OpenSolaris Update to Build 90

Updated packages for snv_90 were pushed to the pkg.opensolaris.org repository over the weekend, so you can update your OpenSolaris 2008.05 installation to the latest revs.

There are some gotchas though…

1. Do NOT use the Package Manager GUI to perform the update; instead use the pkg image-update command. This is because the GUI is not yet able to create the alternate boot env necessary for a clean fallback. As a result, you’ll actually end up updating your running env and won’t be able to rollback if something goes wrong. This will be fixed.
2. You need to perform an additional step once the update has completed; you need to update the MBR/GRUB on the new boot environment as follows:

   First, mount the clone under the /mnt directory (use beadm list to show list of boot envs):

   $ pfexec mount -F zfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-1 /mnt

   Next, update the GRUB configuration on your ZFS boot device(s) using

   $ pfexec /mnt/boot/solaris/bin/update_grub -R /mnt

   When you’re ready to boot into the updated boot environment, you can reboot(1M) or init(1M) as usual.

   Check the announcement thread beforehand for more details.

   This is only a one-off step when upgrading to snv_89 or later due to some changed made to GRUB for ZFS boot.

3. You may get network timeouts during the upgrade process. These will cause the upgrade process to fail. Unfortunately the errors are a bit cryptic due to the python trace dumped, but check the last line; it’ll say “timeout: timed out” if you timed out. You can increase the timeout by setting the PKG_CLIENT_TIMEOUT environment variable to something larger than 30 (seconds). Try 90 (seconds)

Happy updating.