Boot Environment (BE) Administration

Logically, there were an environment that packs all component into one environment. These components I mean are software installed, patch level, kernel, etc. That environment is called a Boot Environment (BE). 

Boot Environment can be check with 'list' argument, here is default boot enviroment :

root@war49:~# beadm list
BE      Flags Mountpoint Space  Policy Created
--      ----- ---------- -----  ------ -------
solaris NR    /          11.18G static 2017-01-04 16:35

0x0 Creating Boot Environment
Creating boot environment is simply as bellow command format:

-login as root 
-BE create command :
# beadm create


Example:
# beadm create newbe-20170106

Mounting Boot Environtment To Directory
# beadm mount

Example :
# beadm mount newbe-20170106 /mnt/newbe

Activate boot environment
# beadm activate

Example :
# beadm activate newbe-20170106
--> newbe-20170106 will active at next reboot

0x1 BE and ZFS dataset 
By default newly boot environment will setup new dataset. For example new BE 'newbe-20170106' will created a new dataset using this name as new dataset in ZFS environment as bellow :

root@war49:~# zfs list
NAME                              USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool                            22.3G  26.5G  4.52M  /rpool
rpool/ROOT                       10.9G  26.5G    31K  legacy
rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106         186K  26.5G  10.6G  /
rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106/var       1K  26.5G   220M  /var
rpool/ROOT/solaris               10.9G  26.5G  10.6G  /
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var            222M  26.5G   220M  /var
 
If there is an additional BE, the additional BE will be a clone of the newly created BE, also if the additional has sparate dataset (for the example is /var), the sparate dataset will be clone too.

0x2 Creating a Snapshot for BE
Newly boot environment could be snapshot with bellow command:

# beadm create  

Example:
root@war49:~# beadm create newbe-20170106@fri-20170106

Check Snapshot :
root@war49:~# zfs list -r -t snapshot
NAME                                         USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106@fri-20170106          0      -  10.6G  -
rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106/var@fri-20170106      0      -   220M  -
rpool/ROOT/solaris@install                  58.4M      -  2.67G  -
rpool/ROOT/solaris@2017-01-06-16:41:11       856K      -  10.6G  -
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var@install              1.80M      -   219M  -
rpool/ROOT/solaris/var@2017-01-06-16:41:11  69.5K      -   220M  - 

0x3 Creating a Boot Environment from Snapshot
A new boot environment could be created from existing snapshot, as bellow command:

# beadm create -e BE-name@snapshot BE-name

Example:
root@war49:~# beadm create -e newbe-20170106@fri-20170106 newbe2

root@war49:~# beadm list
BE             Flags Mountpoint Space  Policy Created
--             ----- ---------- -----  ------ -------
newbe-20170106 -     -          318.5K static 2017-01-06 23:41
newbe2         -     -          187.5K static 2017-01-07 00:17
solaris        NR    /          11.18G static 2017-01-04 16:35
 
   
0x4 Checking boot environment
Command: 
# beadm list [option] [Be Name]

-> Option:
-a all available information
-d list information about all subordinate dataset
-s list information about snapshot
-H prevent listing header information

Example:
root@war49:~# beadm list -a newbe-20170106
BE/Dataset/Snapshot                           Flags Mountpoint Space  Policy Created
-------------------                           ----- ---------- -----  ------ -------
newbe-20170106
   rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106                  -     -          252.5K static 2017-01-06 23:41
   rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106/var              -     -          1.0K   static 2017-01-06 23:41
   rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106/var@fri-20170106 -     -          0      static 2017-01-06 23:58
   rpool/ROOT/newbe-20170106@fri-20170106     -     -          65.0K  static 2017-01-06 23:58

0x5 Update package on boot environment using pkg
We can update package on boot environment using pkg command as bellow :

# pkg -R
install
Example:
# pkg -R /mnt install ssh