Installing a ISO from ILOM 4.0.3+ using SSH

Abstract:

The SPARC platform have long come with various Lights Out Management (LOM) capabilities, to access the hardware, and provide for access to the OS from underneath, when there is a hardware issue. A more advanced system called Integrated Lights Out Management (ILOM) was later created. With ILOM 4.0.3, a feature was created to allow for the boot from a remove ISO via SSH!

Where to get ISO:

The easiest place to get the most recent version of Solaris, such as the Common Build Edition

https://www.oracle.com/solaris/solaris11/downloads/solaris-downloads.html

Various ISO's are available from Oracle for Solaris:

Where to download Oracle Solaris ISO images and Update Releases (Doc ID 1277964.1) 
https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1277964.1

What to do from ILOM:

Copy ISO's to a local directory on a server

a.b.c.d/user$ ls -l /export/home/user/*iso

a.b.c.d/user$ ls -al /u000/P2V/iso/*iso

-rw-r--r--   1 user root   2314731520 May 12  2016 /export/home/user/sol-10-u11-ga-sparc-dvd.iso

-rw-r--r--   1 user root     867020800 May 13  2016 /export/home/user/sol-11_3-text-sparc.iso

-rw-r--r--   1 user root   1018736640 Apr 23  2019 /export/home/user/sol-11_4-text-sparc.iso

-rw-r--r--   1 user root     551464960 Oct 20  2011 /export/home/user/sol-11-1111-text-sparc.iso

Make sure there is connectivity from the ILOM to the Server hosting the ISO

-> set /SP/network/test ping=a.b.c.d
Ping of a.b.c.d succeeded

Set the ILOM Host Storage Device to Remote

-> set /SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device/ mode=remote

Set the username, password, and ISO location

-> cd /SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device/remote

-> set username=user
-> set password=password
-> set server_URI=sshfs://a.b.c.d:/export/home/user/sol-11_4-text-sparc.iso

/SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device=remote
Targets:
Properties:
password = *****
server_URI = sshfs://a.b.c.d:/export/home/user/sol-11_4-text-sparc.iso
username = user

Review Values

-> show /SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device/

/SP/services/kvms/host_storage_device

Targets:
remote

Properties:
mode = remote
status = operational 

Stop Automatic Boot on Host

-> set /HOST/bootmode script="setenv auto-boot? false"

Mount & Boot the Remote ISO

-> start /SP/console -script 

{ok} reset-all
{ok} devalias
...
rcdrom

{ok} ok boot rcdrom

Boot device: /pci@311/pci@1/usb@0/storage@1/disk@0 File and args:
SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.4.0.15.0 64-bit
Copyright (c) 1983, 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Remounting root read/write
Probing for device nodes ...
Preparing image for use
NOTICE: mount: not a UFS magic number (0x0)
NOTICE: mount: not a UFS magic number (0x0)
Done mounting image
USB keyboard
1. Arabic 15. Korean
2. Belgian 16. Latin-American
3. Brazilian 17. Norwegian
4. Canadian-Bilingual 18. Portuguese
5. Canadian-French 19. Russian
6. Danish 20. Spanish
7. Dutch 21. Swedish
8. Dvorak 22. Swiss-French
9. Finnish 23. Swiss-German
10. French 24. Traditional-Chinese
11. German 25. TurkishQ
12. Italian 26. UK-English
13. Japanese-type6 27. US-English
14. Japanese

To select the keyboard layout, enter a number [default 27]:

Additional Information

A good note on this process is available for people with Oracle Support:
How to Install/Re-image a T5-x, S7, T7-x, T8-x, M7-x, or M8-x System Using the sshfs Protocol (Doc ID 2817892.1)
https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=2817892.1