Author Archives: Daz

Opensolaris 2008.11 and xvm

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I’ve been dabbling with virtual box up until this point. But have decided to take it to the next step by using xvm to run my virtual machines. I have taken a guide from BDerzhavets at this site : http://bderzhavets.blogspot.com/2008/12/xvm-on-opensolaris-2008.html

First step is to open package manager and find the “vitalization” grouping. Install everything in this group. You’ll probably find some packages are already installed.

Next you’ll need to add the xvm kernel to the grub startup menu (menu.1st). This bit is a bit of blind faith from my perspective – its a shame that the xvm kernel package doesn’t add itself to grub? Anyhow… You need to add the following as another boot option in the /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst file;

title OpenSolaris 2008.11 snv_101b_rc2 X86 xVM
bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
kernel$ /boot/$ISADIR/xen.gz
module$ /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS

After a bit more reading you can apparently run bootadm -m upgrade to automatically ad the new kernel to the boot menu. But there might be some issues with on-boot? Some good info on this page : http://trevoro.ca/blog/2008/05/07/getting-xvm-to-work-in-opensolaris-200805/

…added the xVM entry automatically after performing the linkage steps. You will still need to add the ‘bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris lines however.

Update : i have not implemented this yet – i’m currently happy with the stable file / virtual box server that i’m using at the moment. Its also a little early to check out this tech, as there is a lot of work being done at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/ that is near completion.

WPAD – Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol

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When using wpad there are some things that you should take note of;

  • DHCP wpad will override DNS wpad
  • DHCP 252 option can in some cases be slightly slower to resolve than DNS – there may be a patch for WinInet to resolve this.
  • You should always use lower case – wpad.dat  (it is case sensitive)
  • DHCP will allow either a URL or a file location for wpad.dat

Within IE on the LAN settings tab if you have WPAD “automatically detect settings” enabled and also configure a proxy server the WPAD should override the manual proxy configuration.

There is some good detail at the usual places http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol

I’ve done a bit of work around WPAD, but have yet to write up a decent “how-to”. I’ll update this the next time i dabble in the area.

If you are using DNS you may have to remove the globalqueryblock for the wpad entry : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968732/en-us

Here is a quick example of the syntax of a typical wpad.dat file…

   function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
      // our local URLs from the domains below example.com don't need a proxy:
      if (shExpMatch(url,"*.example.com/*"))                  {return "DIRECT";}
      if (shExpMatch(url, "*.example.com:*/*"))               {return "DIRECT";}

      // URLs within this network are accessed through 
      // port 8080 on fastproxy.example.com:
      if (isInNet(host, "10.0.0.0",  "255.255.248.0"))    {
         return "PROXY fastproxy.example.com:8080";
      }

      // All other requests go through port 8080 of proxy.example.com.
      // should that fail to respond, go directly to the WWW:
      return "PROXY proxy.example.com:8080; DIRECT";
   }

Opensolaris : SMF and Squid

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Decided to create a SMF manifest for squid so that it autostarts on boot.

Command to start squid : /usr/squid/sbin/squid 

Command to stop squid : /usr/squid/sbin/squid -k shutdown 

This site has a good starter on SMF creation : http://blogs.sun.com/observatory/entry/mouting_windows_shares_at_startup

I’ve taken a copy of the /var/svc/manifest/network/smb/server.xml file for my squid manifest and placed it at /var/svc/manifest/network/squid/squid.xml

Import the XML using this command; 

svccfg import /var/svc/manifest/network/squid/squid.xml 

Update: i’ve stopped this work as i missed the fact that squid already comes with a SMF manifest! :)  No idea how i missed that one. You can enable via ; 

svcadm enable svc:/network/http:squid

This is the manifest for the above service; 

Continue reading Opensolaris : SMF and Squid→

Windows Cluster – removing orphaned .dll file

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Recently i uninstalled scanmail off an exchange 2007 cluster environment but had issues when trying to reapply a newer version. The problem was related to an orphaned .dll file that scanmail had left behind, seems the uninstall was not as clean as i had hoped.

Within the cluster management MCC the cluster appears in a partially active state. If you go to cluster resource types you can see the .dll that hasn’t loaded properly (the orphaned file). To remove this issue make a note of the .dll that is not loading and its display name. Drop to a CMD and type the following…

cluster clustername resourcetype

This should output all of your current resource types in your cluster. You should be able to see the “resource name” and the “resource type name” that is causing the problems. Take note of the resource type name. Now to remove type…

cluster clustername resourcetype resourcetypename /delete /type

Done.

Opensolaris – configuring squid as a transparent proxy

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I used to have a virtual machine that acted as a transparent proxy, but as of late thought i’d move squid onto my host box (opensolaris). This way hopefully increasing the amount of free ram available to the host while also taking advantage of ZFS etc…

So this is a very brief guide on how to configure your opensolaris 2008.11 box as a transparent proxy. Essentially meaning if you set the solaris box as the default gateway all web traffic will be cached as it goes through it before it goes onto your dls router or outside connection.

At this point i’m assuming that your opensolaris box can access the web without issue. The config i have loaded on my box points DNS and the default route straight to my dsl router. If you have having problems getting to the web it may be the DNS problem discussed here : https://sigtar.com/2009/02/11/opensolaris-manual-network-config-issue/

First step is to enable IP forwarding;

svcadm enable ipv4-forwarding

Then install the squid package though package manager – search for “squid” and install

Configure squid via /etc/squid/squid.conf file. Find the http_port setting and add “transparent” to the required line like so…

http_port 3128 transparent

Find the network acl and add your subnet to the required line. My subnet is 192.168.4.0/24 so it should look like this. (note: you can have multiple subnets so i have two in the following example). You may need to uncomment the line…

acl our_networks src 192.168.4.0/24 192.168.2.0/24

http_access allow our_networks

Update : i had some problems with web traffic slowing down and stalling eventually over time so i have made an additional update to the /etc/squid/squid.conf file…

httpd_accel_no_pmtu_disc on

Run /usr/squid/sbin/squid -z to create the swap directories.

The default disk cache size in squid as of writing is 100MB, i usually increase mine to 30GB since disk is cheap). I also move my disk cache to a faster disk array and also increase the maximum cached object size to 1000 MB – but probably isn’t required for the small load that i would generate. Here are some of the additional changes i make (optional);

refresh_pattern . 0 80% 10080 reload-into-ims
maximum_object_size 1000 MB

I have made another post that details increasing your hit ratio here : https://sigtar.com/2009/06/10/squid-optimizing-cache-hits/

Run /usr/squid/sbin/squid

Check for any issues in the cache log located at /var/squid/logs/cache.log

You should test your proxy at the default port of 3128 first. i.e. setup the proxy details in Internet Explorer / FireFox to point to your solaris box ipaddress:3128

Next you need to redirect traffic hitting the solaris box on port 80 to 3128 (the transparent port forwarding) like so…

First enable the ipfilter service…    (no iptables in solaris)

svcadm enable ipfilter

create a file called /etc/ipf/ipnat.conf, and place this rule in it;  (this file should be auto loaded at startup)

rdr e1000g1 0.0.0.0/0 port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3128

This redirects my nic (e1000g1) any network port 80 to the local loopback port 3128. To load this rule type;  (clears current rules and loads file)

ipnat -Cf /etc/ipf/ipnat.conf

to check if its working and loaded type ipnat -l

Browse some websites from your web client, and check the squid logs that all http requests are hitting the cache. default log location is /var/squid/logs/access.log

Set your DHCP to point to your solaris box as the default gateway. Done. In most cases your dsl router if it has DHCP will not allow you to change your default gateway. If this is the case you will need to setup your own DHCP server and define the opensolaris box as the default gateway. The DHCP scope can point the clients to the dsl router for DNS, only the default gateway needs to be changed.

Set squid to autostart at boot via SMF manifest;

svcadm enable svc:/network/http:squid

Done