On Solaris software installation packages are combined into groups that are called metaclusters. During the operating system installation, you can choose the metacluster you want to install.

Solaris 10 has the following metaclusters:

• SUNWCrnet: Reduced Network Support Software Group
• SUNWCreq: Core System Support Software Group
• SUNWCuser: End User Solaris Software Group
• SUNWCprog: Developer Solaris Software Group
• SUNWCall: Entire Solaris Software Group
• SUNWCXall: Entire Solaris Software Group Plus OEM Support
• SUNWCmreq: Minimal Core System Support

The Reduced Network Support Software Group metacluster (SUNWCrnet) represents the smallest amount of Solaris software that can or should be installed to have a working and supported system. It is not advisable to remove packages installed by the Reduced Networking Software Group. Reduced Network Support Software Group metacluster may take about 200 MB of disk space after installation (depends on the version of the operating system).

The information about what software package is included in which metacluster you can find in text file .clustertoc:

• On installation DVD: <sol10-DVD>/Solaris_10/Product/.clustertoc
• On installed system: /var/sadm/system/admin/.clustertoc

The minimum metacluster supported by Altiris products.

There are no specific requirements to test Altiris agent and Inventory agent on minimum install configuration. Usually, the EndUser (SUNWCuser) metacluster is used by QA on Solaris platforms for testing.

A brief smoke test of the Altiris agent 6.2 with Inventory agent 6.2 on the minimum available Solaris 10 metacluster (SUNWCrnet) shows that the agent can be installed, receive policies and execute tasks without any problems.

The only noticeable problem was that the dataclass Inv_Unix_Patches was not collected. The inventory agent uses the command-line utility "showrev" to collect data for this dataclass. This command is absent in the reduced installation package. So if you are interested in this dataclass, you should additionally install the package that contains this utility. It is feasible that other metaclusters may be missing other command line utilities that are used to gather inventory, validate supported builds, communicate with the Notification Server, and so on. If you encounter any problem with a specific metacluster installation, contact Altiris Support Services, for assistance in identifying the required, corresponding Solaris package.