Project Caiman SC Profiles for AI

With the integration of following changeset into build 164:

Author: William Schumann
Repository: /hg/caiman/slim_source
Latest revision: 1075:df96871c232d
Total changesets: 1
Log message:
16045 SC manifest should not be required to be in an XML comment when using embedded form

SC profiles (or SC manifests) are managed by the Automated Installer separately from AI manifests.  Any number of profiles can be associated with an AI service and used to configure an automated Solaris 11 installation through setting SMF properties.

The change was reflected in default AI manifest delivered in build 164.  The profile that was embedded in the former default.xml is now available in <image_path>/auto_install/sc_profiles/sc_sample.xml, and can be added to a service created on or after 164 with this command:

  installadm create-profile -f <image_path>/auto_install/sc_profiles/sc_sample.xml -n <service_name>

where <image_path> is the image path of the service the profile is being created for.  A service's image path is listed in the "installadm list" output.

Distro Constructor Impact:
To create build 164 AI iso images using DC, you must first update your build system to 164 so that it has the latest DC tools.

Pre-164 AI manifests can still be used, but they must have the sc_embedded_manifest section removed.  The embedded SC manifest section can be copied to create a profile file by cutting the sc_embedded_manifest contents, stripping off the XML comment delimiters: <! and > and saving it to a file.  The resulting profile must be valid per service_bundle(4).  See the sample mentioned above.

Starting with 164, if an AI service does not have any profiles created, the AI client will automatically submit a profile that results in the SCI tool being run upon first boot.  SCI tool will prompt the user for configuration information on the system console.

Features are described on the updated installadm man page.

Known issues:

• Host name defined in a profile will not be effected in /etc/hosts until the following CR is fixed:
      6996436 populating hosts(4) file with hostname
• 'type' attributes, although not required by SMF, will cause a profile to fail validation.  The workaround for this is to explicitly set the 'type' attributes for SMF profile elements:  e.g., type="boolean", type="application".
• Validation failure messages give very little information.  As a temporary workaround, to receive more detailed information about why a profile failed validation, use svccfg to validate a profile:  'svccfg apply -n <profile_file>'.  The '-n' results in validation only with no change to the SMF service database.

Logfiles of note:

• on the AI client, /tmp/ai_sd_log for manifest and profile information, and /tmp/install_log
• after first boot, the log for early manifest import in /var/svc/log/system-early-manifest-import:default.log
• Apache webserver log for the AI webserver, /var/ai/image-server/error_log and access_log

See also:

• http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+caiman/SMF_SC_for_AI

Version compatibility issues:

• pre-164 AI server hosting 164+ AI images
  This will work, but no profiles can be added from old server software.  Consequently, the only option is to configure the system upon first boot with SCI tool.

• pre-164 AI images on 164+ AI servers
  The pre-164 images continue to use embedded profiles - 'installadm create-profile' will not work on those images; create a new service on the 164+ AI server.  Message: "Error:  Service <service name> does not support profiles."

• 158-163 AI servers
  Due to bug 7039581 in these releases, images from 164 and onwards are not supported.  To support them, the AI server must update these systems to at least 164.