Dual Boot Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.8

Question

Is it possible to dual boot a Sparc Ultra 10 workstation with Solaris 2.5.1 and a more recent version (such as 2.8). If so please point me to some documentation.
This is required as we are running several pieces of software licensed against the hostid, that will soon require different versions of Solaris.
Thanks in anticipation.

Answer 1

You should make an alias for your second OS location, for example disksol28.The easiest way to do this is run the format command. Write down the physical path for each disk you see. Your boot disk is probably c0t0d0 and the second disk, if you have one would be c0t1d0. If you are going to install 2.8 on another slice/partition of the first disk, write down that pathname, you'll need it for the nvalias command. If you are going to install it on the second disk then the alias "disk1" will probably work already, if you did not change the eeprom during install. You'll just have to:
ok
boot disk1
If you install 2.8 on another slice of your single disk then do not forget to include the slice in your alias.
If I asume your 2.5.1 is a flat file system (/ only, no /usr, /var, /opt, /export etc.) on slice 0 and swap is on Slice 1, then I can put another flat file system on Slice 3 - don't touch Slice 2. This OS can use the same swap Slice 1. To create an alias to boot from Slice 3:
ok
nvalias disksol28 <pathname from format goes here> :d
reset <- (locks it in to NVRAM)
example:
nvalias disksol28 /pci@1f,400/pci@1/disk@0,0:d
reset
Note:Slice 0 is asumed in most aliases. For example if your alias ends wih disk@0,0 Slice 0 is assumed. You can also say disk@0,0:a to indicate Slice 0 but ":a" is not really needed.
If you are booting off of any other slice then it must be indicated in your alias.
Slice
0 :a
1 :b
2 :c
3 :d
4 :e
5 :f
6 :g
7 :h
If you want to create an alias for your second disk (c0t1d0) with root on slice 0:
ok
nvalias disksol28 <pathname from format goes here>
reset <- (locks it in to NVRAM)
example:
nvalias disksol28 /pci@1f,400/pci@1/disk@1,0
reset
Please write down any custom aliases because a Stop+n or set-defaults will wipe them out.
If you make a mistake with nvalias then:
ok
nvunalias disksol28
reset
If you want disksol28 to be your primary boot device then:
ok
setenv boot-device disksol28
setenv diag-device disksol28
reset
Good Luck,
John