Here is a compete step-by-step notes that i recorded while walking through the installation process.
Before you can start, download the latest Solaris 10 x64 ISO file from sun.com and install Vmware server from vmware.com
1. File –> New –> Virtual Machine
2. Click Next on the first scren.
3. Click Next (i.e. Keep Typica configuration)
4. Choose “4. Sun Soaris” for Guest Operating System.
5. (Optional and only if you have a 64 bit capable machine) choose “Solaris 10 64-bit” for Version.
6. Click Next
7. (Optional) Change Location of the virtual machine by click Browse
8. Click Next
9. Choose “Use network address translation (NAT)” and click Next.
10. (Optional) If want to save a little bit of unused space at the expense of slightly slower disk acces speed, uncheck “Allocate all disk space now”
11. Double click on CD-ROM from Devices panel
12. Choose “Use ISO image”
13. Click Browse to choose the DVD ISO file you downloaded earlier.
14. (Optional) Adjust the amount of RAM and number of CPUs you want to allocate to this image.
15. Click “Power on this virtua machine”
16. Enter on BRUB menu for default “Solaris”
17. Enter 1 for “Solaris Interactive (default)”
18. Enter 0 for English. Choose a different language if you wish.
19. Click Next
20. Choose Networked and click Next
21. Choose DHCP if non of the applications you use doesn’t require static IP. Click Next.
22. Click Next (i.e. not enabe IPv6)
23. Click Next (i.e. not enable Kerberos)
24. Click Next (i.e. not eanble Name Service)
25. Click Next (i.e. Use default method to define timezone)
26. Choose your geographical location to choose a timezone and click Next.
27. Click Next (i.e. to accept the date and time)
28. Enter a root password.
29. Click Confirm to accept Selection Summary
30. Click Next
31. (Optional) Choose No for “Reboot automatically after software instalation” Since the CD-ROM was “entered” by software configuration and “eject” is better done via VMWare’s configuration. In case you were not watching when the install completed, it is probably better to let it wait for you to manualy reboot and umount CDRom via VMWare’s configuration window. Click Next and click OK on the pop-up window.
32. Click Next to accept the default Media, which is CD/DVD
33. Check Accept and click Next
34. Choose Custom Install and click Next
35. Expand North America, check “English (United States) (en_US)” and “English United States, UTF-8)(en_US.UTF-8)” and click Next
36. Choose en_US.ISO8859-1 and click Next
37. Click Next (i.e. not install extra software)
38. Click Next (i.e. keep none for no additional software through Web Start)
39. Choose Entire Group Pus OEM and click Next
40. Click Next to accept the default deisk selection
41. Click Next to accept the default disk for partition customization
42. Click Next to accept allocation of all space to Solaris
43. Click Modify to edit partition information
44. Remove slice 7 entry
45. Increase the swap size to the double the amount of RAM you allocated for Solaris in VMWare.
46. Add the remaining disk space to / and click OK
47. Click Next to continue
48. Review the configuration. If everything looks correct, click Install Now. Now you may want to take a break or do something else and check back once in a whie to check on the installation progress.
49. After installation, you should see a Reboot Now Button. Click it.
50. View –> Current View –> Summary
51. Double click on CD-ROM
52. Choose “Use a physical drive:” and click OK
53. If you get an error, just click OK. You probably don’t have a CD/DVD media in your computer at this time.
54. View –> Current View –> Console
55. Press “Enter” key to not override the system’s default NFS version 4 domain name.
56. You should see the login screen once Soalaris completed boot process. Enter root and root password to start using Solaris. Make sure you use JDS 3 by clicking on Options –> Session –> Java Destop System, Release 3 from the boot menu.
APPENDIX A: Install VMWare Tools
1. VM –> Instal VMWare Tools
2. Click install
3. Launch –> Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal
4. cp /cdrom/vmwaretoos/vmware-solaris-tools.tar.gz /tmp/
5. cd /tmp
6. gunzip vmware-solaris-tools.tar.gz
7. tar xvf vmware-solaris-tools.tar
8. cd vmware-tools-distrib
9. ./vmware-install.pl
10. Enter to accept default directory at /usr/bin
11. Enter to accept default directory at /etc
12. Enter to accept default directory at /etc/init.d
13. Enter to accept default directory at /usr/sbin
14. Enter to accept default directory at /usr/lib/vmware-tools
15. Enter to accept creating the directory
16. Enter to accept default documentation directory at /usr/share/doc/vmware-tools
17. Enter to accept creating the directory
18. Enter to accept executing /usr/bin/vmware-cofnig-tools.pl
19. Enter to accept creation of /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
20. Enter the appropriate number that represent the correct resolution for your monitor.
21. Restart X session or reboot
Anthony said
At step #20 i have a terminal window popup and no prompts, can u help?
zencin said
That’s weird. You mean no wizard window showing the next question or buttons? Were you able to choose Networked option at step #20? What options did you choose right before you got stuck.
Just to double check. Did you run md5sum after you downloaded the ISO file?
Anthony said
yea no wizard pop ups just a blank terminal wizard, now this install is on a dell laptop but the hard drive is new
i choose english “0″ and press next
i’m not sure what md5sum is, so i guess i didn’t use it
Anthony said
I just download md5sum from the sun site and its only a txt file
zencin said
Yes. md5sum is only a txt file. See the following howto on using md5sum to check the file you downloaded: http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/using_md5sums.html
Sam said
Sorry to interrupt……but if the RAM allocated to Virtual machine is less than 400 MB then Solaris choses Text mode installation automatically…that might be the reason for not being able to view any dialogues..
Hope this helps you folks…
By the way I started the installation right now… as per the steps above..and every thing seems to go on perfectly fine…
Thanks for such a wonderful article…was of gr8 help…
Regards
Sam
zencin said
Hi Sam,
Thanks for sharing the tip and I am glad that the article helped you.
Damera’s Blog » Blog Archive » Solaris 10 on VMWare Server said
[...] The following Article had helped me alot during the installation. LINK.. [...]
Suresh said
I canot install vmware topols
Luciano said
Hi,
I have a Pentium D Dual Core, 3.00 L2 2MBx2 with windows xp 64 running.
I installed VMWare Server 1.0.1 on Windows 64-bits, but, when i create a vmware machine to solaris 10 64-bits, it don’t configure 64-bits.
What this happening?
Thanks
Dave said
I am not sure. I was able to get 64bit using Turion x2 with Ubuntu. Looking at the release notes for Vmware Server 1.0.2 (http://www.vmware.com/support/server/doc/releasenotes_server.html) Solaris 10 64bit is supported guest operating system. The release notes also supports all hosting operating systems listed for Vmware Server GSX 3.2 A look into the release notes (http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/whatsnew_gsx.html) shows Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition is supported. I did not see Windows XP 64bit edition listed. Which Windows are you using?
Dave said
Suresh, Can you offer any further information on the issue you observed? If you want, you can also check out Vmware’s support resource at http://www.vmware.com/support/home.html
Dave said
Damera, Good to know that this howto helped you.
Tom said
Dave – Thanks a bunch for your effort to document this. It helped me out a lot. Do you or anyone else know how set the screen resolution when using CDE?
Tom said
Dave – Everyone…
I got it – use kdmconfig. I have Sol10 in a vmware machine – see the write up at: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/article/2006-02-27_getting_started_with_opensolaris_using_vmware/
Thanks again – great stuff.
Dave said
Hi Tom,
Good to hear that my notes helped you too and thanks for sharing the URL.
Solaris Express, Developer Edition 02/07 in VMware « Dave’s Blogs said
[...] with VMWare and skipped a few VMWare setup steps. If you need help with that, read step 1 – 15 in this blog entry. Solaris Express, Developer Edition 02/07 requires 768MB of RAM. So make sure you allocate enough [...]
Gary Allen Vollink said
The following info is meant to help someone else who went through the problems I had…
HOS: WinXP Pro SP2
HVM: VMWare Server 1.0.3
GOS: Solaris 10 – (Jan 2006 release) x86
./vmware-config-tools didn’t run for me as you note. I had to run it manually. This was well after I had already manually created a xorg.conf file myself, to get the resolution to my liking. It appears that if you have vmware tools installed, but you don’t have an xorg.conf file yet, this probably didn’t happen.
vmxnet0 was not set up as an interface. I had to manaully change hostname.pcn0 and dhcp.pcn0 to hostname.vmxnet0 and dhcp.vmxnet0. This was spit out by the vmware-config-tools script, but I almost missed it. After this change, networking worked.. like magic.
Dave said
Gary,
Thanks for sharing your experience. You are using an older update of Solaris 10. I wonder if a newer update would ease the installation process for you?
ddy said
if i have VMWare workstation,…..would be different??? thx dave…very helpfull blog
Dave said
Hi ddy,
Thanks. I do not know if the steps will be different for VMWare workstation. If you find any, please feel free to share.
Jak said
Can any body make good Doc on this and float for every one can use for the Installation, Bcoz i am very new to this …..
Dave said
Hi Jak,
Do you mean this blog entry has opportunities for improvement? Or Do you mean not enough people knows where this blog entry is located?
If you have any correction or additional note, please feel free to share. If you believe not enough people know where this blog entry is located, please feel free to spread the link. Thanks.
wavelet said
Dear Dave
I hope you do not mind my question which might be too basic.
I installed solaris10 sparc but it was not the entire system and then I decided to upgrade the system. It completed the first CD 07/08 then it rebooted then it displayed a message asking if I wanted to skip the rest of the installation or installing the rest of the CD’s (4 more). I pressed 2 for the latter choice but as soon as I did that, it started to display gibberish in a loop. and since I did not have any other users created I was not able to login to kill the process. I tried to reboot hoping that I could alter the boot process. I was unable to, I tried ^C, ^D, … to no benefit. If you have any idea how to get of this loop or how interrupt the boot the process I would appreciate your help greatly.
Dave said
Hi wavelet,
Since you are on a SPARC machine, just press
stop-aand you should be in the OK prompt. By then, you should be able to restart the installation from the beginning by typeboot cdrom.wavelet said
Thank you very much – I wish you happy holidays and a happy new year.
Dave said
You welcome. Happy new year!
mircea said
Hi Dave,
I try to install Solaris 10 release 11/06 on a Dell Precision 690 in VMWare 6.02. When I enter in the BIOS if VMWare, I see an Intel network card, but I don’t have such network card.
When Solaris boots, it looks for e1000.. (two more letters at the end of driver name) and tries to configure it. Of course it cannot and I could install Solaris only without networking. I did not see any option to choose a network card. I installed Solaris x64, the VMWare tools, but I don’t have network for it. Without network, Solaris is useless.
I also have Centos and Windows 2003 running on the same VMWare configuration without any problems.
Any idea how to get network working under Solaris?
Thank you,
Mircea
Dave said
Hi Mircea,
I would try latest release of Solaris. Such as Solaris 10 8/07 or Solaris Express Developer Edition 9/07. Hope this helps!
mircea said
Hi Dave,
Still network doesn’t work with the latest Solaris from Sun. Even more, the DVD image contains only Solaris x86, the x64 version is not included.
Using Solaris without network is completely useless, so if there is no solution to solve this problem, I will remove it.
All other x64 operating systems I have installed on VMWare work without any problems.
Dave said
Hi Mircea,
Perhaps this vmware image and answer to question 5 in this FAQ might help.
mircea said
Hi Dave,
Thank you for your help. Meanwhile I have solved the problem and now my Solaris x64 works like a charm on VMWare. I am downloading now the updates for it.
Mircea
Santosh said
Hi,
How did you solve the newworking problem in solaris x86 64 bit after installing VMWARE tools
Santosh
Dave said
Hi Mircea,
Welcome. Good to know you have solved the problem.
Oded said
How can i set a static ip on a gust solaris 10 x86 machine?
I’ve 3 nics configured,
nic1 – uses the host only network and get the ip by dhcp
nic2 + 3 – i need to set a static ip for a different vm network i’ve created (two different networks)
the second question i’ve is: can i set a connection between to solaris guests the will look like they have a network cross network cable connected to them?
How can this be done?
Dave said
HI Oded,
Perhaps this might help you get started on Solaris end. Assuming you use a NAT setup in VMware, you should be able to configure an internal IP for Solaris, and specify Solaris’s gateway as host’s inward facing IP. VMware should be able to route the traffic from there. If you ever migrate the VM to run on another machine, make sure you replicate the NAT configuration so Solaris’ static IP still works without reconfiguration. Hope this helps.
lien said
Your instruction is very helpful. Thank you very much.
Dave said
You welcome
hackery said
Good stuff man! Not to drift off topic here but if I wan to use this as the master template, are there any sysprep actions I need to take for solaris like I do for a windows template? Thanks for your help!
Dave said
Hi Hackery,
What do you mean? I am not aware of any additional preparation actions. Are you talking about replicate the image after you create it? If so, the only technical check I can think of is to make sure they do not fight over the same IP address. If you learn a new tip, please feel free to share it. Thanks.
paulo moura filho said
for all the people having network issues after installing vmwaretools here… almost a year before, my network worked again following gary’s tip:
“vmxnet0 was not set up as an interface. I had to manaully change hostname.pcn0 and dhcp.pcn0 to hostname.vmxnet0 and dhcp.vmxnet0. This was spit out by the vmware-config-tools script, but I almost missed it. After this change, networking worked.. like magic.”
PS: I’m using the latest solaris10 version, downloaded 2 days ago
paulo moura filho said
Almost a year ahead, I meant =)
Dave said
Hi Paulo,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Phill said
HI, nice tutorial. But I am getting stuck in a part of it. After folowwing all the steps, when the installation goes to the “Solaris Installer is determining size requirements…..”, at about 50% to 60%, it seems to freeze and I don’t get any response from the VMware.
I am using VMware Server 1.0.5 on a Windows XP SP3 with 512 MB RAM configured on the VM. Also I downloaded the last ISO from the Sun website.
Did anyone had the same or similar problem?
Thank.
Dave said
Hi Phill,
I have never experienced the issue you described. Perhaps you can allocate a little more memory. I usually give Solaris a bit more memory.
shilpa said
Hi,
I want to set debug mode on Solaris.
I executed the command “export lax_debug=TRUE” on all other flavours of Unix (AIX, HPUX) but this command didnt work on solaris.
please help me how to set debug mode on Solaris
Dave said
Hi Shilpa,
I am not the best person to ask about the “lax_debug” environment parameter. This document give the impression that the parameter works on Solaris 9 and 10. Perhaps you can get your question answered at this or this forums. Hope this helps.
ornov said
Hi,
I having the network issue as well. How do I manually change the following:
vmxnet0 was not set up as an interface. I had to manaully change hostname.pcn0 and dhcp.pcn0 to hostname.vmxnet0 and dhcp.vmxnet0.
In the virtual machine settings -> Ethernet – I tried few different options – none worked – i get the message “my unqualified localhost” during bootup
any help is great appreciated
thanks
ornov
Fadi said
hello dav e
i wonder if you could help me with this issue!!?
when enter root name and pass it show me only blank black page
i waited and waited with no response !!??
but after a while it ask me for the password to log in again same as screensaver on xp ???
am new to sollaris , thanks alote
vm workstation 6 , os host vista
sollaris v 10 05/08 x86
regards
Simon said
I was having the same problem as phil – install hangs in a random percentage during “The Solaris Installer is determining size requirements based on your choices, please wait…”. the first time i tried, it hung (including cursor freeze), at 12%, the second at 100%. Ive allocated the default 512MB on my 3GB XP machine using VMware workstation 6.0.3 build-80004. Im installing from a DVD i made of th e ISO. I upped the memory to 800M from the default 512, upped the default swap to 1GB and it seems to work now!
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
Were you able to login?
Hi Simon,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Fadi said
Thanks for your respones dave
well am able to login as you mintion at step 56
the watch pointer appear and sence my last comment till now 10 hours its still but with only one diffrenet that it ask for user respones if i move the mouse ??!!!
what the hell is trying to do “landing on mars”
thanks & regards
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
That sounds a little weird. Did you give the VM plenty of memory? When you said it asks for user response, is it asking for password? What happen when you try to give a response?
Fadi said
good mornnig all
for your answer dave yes i gave it 1GB of ram so it should be very >>>>>>>>>> , and at the screen save yes it ask for yser input ( password) the root user password , i entered the box disapper fast and then nothing !!!!????
regrads
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
Looks like you are looking at the screen saver. My initial guess is that you might entered a mismatch password for the user session (root user). If you created a non-root user, maybe you can try to ssh/telnet into the guest machine from the host machine to see if you can gain access.
Hope this helps.
Fadi said
hi dave , i thoght it was the problem but no the respones is diffrenet if i enter wrong pass , i saw that its locked but when i move the mouse it return me to ecreensaver and asking for pass , when i entered the correct password it accepted and give me the watch curser and stop there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
regards
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
That behavior doesn’t look right. A while ago, I installed Project Indiana preview 2, which is a distro of OpenSolaris, in VMware Fusion and I was able to login after the install. By now, Project Indiana has a released version.
Since you can’t do much and assuming you can’t login via telnet/ssh, did you tried to restart the guest machine and did that help?
Fadi said
now i can log to AKA CDE but the problem still when i try to login to AKA JDS
regards
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
Good to see you are making a small progress. In case you prefer to try a ready to use image, here is one.
Fadi said
hello dave ,
finaly i found the problem ==> it was the floppy ???
what i did that i unstalled the solaris on my computer
p4 1.4 memory 512 , and it works like a charm,
so i reterend to my laptop ( dell core2due 1.8 Ghz & 2.0 GB memory ) and installed again but before start the installion i created a floppy image and go on , in the end it works just fine with no problem
regards
Dave said
Hi Fadi,
Congratulations! It’s great that you finally have working installs and thanks for sharing your experience.
prasad said
I am not able to log in as root when installing the sun solaris 10 image in vmware server. How to login as a root ?
Dave said
Hi Prasad,
Did you download a ready-to-use image? If so, you might want to check the page where you downloaded the image. If you installed the OS from an installable iso/cd/dvd, then you should be asked to provide the root password during the install. Hope this helps,
alex said
Hi Dave,
I have just installed the Solaris 10 on a Vm ware it is accessing the. windows network
but i couldn’t able to configure internet connection with the system..
I have configured every file..
I have a question Whether choosing DHCP while installing and changing that into a static IP address
gives problem
Dave said
Hi Alex,
Did you use steps similar to what’s described here to configure a static IP?
JIM said
Solaris does not detect my hard rive during the installation using vmware 6. I can only select the CD-ROM. Why?
tHANKS
Dave said
Hi Jim,
I’ve never encountered the hard drive issue you described. The only issue that I ever encountered was when I used a beta version of Vmware Server and it did not handles mouse correctly with Solaris 10. By th time VMware Server released, the issue was solved. Even with my most recent install using VMware Fusion, I didn’t have this issue. Did you create a virtual disk for your guest operating system?
Jaco said
Hi All
I have increase my solaris 10 vmware images with 20Gb successfull. My problem is now to add the extra space to the actual Solaris environment. What is my options and how is this been done.
Please help
Regards
JJ
Dave said
Hi JJ,
Check out this howto.
bijoos said
I recently installed Solaris 10 on Vmware on X86 machine. Everything is working but i have no access to CD-drive. Iam getting error “mount point not determined ” and “drive bussy”. I used the command> mount -F hsfs -ro /dev/dsk/c0d0s0 /mnt.
Is there any file to configure ? Thanks in advance.
Dave said
Hi bijoos,
See this thread. Hope this helps!
ninu said
Thanks for you tutorial. But i cant mount DVD ROM. Iam getting error “already mounted or mount point bussy.
These are the output of following commands
rmformat> logical node : /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2
iostat -En> c1t0d0
i use the command mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 /cdrom
What else i need to do for mounting ?
dcp said
My Solaris setup on VMware server is having network issue. Solaris is on NAT configuration. Network and the internet works fine, but only for fist few min, then the there is nothing happening, no network and no internet connection. If I restart the server, then everything is normal again fir 5 min.
I have VMware tool installed and I tried this without the tool too, but of no use.
Need experienced help here.
N.Krishna Sumanth said
very useful stuff
thanks & regards
sumanth
l8rz said
Be sure to go into your VM Settings… and set the CDROM to be Automatic. I had an issue where I had the VM CDROM set to the Solaris install iso, and the VMWare Tools would never mount… Overall nice instructions, thanks!
Dave said
Hi l8rz,
Thanks for your tip!
David
harkiran singh said
information provided here is quite helpful in sorting the problems related to solaris operating system
puds said
Vista-32 bit with VMWare workstation 6.5 and installed virtual Solaris 10 08 machine using NAT.
(I’ve been a Solaris admin on small systems (v480s and Ultra 10s and stuff for about 15 years on and off but am new to virtual machines)
Anyway my Solaris 10 is static IP 192.168.67.64
VMunet8 virtual ethernet adapter IP is 192.168.67.1
And like everyone else I was trying to figure out how to ping the Vista ethernet host adapter 192.168.10.61.
I read somewhere on the net that the default gateway had to be set to the virtual ethernet IP + 1 so on the Solaris VM:
# route add default 192.168.67.2
And bingo, it worked and I can browse the net from my Solaris VM using Firefox no probs.
Just remember to insert the same IP “192.168.67.2″ in the /etc/defaultrouter file.
I also created a /etc/resolv.conf file with nameserver set to our local LAN DNS server.
Hope this helps somebody
Spit the dog
Dave said
Hi puds,
Thanks for sharing your tip.
Zakki said
Hi,
I have posted a step by step guide to install solaris 10 on VMware server with screenshots, pl check
http://zakkiahmed.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/installing-solaris-10-on-vmware/
rahul said
Hi,
Nice discussion. Thanks for sharing.
Mark said
Dave,
I have several VMware Player clients (Solaris x86, Linux, old Windoze) running on 2 different hosts (XP and Vista) and have recently upgraded to VMWare Player 3.0 on each. VMWare unfortunately has unbundled their “Tools”. After installing the tools on some clients and after rebooting, some Solaris clients lose their minds. The problem manifests itself after the default display is selected (there are only 6 choices and you cannot make these custom while installing VMware Tools) and after the first reboot occurs. The default splash screen sometimes sets up in the lower right corner of the visible area instead of the center (with scroll bars) – but is still visible. This also occurs after I set the MaxHeight and MaxWidth settings in the .vmx file on the Windows systems AND after fixing the xorg.conf files in the clients themselves! It also happens despite setting the display for the machine in java desktop! Do you know how I can change the default display for the client so it’s centered, and the VMWare client window fills the entire Windows screen – except for the control bar at the bottom) without scrollbars upon boot? Scroll bars are so inconvenient…! I want the Solaris clients to fill the screen before login and afterward.
Thanks in advance!