcreate
System Administration Commands                     flarcreate(1M)

NAME
     flarcreate - create a flash archive from a master system

SYNOPSIS
     flarcreate -n name [-R root] [-A system_image] [-H] [-I]  [-M] [-S] [-c] [-t [-p posn] [-b blocksize]]
          [-i date] [-u section]... [-m master]  [-f [filelist | -] [-F]] [-a author]
          [-e descr | -E descr_file] [-L archiver] [-D dataset]  [-T type] [-U key=value]... [-x exclude]...
          [-y include]... [-z filelist]... [-X filelist]... archive
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     A flash archive can be created on a system that is running a UFS  root  file  system  or  a ZFS root file system. A flash
     archive of a ZFS rooted system contains the ZFS send stream  of the entire dataset hierarchy under root dataset and addi-
     tional send streams  for other datasets  outside  rpool/ROOT except  for  the  swap  and  dump  volumes  and any excluded
     datasets.

     ZFS send stream flash  archive  images  cannot  be  used  to install  zones.  You  must  create  a  flash archive with an
     explicit cpio or pax archive when the system has a ZFS root. To  create  the  flash  archive, use the -L archiver option,
     described below, specifying cpio or pax  as  the  method  to  archive the files.
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Clarifies that the problems for zones is the zfs send stream, and requires the use of -L archiver to be used.

Finally for Solaris 10 we have: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26505_01/html/E29493/fbdtw.html#glcjy
Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 Release Notes Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 Information Library
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Flash Archive Installation Commands

The following flash archive installation commands might not be included in a future Oracle Solaris release:

• flar(1M)

• flarcreate(1M)

In addition, installations performed by using the flash_archive(4) file format might not be supported.
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The flar and flarcreate commands were removed from Solaris 11 and replaced by archiveadm with Unified Archives

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36784_01/html/E52463/golpm.html#scrolltoc
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What's New in Oracle® Solaris 11.2

Documentation Home » Oracle Solaris 11.2 Information Library » What's New in Oracle® Solaris 11.2 » Key Features in Oracle Solaris 11.2 » Application Provisioning With Unified Archives
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Application Provisioning With Unified Archives

This release introduces Unified Archives, a new type of archive format that enables creating a single archive for redeployment either as clones within a cloud environment or for system backup and disaster recovery purposes. You can quickly capture a complete bare-metal system, virtual environments, or a combination of both.
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For Solaris 11.2: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36784_01/html/E38524/index.html  Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.2
For Solaris 11.3: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E53394_01/html/E54846/index.html  Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.3
For Solaris 11.4: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/html/E60984/index.html  Using Unified Archives for System Recovery and Cloning in Oracle Solaris 11.4

On Solaris 11.2 or later, a non-global zone ( even a Solaris 10 branded zone ) can be copied using unified archives. 

Cause

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