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How to Check Solaris Release and Default Kernel Version

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How to Determine the Installed Solaris OS Release

The most reliable method for determining the release of the Solaris OS installed is through the contents of the /etc/release file. This file was first introduced in Solaris 2.5.1 HW 4/97 and is included in all subsequent versions. The various tables shown below can be used to map the contents of this file to the release of the Solaris OS installed.

If the /etc/release file has been deleted from a system it is also possible up to Solaris 10 to use the version of the SUNWsolnm package installed to determine the Solaris OS release. The pkginfo command, with the -l option, will return the version of the SUNWsolnm package which can then be looked up in the tables below.

For example:

# pkginfo -l SUNWsolnm | grep VERSION
  VERSION:  9,REV=2003.11.21.09.11

NOTE: Installing a Solaris 10 Update Patch Bundle to a system will update /etc/release file, but the SUNWsolnm package version will not change, ie.

# cat /etc/release
                        Solaris 10 5/08 s10x_u5wos_10 X86
           Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
                        Use is subject to license terms.
                             Assembled 24 March 2008

                Solaris 10 10/09 (Update 8) Patch Bundle applied.

Here we see /etc/release contains the original information for Solaris 10 5/08 (Update 5) as shown in the table below, with an additional two lines (a Patch Bundle identification line preceded by a blank line) appended by the Patch Bundle. So, in this example, the system was initially provisioned with the Solaris 10 5/08 (Update 5) operating system, and the Solaris 10 10/09 Patch Bundle has been installed subsequently. In the case a system has multiple Solaris 10 Update Patch Bundles installed, the /etc/release file will contain only a single Patch Bundle identification line, and this will corresponds to the newest Patch Bundle installed on the system.

Since Solaris 11 use the pkg command to get details of the package “entire“:

# pkg list entire 
NAME (PUBLISHER)  VERSION                  IFO
entire            0.5.11-0.175.3.19.0.5.0  i--

Here we see Solaris version 11 Update 3 with SRU 19 installed.

The Solaris JumpStart Software Server Image

To determine the release of Solaris OS contained in a Solaris JumpStart software server image use the copy of the etc/release file included in that image. This can be found within the Solaris JumpStart server image, i.e.,

[imagedir]/Solaris_[n]/Product/SUNWsolnm/reloc/etc/release

where [imagedir] should be replaced by the absolute path of the image directory and [n] should be replaced by the version of Solaris.

For example:

# cat /jumpstart/s9/Solaris_9/Product/SUNWsolnm/reloc/etc/release
Solaris 9 9/04 s9s_u7wos_09 SPARC
Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Assembled 29 June 2004

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