Cristian Bradiceanu

Hardware:
– IBM BladeCenter H
– HS22V and HX5 blades with Brocade 2 port 10GbE Converged Network Adapter, no local drives
– IBM Storwize V7000

At the time of writing the Brocade 2 port 10GbE Converged Network Adapter for IBM BladeCenter (81Y1650) is supported on VMware ESXi up to version 4.1.

To install VMware on the blades, a custom VMware ESXi 4.1 ISO image with Brocade CNA drivers is required.

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First, download Solaris 11 Express from Oracle.

Install Solaris 11 Express HVM domU with virt-install:

virt-install -n sx11 -r 2048 --vcpus=4 --os-type=solaris --os-variant=opensolaris \
-v -c /path/to/sol-11-exp-201011-text-x86.iso --disk path=sx11.img,size=20 \
-b br1 --vnc --noautoconsole

Of course, adjust domU memory (-r), vcpus, path to Solaris 11 Express DVD, disk path, network bridge (-b).

After installation has started, you can connect to the VNC display. First, determine which port:

virsh vncdisplay sx11
:8

Finish the installation as usual. After reboot, you can start the Solaris 11 Express domU:

virsh start sx11

or have the domain autostarted at dom0 boot:

virsh autostart sx11

Or disable autostarting

virsh autostart --disable sx11

Enjoy!

Create a 10 GB ZVOL for storage:
pfexec zfs create -V 10g rpool/f12d0

Install Fedora 12 domU:
pfexec virt-install -n f12 -r 512 --vcpus=4 -f /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/f12d0 -b e1000g0 --os-type=linux -p --nographics --os-variant=fedora11 -l http://fedora-12-mirror/fedora/linux/releases/12/Fedora/i386/os/

-n f12 – domU’s name
-r 512 – allocate 512 MB memory
–vcpus=4 – number of virtual CPUs allocated (make sure this number is lower or equal to the number of CPUs available)
-f /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/f12d0 – ZVOL block device
-b e1000g0 – bridged networking to e1000g0 interface
-p – paravirtualized guest
–os-variant=fedora11 – “hack” until fedora12 OS-Variant will be integrated into xVM
-l http://fedora-12-mirror/fedora/linux/releases/12/Fedora/i386/os/ – replace fedora-12-mirror with a near Fedora 12 mirror, replace i386 with x86_64 for 64-bit domU

After you bring up the network, do a VNC installation.
Until xVM supports ext4 boot, make sure to create an ext3 /boot partition (or just a big ext3 / filesystem)

After installation, start the domU:
pfexec xm start -c f12
You will be presented the pygrub menu, just press Enter to boot.

Log into the domU and change the default timeout=0 to a different value (e.g. 5 seconds) in /boot/grub/grub.conf. Now you can use virsh start / shutdown commands.

To auto-start the guest on host boot:
virsh autostart f12

Tested on OpenSolaris 2010.02 preview snv_127.

Create a new Boot Environment:
pfexec beadm create devel

Mount the new Boot Environment:
pfexec mkdir /mnt/devel
pfexec beadm mount devel /mnt/devel


Use the dev publisher:
pfexec pkg -R /mnt/devel set-publisher -O http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev opensolaris.org

Update to the latest bits:
pfexec pkg -R /mnt/devel image-update -v

If everything went fine (after you read the Release Notes), activate the new BE:
pfexec beadm activate devel

Reboot:
pfexec shutdown -y -g1 -i6

Did this remotely. After reboot, system was up and running, including all xVM domU autostarted.