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] [-T type] [-U
key=value...] [-x exclude...] [-y include...] [-z filel-
ist...] [-X filelist...] archive
DESCRIPTION
The flarcreate command creates a flash archive from a master
system. A master system is one that contains a reference
configuration, which is a particular configuration of the
Solaris operating environment, plus optional other software.
A flash archive is an easily transportable version of the
reference configuration.
In flash terminology, a system on which an archive is
created is called a master. The system image stored in the
archive is deployed to systems that are called clones.
There are two types of flash archives: full and differen-
tial. A full archive contains all the files that are in a
system image. A differential archive contains only differ-
ences between two system images. Installation of a differen-
tial archive is faster and consumes fewer resources than
installation of a full archive.
In creating a differential archive, you compare two system
images. A system image can be any of:
o a Live Upgrade boot environment, mounted on some
directory using lumount(1M) (see live_upgrade(5))
o a clone system mounted over NFS with root permissions
o a full flash archive expanded into some local direc-
tory
To explain the creation of a differential flash archive, the
following terminology is used:
old The image prior to upgrade or other modification. This
is likely the image as it was installed on clone sys-
tems.
new The old image, plus possible additions or changes and
minus possible deletions. This is likely the image you
want to duplicate on clone systems.
The flarcreate command compares old and new, creating a dif-
ferential archive as follows:
o files on new that are not in old are added to the
archive;
o files of the same name that are different between old
and new are taken from new and added to the archive;
o files that are in old and not in new are put in list
of files to be deleted when the differential archive
is installed on clone systems.
When creating a differential flash archive, the currently
running image is, by default, the new image and a second
image, specified with the -A option, is the old image. You
can use the -R option to designate an image other than the
currently running system as the new image. These options are
described below.
Following creation of a flash archive, you can use JumpStart
to clone the archive on multiple systems.
You can run flarcreate in multi- or single-user mode. You
can also use the command when the master system is booted
from the first Solaris software CD or from a Solaris net
image.
Archive creation should be performed when the master system
is in as stable a state as possible. Following archive crea-
tion, use the flar(1M) command to administer a flash
archive.
See flash_archive(4) for a description of the flash archive.
The flarcreate command requires root privileges.
OPTIONS
The flarcreate command has one required argument:
-n name
Specifies the name of the flash archive. name is sup-
plied as the value of the content_name keyword. See
flash_archive(4).
The flarcreate command has the following general options:
-A system_image
Create a differential flash archive by comparing a new
system image (see DESCRIPTION) with the image speci-
fied by the system_image argument. By default, the new
system image is the currently running system. You can
change the default with the -R option, described
below. system_image is a directory containing an
image. It can be accessible through UFS, NFS, or
lumount(1M).
The rules for inclusion and exclusion of files in a
differential archive are described in DESCRIPTION. You
can modify the effect of these rules with the use of
the -x, -X, -y, and -z options, described below.
-c Compress the archive using compress(1)
-f filelist
Use the contents of filelist as a list of files to
include in the archive. The files are included in
addition to the normal file list, unless -F is speci-
fied (see below). If filelist is -, the list is taken
from standard input.
-F Include only files in the list specified by -f. This
option makes -f filelist an absolute list, rather than
a list that is appended to the normal file list.
-H Do not generate hash identifier.
-I Ignore integrity check. To prevent you from excluding
important system files from an archive, flarcreate
runs an integrity check. This check examines all files
registered in a system package database and stops
archive creation if any of them are excluded. Use this
option to override this integrity check.
-M Used only when you are creating a differential flash
archive. When creating a differential archive, flar-
create creates a long list of the files in the system
that remain the same, are changed, and are to be
deleted on clone systems. This list is stored in the
manifest section of the archive (see
flash_archive(4)). When the differential archive is
deployed, the flash software uses this list to perform
a file-by-file check, ensuring the integrity of the
clone system. Use of this option to avoids such a
check and saves the space used by the manifest section
in a differential archive. However, you must weigh the
savings in time and disk space against the loss of an
integrity check upon deployment. Because of this loss,
use of this option is not recommended.
-R root
Create the archive from the file system tree rooted at
root. If you do not specify this option, flarcreate
creates an archive from a file system rooted at /.
-S Skip the disk space check and do not write archive
size data to the archive. Without -S, flarcreate
builds a compressed archive in memory before writing
the archive to disk, to ensure you have sufficient
disk space. Use -S to skip this step. The result of
the use of -S is a significant decrease in the time it
takes to create an archive.
-U key=value...
Include the user-defined keyword(s) and values in the
archive identification section.
-x exclude...
Exclude the file or directory exclude from the
archive. Note that the exclude file or directory is
assumed to be relative to the alternate root specified
using -R. If the parent directory of the file exclude
is included with the -y option (see -y include), then
only the specific file or directory specified by
exclude is excluded. Conversely, if the parent direc-
tory of an included file is specified for exclusion,
then only the file include is included. For example,
if you specify:
-x /a -y /a/b
all of /a except for /a/b is excluded. If you specify:
-y /a -x /a/b
all of /a except for /a/b is included.
-y include...
Include the file or directory include in the archive.
Note that the exclude file or directory is assumed to
be relative to the alternate root specified using -R.
See the description of the -x option, above, for a
description of the interaction of the -x and -y
options.
-X filelist...
Use the contents of filelist as a list of files to
exclude from the archive. If filelist is -, the list
is taken from standard input.
-z filelist...
filelist is a list of files prefixed with a plus (+)
or minus (-). A plus indicates that a file should be
included in the archive; the minus indicates exclu-
sion. If filelist is -, the list is taken from stan-
dard input.
Use the following option with user-defined sections.
-u section...
Include the user-defined section located in the file
section in the archive. section must be a blank-
separated list of section names as described in
flash_archive(4).
Use the following options with tape archives.
-b blocksize
The block size to be used when creating the archive.
If not specified, a default block size of 64K is used.
-p posn
Used only with -t. Specifies the position on the tape
device where the archive should be created. If not
specified, the current position of the tape device is
used.
-t Create an archive on a tape device. The archive
operand (see OPERANDS) is assumed to be the name of
the tape device.
The following options are used for archive identification.
-a author
author is used to provide an author name for the
archive identification section. If you do not specify
-a, no author name is included in the identification
section.
-e descr
The description to be included in the archive as the
value of the content_description archive identifica-
tion key. This option is incompatible with -E.
-E descr_file
The description to be used as the value of the archive
identification content_description key is retrieved
from the file descr_file. This option is incompatible
with -e.
-i date
By default, the value for the creation_date field in
the identification section is generated automatically,
based on the current system time and date. If you
specify the -i option, date is used instead.
-m master
By default, the value for the creation_master field in
the identification section is the name of the system
on which you run flarcreate, as reported by uname -n.
If you specify -m, master is used instead.
-T type
Content type included in the archive as the value of
the content_type archive identification key. If you do
not specify -T, the content_type keyword is not
included.
OPERANDS
The following operand is supported:
archive
Path to tape device if the -t option was used. Other-
wise, the complete path name of a flash archive. By
convention, a file containing a flash archive has a
file extension of .flar.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWinst |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
flar(1M), flash_archive(4), attributes(5)
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