So, lets do it.

Create a VNIC:

/usr/lib/vna <physicalAdapter> <fakeMacAddress>

You will get the vnic name returned as “vnic0″, then vnic1, and so on the more times you do this. Always use a different mac address of course, else, fail.

Create a new zone, and when configuring it, set the physical NIC to vnic0, and DO NOT set an address on it.

So, either type the commands below into zonecfg when creating a new zone:

# zonecfg -z <zoneName>

zonecfg:<zoneName>> set ip-type=exclusive

zonecfg:<zoneName>> add net

zonecfg:<zoneName>:net> set physical=vnic0

zonecfg:<zoneName>:net> end

zonecfg:<zoneName>> commit

OR remove the NIC config from an existing zone, and configure the new nic

zonecfg -z <zoneName> "remove net; set ip-type=exclusive; add net; set physical=vnic0; end"

Good to go - now boot the zone, and get on the zone console:

zlogin -C -e \# <zoneName>

Login as root, and then plumb the interface to verify it works:

ifconfig vnic0 plumb

And now, configure the zone like a regular Solaris 10 host, creating the /etc/hostname.vnic0 file, with a hostname in it, editing /etc/hosts, setting up /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/netmasks, /etc/defaultrouter and so on, and you should be good to go!

You may also wish to write a startup script that runs before the zones come up at boot, to avoid the zone boot failing. It will simply need to contain the /usr/lib/vna lines you used above to configure the vnic’s in the first place.

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Well, there’s probably a boat load of other people who have done something similar to this before, but, whatever. I’ve written a quick script to add and remove zones from a solaris 10 (or in this case, a Solaris Express) machine, with very little thought and virtually no questions asked.

The newZone.ksh script will:

• Perform basic verification that your input is sane, such as checking the NIC is plumbed, IP is valid-ish, Zone doesn’t exist
• Default to autoboot the zone
• Use your existing /etc/sysidcfg, changing only the hostname (easily modifiable for more complex setups)
• Allow for post-install scripts to be run, but you must add them yourself (or ask and I’ll give you my basic one).

The rmZone.ksh has basically no error checking, and the script will simply:

• Halt the running zone immediately
• Uninstall the zone
• Delete the zone’s config

The scripts should be relatively easy to follow, and modifable as you see fit. Please don’t redistribute a modified version without my permission.

UPDATE 14 July 2008: Zone Creation Scripts updated to:

• Improve handling of invalid input
• Resolve bug with sparse zone creation

Additional notes added to this post you must read if you have not installed the zone host from jumpstart (you will need to create a sysidcfg similar to the example)

You can grab the scripts in the tar file at:
http://unixsysadmin.net/files/zone-scripts.tar

Usage:

newZone.ksh <zoneName> <physicalNIC> <zoneIP> [whole | sparse]
rmZone.ksh <zoneName>

Sample run:

bash-3.2# ./newZone.sh ldapm1 rtls0 192.168.0.2 whole
INFO: Zone does not exist, OK to create
INFO: Physical NIC exists, OK to use
INFO: IP Address is probably OK
INFO: ZoneType is OK
INFO: Configuring Zone...
INFO: Creating a whole zone in /export/zones/ldapm1
Preparing to install zone <ldapm1>.
Creating list of files to copy from the global zone.
Copying <206279> files to the zone.
Initializing zone product registry.
Determining zone package initialization order.
Preparing to initialize <1358> packages on the zone.
Initialized <1358> packages on zone.
Zone <ldapm1> is initialized.
.
.
.
[NOTICE: Zone rebooting]

SunOS Release 5.11 Version snv_92 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Hostname: ldapm1
Reading ZFS config: done.
ldapm1 console login:

And we’re good to go!

NOTE for Non-Jumpstarted Machines: The scripts assume the host of your zones was jumpstarted, and as such, has an /etc/sysidcfg file. If it does not, you will want to have one somewhere, by default it looks at /etc/sysidcfg.

For simplicity, you could create one that looks something like this (with the correct paramaters, of course)

  system_locale=en_AU.ISO8859-1

  timezone=Australia/Sydney

  timeserver=localhost

  terminal=vt100

  name_service=DNS {domain_name=<your domain>

                        name_server=<your name server>

                        search=<your search domain>}

  security_policy=NONE

  root_password=<a crypt version of your password>

  network_interface=primary {hostname=<your host name>

                        netmask=<your netmask>

                        protocol_ipv6=no

                        default_route=<your default route>}

  nfs4_domain=<your domain name>

replacing all the bits in the < >, and the <hostname> bit with your systems hostname - this is important as the script uses sed to replace this value with your zone’s hostname, if you do not do this, you will get asked all the questions from the installer, and all of a sudden, the automated build isn’t so automated!

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Now, you can reminisce with this small script and a bash shell. Just grab sp.sh and you’re good to go, hoorah.

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PSPERR:++++++++++++++++++++++++++  {Missing Resource Exception in the loading of the

PkgRelativePaths{Can't find bundle for base name

com.sun.entsys.installer.common.resources.PkgRelativePaths5_11, locale en_AU}}

And hence the failure of installation of JES software on Solaris Express Nevada Builds. I’ve spent some time this evening figuring it out (thanks to truss + find) because tonight I *really* wanted to install JES on Solaris Express b81 (with Crossbow Integrated Bits) and I’ve found a way that sorts the issue. You need not rename directories or do anything else but the instructions that follow.

NOTE: Sun probably don’t want you to do this and it is unsupported, do so at your own peril.

Unzip a fresh copy of JES.
Run the installer (I’ve used text mode):

Unable to access a usable display on the remote system. Continue in command-line mode?(Y/N)
  Y

Once you say “Y”, I’ve found it goes off creates a directory called /tmp/.entsys_CaChE

Inside this directory you will find the following seemingly relevant files:

./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/EntsysCluster_SUNOS_SPARC_5_10.xml
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/EntsysCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_10.xml
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/OrionCluster_SUNOS_SPARC_5_10.xml
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/OrionCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_10.xml
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/com/sun/entsys/installer/common/resources/PkgRelativePaths5_10.properties

In another terminal window, copy the relevant files for your platform to the same file but with 5_11 instead of 5_10

cd /tmp/.entsys_CaChE

cp ./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/EntsysCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_10.xml \
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/EntsysCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_11.xml

cp ./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/OrionCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_10.xml \
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/PPXMLS/Clusters/OrionCluster_SUNOS_X86_5_11.xml

 cp ./Solaris_x86/.install/config/com/sun/entsys/installer/common/resources/PkgRelativePaths5_10.properties \
./Solaris_x86/.install/config/com/sun/entsys/installer/common/resources/PkgRelativePaths5_11.properties

Then continue the installer as normal.

Then you should get to here:

1. Install
2. Start Over
3. Exit Installation
What would you like to do [1] {”<”!” exits}?

And if you continue now things are happy:

Java Enterprise System 5

-1%————–25%—————–50%—————–75%————–100%

Installation Complete
Software installation has completed successfully. You can view the installation
summary and log by using the choices below. Summary and log files are available
in /var/sadm/install/logs/.

Sorted!

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Given how far ahead Solaris Express is on the Desktop over Solaris 10u4, I was definitely going to be using an OpenSolaris derived build. I tried a couple of options, including SXCE b82, the indiana preview 2 and nexenta 1.0 (I also tried eeeXubuntu, but it wasn’t for me, I wanted Solaris on this puppy not linux).

Note: You will need to upgrade the memory in your eeePC to reliably install and run a newer release of Solaris Express (b72 was fine, but when I tried 79 and above, the installer was unreliable. I have upgraded to 2GB of memory and a 8GB SD card, and this makes the eee significantly more useable, and give you some head room with the disk).

Also, please note you will require a USB keyboard to install the thing, but there is a dodgy fix below that gets around this problem once Solaris is installed.

Installing Solaris Express

My first goal was to get a working GUI, then to get the thing on the internet (ideally using 3G).

First attempted using Jumpstart - no good, Solaris doesn’t support the atheros 10/100Mb on board adapter in the jumpstart environment

Second attempt - boot from USB DVD - works (make sure you attach a USB keyboard for the install and first boot!)

Install questions:

1. Use Console Session Jumpstart Interactive

2. When it gets to disk layout, do it manually and create your own partition layout, making / the entire disk (the only way you’ll fit all this on the 4GB drive) on s0 - unless you use additional storage, in which case you don’t have to be so harsh with the “all root” or nothing approach.

3. Use the “End User” Cluster (Claims to require over 4GB, it doesn’t), and preferably remove some packages (there’s only so much room on this thing!) I will post a stripped down profile to assist with this once I have one created, so maybe we can get some swap space even on the base 4GB drive.

Once you get through this, it will take its time and to the install.

Once its up, the first thing you’ll want to do is fix the keyboard, as it does not work reliably out of the box.

Fixing the in built keyboard not working on the eeePC

Write a quick script to fix the keyboard issue at boot (Found a hint that guided me in the right direction after doing some mucking around myself and finding the issue and that a keyboard driver was happily attached [grrr], turns out a modunload and a modload fixes the problem - thanks for the hint from timf http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=146353):

#!/bin/sh

modunload -i `modinfo|awk '/kb8042/ {print$1}'

devfsadm -i kb8042

modload /kernel/drv/kb8042

I saved this quick script as /etc/init.d/fixKB and linked it in /etc/rc2.d/S99fixKB, this fixes it on each boot.

Now onto making the nokia 6120 modem work via USB with Virgin Mobile…

Using a USB cable to a Nokia 6120 Classic (and many other nokia phones) for Internet Access (3G)

-Attach the DVD drive again, with Solaris install CD inside

-Install the SUNWpppd* packages:

pkgadd -d /media/SOL11_X86_1/Solaris_11/packages SUNWpppd SUNWpppdr SUNWpppdu

-Plug in the nokia and link the device in the dev tree:

ln -s /dev/term/0 /dev/nokia

-Edit /etc/ppp/peers/nokia:

modem

nokia

460800

noauth

nodetach

noipdefault

usepeerdns

defaultroute

hide-password

connect '/usr/bin/chat -V -t15 -f /etc/ppp/nokia-chat'

-Edit /etc/ppp/nokia-chat:

'' 'ATZ'

'OK' 'ATE0V1'

'OK' 'AT+CGDCONT=,,"virgininternet"'

'OK' 'ATD*99#'

CONNECT ''

-Reboot (SUNWpppd needs the ppp driver loaded in the kernel, you could probably load this manually)

-Edit /etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 61.88.88.88

-Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf, adding “dns” to the lines “hosts”:

hosts: files dns

Now, to start using the internet:

pppd call nokia

Compiz Fusion on the eeePC

You can install Compiz quite easily thanks to Erwann Chénedé at Sun http://blogs.sun.com/erwann/entry/new_easy_install_bundle_for

However, though it basically works, it is a bit buggy in my experience on both my laptop and on the eeePC. Never the less, I have posted a quick you tube video so you can see compiz in action on the eeePC.

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NOTE: To run Sun Cluster on Solaris 10, you will need to be running your VMs as 64-bit guests (Sun Cluster, on Solaris 10, on x86/x64 DOES NOT run on Solaris 10 32-bit - found this out the hard way a long time ago!).

To do 64-bit VMs, only some CPUs are supported. In this case I am using a relatively new AMD 64 x2, and thats perfect for this purpose. In this build I’m using Solaris u3 is because u4 seems to have a few issues on VMware (lots of kernel panics on boot I’ve found), and Sun Cluster 3.1 8/05 (u4), even though Solaris Cluster 3.2 is out, Sun Cluster 3.1u4 is still what most things are certified against. I will build a 3.2 cluster at some point later on.

So, lets start with configuring VMware:

-Configure at least 2 additional host based networks, on Linux you will need to run

vmware-config.pl

I have configured several more (seeing as it is easy to do it all at once).

When it asks you about networking, you want to configure additional host based networks. The scheme I have used is:

172.16.0.0/255.255.255.0

172.16.1.0/255.255.255.0

.

.

172.16.11.0/255.255.255.0

NOTE: What subnets you specify here isn’t that relevant as your host will never talk on these networks, the host to host cluster interconnects will use the interfaces, and will likely use different subnets. Each subnet just needs to be different for each vmnet adapter. You need not use /24’s either, you could go down to a very small subnet size (/30 for example). If this makes no sense to you, do not worry too much, keep going anyway just following what I’ve done above.

Now, create 2 VMs - Typical, Solaris 10 64-bit (will not work if 64-bit is not selected), and in my case I preallocated 32GB of disk.

For each VM:

-Add at least 2 additional ethernet interfaces (e1000gXs) - these will be used for interconnects. Put each one on a different vmnet adapter. I used vmnet1 and vmnet2 in this case. Make sure when you do this, you do the interfaces identically on both VMs as they will need to talk to each other across these interfaces, but nothing else.

-Disable snapshots (for performance)

-Add a single disk in a different location for quorom, to one host only. I added quorom in /virtuals/cluster-disks/mail-store-quorom.vmdk. Quorom should be as small as possible, I believe the smallest disk you can build is ~100meg, so do that (0.1GB)

Boot each node for a tick, then shut it down straight away. This is to build the initial vmx config additional information that is not populated till you bring up a VM (ethernet address for e1000g0, is what we really want to be populated here).

-With each VM shut down, edit the .vmx file for each VM and add in the lines:

Configure shared quorom device:

scsi0:1.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:1.fileName = "/virtuals/cluster-disks/mail-store-quorom.vmdk"
scsi0.sharedBus = "virtual"
disk.locking = "false"

Obviously there’s no need to re-add the filename line for the host you configured the disk on initially.

Next for each VM configure CPU (core) binding - if you don’t do this and you’re using a 64 bit AMD chip, you’ll get some interesting behaviour because the timestamping on each core of these CPUs is different, it messes with Solaris which expects to be on one CPU. Cluster will panic more often if you don’t do this

processor0.use = "TRUE"
processor1.use = "FALSE"

And I do the reverse of the above for the other host’s vmx file:

processor0.use = "FALSE"
processor1.use = "TRUE"

-Now kick off a Solaris build using the minimal profile from my last post, or a SUNWCXall (all packages) will do if you don’t mid the extra build time wait and you have disk space up your sleeve. You could of course just do a straight install off the CD, just make sure you use a custom partitioning scheme ensuring there is a 512MB /globaldevices slice of your disk.

-Install Sun Cluster from anything Java Enterprise System 2005Q4 or above (JES 5 at time of writing). Obtain it for free from http://www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem/getit.jsp. All the JES’ from (and including) 2005Q4 have Sun Cluster 3.1u4 (that is 8/05). It’s worth noting Sun Cluster 3.2 is out and has been for a while, but I’m not sure how much stuff is certified against it. I will try it out later, for the moment I’ll go with 3.1u4.

Note: there is nearly no initial config when you install Sun Cluster from the JES installer. I noticed in the most recent release of JES (and possibly some previous releases, I’ve missed a few) it asks if you want to allow Sun Cluster to be configured remotely. For simplicity, answer yes. It makes the cluster config very easy from there.

-Add /usr/cluster/bin to your path for convenience on both hosts

-run scinstall on ONE host (/usr/cluster/bin/scinstall if you did not follow the above step).

You’ll get a menu… with the first item where we want to be.

* 1) Install a cluster or cluster node

So select 1, then..

1) Install all nodes of a new cluster

1 again, then yes to continue

Please select from one of the following options:

1) Typical

2) Custom

Select 1

Then select a cluster name, in this case I’ve gone with mail-store-clus as this is to become a cluster of Sun Messaging Server 6.3 Mail Stores

Next you are asked for other nodes in the cluster, in this case the only other node for me is mail-store1, so I type that in

Node name (Control-D to finish):  mail-store1
 Node name (Control-D to finish):

This is the complete list of nodes:

mail-store0
mail-store1

Is it correct (yes/no) [yes]?

and then ctrl-D, then yes it is correct

Attempting to contact "mail-store1" ... done

Searching for a remote install method ... done

The Sun Cluster framework software is already installed on each of
the new nodes of this cluster. And, it is able to complete the
configuration process without remote shell access.

Looking good so far! Enter to continue.

Select the first cluster transport adapter for "mail-store0":

1) e1000g1

2) e1000g2

3) Other

Go with 1, then the next transport adapter, 2. NOTE: If you have plumb’d these devices, they will not work. These cards need to be unplumb’d in that case.

    Searching for any unexpected network traffic on "e1000g1" ... done

    Verification completed. No traffic was detected over a 10 second

    sample period.

Next up, quorom. This is why we setup the shared disk earlier:

Do you want to disable automatic quorum device selection (yes/no) [no]?

(go with the default, no)

    Is it okay to begin the installation (yes/no) [yes]?

yes, it sure is!

    During the installation process, sccheck(1M) is run on each of the
    new cluster nodes. If sccheck(1M) detects problems, you can either
    interrupt the installation process or check the log files after
    installation has completed.

    Interrupt the installation for sccheck errors (yes/no) [no]?

default is fine, no

and off we go:

  Installation and Configuration

    Log file - /var/cluster/logs/install/scinstall.log.630

    Testing for "/globaldevices" on "mail-store0" ... done
    Testing for "/globaldevices" on "mail-store1" ... done

    Starting discovery of the cluster transport configuration.

    The following connections were discovered:

        mail-store0:e1000g1  switch1  mail-store1:e1000g1
        mail-store0:e1000g2  switch2  mail-store1:e1000g2

    Completed discovery of the cluster transport configuration.

    Started sccheck on "mail-store0".
    Started sccheck on "mail-store1".

    sccheck completed with no errors or warnings for "mail-store0".
    sccheck completed with no errors or warnings for "mail-store1".

    Configuring "mail-store1" ... done
    Rebooting "mail-store1" ...

And the second node reboots, then the first

    Rebooting "mail-store1" ... done

    Configuring "mail-store0" ... done
    Rebooting "mail-store0" ... 

Log file - /var/cluster/logs/install/scinstall.log.630

Rebooting ... 

updating /platform/i86pc/boot_archive...this may take a minute
Connection to mail-store0 closed by remote host.
Connection to mail-store0 closed.

Let the first node boot, and you’ll see a bunch of stuff on the console. Don’t stress, it’s (probably) normal. It is normal to see a few errors at first boot.

Let the cluster sort it’s stuff out (give it a couple of minutes) then run scstat to check the status of the cluster. It should look something like:

-bash-3.00$ scstat
------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Cluster Nodes --

                    Node name           Status
                    ---------           ------
  Cluster node:     mail-store1         Online
  Cluster node:     mail-store0         Online

------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Cluster Transport Paths --

                    Endpoint               Endpoint               Status
                    --------               --------               ------
  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g2    mail-store0:e1000g2    Path online
  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g1    mail-store0:e1000g1    Path online

------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Quorum Summary --

  Quorum votes possible:      3
  Quorum votes needed:        2
  Quorum votes present:       3

-- Quorum Votes by Node --

                    Node Name           Present Possible Status
                    ---------           ------- -------- ------
  Node votes:       mail-store1         1        1       Online
  Node votes:       mail-store0         1        1       Online

-- Quorum Votes by Device --
                    Device Name         Present Possible Status
                    -----------         ------- -------- ------
  Device votes:     /dev/did/rdsk/d2s2  1        1       Online

------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Device Group Servers --

                         Device Group        Primary             Secondary
                         ------------        -------             ---------

-- Device Group Status --

                              Device Group        Status
                              ------------        ------              

-- Multi-owner Device Groups --

                              Device Group        Online Status
                              ------------        -------------

------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------

-- IPMP Groups --

              Node Name           Group   Status         Adapter   Status
              ---------           -----   ------         -------   ------
  IPMP Group: mail-store1         sc_ipmp0 Online         e1000g0   Online

  IPMP Group: mail-store0         sc_ipmp0 Online         e1000g0   Online

------------------------------------------------------------------

And we have a basic, working cluster!

Discovered Problems

Interconnect (”Cluster Transport”) is marked faulted

For example, if you do an scstat, or an scstat -W you see:

  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g2    mail-store0:e1000g2    faulted

  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g1    mail-store0:e1000g1    Path online

(at boot it might be “waiting” for quite some time)

In some cases you can disconnect and reconnect the adapter in VMware. However, in others you may have to be more drastic.

Check you can ping the other node via this path - if you can, then you should be all good to run the following commands:

 scconf -c -m endpoint=mail-store0:e1000g2,state=disabled

where mail-store0 is your current node, and e1000g2 is the failed adapter. After you’ve done this, you can re-enable it:

scconf -c -m endpoint=mail-store0:e1000g2,state=enabled

And you should now have an online path shortly afterwards:

bash-3.00# scstat -W

-- Cluster Transport Paths --

                    Endpoint               Endpoint               Status

                    --------               --------               ------

  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g2    mail-store0:e1000g2    Path online

  Transport path:   mail-store1:e1000g1    mail-store0:e1000g1    Path online

All good!

Cluster Panics with pm_tick delay [number] exceeds [another number]

Try the following:

1. Stop VMs being paged to disk in VMWare (only use physical memory for your VMs). This is a VMWare server, host setting from memory
2. Ensure Memory Trimming is disabled for your VMware Server Sun Cluster Guests
3. On each Cluster node, in order, configure the heartbeats to be father apart, and have a longer timeout:

scconf -w heartbeat_timeout=60000 

scconf -w heartbeat_quantum=10000

Hopefully this will leave you with a much more stable cluster on VMware.

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I thought I’d give you some code I’ve written (its spectacularly awful code, but it works and works quickly) to build a minimal Solaris profile. The whole idea is to use SUNWCreq as your base for your profile, and only add packages you want from there. It makes my build around 730meg with all the stuff I need to run Sun Cluster and a bunch of utilities I find handy, without all the additional stuff that I won’t be using at this point in time.

To use this utility you will need to know the name of the package, and be running this on a Solaris host that actually has the package installed (in this case I’m running it on my jumpstart server, which is built using SUNWCXall - that is, everything). On a host like this you can locate the name of the package you are after by finding a known file from the package in /var/sadm/install/contents. eg.

bash-3.00# grep /usr/bin/bash /var/sadm/install/contents
 /usr/bin/bash f none 0555 root bin 611132 31995 1178118881 SUNWbash

Then you can use:

java SPDB SUNWbash

to get a profile-friendly output of all SUNWbash’s dependecies, excluding those already in SUNWCreq.

To build a reasonably minimised host ready for Sun Cluster 3.1u4, using Solaris 10 u3, with utilities I like to have installed (including the SUNWinst package so I can take a flar at the end and gcc if I’d like to do some compiling):

java SPDB SUNWgcc SUNWgmake SUNWhea SUNWluzone SUNWman SUNWpl5u SUNWpool SUNWsshcu \

SUNWsshdr SUNWsshu SUNWsshdu SUNWvolu SUNWvolr SUNWwgetr SUNWwgetu SUNWzoneu \

SUNWzoner SUNWzfsu SUNWzfsr SUNWbind SUNWdhcsu SUNWdhcsr SUNWinst SUNWbash \

SUNWtcatu SUNWcacaort > /var/tmp/pkgList

Then use that output in a profile you might have something like:

install_type   initial_install
 system_type standalone
 # start with the minimal required number of packages
 cluster        SUNWCreq

#additional packages

<INSERT package list here, in vi use:

:r /var/tmp/pkgList

to read it in>

#patches

patch 118855-36 nfs 10.0.0.1:/jumpstart/patches

# format the entire disk for Solaris
 fdisk   all   solaris all

# define how the disk is partitioned
 boot_device any update
 partitioning      explicit
 filesys rootdisk.s0 4096 /
 filesys rootdisk.s1 2048 swap
 filesys rootdisk.s3 512  /globaldevices
 filesys rootdisk.s4 free /var

for example.

You can get my first cut of the code here: http://unixsysadmin.net/files/SPDB.class

Its so dodgy that I haven’t even packaged it up. I will make it much more useable in future (differing repositories of information, find dependencies based on the binary/file you’re after, so you need not know package names and so on).

Some might say there is a tool that does what I required and perhaps a much better job (http://blogs.sun.com/gbrunett/entry/solaris_package_companion for example). I haven’t used this tool, and to be honest I wanted to learn some more about how the package dependency structure worked in Solaris, so this was for both my own learning, and immediate need of having a minimal install of solaris, with just what I need - to basically reduce jumpstart host deployment time.

NOTES:

-SPDB stands for Solaris Profile Dependency Builder. I think I’ll change that when I come up with a good name. Enjoy!

-Java 1.5 is required for this package to work correctly

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Of course you do, in fact, you’ve probably been wondering, “when will someone finally come up with the goods and bridge the gap between these two fast moving technologies in today’s marketplace?”

Well friends, its early days - but I’ve done it. It’s called “discharge” and it bridges the gap between the two technologies, by taking the packets from chargen and feeding them to discard.

The tool is flexible, as in you can choose to connect to any host running chargen, and any host running discard! It can even be the same host, or the host you run the tool on.

Of course, reliability is always a concern, so I have opted ONLY to use the TCP streams based chargen and discard, as UDP is too unreliable a protocol for these higly important, if not, mission critical tools.

Even better, I’m making this tool “discharge” available for free. It’s written in java and has been tested on Windows and Solaris, compiled for java 1.2, for compatability with older OS’, such as Solaris 8.

Make sure you give it 2 hostnames at the command line:

java discharge <chargenHost> <discardHost>

And you’ll be fine for this release (early adopters only!).

You can get the first (and any later releases) here: http://unixsysadmin.net/files

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New Release pretty much only fixes this issue, the code is the same underneath. The updated packages for Solaris and Generic OS’ can be found in the files area.

Sorry for any confusion, my bad.

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This RC is likely to have one more minor code clean up before it is released as findUsedSpace 1.0.

There is a feature request for the next release to skip autofs,ctfs,objfs,devfs,dev and any other filesystems on a UNIX (Solaris specifically) platform which isn’t really relevant when you’re trying to figure out what has chewed all the space on a disk.

For those who are unaware what the tool does, it basically allows you to do something very similar to du, by finding how much space a parent directory and all its children are taking up (or a single file), however, it is based on thresholds, and allows you to be very clear on what you are looking for (say, files and directories over 1 gigabyte). It runs at virtually the same speed as native du (tiny little bit slower in my tests, but the difference is negligible).

The other benefit over du is it is pure java, and platform independent. It is tested on Windows and Solaris, but should run on anything. Though written on a 1.6 JVM, it is compiled for a 1.2 JVM, so as even really old systems can run the software.

You can download a Solaris packaged release, or a zip file release from here: http://unixsysadmin.net/files

You’ll notice its packaged as AdeptTools (even though it’s just one tool at this point). The idea was/is that I will gradually write more and more code as new problems present themselves to me, and package it as a toolkit. Not sure if it will work out that way in the end, we’ll see. Due to somethings ending up platform dependent, it may end up that each tool is released separately, and as part of a package if you want the lot.

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