Hi,
I have been trying to install Solaris 10 x86 on my ESXi 4 server and have had a lot of
problems. The first step, obviously, was to download the Solaris 10 10/09 (Update 😎 DVD.
I created a new VM (Solaris 64 bit) and booted off the DVD. Grub loaded fine but directly
after (when the kernel was about to load) it stopped with the error:
Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format
Then I tried to install it as 32-bit on another VM (Solaris 32 bit) and added the following
option the .vmx: "monitor_control.disable_longmode = 1" but same error.
Next step I took was to download Solaris 10 8/07 (Update 4) CD installation (5 CDs). As I
had read on another forum some people had success by first installing it as 32-bit in
vmware and then changing the VM to Solaris 64 bit. The 32-bit installation now went OK and
the system was up and running. However when I changed the VM to "Solaris 10 (64 bit) it
still booted into 32-bit. I have checked that 'eeprom' doesnt contain any specific 32-bit
kernel, and I have executed an 'bootadm update-archive -f' to make sure the 64-bit kernel
modules are in place. Still it boots in 32-bit mode.
After that I tried a fresh install again to a Solaris 64 bit VM. the first stage of the
installation went OK (it starts of in 32-bit mode), but then the installation wanted to
reboot the system. After this reboot, after GRUB, it showed that the 64-bit kernel had
started to load but directly after it rebooted again and continued in this matter. Then
I found a VMware KB article (1004227) that described this issue when installing Solaris
onto a system running a Xeon E5400-series processor, which I am not. So still no luck.
Anyone that have successfully installed Solaris 10 x86 on a VMware ESXi server in 64 bit mode?
Any suggestions to how I solve this?
The same ESXi server is hosting alot of other 64-bit OS:es with no problem at all
(Linux, Windows Server 2003, ...) Could it be that my processor model has the same issue
as the Xeon E5400-series? In wich the solution was to apply a Sun Patch.
Details:
- VMWare: ESXi 4.0.0
- Host CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad (Q9400)
- BIOS: Intel-VT enabled
- Solaris versions tested: 10/09 (U8) = Error before install, 8/07 (U4) = Only 32 bit
Thanks in advance!
/Tobbe
I still find it strange that the most recent version of solaris fails to even start the installation. Third times the charm. Thanks for making me more confident to try another version of solaris.