Upgrading Ultra 2 from Solaris 2.6 to 8.0
Some notes on how I upgraded one of our Ultra2's to Solaris 8.0.- Firmware
Solaris 8.0 can only install the 64-bit OS for OBP (OpenBootProm) versions 3.11 or higher. I had 3.7, and decided to upgrade the firmware. After about an hour of frustatingly searching sunsolve, I found the required doc:
Hardware/PROM: Ultra 2 Standalone Flash PROM Update
If you can't find this doc, or have different hardware, try your own search.
The install doc is 8 pages and the PROM guide is ~20 pages. You need to turn off write protection in order to write to the PROM with a jumper, the only page I used in the PROM guide was a diagram to find the jumper. It's right under where one of the sbus cards would go, the one closer to the middle of the board. The jumper is j2003, and is the middle jumper in a cluster of five. Some other jumpers were in the way from me seeing "2003" so look closely if you can't find it.
The install guide is very clear, I followed the instructions to the letter and everthing worked great, my OBP is now version 3.25.
- Solaris 8.0
Solaris 8 is available for a US $75 media fee, or via a free download. Downloading wants the install in the form of 3 cd's, so you'll need to do the cd-rom burn thing.
Patches:
Chris McAfee