Opensolaris on sigtar.com

opensolaris - check syslog

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +1300

dmesg | tail

Shows the last few entries in the system log.

OpenSolaris is Dead

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +1300

http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2010/08/opensolaris-is-dead.html

OpenSolaris is Dead.

What follows is an email sent internally to Oracle Solaris Engineers which describes Oracle’s true intentions toward the OpenSolaris project and the future of Oracle Solaris.

This concludes over four years that I (and many other external contributors) have worked on the OpenSolaris project. This is a terrible sendoff for countless hours of work - for quality software which will now ship as an Oracle product that we (the original authors) can no longer obtain on an unrestricted basis.

I can only maintain that the software we worked on was for the betterment of all, not for any one company’s bottom line. This is truly a perversion of the open source spirit.

opensolaris - increase swap

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I found this on opensolaris forums…. A nice way to increase your swap without the need for a reboot.

First check your current swap size and details;

swap -lh

zfs list

Then create a temp swap zfs store and delete and increase swap

zfs create -V rpool/swp

swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swp

swap -d /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap

zfs destroy rpool/swap

zfs create -V rpool/swap

swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap

swap -d /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swp

zfs destroy rpool/swp

OpenSolaris on HP server

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

A nice easy post by Evgeniy on getting opensolaris on HP kit….

http://www.eject.name/2009/07/opensolaris-and-hp-smartarray.html

opensolaris - pkg verify

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I ran through a pkg verify the other day and came across a lot of errors. Running the subsequent pkg fix command presented me with this…

pkg: Requested “install” operation would affect files that cannot be modified in live image.

Please retry this operation on an alternate boot environment.

This is the fix….

mkdir /mnt/osol-134fix beadm create osol-134fix beadm mount osol-134fix /mnt/osol-134fix pkg -R /mnt/osol-134fix fix –accept beadm activate osol-134fix

opensolaris v134 - CIFS has gone walkies

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Errr, I cant find the CIFS service in the 134 build.

I know it was renamed to as per below but still cant see it anywhere?

> system/file-system/smb (was SUNWsmbfs*) > service/file-system/smb (was SUNWsmbs*)

Anyone have any ideas?

pkg search *smb gets me these… but i cant install them.

require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/redistributable@0.1-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-server@0.1-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/system/security/kerberos-5@0.5.11-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-nas@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/redistributable@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-server@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/slim_install@0.1-0.134

OpenSolaris - iSCSI

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Want iSCSI in opensolaris?

Grab SUNWiscsitgt via package manager.

enable the server via svcadm;

svcadm enable iscsitgt

create your zfs iscsi pool; (this command will limit iscsi drive to 500GB in size)

zfs create -V 500G tank/iscsi

set isci on via zfs command;

zfs set shareiscsi=on tank/iscsi

check that target is up and running;

iscsitadm list target -v

Done. Should be able to connect via ip from another machine. I have not covered CHAP or any client side configuration. Assumed isolated LAN.

Opensolaris - white screen on logon

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I had this problem when i enabled 3d effects on my server. The screen just goes white and you cannot see anything. Even after a reboot as soon as you logon to gnome the screen goes white.

To fix you’ll need to logon using a “failsafe terminal” session, then run gnome-cleanup from the command line. This will blow away any of your gnome settings (although they are actually backed up to a file), but it’ll mean you’ll be able to logon again without issue.

VirtualBox - crashing / freezing

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had some problems since my upgrade to virtualbox 2.2.0 on OpenSolaris. After some time all of my linux boxes seem to just die. The virtual machine just stops responding. Strangely there was no problem with my windows vms after the update.

From what i can tell it looks like the upgrade turned off “IO APIC” - this is the bit that seemed to cause the problem. Re-enabling this on all of my linux boxes seems to have fixed the problem. I’ll continue testing for another week and update this post if any problems re-occur.

opensolaris - zfs PCI-e sata controller

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Time for me to add some more sata ports to my opensolaris build. I’ve been using the SI 3114 PCI cards (4x sata) up until now without any issue, but they are limited by the bandwidth on the PCI slot. Time to upgrade and boost my performance.

At the moment i’m looking at grabbing one of these UIO cards;

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L8i.cfm

From what iv’e been reading these cards will work fine in a PCI-e slot (8x / 16x) after a bit of modding and display the drives straight to opensolaris without any additional drivers etc. (same chipset used in various sun servers)

OpenSolaris - Samba server

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Time to share your newly created ZFS volume via samba to your windows clients. There is some CIFS / SMB support built into the kernel now, but i’ve grown used to the SMB server…

Fire up add software - click filesystems - enable filter for “smb”, there are three packages generally. I get all three, but you only need the kernel update and the server package. The other is the SMB client.

opensolaris - smbd issues?

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Hmm… i’ve been having problems since the 2009.06 (snv_111b) update with cifs.

Cant pin it exactly as it could be “load” related… hmmm.

found this ? http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=107681 this also may be a clue.. http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=92472&tstart=75

imapd ? might have to go back to 2008.11

You might get better performance if you enable oplocks but there are known issues with it but you can do it just to see if you see any difference:

svccfg -s smb/server setprop smbd/oplock_enable=boolean: true

OpenSolaris - Headless server

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve moved from a CentOS linux distro running vmware server 2.0 to OpenSolaris running VirtualBox. My previous system was totally headless and i wanted something similar to replace it.

I’ve just started getting into OpenSolaris for many reasons (Sun has some cool stuff - ZFS / VirtualBox). But I have always wanted to run OpenSolaris as a headless server, and from what i initially found VirtualBox didn’t have the easy to use autostart on boot features that vmware server had. But there are always ways to get things working…

Opensolaris : Citrix XenServer / ESX - Hooking into ZFS

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

To share your zfs pool via NFS (that works with Citrix Xen / ESX) to a host called “esxhost”;

zfs set sharenfs=rw,nosuid,root=esxhost tank/nfs

Note : You MUST have a resolvable name from the opensolaris box. i.e. you should be able to ping it. I have tried with ip’s only and it will fail. I have edited the /etc/hosts file to include the following line for my config;

VirtualBox - Dup on ping

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had this with certain kernels (2009.06) on opensolaris. Seems there is some incompatibility between some kernels and the opensolaris virtualbox network emulation. This only seems to effect linux virtual guests.

When you try to ping an address you get something like this…

[root@VA-DHCPWEB ~]# ping 192.168.9.15 PING 192.168.9.15 (192.168.9.15) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.9.15: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=1.85 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.9.15: icmp_seq=1 ttl=127 time=1.88 ms (DUP!)

Opensolaris 2008.11 and xvm

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

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;

OpenSolaris cifs/smb server - configuring ACL's on shares

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

O.k. from this point I’m assuming you have created your zfs shares via the zfs command and renamed appropriately like so….. (if you havent setup cifs yet then check read this)

zfs set sharesmb=on protected/backup

zfs set sharesmb=name=backup protected/backup

Now to check your current shares type…

sharemgr show

zfs

zfs/protected/backup backup=/protected/backup

zfs/protected/photos photos=/protected/photos

Now its time to look at NFSv4 ACL’s. This page has a great explanation of ACL’s and how to set things up. http://cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=939

OpenSolaris - Migrating from samba to cifs

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

OpenSolaris 2008.11 has a cifs/smb server built into the kernel. From what i have been reading (and discovering) this is a much more efficient and faster way to get your files out into the network.

Previously i have run a dedicated samba service to share my files as I’ve come from various linux distros which require it. Seems i should be doing things differently on OpenSolaris.

The dedicated samba service is called;

OpenSolaris - RTL8111/8168B issues

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve got an integrated RTL8111 nic which seemed to work fine under opensolaris 2008.11. But if the nic was put under load for a various length of time it seemed to just drop off the network.

At first i thought it was my SMB service dying, but after a quick ping i relised i had lost the entire TCP/IP stack on that particular card. Hmm…

It does come back online if you are patient and wait for about 5mins or so.

OpenSolaris - Manual Network DNS issue

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

If you have tried to setup a manual IP on your opensolaris box you may find that DNS is not working as you would expect in some cases. nslookup resolves the name to an ip, but pinging doesnt make it to the box…

How to fix;

Edit your /etc/nsswitch.conf file and add the word “dns” to the hosts and ipnodes lines If you make a backup of /etc/nsswitch.conf you can also just copy /etc/nsswitch.dns over it…

Linux - crontab

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Time to schedule some tasks!

First you need to make sure your in the /etc/cron.d/cron.allow file. If you are not SU to root and add yourself into it.

Now to create your new crontab file;

crontab -e

You are in vi in your newly created crontab file (note if you do not have access to do this it will say so)

Now, i’m no expert at using vi, but if you press i you will go into insert mode. Do this, then type the cron job details. A typical cron job will look like this

ZFS - Error 16 : Inconsistent filesystem structure

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Oh no. I’ve managed to get this error before. And it was right after i applied compression to the rpool zfs filesystem. Upon the next reboot i was greeted with this error message;

Error 16 : Inconsistent filesystem structure

For me it was a show stopper and i had to go into recovery. So i’ve learnt my lesson - Not to touch the rpool zpool.

I was lucky enough to have put my data within a zfs filesystem (rpool/virtual) i created within the default rpool zpool. I use this spot for my VirtualBox virtual machines.

ZFS basics

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve had a play with WHS but eventually got annoyed with its lack of performance. Yes i know its not built for performance and typically is used just as a backup / simple store with duplication as redundancy, just i couldn’t stand the speed of the thing. If you were ever unlucky enough (even post power pack 1) to do a copy during the “data moving” the performance was even worse. On a positive note nothing beats it if you have a heap of non-similar sized disks that you want to put together (with redundancy) as a single shared storage pool.

ZFS compression types

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

ZFS compression as of OpenSolaris 2008.11 has a few types to choose from.

lzjb (default) | gzip | gzip-[1-9]

They are used via the zfs set compression=gzip poolname command.

The following test was quickly done out of personal interest - and is in no way scientific!

I have a AMD cpu with 3 cores (2.4Ghz). The data i copied to each of the shares consisted of video / documents / pictures and music. The first test i have done is based on compression only (i have not measured throughput)

OpenSolaris - Autologon

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

There are two ways to setup the auto login for OpenSolaris (2008.11);

One - You can fire up the GUI using gdmsetup. Update : this didnt actually work when i tried it recentely - it might not be in this release of opensolaris.

Two - go to /etc/x****11/gdm/custom.conf (in newer releases its just /etc/gdm/custom.conf) and manually modify the required fields in the [daemon] section and add the following;

[daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable=true AutomaticLogin=username

OpenSolaris - SMF and VirtualBox

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

So… i’m looking for a way to fire up some VirtualBox machines after a reboot on OpenSolaris. SMF is the key. Just need to create some XML docs that fire up a couple of headless vm’s.

Shouldn’t be too hard. Lets see what i can come up with.

Here is a good pdf about migrating Legacy RC services into SMF, which has given me a few pointers….

how to shutdown a vm;