[OpenIndiana-discuss] Upgrading OpenSolaris SXCE to OpenIndiana

[Jim Klimov]

Hello all,

I am getting closer to updating some older OpenSolaris SXCE hosts
with lots of local zones for actual tasks into running OpenIndiana,
and wondered if an "in-place" upgrade is possible - i.e. install
OI onto the machine, port the global zone settings, attach the
SVR4 snv_117 based zones, and have them run while I carefully
port their settings, data and application softwate into proper
IPS-based local zones with current core OS software.

The idea was to have as little downtime as possible.

So far I've found that old zones "as is" do not run in oi_151a3 -
neither as solaris10 zones (the image rightfully doesn't seem like
a supported version of Solaris 10), nor as "native" zones (original
SXCE /sbin/init dumps core).

The best I get when replacing an originally sparse-root zone's SXCE
set of /usr and other system dirs with those of the OI host, is that
the zone boots and complains a lot about failed services, many of
them refuse to run.

I transferred the zone data via zfs send and via rsync, but I did
not try "zoneadm detach/attach -u" so far, as that (I thought)
would make little sense in transferring SVR4 packages to IPS?..

So the rather short question: is a fast in-place upgrade possible
to get the old zones running "as is" or with little modification
in OpenIndiana, or is a full-scale migration (clean install and
transfer of settings/data) required?

Thanks,
//Jim Klimov