Solaris 11.1 Install with metadb slice

If you need to a Solaris 11.x install which will use Solaris Volume Manger and want the metadbs on the boot disk, here’s a procedure to get the job done.

Boot the Solaris 11.1 text iso
When you arrive at the menu, select a shell
run the ‘format’ command
- select ‘fdisk’
- create a protected EFI partition similar to this


             Total disk size is 1305 cylinders
             Cylinder size is 16065 (512 byte) blocks

                                               Cylinders
      Partition   Status    Type          Start   End   Length    %
      =========   ======    ============  =====   ===   ======   ===
          1                 EFI               0  1305    1306    100

save and exit
select ‘partition’ and create the following partition or similar.


Current partition table (original):
Total disk sectors available: 20955069 + 16384 (reserved sectors)

Part      Tag    Flag     First Sector        Size        Last Sector
  0  BIOS_boot    wm                34     250.00MB         512033
  1        usr    wm            512034       9.70GB         20854407
  2 unassigned    wm                 0          0              0
  3       home    wm          20854408      48.00MB         20952711
  4 unassigned    wm                 0          0              0
  5 unassigned    wm                 0          0              0
  6 unassigned    wm                 0          0              0
  8   reserved    wm          20955103       8.00MB         20971486

Partition 0 must be ‘BIOS_boot’ and size of 250mb.
Partition 1 must be ‘usr’ and will be around 97% of the disk. This will hold our rpool.
Partition 3 can not be ‘usr’ and will need to be at least 20mb.
Partition 8 will already exist and should not be changed.
Take care to avoid overlapping partitions.

Exit the shell and proceed with the install. When prompted: