flarcreate – creates a flash archive from a master system. A master system is one that contains a reference configuration, which is a particular configuration of Solaris plus other software. A flash archive is an easily transportable version of the reference configuration.
In flash terminology, a system on which an archive is created is called a master. The system image stored in the archive is deployed to systems that are called clones. A flash archive can be created on a system that is running a UFS root file system or a ZFS root file system. A flash archive of a ZFS root pool contains the entire pool hierarchy except for the swap and dump volumes and any excluded datasets. The swap and dump volumes are created when the flash archive is installed.
Two types of flash archives: full and differential.
A full archive contains all the files that are in a system image.
A differential archive contains only differences between two system images.
# flarcreate -n name options -c path/filename
or
# flarcreate -n name options -x dir_to_exclude -c path/filename
Where:
-n = name of the archive file.
-c = compresses the flash archive (optional, but prefered).
-x directory = the name of a directory to exclude from the archive.
Examples:
# flarcreate -n Sol10.flar -c /archive/Sol10.flar
or
# flarcreate -n “Sol10” -c -x /opt/application /tmp/Sol10.flar
Recommendation:
Boot the master system to as inactive a state as permitted. If possible, run the system in single-user mode. If that is not possible, shut down any applications that you want to archive and any applications that require extensive operating system resources.