Managing the Oracle Solaris Boot Archives

The following information is provided in this section:

How to List Contents of the Boot Archive
Managing the boot-archive SMF Service
How to Clear a Failed Automatic Boot Archive Update by Manually Updating the Boot Archive
x86: How to Clear a Failed Automatic Boot Archive Update on a System That Does Not Support Fast Reboot

For an overview of the Oracle Solaris boot archives, see Description of the Oracle Solaris Boot Archives.

In addition to administering the boot loader on x86 platforms, the bootadm command is also used to perform the following tasks to maintain both the SPARC and x86 Oracle Solaris boot archives:

List the files and directories that are included in a system's boot archive.
Manually update the boot archive.

The syntax of the command is as follows:

bootadm [subcommand] [-option] [-R altroot]

For more information about the bootadm command, see the bootadm(1M) man page.

How to List Contents of the Boot Archive

Assume the root role.
See How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.
To list the files and directories that are included in the boot archive, type:
```
# bootadm list-archive
```
list-archive

Lists the files and directories that are included in the boot archive or archives.

Managing the `boot-archive` SMF Service

The boot-archive service is controlled by SMF. The service instance is svc:/system/boot-archive:default. The svcadm command is used to enable and disable services.

If the boot-archive service is disabled, automatic recovery of the boot archive upon a system reboot might not occur. As a result, the boot archive could become unsynchronized or corrupted, which would prevent the system from booting.

To determine whether the boot-archive service is running, use the svcs command, as follows:

$ svcs boot-archive
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         10:35:14 svc:/system/boot-archive:default

In this example, the output of the svcs command indicates that the boot-archive service is online.

For more information, see the svcadm(1M) and svcs(1) man pages.

How to Enable or Disable the `boot-archive` SMF Service

Become an administrator.
For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.
To enable or disable the boot-archive service, type:
```
# svcadm enable | disable system/boot-archive
```
To verify the state of the boot-archive service, type:
```
# svcs boot-archive
```
If the service is running, the output displays an online service state.
```
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online          9:02:38 svc:/system/boot-archive:default
```
If the service is not running, the output indicates that the service is offline.

How to Clear a Failed Automatic Boot Archive Update by Manually Updating the Boot Archive

Assume the root role.
See How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

To update the boot archive, type the following command:

# bootadm update-archive

Note - To update the boot archive on an alternate root, type:

# bootadm update-archive -R /a

-R altroot

Specifies an alternate root path to apply to the update-archive subcommand.

Caution - The root file system of any non-global zone must not be referenced with the -R option. Doing so might damage the global zone's file system, compromise the security of the global zone, or damage the non-global zone's file system. See the zones(5) man page.

Reboot the system.
```
# reboot
```

x86: How to Clear a Failed Automatic Boot Archive Update on a System That Does Not Support Fast Reboot

During the process of rebooting a system, if the system does not support the Fast Reboot feature, the automatic update of the boot archive could fail. This problem might result in the system's inability to reboot from the same boot environment.

In this case, a warning similar to the following is displayed, and the system enters system maintenance mode:

WARNING: Reboot required.
The system has updated the cache of files (boot archive) that is used
during the early boot sequence. To avoid booting and running the system
with the previously out-of-sync version of these files, reboot the
system from the same device that was previously booted.

The svc:/system/boot-config:default SMF service contains the auto-reboot-safe property, which is set to false by default. Setting the property to true communicates that both the system's firmware and the default GRUB menu entry are set to boot from the current boot device. The value of this property can be changed so that a failed automatic boot archive update can be cleared, as described in the following procedure.

Assume the root role.
See How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.
Reboot the system.
```
# reboot
```
If the active BIOS or UEFI boot device and the GRUB menu entries point to the current boot instance, follow these steps to prevent a boot archive update failure:
1. Set the auto-reboot-safe property of the svc:/system/boot-config SMF service to true, as follows:
```
# svccfg -s svc:/system/boot-config:default setprop config/auto-reboot-safe = true
```
2. Verify that the auto-reboot-safe property is set correctly.
```
# svccfg -s svc:/system/boot-config:default listprop |grep config/auto-reboot-safe
config/auto-reboot-safe            boolean  true
```

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