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I recently faced a curious problem when trying to patch an Alternate Boot Environment created with Live Upgrade on Solaris 10. Although I initially though it was a LU problem, the solution is finally related to the patches to be applied and the way a Solaris is installed.

Assuming the ABE is named s10u9, I first tried to apply the Critical Patch Updates the new way, i.e. through a switch to the installcluster script , which quickly failed like this:

# cd /net/jumpstart/export/media/patch/cpu/10_Recommended_CPU_2010-10
# ./installcluster --apply-prereq --s10cluster
[...]
# ./installcluster -B s10u9 --s10cluster
ERROR: Patch set cannot be installed from a live boot environment without zones
       support, to a target boot environment that has zones support.

So, I tried to apply the patches using the luupgrade command, but it failed with a very similar message:

# ptime luupgrade -t -n s10u9 -s /net/jumpstart/export/media/patch/cpu/10_Recommended_CPU_2010-10/patches `cat patch_order`
Validating the contents of the media .
The media contains 198 software patches that can be added.
All 198 patches will be added because you did not specify any specific patches to add.
Mounting the BE .
ERROR: The boot environment  supports non-global zones. The current boot
environment does not support non-global zones. Releases prior to Solaris 10 cannot be
used to maintain Solaris 10 and later releases that include support for non-global zones.
You may only execute the specified operation on a system with Solaris 10 (or later)
installed.

The fact is, the Primary Boot Environment is a Solaris 10 installation. So, why complaining that the PBE is an older release? Looking on OTN discussion forums and in the README file which came with the Critical Patch Updates release, there is a known bug which can end this way. This will occur when /etc/zones/index in the inactive boot environment has an incorrect setting for the state for the global zone. The correct setting is installed. So, get check this one:

# lumount -n s10u9
/.alt.s10u9
# grep "^global:configured:" /.alt.s10u9/etc/zones/index
# luumount -n s10u9

So no luck here. But wait: if the PBE is a customized Solaris 10 installation, it may be that the installed packages missed the Zone feature, which seems to be mandatory by installcluster or liveupgrade -t to figure out if the PBE is a proper (usable) Solaris 10 installation. So, I just installed the missing packages from the install media...

# mount -r -F hsfs `lofiadm -a /net/jumpstart/export/media/iso/sol-10-u9-ga-sparc-dvd.iso` /mnt
# pkginfo -d /mnt/Solaris_10/Product | nawk '$2 ~ /zone/ || $2 ~ /pool$/ {print $0}'
application SUNWluzone                       Live Upgrade (zones support)
system      SUNWpool                         Resource Pools
system      SUNWzoner                        Solaris Zones (Root)
system      SUNWzoneu                        Solaris Zones (Usr)
# yes | pkgadd -d /mnt/Solaris_10/Product SUNWluzone SUNWzoner SUNWzoneu SUNWpool
[...]
# umount /mnt
# lofiadm -d /dev/lofi/1

... and this must be OK right now:

# ./installcluster -B s10u9 --s10cluster
Setup ...
CPU OS Cluster 2010/10 Solaris 10 SPARC (2010.10.06)
Application of patches started : 2011.02.07 11:17:08

Applying 120900-04 (  1 of 198) ... skipped
[...]
Installation of patch set to alternate boot environment complete.

Please remember to activate boot environment s10u9 with luactivate(1M)
before rebooting.
Install log files written :
  /.alt.s10u9/var/sadm/install_data/s10s_rec_cluster_short_2011.02.07_11.17.08.log
  /.alt.s10u9/var/sadm/install_data/s10s_rec_cluster_verbose_2011.02.07_11.17.08.log

And it is... The question is, why is the Zone feature necessary and mandatory in this case?