IPS Intro

One of the main new features in Oracle Solaris 11 is a new packaging system, called IPS (Image Packaging System). In this lab we will explore its capabilities and learn how to work with packages from System Administrator's perspective.

IPS uses a network-based repository model which is also used by modern Linux distributions (yum/rpm in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Linux, apt in Debian and Ubuntu, etc.). All the information about package and its dependencies is stored in the package's metadata. IPS is responsible for packages' and overall system's integrity, so it's not a sysadmin's headache anymore.

Another good news for sysadmins is that in IPS there are no "patches". No more long README files, no more guessing which patch to install first. Everything is done by a single command (pkg update) and IPS takes care of everything.

You can read more about IPS concepts in the official Oracle Solaris 11 documentation

In this lab we will address the following typical situations.

Situation	Exercise
You have an ISO file with Solaris 11 repository and you have to install it and share for your local network	IPS Repository
You need a package and you want to find it in the repository and install it	IPS Packages
You want to make sure that your packages weren't changed (maliciously or by mistake)	IPS Verify
You want to install a new package, but in a separate Boot Environment	IPS and BE
You have in-house development and you want to use Solaris mechanism to install and update your local applications	IPS for Developers

After you are done with the exercises you can check you IPS history:

root@solaris:~# pkg history

And the verbose history:

root@solaris:~# pkg history -l|more

This might be helpful if you have a team of sysadmins and you want to know what was done before you.