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.
Read on to learn more.
Solaris 10 has the following metaclusters:
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 Mbytes of disk space after installation (depends upon OS version).
The information about what software package is included in which metacluster can be found on the following locations:
There are no specific requirements to test the 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. The only noticeable problem was that the dataclass Inv_Unix_Patches was not collected. The innventory agent uses the command-line utility "showrev" to collect data for this dataclass. This command is absent in the reduced installation package. So if the customer is interested in this dataclass, he/she 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 NS, etc. If you encounter any problem with a specific metacluster installation, please contact Symantec Technical Support for assistance in identifying the required, corresponding Solaris package.