Sun Microsystems Solaris 7 11/99 Hardware Platform Manual page 197

Check the documentation of other software you are running, such as any disk
volume managers, before you use the upgrade option. There may be additional
instructions you need to follow to preserve existing configurations, especially for
Alternate Pathing, Solstice™ DiskSuite™, or Veritas Volume Manager.
During an upgrade, the suninstall utility attempts to preserve local modifications
to the server whenever possible; however, local modifications might make an
upgrade fail or perform differently than you would expect.
The following table includes tasks you should perform before you upgrade the
domain.
TABLE 10-4
What to Do
Before Upgrading How to
Preserve Replace symbolic links that use
symbolic links absolute paths with symbolic links
that use relative paths.
For example, if /usr/openwin is
a symbolic link to
/export/openwin
change the symbolic link to
../export/openwin
Preserve Remove packages (by using
symbolic links Software Manager or the
to automounted pkgrm(1M) command) that will
file systems create files or directories currently
automounted.
Prevent In the /etc/vfstab file,
unneeded file comment out file systems that you
systems from do not want mounted during the
being mounted upgrade.
Chapter 10
Upgrading Tasks
The Solaris 7 11/99 Operating Environment on the Sun Enterprise 10000 Server
Why
During an upgrade, the suninstall utility cannot
reference symbolic links that use absolute paths
because the Solaris installation program mounts the
root (/) file system at /a. For example, a symbolic link
to /export/openwin would fail because during an
upgrade, /export/openwin is really
/a/export/openwin.
When the suninstall utility cannot reference a
symbolic link, it will overwrite the symbolic link and
install the software (the installation program does not
know that the software exists). As a result, duplicate
software will be installed, and the upgrade may fail
because of insufficient disk space.
The automounter is not active during an upgrade, so
the suninstall utility installs any package's files or
directories that are symbolic links to automounted file
systems. If a symbolic link is overwritten, the upgrade
may fail because of insufficient disk space.
(If you cannot remove a package, you can replace the
symbolic link after the upgrade is completed.)
Note: The /var/mail and /var/news directories,
which usually reside on an automounted file system,
are not affected by an upgrade.
During an upgrade, the suninstall utility attempts
to mount all of the file systems listed in the
/etc/vfstab file on the root file system being
upgraded. If the Solaris installation program cannot
mount a file system, it reports the failure and exits.
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