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File Formats flash_archive(4)
NAME
flash_archive - format of flash archive
SYNOPSIS
flash_archive
DESCRIPTION
A flash archive is an easily transportable version of a
reference configuration of the Solaris operating environ-
ment, plus optional other software. Such an archive is used
for the rapid installation of Solaris on large numbers of
machines. The machine that contains a flash archive is
referred to as a master system. A machine that receives a
copy of a flash archive is called a clone system.
There are two types of flash archives: full and differen-
tial. A full archive is used for initial installation or
whenever a complete, fresh installation is called for. A
differential archive is used to update an installation. A
full archive contains all of the files from a master and
overwrites the installed software on a clone completely. A
differential archive contains only the differences between
the software on a master and on a clone. These differences
include new files, changed files, and deleted files. (These
will be deleted on clones, as well). Installation of a dif-
ferential archive is faster and consumes fewer resources
than installation of a full archive.
You create a flash archive, full or differential, with the
flar(1M) or flarcreate(1M) command. You view information
about a given flash archive with flar. flar also enables you
to split or combine the sections of a flash archive.
Flash archives are monolithic files containing both archive
identification information and the actual files that have
been copied from a master system and that will be extracted
onto a clone system. The standard extension for a flash
archive is .flar.
The flash archive is laid out in the following sections:
o archive cookie
o archive identification
o manifest (for differential archives only)
o predeployment
o postdeployment
o
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 1
File Formats flash_archive(4)
reboot
o summary
o user-defined (optional)
o archive files
The only assumptions regarding section number and placement
that an application processing the archive can make is that
there is an identification section located immediately after
the archive cookie and that the last section in the archive
is an archive files section.
These sections are described in the following subsections.
Archive Cookie
The very beginning of the archive contains a cookie, which
serves to identify the file as a flash archive. It is also
used by the deployment code for identification and valida-
tion purposes.
The case-sensitive, newline-terminated cookie that identi-
fies version 1.n flash archives, is FlAsH-aRcHiVe-1.n, where
n is an integer in the range 0 through 9.
The archive version is designed to allow for the future evo-
lution of the flash archive specification while allowing
applications that process flash archives to determine
whether specific archives are of a format that can be han-
dled correctly. The archive version is a number of the form
x.y, where x is the major version number, and y is the minor
version number.
When an application encounters a flash archive with an
unknown major version number, it should issue an error mes-
sage and exit.
Archive Identification Section
The archive identification section is plain text, delimited
with newline characters. It is composed of a series of
keyword/value pairs, with one pair allowed per line. Key-
words and values are separated by a single equal sign. There
are no limits to the length of individual lines. Binary data
to be included as the value to a keyword is base64 encoded.
The keywords themselves are case-insensitive. The case-
sensitivity of the values is determined by the definition of
the keyword, though most are case-insensitive.
The global order of the keywords within the identification
section is undefined, save for the section boundary
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 2
File Formats flash_archive(4)
keywords. The identification section must begin with
section_begin=ident and must end with section_end=ident.
In addition to the keywords defined for the flash archive
and enumerated below, users can define their own. These
user-defined keywords are ignored by the flash mechanisms,
but can be used by user-provided scripts or programs that
process the identification section. User-defined keywords
must begin with X, and contain characters other than
linefeeds, equal signs, and null characters. For example,
X-department is a valid user-defined keyword. department,
which lacks the X- prefix, is not. Suggested naming conven-
tions for user-defined keyword include the underscore-
delimited descriptive method used for the pre-defined key-
words, or a federated convention similar to that used to
name Java packages.
Applications that process the identification section will
process unrecognized non-user-defined keywords differently,
depending on whether the archive version is known. If the
application recognizes the archive specification version, it
will reject any unrecognized non-user-defined keyword. If
the application does not recognize the specification ver-
sion, that is, if the minor version number is higher than
the highest minor version it knows how to process, unrecog-
nized non-user-defined keywords will be ignored. These
ignored keyword are reported to the user by means of a non-
fatal warning message.
The keywords defined for this version of the Flash archive
specification are listed below.
Keyword Value Required
section_begin text yes
section_end text yes
archive_id text no
files_archived_method text no
files_compressed_method text no
files_archived_size numeric no
files_unarchived_size numeric no
creation_date text no
creation_master text no
content_name text yes
content_type text no
content_description text no
content_author text no
content_architectures text list no
creation_node text no
creation_hardware_class text no
creation_platform text no
creation_processor text no
creation_release text no
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 3
File Formats flash_archive(4)
creation_os_name text no
creation_os_version text no
Future versions of the identification section might define
additional keywords. The only guarantee regarding the new
keywords is that they will not intrude upon the user-defined
keyword namespace as given above.
The following is an example identification section:
section_begin=identification
files_archived_method=cpio
files_compressed_method=compress
files_archived_size=259323342
files_unarchived_size=591238111
creation_date=20000131221409
creation_master=pumbaa
content_name=Finance Print Server
content_type=server
content_description=Solaris 8 Print Server
content_author=Mighty Matt
content_architectures=sun4u
creation_node=pumbaa
creation_hardware_class=sun4u
creation_platform=SUNW,Sun-Fire
creation_processor=sparc
creation_release=5.9
creation_os_name=SunOS
creation_os_version=s81_49
x-department=Internal Finance
section_end=identification
The following are descriptions of the identification section
keywords:
section_begin
section_end
These keywords are used to delimit sections in the archive
and are not limited exclusively to the identification sec-
tion. For example, the archive files section includes a
section_begin keyword, though with a different value. User-
defined archive sections will be delimited by section_begin
and section_end keywords, with values appropriate to each
section. The currently defined section names are given in
the table below. User-defined names should follow the same
convention as user-defined identification sections, with the
additional restriction that they not contain forward slashes
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 4
File Formats flash_archive(4)
( / ).
Section Boundary
identification identification
archive files archive
archive cookie cookie
Note that while the archive cookie does not use section
boundaries, and thus has no need for a section name within
the archive itself, the flar(1M) command uses section names
when splitting the archive, and thus requires a section name
for the archive cookie. The name cookie is reserved for that
purpose.
The following keywords, used in the archive identification
section, describe the contents of the archive files section.
archive_id
This optional keyword uniquely describes the contents of
the archive. It is computed as a unique hash value of
the bytes representing the archive. Currently this value
is represented as an ASCII hexadecimal 128-bit MD5 hash
of the archive contents. This value is used by the ins-
tallation software only to validate the contents of the
archive during archive installation.
If the keyword is present, the hash value is recomputed
during extraction based on the contents of the archive
being extracted. If the recomputed value does not match
the stored value in the identification section, the
archive is deemed corrupt, and appropriate actions can
be taken by the application.
If the keyword is not present, no integrity check is
performed.
files_archived_method
This keyword describes the archive method used in the
files section. If this keyword is not present, the files
section is assumed to be in cpio(1) format with ASCII
headers (the -c option to cpio). If the keyword is
present, it can have the following value:
pax The archive format in the files section is
pax(1) with extended tar(1) interchange format.
Also allows archiving and extracting files
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 5
File Formats flash_archive(4)
whose size is greater than 4 GB.
cpio The archive format in the files section is cpio
with ASCII headers.
The compression method indicated by the
files_compressed_method keyword (if present) is applied
to the archive file created by the archive method.
The introduction of additional archive methods will
require a change in the major archive specification ver-
sion number, as applications aware only of cpio/pax will
be unable to extract archives that use other archive
methods.
files_compressed_method
This keyword describes the compression algorithm (if
any) used on the files section. If this keyword is not
present, the files section is assumed to be
uncompressed. If the keyword is present, it can have one
of the following values:
none The files section is not
compressed.
compress The files section is compressed
using compress(1).
The compression method indicated by this keyword is
applied to the archive file created by the archive
method indicated by the value of the
files_archived_method keyword (if any). gzip compression
of the flash archive is not currently supported, as the
gzip decompression program is not included in the stan-
dard miniroot.
Introduction of an additional compression algorithm
would require a change in the major archive specifica-
tion version number, as applications aware only of the
above methods will be unable to extract archives that
use other compression algorithms.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 6
File Formats flash_archive(4)
files_archived_size
The value associated with this keyword is the size of
the archived files section, in bytes. This value is used
by the deployment software only to give extraction pro-
gress information to the user. While the deployment
software can easily determine the size of the archived
files section prior to extraction, it cannot do so in
the case of archive retrieval via a stream. To determine
the compressed size when extracting from a stream, the
extraction software would have to read the stream twice.
This double read would result in an unacceptable perfor-
mance penalty compared to the value of the information
gathered.
If the keyword is present, the value is used only for
the provision of status information. Because this key-
word is only advisory, deployment software must be able
to handle extraction of archives for which the actual
file section size does not match the size given in
files_archive_size.
If files_archive_size is not present and the archive is
being read from a stream device that does not allow the
prior determination of size information, such as a tape
drive, completion status information will not be gen-
erated. If the keyword is not present and the archive is
being read from a random-access device such as a mounted
file system, or from a stream that provides size infor-
mation, the compressed size will be generated dynami-
cally and used for the provision of status information.
files_unarchived_size
This keyword defines the cumulative size in bytes of the
extracted archive. The value is used for file system
size verification. The following verification methods
are possible using this approach:
No checking If the files_unarchived_size
keyword is absent, no space
checking will be performed.
Aggregate checking If the files_unarchived_size
keyword is present and the asso-
ciated value is an integer, the
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 7
File Formats flash_archive(4)
integer will be compared against
the aggregate free space created
by the requested file system
configuration.
The following keywords provide descriptive information about
the archive as a whole. They are generally used to assist
the user in archive selection and to aid in archive manage-
ment. These keywords are all optional and are used by the
deployment programs only to assist the user in distinguish-
ing between individual archives.
creation_date
The value of the creation_date keyword is a textual
timestamp representing the time of creation for the
archive. The value of this keyword can be overridden at
archive creation time through the flarcreate(1M). The
timestamp must be in ISO-8601 complete basic calendar
format without the time designator (ISO-8601, f5.4.1(a))
as follows:
CCYYMMDDhhmmss
For example:
20000131221409
(January 31st, 2000 10:14:09pm)
The date and time included in the value should be in
GMT.
creation_master
The value of the creation_master keyword is the name of
the master machine used to create the archive. The value
can be overridden at archive creation time.
content_name
The value of the content_name keyword should describe
the archive's function and purpose. It is similar to the
NAME parameter found in Solaris packages.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 8
File Formats flash_archive(4)
The value of the content_name keyword is used by the
deployment utilities to identify the archive and can be
presented to the user during the archive selection pro-
cess and/or the extraction process. The value must be no
longer than 256 characters.
content_type
The value of this keyword specifies a category for the
archive. This category is defined by the user and is
used by deployment software for display purposes. This
keyword is the flash analog of the Solaris packaging
CATEGORY keyword.
content_description
The value of this keyword is used to provide the user
with a description of what the archive contains and
should build on the description provided in
content_name. In this respect, content_description is
analogous to the DESC keyword used in Solaris packages.
There is no length limit to the value of
content_description. To facilitate display, the value
can contain escaped newline characters. As in C, the
escaped newline takes the form of 0. Due to the escaped
newline, backlashes must be included as \. The descrip-
tion is displayed in a non-proportional font, with at
least 40 characters available per line. Lines too long
for display are wrapped.
content_author
The value of this keyword is a user-defined string iden-
tifying the creator of the archive. Suggested values
include the full name of the creator, the creator's
email address, or both.
content_architectures
The value of this keyword is a comma-delimited list of
the kernel architectures supported by the given archive.
The value of this keyword is generated at archive crea-
tion time, and can be overridden by the user at that
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 9
File Formats flash_archive(4)
time. If this keyword is present in the archive, the
extraction mechanism validates the kernel architecture
of the clone system with the list of architectures sup-
ported by the archive. The extraction fails if the ker-
nel architecture of the clone is not supported by the
archive. If the keyword is not present, no architecture
validation is performed.
The keywords listed belowhave values filled in by uname(2)
at the time the flash archive is created. If you create a
flash archive in which the root directory is not /, the
flash archive software inserts the string UNKNOWN for all of
the creation_* keywords except creation_node,
creation_release, and creation_os_name. For creation_node,
the flash software uses the contents of the nodename(4)
file. For creation_release and creation_os_name, the flash
software attempts to use the contents of
<root_directory>/var/sadm/system/admin/INST_RELEASE. If it
is unsuccessful in reading this file, it assigns the value
UNKNOWN.
Regardless of their sources, you cannot override the values
of the creation_* keywords.
creation_node
The return from uname -n.
creation_hardware_class
The return from uname -m.
creation_platform
The return from uname -i.
creation_processor
The return from uname -p.
creation_release
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 10
File Formats flash_archive(4)
The return from uname -r.
creation_os_name
The return from uname -s.
creation_os_version
The return from uname -v.
Manifest Section
The manifest section is used only for differential flash
archives. It contains a filter that specifies selection of
an operating environment image and a list of the files to be
retained in, added to, and deleted from a clone system. The
list contains permissions, modification times, and other
information on each file. The flash software uses this sec-
tion to perform a consistency check prior to deployment of
an archive on a clone. If the user who created the differen-
tial archive used the -M option to flar(1M) or
flarcreate(1M), this section will not be present.
The manifest section is for the exclusive use of the flash
software. The format of this section is internal to Sun and
is subject to change.
Predeployment, Postdeployment, and Reboot Sections
Contain internal information that the flash software uses
before and after deploying an operating environment image.
These sections are for the exclusive use of the flash
software.
Summary Section
Contains a summary of archive creation. This section records
the activities of predeployment and postdeployment scripts.
User-Defined Sections
Following the identification section can be zero or more
user-defined sections. These sections are not processed by
the archive extraction code and can be used for any purpose.
User-defined sections must be line-oriented, terminated with
newline (ASCII 0x0a) characters. There is no limit on the
length of individual lines. If binary data is to be included
in a user-defined section, it should be encoded using base64
or a similar algorithm.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 11
File Formats flash_archive(4)
Archive Files Section
The archive files section contains the files gathered from
the master system. While the length of this section should
be the same as the value of the files_archived_size keyword
in the identification section, you should not assume that
these two values are equal. This section begins with
section_begin=archive, but it does not have an ending sec-
tion boundary.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWinst |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Interface Stability | Evolving |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
compress(1), cpio(1), pax(1), tar(1), flar(1M),
flarcreate(1M), md5(3EXT), attributes(5)
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 14 Dec 2005 12
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