If you need to generate flash archives of a Solaris 9 or 10 machine but you can't seem to find the flarcreate utility, make sure that you have the following packages installed:

• SUNWinst


• SUNWadmfw


• SUNWadmc


• SUNWadmfr

1. Edit /etc/hosts, change the IP address corresponding to the system's hostname.


2. Edit /etc/netmasks, change the network and subnet mask.


3. If required, edit /etc/defaultrouter and set the new default gateway of the system.


4. Edit /etc/inet/ipnodes, change the IP address of the system's hostname. This file trumps all of the other TCP/IP config files, so if you miss this file everything else is pointless. Alternatively, you can delete or rename this file, and this will trick the Solaris 10 SMF subsystem into thinking it's an IPv4-only system.


5. shutdown -i 6 -y -g 5 to reboot the …

Thank you, thank you, and fuck you, Sun Microsystems for having Solaris 10 print "Do you wish to automatically update boot archives?" when you really mean "Your root filesystem is fucked - attempt a fsck(1M)?"

How to set up a crossover ethernet connection between two Sun Solaris machines:

• Connect both machines using a crossover ethernet cable.


• root@solaris-machine-1# ifconfig plumb


• root@solaris-machine-1# ifconfig netmask


• root@solaris-machine-1# ifconfig up


• On each machine, ping the other. If both are reported as being alive, you're golden.