A friend of mine asked me to write about the differences between Linux and Unix variants like Solaris. I think it is better to do that after covering a couple of tutorials on Solaris (including installation, configuration, network security and so on).

In this tutorial I will show you how to install Solaris 10 in your system (Please note that we are going to install Solaris 10 but NOT OpenSolaris).

 

Obtaining Live CD

 

You can either write to Oracle and request for a Solaris 10 OS or you can download the iso image from here. (Please note that it is a 2.4 GB file). Once you have done that, write the image to a DVD/R as usual and boot your system from the DVD.

This will give you three options and you can go for the first one.

 

 

Then, it will enter into a verbose mode and start showing you the license details.

 

 

and ask you to select the installation mode. You can either select 1 or 3. If you want a GUI based installer, go for 1. But if you like the command line mode select 3.

 

 

For this tutorial, I’m going for 1. The installer will then perform some more configurations (mostly network specific).

 

 

Then, you need to choose your keyboard layout:

 

 

Here comes the buggy part. If you are fortunate, the GUI based installer will work for you. And will display a sample window:

 

Then you can choose you language from that window itself:

 

 

If not, you are stuck with the console. But you don’t have to worry. The only difference is that you can’t use your mouse in this mode (all the configuration related stuffs are going to be same).

 

Another bug is that sometimes, the console fails to recognise the input: (In this case, you have to restart the system and give it another shot)

 

  

 

Now the installer will gather information about the hardware:

 

 

In the next step, you need to select the option ‘Networked’ in order to do the network specific configurations.

 

 

In most of the cases DHCP is the protocol to be used:

 

 

You may enable IPv6 in your machine in the next stage:

 

 

The next step is very critical if you are installing in this in a server. It allows you to configure Kerberos (the network authentication protocol) in your system.

 

Please note that I’m going to use the installed system as a local server, hence I need to configure this as well. In your case (if you are going to use this a desktop system), please select ‘No’. You can also skip the Kerberos specific steps as well.

 

In the next stage I can enter the default realm for Kerberos (by configuring Kerberos, I can use Kadmin, Klist, Kinit, Kdestroy and Kpasswd )

 

 

Now I need to specify the admin server:

 

 

Since Kerberos  is used for authentication, we need ‘key distribution centres’ for the domain:

 

 

This part is also NOT required for desktop users. You can select ‘None’ in this case as well.

But I’m going to use DNS as the name service for the domain:

 

 

It also allows me to configure the domain name:

 

 

and DNS server address (IP):

 

 

In the next stage, go for the option – ‘Use the NFS v4 domain derived by system’:

 

 

Now, enter the time zone specific details

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solaris allows you to select a ‘root’ password during the installation stage. 

 

 

And it also allows you to ‘disable’ remote services (In my case I am going to use them. In most cases, you may also need them). 

 

 

  The installer will switch to the console and perform the configurations.

 

 

You can set the installer options in the next step:

 

 

Select CD/DVD in this step:

 

 

 

Accept the license:

 

 

And select ‘default install’ option:

 

 

Now the installer will show the installation specific information. You need to review it and click ‘Install Now’. The installer will then start installing the operating system:

 

 

Once the installation is over, click ‘Reboot Now’ :

 

 

Select ‘Solaris 10’ from the GRUB menu:

 

 

You can see that the system is creating a new RSA key. Solaris is one of the few operating systems that perform this properly during the first boot up.

 

 

If you have already created a new user account, login using that. You may also login as root, if required.

 

 

Now you are in Solaris 10 platform.

 

 

If you want to add a new user, open terminal and issue:

 

useradd -d /export/home/aasis -m -s /bin/sh -c “Aasis Vinayak” aasis

 

Here you can specify the username, login shell and actual name of the user.

 

 

Done! Enjoy your Solaris 10…