Sharing One ISO Image with Multiple Guest Domains

Instead of copying ISO files multiple times, you can expose a single ISO from the service domain as a read-only virtual disk device and attach it to many guests. Useful for OS installs and recovery tools.

Concept: virtual DVD from ISO

Backend

ISO is presented as a vdsdev backend on the virtual disk service.

Frontend

Each guest sees it as a vdisk (virtual DVD) attached to the domain.

Benefits

One ISO file instead of many copies.
Consistent install media for all guests.
Easy to update / replace with new ISO.

Commands and example

terminal — ISO sharing

ldoms-lab

# ISO stored on service/primary domain:
[root@primary ~]# ls /export/home
sol-10-u10-ga2-sparc-dvd.iso
 
# Add as virtual disk server backend (read-only)
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vdsdev options=ro     /export/home/sol-10-u10-ga2-sparc-dvd.iso newiso2@primary-vds0
 
# Attach ISO as virtual DVD to guest ldg1
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vdisk dvd0 newiso2@primary-vds0 ldg1
 
# Attach same ISO to another guest ldg2
[root@primary ~]# ldm add-vdisk dvd0 newiso2@primary-vds0 ldg2
 
# Inside guests, boot from dvd0 via OBP to install OS.