Solaris 10 VM won't boot after install

[Tract0rDan]

I have just performed a manual install of Solaris 10 x86 on an VMware ESX 3.5 (update 2) envirionment. Install seemed to go fine, and upon reboot I am presented with the screenshot attached.

If I select the 'Failsafe' option, it takes me into a shell mounted on /a/, which I assume is single-user mode. If, however, I select the top option, which would presumably boot the newly installed OS, the VM hangs for about 5 seconds then powers off with no visible error message.

Has anyone experienced this before, or have any ideas what the problem could be? I have unmounted the install .iso of course.

Thanks.

[KellyOlivier]

Which version of Solaris? I know I have made Solaris 10 u3 vms with no problem. I do have some concerns about vmware support for Solaris in the future. It is not supported in the new vConverter. Does VMware plan to drop support of it?

[Tract0rDan]

Thanks for your help, but it now appears to boot. Strange, as the only thing I did was select 'Install/Upgrade VMware tools' from within VC.

I was under the impression that selecting this merely mounted the vmware tools iso, not installed it? In any case, once I have done this, it booted fine.

[Tract0rDan]

Ok actually it booted successfully once, now it is back to powering off. Any ideas?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and GUest OS forum.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

[Lightbulb]

This is pretty early to have things go wrong. I recomend you scap the VM "Delete from disk" and setup another. I have setup a few X86 Sol 10 systems without issue.

If the next one has the problem then start furrowing you brow and googling

just a thought.

[tecsys]

I had the exact same issue, it's odd but when I boot the installation CD is says 32bit on the banner, but when I restart and get it to go it says 64bit....

[espi3030]

tact0rDan,

Try this:

As root enter the following command:

eeprom boot-file=kernel/unix

There is also a vmware article I am trying to locate for you. There is something about the 32 vs. 64 bit thing as well.

Hope this helps!

Here are the KB Articles:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2074&slice... 0 14514739

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1975&slice... 0 14514739

Message was edited by: espi3030

[tecsys]

Thanks from me too, I guess it's a case of RTFM for me too, but you don't tend to expect surprises when you think your doing what 98% of installers would do... Plus how would I know that I have a 64bit Host, I guess ESX on any 64bit capable processor architecture automatically is?!?

Using Solaris 10 in 32-Bit Mode on a 64-Bit Host

On a 64-bit host, when you install or run Solaris 10 as a guest operating system, Solaris 10 automatically attempts to install or boot up in 64-bit mode. To force Solaris 10 to boot up in 32-bit mode on a 64-bit host, see the knowledge base article at . To force Solaris 10 to install as a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host, see the knowledge base article at .

[mike_laspina]

Hi,

What virtual hardware did you expose to the VM? Nic? Disk controller?

vExpert 2009

[tecsys]

I don't know about Tract0rDan but I simply created a new virtual, chose the Solaris 32bit Operating system and went with the defaults, set it to 2 vCpus, 8192MB ram and a 20GB initial disk size. I have ESX 3.5 U3 and Virtual Center 2.5 U3. I had the exact same symptoms as Tract0rDan. I downloaded the latest x86 DVD for solaris 10/8 and mounted it as an ISO from one of my datastores.[http://communities.vmware.com/people/Tract0rDan;jsessionid=E85F198DDCD730007ECD088168C976CF|Click to view Tract0rDan's profile]

[Tract0rDan]

Thanks for all the suggestions and help guys. I re-created the VM from scratch and I'm pretty sure it turned out to be a 32/64-bit issue. I had the same issue again but changing the version in the VM settings seemed to do the trick. I also had a number of problems with NIC dropouts, but managed to get it working after some digging around, so if anyone gets this let me know!

Thanks.