Q. Is it possible to create a pool in ZFS and put it under QFS control?

Posted by : Dr. Root | 26 February, 2007 | Published in

In a nutshell, no. ZFS and QFS are separate products. ZFS isn't a shared filesystem. And even though there's overlapping functionality between ZFS and QFS, there's no shared code, for example.

Many users would like to see introduced distributed file system capabilities and multi-writers features in ZFS. And Sun is evaluating these features for the future.

So stay tuned!

Q. We have a Sun Fire V890 and I need to access the system console but we've lost the password, what can I do?

Posted by : Dr. Root | 15 February, 2007 | Published in

(I've tried to summarise the information I was emailed into the one-line question above)

Resources:
You were trying to locate the scadm utility, It could be in /usr/platform/platform-name/sbin/

To get the path from your system, type:

# /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/

To assign a new password to admin with the scadm utility, you will first need to log in to the system as root, and then use the command:

# scadm userpassword admin

The system won't ask you to enter the existing password.

In the case of the Sun Fire V890 -- and Sun Fire V480 and Sun Enterprise 250 -- you can also administer the system from a Sun Remote System Control (RSC) console, IF the latter has been installed and explicitely enabled on the system.

If it's enabled on your system, and if you're happy to use RSC, there's an rscadm utility, with a number of sub-commands, that allows you to administer the Sun Remote System Control from the host. To use rscadm, again just log in to the server as root.

Note: By default, installation places the rscadm utility in the directory /usr/platform/platform-name/rsc/

To get the path from your system, type:

# /usr/platform/`uname -i`/rsc/

As you've no idea what the password is, just simply log in to the Sun Fire V890 as root and use the command:

# rscadm userpassword admin

It will assign a new password to the admin user of the RSC console, without prompting you for the existing password.

That should be it...

Don't forget to check the documentation for full details!

Sun Events in Dublin - February 2007

Posted by : Dr. Root | 14 February, 2007 | Published in

If you're based in Dublin (Ireland) or happen to be in Dublin on those dates, here's a short list of Sun events some of you might be interested in attending:

» Sixth Irish OpenSolaris User Group Meeting
Tuesday 20th February (from 6:30pm onwards), Dublin
A very good place to meet other Solaris and OpenSolaris users and the topic of the evening will be the use of Java-Gnome to develop Java based GNOME applications in OpenSolaris. The evening is also be accompanied by pizzas and drinks... Did I just write that?

» Identity Management In Action (Live Demo)
Tuesday 27th February (morning session), Dublin
It's a half-day session that will show you how you can improve security, compliance, access and services while reducing costs within your organisation. Half of the session is an actual live demo of Sun's IDM solution. Neat!

» Microsoft Windows & Sun Thin Clients (Live Demo)
Wednesday 28th February (morning session), Dublin
Interested in cutting desktop and licensing costs, as well as significantly reducing the energy costs within your organisaton? Then Sun Thin Clients might just be the solution and this half-day event an opportunity to learn everything about them and to see the technology in action within a Windows environment. Don't miss it!

Well, see you there!

Q. Can we configure ZFS on the root (/) file system using Solaris 11/06?

Posted by : Dr. Root | 13 February, 2007 | Published in

Bootable ZFS is probably one of the hottest ZFS topics. Unfortunately ZFS filesystems cannot currently be used as your root filesystem, however help is on the way!

The ZFS Boot project has been tasked with providing boot and install support for ZFS filesystems. Last year they documented a way to activate ZFS Mountroot, a feature that was integrated in Solaris Nevada Build 37 and that gives you the capability of configuring a ZFS root filesystem. ZFS Mountroot is off by default, but have a look at the team's blog to learn how it can be switched on -- only if you're feeling adventurous: http://blogs.sun.com/tabriz/category/ZFS

Important Notes: Currently ZFS Mountroot only works on a x86/x64 machine and it's not a complete boot solution -- it relies on the existence of a small UFS boot environment to bootstrap the machine. Sun has talked about adding ZFS bootability to machines running on SPARC technology by teaching the SPARC OBP to utilize GRUB as a boot loader.

Hope this helps.

DTrace by Example: Why is it taking so long when I log onto the system through SSH?

Posted by : Dr. Root | 07 February, 2007 | Published in

DTrace is one of the most powerful features in Solaris 10. In a nutshell, DTrace allows you to troubleshoot systemic problems in real time. There is an online documentation for DTrace, but sometimes all you need is a simple example of how DTrace works in the real world.

Paul van den Bogaard at Sun Microsystems has recently published a step-by-step guide which explains how DTrace can be used to resolve the pauses you might experience when trying to log onto a system through SSH. After a short introduction to DTrace and a presentation of the problem, Paul takes through you the process of investigating and resolving the issue with DTrace. He goes through the scripting process and the subsequently generated output in great detail.

This 20-odd page article is very well written and very interesting to read -- you won't fall asleep. If you do, drop me a line/comment :)

» Download "DTrace by Example: Solving a Real-World Problem" (PDF)

Other DTrace resources:

Solaris 10 Security: Eliminating Web Page Hijacking

Posted by : Dr. Root | 05 February, 2007 | Published in

Sun has published a step-by-step guide to help you secure common web servers.

By the end of the guide, you should be able to configure your web server to allow web content to be maintained securely by content owners, while ensuring that the web server itself run with a minimised set of privileges in its own secured Container.

Handy!

HTML Guide: www.sun.com/software/solaris/howtoguides/s10securityhowto.jsp
PDF Version: www.sun.com/software/solaris/howtoguides/s10securityhowto.pdf
Copyright 2005-2010, ask|dr.root, brought to you by Avnet Technology Solutions