Zurück

Akadia Information Technology


SUN Free Software
PCNFS installieren
Installation Solaris mit Openwindows (Grafikkarte)
How to Backup a System
Packages (Software die installiert wurde)
Monitor Mode (OK Prompt)
Kernel Analyse
Defaults einstellen
Wichtige Konfigurationsfiles
Admin Kommandos
LAN konfigurieren
IP-Routing konfigurieren
DNS konfigurieren
Anonymous FTP aufsetzen
NFS-Client Konfiguration
NFS-Server Konfiguration
Automounter
Modem konfigurieren
SCSI-Harddisk an SUN Hardware anschliessen
List Solaris Hardware Configuration
Show Swap Space currently installed
Show Operating System Patch Level
How to install a Sun Solaris Jumbo Patch ?
Tracing System Calls
Troubleshooting Solaris Device Files
Short Tips to maintain Sun Solaris
IP-Aliasing for SUN Solaris
Solaris automounter installs filesystems by default in /net
Solaris keyboard utility
Monitoring Performance
Enable file system journaling on Solaris 7 and 8
Solaris Syslog Daemon Debugging
Does each Oracle Process use more than 100M memory ?
Sizing up Solaris Memory with the RMCmem Package
Using Sun Solaris Manuals directly from CD-ROM
Why is the Sun Solaris System Corefile helpful ?
DLT-TAPE UNIT INSTALLATION on Solaris 7/8/9
Reconfigure Devices on Solaris
OpenBoot Diagnostics
Why doesn't my .forward file work
Simple Shell Script to backup your Files


SUN Free Software

Unter http://www.sunfreeware.com findet man "ready to use" Software für SUN Solaris, wie beispielsweise TOP, AMANDA, GCC, GDB etc. Download via FTP von: «ftp://nce.sun.ch/pub/freeware/sparc/7»

PCNFS installieren

CD-ROM Solaris Intranet Extension (siehe auch Solaris Server Intranet Extension Installation)

$ su
$ cd /cdrom/cdrom0/nfsc/sparc
$ pkgadd -d `pwd`

Installation Solaris mit Openwindows (Grafikkarte)

  • Hostname

$ uname -u

  • Network Interface

$ ifconfig -a

  • /etc/hosts, /etc/netmasks definieren
     

  • Static IP-routes definieren

/etc/rc2.d/S79staticroutes

  • CD-ROM rausnehmen

$ eject cdrom

  • Disklayout kontrollieren

$ prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/....

  • Automounter konfigurieren

/etc/auto_master, /etc/auto_home

  • Device File für DAT

/dev/rmt/0l (tar cvf /dev/rmt/0l)

  • /etc/system definieren konfigurieren (Prestoserve, Oracle, Transtec)
     

  • Logfile der Installation: /var/sadm/system/logs/install_log
     

  • Installation über serielles Terminal an Nullmodem Kabel

OK boot cdrom - w (Terminal an ttya)

How to Backup a System

$ init 0
OK boot -s
$ fsck -m /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 (und übrige Filesysteme)
$ tar cvf /dev/rmt/0l

Packages (Software die installiert wurde)

Anzeige der installierten Packages

$ pkginfo

Check ob Package SUNWpcnfd correct installiert ist

$ pkgchk -v SUNWpcnfd

Package installieren (Path ist meistens /cdrom/cdrom0/....)

$ pkgadd -d <Path to CDROM> SUNWpcnfd

Das Package SUNWpcnfd entfernen

$ pkgrm SUNWpcnfd

Monitor Mode (OK Prompt)

In single user mode booten

OK boot -s

Kernel zwingen /devices neu aufzubauen nach dem Anschluss von neuer Hardware

OK boot -r

Detaillierter Bootvorgang

OK boot -v

Vom CD-ROM aus booten: Notboot !

OK boot cdrom

Angeschlossene SCSI-Geräte testen

OK probe-scsi

List System Devices, e.g. SUNW,hme = Sun Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter

OK show-devs

List Network Devices

OK show-nets

Monitoring Network Activity

OK apply watch-net <full path name of the hme interface, see show-devs>

Monitor Variablen ändern, anzeigen

OK eeprom
OK eeprom ttya-mode=38400,8,n,1,h

Kernel Analyse

Welche Kernel-Module sind geladen ?

$ modinfo

Kernel Konfiguration

/etc/system

Logfile von syslog

/var/adm/messages

Konfiguration des syslog Daemon

/etc/syslog.conf

Defaults einstellen

Directory mit Default files

/etc/default

Remote root logins erlauben

/etc/default/login

Timezone setzen

/etc/default/init

Wichtige Konfigurationsfiles

Master-File beim Booten

/etc/inittab

Run-Level Start/Stop Files

/etc/rc?.d

Scripts für Run-Levels

/etc/init.d

Admin Kommandos

$ shutdown -g0 -i0
$ reboot (entspricht init 6)

LAN konfigurieren

Konfiguration der LAN-Interfaces

$ ifconfig -a

  • Netmask setzen: siehe /etc/netmasks

  • Jedes LAN-Interface hat /etc/hostname.le0 mit Hostnamen

  • LAN-Setup: /etc/rcS.d/S30rootusr.sh (Interfaces konfigurieren)
    /etc/rc2.d/S72inetsvc (LAN konfigurieren)

Phys Addressen nachschauen

$ arp -a

Net to Media Table

Device IP Address           Mask            Flags Phys Addr
------ -------------------- --------------- ----- ---------------
le0    rabbit               255.255.255.255       00:60:08:57:17:86
le0    quorum               255.255.255.255 SP    08:00:20:89:27:03
le0    arkum                255.255.255.255       00:a0:24:4b:60:1c

IP-Routing konfigurieren

Alle hosts im Netz 193.72.239.0 werden über den Router 193.72.194.201 erreicht.

$ route add net 193.72.239.0 193.72.194.201 1

Der host 146.228.14.10 wird über den Router 193.72.194.100 erreicht. Siehe File /etc/rc2.d/S79staticroutes.

$ route add host 146.228.14.10 193.72.194.100 1

Routing Tabelle kontrollieren

$ netstat -nr

DNS konfigurieren

Angabe des DNS Nameservers

/etc/resolv.conf

Reihenfolge definieren

/etc/nsswitch.conf

Anonymous FTP aufsetzen

Siehe Solris2 Administration Seite 103 und ff

NFS-Client Konfiguration

/etc/vfstab (Soll) --> /etc/mnttab (Ist)
mount -F nfs -o bg,ro,soft gondwana:/usr/software /software

NFS-Server wird in /etc/init.d/nfs.client start gestartet.

Anzeige welche Directories gondwana zum mounten freigegeben hat

dfshares gondwana

RESOURCE SERVER ACCESS TRANSPORT
gondwana:/export/home/zahn gondwana - -
gondwana:/export/home/steiner gondwana - -

NFS-Server Konfiguration

/etc/dfs/dfstab (Soll) --> /etc/dfs/sharetab

Directory read-only freigeben

$ share -o ro /usr/software

Alle Directories in /etc/dfs/dfstab freigeben

$ shareall

Alle Directories in /etc/dfs/dfstab zurücknehmen

$ unshareall

NFS-Server wird gestartet in

/etc/init.d/nfs.server

Anzeige der freigegbenen lokalen Direcories

$ share

Anzeige welche Clients nutzen welche Directories eines NFS-Servers

$ dfmounts -F nfs gondwana

RESOURCE SERVER PATHNAME CLIENTS
gondwana /export/home/zahn paragon.glue.ch,rabbit.glue.ch

Automounter

- /etc/auto_master (Master Map konfigurieren)
- /etc/auto_home (Home Direcories verwalten)
- autofs ist ein spezielles Filesystem
- automount -v (Nach einer Aenderung an einer Map ausführen)

Modem konfigurieren

Siehe spezielles Dokument

SCSI-Harddisk an SUN Hardware anschliessen

Beispiel: SCSI-Disk Seagate ST150176L, 50MB an SUN Ultra Enterprise 1

  • Eintrag in /etc/format.dat vornehmen (Angaben von Lieferanten)

disk_type = "Seagate ST150176L" \
: ctlr = "SCSI" \
: ncyl = 12022 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 12024 : nhead = 22 : nsect = 369 \
: rpm = 7200 : bpt = 188928

  • Eintrag /etc/system für Solaris-2 Kernel, System booten

*
* SCSI-Disc Konfiguration
*
set scsi_options=0x20

  • Disk anschliessen, SCSI-Adresse kontrollieren, Terminierung

    Unbedingt kontrolieren, dass eine SCSI-Adresse nicht mehrfach belegt ist. Dazu kann meistens hinten am Gerät ein Tippschalter eingestellt werden. Man beacht, dass in der Regel das letzte Gerät terminiert werden muss.

  • Disk formatieren (nur wenn notwendig !)

    In der Regel muss eine Disk nicht neu formatiert werden, ist dies jedoch notwendig so steht unter Solaris das Utility format zur Verfügung.

format

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:

0. c0t0d0 <SUN2.1G cyl 2733 alt 2 hd 19 sec 80>
   /sbus@1f,0/espdma@e,8400000/esp@e,8800000/sd@0,0
1. c0t1d0 <SUN2.1G cyl 2733 alt 2 hd 19 sec 80>
   /sbus@1f,0/espdma@e,8400000/esp@e,8800000/sd@1,0
2. c0t2d0 <IBM-DDRS-39130-S71D cyl 8186 alt 2 hd 10 sec 218>
   /sbus@1f,0/espdma@e,8400000/esp@e,8800000/sd@2,0
3. c0t4d0 <SEAGATE-ST118273N-5764 cyl 7499 alt 2 hd 20 sec 237>
   /sbus@1f,0/espdma@e,8400000/esp@e,8800000/sd@4,0
4. c0t5d0 <SEAGATE-ST150176LW-0002 cyl 12022 alt 2 hd 22 sec 369>
   /sbus@1f,0/espdma@e,8400000/esp@e,8800000/sd@5,0

Specify disk (enter its number): 4


format> type

AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
0. Auto configure
1. DDRS-39130
2. Seagate ST118273
3. Seagate ST150176L
4. Quantum ProDrive 80S
5. Quantum ProDrive 105S
6. CDC Wren IV 94171-344
7. SUN0104
8. SUN0207
9. SUN0327
10. SUN0340
11. SUN0424
12. SUN0535
13. SUN0669
14. SUN1.0G
15. SUN1.05
16. SUN1.3G
17. SUN2.1G
18. SUN2.9G
19. IBM-DDRS-39130-S71D
20. SEAGATE-ST118273N-5764
21. SEAGATE-ST150176LW-0002
22. other
Specify disk type (enter its number)[21]: 21

format> format (confirm with "yes")

  • Disk partitionieren

Dadurch wird die Disk in logische Teile unterteilt. Jeder teil enthält ein eigenes Filesystem.

format> part

Nun die Partitionierungsdaten eingeben, zB

partition> print

Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 2733 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 root wm 0 - 204 152.15MB (205/0/0) 311600
1 swap wu 205 - 377 128.40MB (173/0/0) 262960
2 backup wm 0 - 2732 1.98GB (2733/0/0) 4154160
3 home wm 378 - 1017 475.00MB (640/0/0) 972800
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 1018 - 1928 676.13MB (911/0/0) 1384720
6 usr wm 1929 - 2732 596.72MB (804/0/0) 1222080
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0

  • Label erzeugen (aktuelle Partitionierung speichern)

partition> label
partition> y
partition> quit
format> quit

  • Filesystem erstellen

newfs -v -m 0 /dev/rdsk/c0t5d0s0

Damit wird ein Filesystem mit 0 % Min-Free auf der Partition 0 der Disk an der SCSI-Adresse 5 erstellt.

  • Filesystem mounten

Dazu den folgenden Eintrag in /etc/vfstab vornehmen

#device           device              mount  FS     fsck  mount    mount
#to mount         to fsck             point  type   pass  at boot  options

/dev/dsk/c0t5d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c0t5d0s0  /u02   ufs    6     yes      -

List Solaris Hardware Configuration

$ /usr/sbin/prtconf

Show Swap Space currently installed

Multiply the Blocks column by 512

$ swap -l

swapfile            dev swaplo blocks    free
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 32,1     16 262944 262944

262944 * 512 = 134 MB

Show Operating System Patch Level

$ showrev -p

Patch: 105181-16

Note, that Patchlevel 105181-15 is minimal needed for Oracle 8.1.6

How to install a Sun Solaris Jumbo Patch ?

- Download the Patch from: http://sunsolve.sun.com
- Read the README File included in the Patch
- Usually the only thing you have to do is:

$ cd <patch cluster directory>
$ ./install_custer
$ cat /var/sadm/install_data/<luster name>_log
$ showrev -p

Reboot the system

Tracing System Calls

You can trace system calls with truss on Solaris an strace on Linux

$ truss svrmgrl

Troubleshooting Solaris Device Files

If you suspect troubles with your Solaris device files, e.g. system doesn't boot after a filesystem check, you may repair the solaris system using the following commands.

Halt the system immediately with the keys STOP-A, you will now see the boot prompt: OK

STOP-A

Reset the machine with

OK reset

Boot the machine with

OK boot -r

The command boot -r will rebuild all devices files according to your attached hardware. If you cannot boot the machine, you can try the following commands: drvconfig, disks, tapes

drvconfig - configure the /devices directory

The default operation of drvconfig is to create the /devices directory tree that describes, in the filesystem namespace, the hardware layout of a particular machine. Hardware devices present on the machine and powered on as well as pseudo-drivers are represented under /devices. Normally this command is run automatically after a new driver has been installed (with add_drv(1M)) and the system has been rebooted.

disks - creates /dev entries for hard disks attached to the system

Disks creates symbolic links in the /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk directories pointing to the actual disk device special files under the /devices directory tree.

tapes - creates /dev entries for tape drives attached to the system

Tapes creates symbolic links in the /dev/rmt directory to the actual tape device special files under the /devices directory tree. Tapes searches the kernel device tree to see what tape devices are attached to the system.

Short Tips to maintain Sun Solaris

Here are some short tips for common tasks on SUN Solaris 2.6, 7 and 8

Important SUN Solaris Commands

$ who -r            # Show Run Level
$ /usr/sbin/prtconf # Print the complete system configuration
$ /sbin/mountall -l # Mount all local filesystems.
$ /sbin/init S      # Changing to single user mode

Show currently mounted filesystems

# /etc/mnttab: Contains information about devices that
# are currently mounted. If there are mounted filesystems
# with quotas enabled, display them

if /usr/bin/cut -f 4 /etc/mnttab | \
  /usr/bin/egrep '^quota|,quota' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo 'There are mounted filesystems with quotas enabled'
fi

How to enable system activity data gathering

# You will also need to uncomment the sa entries in
# the system crontab /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys. 
# Refer to the sar(1) and sadc(1m) man pages
# for more information.

$ /usr/bin/su sys -c "/usr/lib/sa/sadc /var/adm/sa/sa`date +%d`"

How a new, unused Solaris system is setup ?

# sysidtool is a suite of five programs that configure a new
# system, or one that has been unconfigured with sys-
# unconfig(1M). The sysidtool programs run automatically at
# system installation, or during the first boot after a
# machine has been successfully unconfigured.
#
# These programs have no effect except at such times, and
# should never be run manually.

# System Files are

cat /etc/nodename
cat /etc/hostname.*
cat /etc/default/init
cat /etc/defaultdomain
cat /etc/inet/hosts
cat /etc/inet/netmasks

How to configure Asynchronous PPP ?

Configure /etc/asppp.cf for the aspppd daemon

$ /usr/sbin/aspppd -d 1

How to get and set TCP/IP driver configuration parameters ?

# Getting Parameters Supported By The TCP Driver
# To see which parameters are supported by the TCP driver,
# use the following command:

$ ndd /dev/tcp \?

# The following command sets the value of the parameter
# ip_forwarding in the IP driver to zero. This disables IP
# packet forwarding.

Disable IP Forwarding

$ /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0

Enable IP Forwarding (Machine acting as a Router)

$ /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 1

How to set Default Route on Solaris ?

# Configure default routers using the local "/etc/defaultrouter"
# configuration file. The file can contain the hostnames or IP
# addresses of one or more default routers.
#
# The default routes listed in the "/etc/defaultrouter" file will
# replace those added by the kernel during diskless booting. An
# empty "/etc/defaultrouter" file will cause the default route
# added by the kernel to be deleted.
#
# Note that the default router file is ignored if we received routes
# from a DHCP server. Our policy is to always trust DHCP over local
# administration.

# Set Default Route

$ route -n add default <Default Route from /etc/defaultrouter>

# Show Default Route

$ /usr/sbin/route -fn
default 128.128.128.11 done

How to set NIS domainname if locally configured ?

if [ -f /etc/defaultdomain ]; then
  /usr/bin/domainname `cat /etc/defaultdomain`
  echo "NIS domainname is `/usr/bin/domainname`"
fi 

RPC (Remote Procedure Call) Configuration

# rpcbind - universal addresses to RPC program number mapper
# rpcinfo - report RPC information

Solaris Keyserv Daemon

# keyserv is a daemon that is used for storing the private
# encryption keys of each user logged into the system. These
# encryption keys are used for accessing secure network ser-
# vices such as secure NFS and NIS+. 

$ /usr/sbin/keyserv

How to start the Solaris DNS server "in.named"

# If this machine is configured to be an Internet 
# Domain Name System (DNS) server, run the name daemon.
# Start named prior to: route add net host,
# to avoid dns gethostbyname timout delay for
# nameserver during boot.

if [ -f /usr/sbin/in.named -a -f /etc/named.conf ]; then
  echo 'starting internet domain name server.'
  /usr/sbin/in.named &
fi

Where to find syslogd messages ?

Configuration File: /etc/syslog.conf
Message File:       /var/adm/messages

IP-Aliasing for SUN Solaris

# How to setup IP-Alias on SUN Solaris

1. Setup File /etc/hostname.hme0:1 for the second IP-Address

   cat /etc/hostname.hme0:1

   ldap

2. Insert IP-Address in /etc/hosts

   #
   # Internet host table
   #

   128.128.128.11      ux-portal1       # IP-address on hme0:0
   128.128.128.20      ldap             # IP-alias on hme0:1

3. Start alias IP-Address on Interface in /etc/rc2.d

   S99ipalias -> ../init.d/ipalias

   #!/bin/sh
   # Akadia AG, Arvenweg 4, CH-3604 Thun
   # ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   # File:       ipalias
   #
   # Autor:      Martin Zahn / 10.05.2000
   #
   # Purpose:    Setup second IP address on hme0:1
   # ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   if [ -f /etc/hostname.hme0:1 ]
   then
     case "$1" in

       'start')  # Start second IP address on hme0:1

                 echo "Start multi-homed server for UX-ALIAS1 on hme0:1"
                 ifconfig hme0:1 128.128.128.20 up
             
   ;;

        'stop')  # Stop second IP address on hme0:1

                 echo "Stop multi-homed server for UX-ALIAS1 on hme0:1"
                 ifconfig hme0:1 128.128.128.20 down
                 ;;
     esac
   fi

4. Check IP-Address on second Interface

   ifconfig -a

Solaris automounter installs filesystems by default in /net

The Solaris automount utility installs autofs mount points and associates an automount map with each mount point. The autofs file system monitors attempts to access directories within it and notifies the automountd daemon. The daemon uses the map to locate a file system, which it then mounts at the point of reference within the autofs file system. You can assign a map to an autofs mount using an entry in the /etc/auto_master map or a direct map in /etc/auto_direct. If the file system is not accessed within an appropriate interval (five minutes by default), the automountd daemon unmounts the file system.

Default Mapping under /net

The mount point /net is by default the location, where automountd mounts NFS filesystems, which are exported on other machines. Lets suppose, that you have the filesystem /home exported on the NFS server saphir, then the (Solaris) NFS client with an active automounter will automatically mount this NFS filesystem under /net/saphir/.

Mapping using /etc/auto_direct

You probably doesn't want this default behavior. If you insert the following entry in /etc/auto_direct ....

/opt/local      -rw     remote_machine:/local

.... then, the directory /local on the remote machine "remote_machine" will be mounted on the local machine under /opt/local.

Solaris keyboard utility

The Solaris utility kbd manipulates the state of the keyboard or display the type of keyboard or change the default keyboard abort sequence effect. Suppose, that you do not want that everybody can halt the the system you must change the default value. We also noticed, that the Solaris machines attached to a switch box, using a character terminal on a serial line, may halt when you switch from one machine to the other.

SYNOPSIS

kbd [ -r ] [ -t ] [ -c on|off ] 
    [ -a enable|disable ] [ -d keyboard device ]
kbd -i [ -d keyboard device ]

DESCRIPTION

kbd manipulates the state of the keyboard, or displays the keyboard type or allows the default keyboard abort sequence effect to be changed. The default keyboard device being set is /dev/kbd.

The -i option reads and processes default values for the keyclick and keyboard abort settings from the keyboard default file, /etc/default/kbd. Only keyboards that support a clicker respond to the -c option. If you want to turn clicking on by default, add or change the current value of the KEYCLICK variable to the value on in the keyboard default file, /etc/default/kbd, as shown here.

KEYCLICK=on

Then, run the command 'kbd -i' to change the current setting. Valid settings for this variable are the values on and off. Other values are ignored. If the variable is not specified in the default file, the setting is unchanged.

The keyboard abort sequence (L1-A or STOP-A) on the keyboard and BREAK on the serial console input device on most systems) effect may only be changed by the superuser, using the
-a option. On most systems, the default effect of the keyboard abort sequence is to suspend the operating system and enter the debugger or the monitor. 

If you want to permanently change the software default effect of the keyboard abort sequence, you can add or change the current value of the KEYBOARD_ABORT variable to the
value disable in the keyboard default file, /etc/default/kbd, as shown here.

KEYBOARD_ABORT=disable

Then, run the command 'kbd -i' to change the current setting. Valid settings for this value are the values enable and disable. Other values are ignored. If the variable is not specified in the default file, the setting is unchanged.

OPTIONS

-i

Set keyboard defaults from the keyboard default file. This option is mutually exclusive with all other options except for the -d keyboard device option. This option instructs the keyboard command to read and process keyclick and keyboard abort default values from the /etc/default/kbd file. This option can only be used by the superuser.

-r

Reset the keyboard as if power-up.
-t Return the type of the keyboard being used.
-c On/Off state Turn the clicking of the keyboard on or off.
-a Enable/Disable state; Enable or disable the keyboard abort sequence effect.

Monitoring Performance

This chapter describes procedures for monitoring system performance by using the vmstat, iostat, df, and sar commands. This is a list of the step-by-step instructions in this chapter.

How to Display Virtual Memory Statistics (vmstat)

The following example shows the vmstat display of statistics gathered at five-second intervals.

$ vmstat 5

 procs    memory            page             disk      faults     cpu
r b w  swap free re  mf  pi  po  fr de sr f0 s3 -- --  in  sy  cs us sy  id
0 0 8 28312  668  0   9   2   0   1  0  0  0  1  0  0  10  61  82  1  2  97
0 0 3 31940  248  0  10  20   0  26  0 27  0  4  0  0  53 189 191  6  6  88
0 0 3 32080  288  3  19  49   6  26  0 15  0  9  0  0  75 415 277  6 15  79
0 0 3 32080  256  0  26  20   6  21  0 12  1  6  0  0 163 110 138  1  3  96
0 1 3 32060  256  3  45  52  28  61  0 27  5 12  0  0 195 191 223  7 11  82
0 0 3 32056  260  0   1   0   0   0  0  0  0  0  0  0   4  52  84  0  1  99

Category

Field Name

Description

procs

  

Reports the following states:

 

r

The number of kernel threads in the dispatch queue

 

b

Blocked kernel threads waiting for resources

 

w

Swapped out LWPs waiting for processing resources to finish

memory

 

Reports on usage of real and virtual memory:

 

swap

Available swap space

 

free

Size of the free list

page

 

Reports on page faults and paging activity, in units per second:

 

re

Pages reclaimed

 

mf

Minor and major faults

 

pi

Kbytes paged in

 

po

Kbytes paged out

 

fr

Kbytes freed

 

de

Anticipated memory needed by recently swapped-in processes

 

sr

Pages scanned by page daemon (not currently in use). If sr does not equal zero, the page daemon has been running.

disk

 

Reports the number of disk operations per second, showing data on up to four disks

faults

 

Reports the trap/interrupt rates (per second):

 

in

Interrupts per second

 

sy

System calls per second

 

cs

CPU context switch rate

cpu

 

Reports on the use of CPU time:

 

us

User time

 

sy

System time

 

id

Idle time

How to Display System Event Information

Run vmstat -s to show the total of various system events that have taken place since the system was last booted.

        0 swap ins
        0 swap outs
        0 pages swapped in
        0 pages swapped out
409376480 total address trans. faults taken
  3075036 page ins
  2601555 page outs
  3812452 pages paged in
  6525552 pages paged out
 11007609 total reclaims
 10927650 reclaims from free list
        0 micro (hat) faults
409376480 minor (as) faults
  2957386 major faults
102738273 copy-on-write faults
 61711047 zero fill page faults
1002562077 pages examined by the clock daemon
     7881 revolutions of the clock hand
 16716370 pages freed by the clock daemon
  4999048 forks
  1138206 vforks
  5747009 execs
741660225 cpu context switches
736047593 device interrupts
528054538 traps
2496638575 system calls
430283487 total name lookups (cache hits 95%)
    81727 toolong
 10484677 user   cpu
  9528364 system cpu
443762786 idle   cpu
 16281790 wait   cpu

How to Display Swapping Statistics

Run vmstat -S to show swapping statistics.

 procs     memory            page            disk          faults      cpu
 r b w   swap  free  si  so pi po fr de sr m1 m3 m4 m5   in   sy   cs us sy id
 0 0 0   8512   888   0   0 12 21 55  0 417 1  0  0  0  206 1040  308  2  2 96

si = Average number of LWPs swapped in per second
so = Number of whole processes swapped out

How to Display Disk Utilization Information (iostat)

You can display disk activity information by using the iostat command with a time interval. The following example shows disk statistics gathered every five seconds.

iostat 5

      tty          md1           md3           md4           md5          cpu
 tin tout kps tps serv  kps tps serv  kps tps serv  kps tps serv  us sy wt id
   0    2  10   1   28    2   0   22    0   0    0    1   0   10   2  2  3 92
   0   47  58   7   39   16   2   34    0   0    0    0   0    0   0  2 19 78
   0   16   0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0   0  1  0 98
   0   16   0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0   0  0  1 99
   0   16   2   0   22    0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0   2  3  1 95
   0   24   0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0    0   0    0   0  1  1 98

For Each ...

Field Name

Description

Terminal

 

 

 

tin

Number of characters in the terminal input queue

 

tout

Number of characters in the terminal output queue

Disk

 

 

 

bps

Blocks per second

 

tps

Transactions per second

 

serv

Average service time, in milliseconds

CPU

 

 

 

us

In user mode

 

sy

In system mode

 

wt

Waiting for I/O

 

id

Idle

How to Display Extended Disk Statistics

Run iostat -xtc to get extended disk statistics. This command displays a line of output for each disk.

                               extended device statistics      tty         cpu
device    r/s  w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv  svc_t  %w  %b  tin tout us sy wt id
md1       0.4  0.9    3.6    6.9  0.0  0.0   27.7   1   1    0    2  2  2  3 92
md3       0.1  0.2    1.0    1.3  0.0  0.0   21.7   0   0
md4       0.0  0.0    0.0    0.0  0.0  0.0    0.0   0   0
md5       0.0  0.0    0.7    0.0  0.0  0.0    9.9   0   0
md8       0.8  0.3    6.7   14.2  0.0  0.0   13.1   0   1
md10      0.2  0.9    1.8    6.8  0.0  0.0   15.5   0   1
md11      0.2  0.9    1.8    6.8  0.0  0.0   14.8   0   1
md30      0.0  0.2    0.5    1.3  0.0  0.0   11.4   0   0
md31      0.0  0.2    0.5    1.3  0.0  0.0   10.2   0   0
md40      0.0  0.0    0.0    0.0  0.0  0.0    0.0   0   0
md41      0.0  0.0    0.0    0.0  0.0  0.0    0.0   0   0
md50      0.0  0.0    0.4    0.0  0.0  0.0    9.4   0   0
md51      0.0  0.0    0.4    0.0  0.0  0.0    7.3   0   0
md80      0.4  0.3    3.3   14.2  0.0  0.0   10.3   0   0
md81      0.4  0.3    3.3   14.2  0.0  0.0   11.7   0   1
sd0       0.6  2.1    6.0   22.8  0.0  0.0   16.3   0   3
sd1       0.6  2.1    6.0   22.8  0.0  0.0   15.2   0   2

Field Name

Description

r/s

Reads per second

w/s

Writes per second

Kr/s

Kbytes read per second

Kw/s

Kbytes written per second

wait

Average number of transactions waiting for service (queue length)

actv

Average number of transactions actively being serviced

svc_t

Average service time, in milliseconds

%w

Percentage of time the queue is not empty

%b

Percentage of time the disk is busy

How to Check CPU Utilization (sar)

Display CPU utilization with the sar -u command. (The sar command without any options is equivalent to sar -u.) At any given moment, the processor is either busy or idle. When busy, the processor is in either user or system mode. When idle, the processor is either waiting for I/O completion or "sitting still" with no work to do.

Measure CPU utilization during 5 secs one time.

sar -u 5 1

Measure CPU utilization during 60 secs 1440 times and write result in file sar.log.

sar -u -o sar.log 60 1440 

To later review disk and tape activity from that period:

sar -d -f sar.log

Field Name

Description

%sys

Lists the percentage of time that the processor is in system mode

%user

Lists the percentage of time that the processor is in user mode

%wio

Lists the percentage of time the processor is idle and waiting for I/O completion

%idle

Lists the percentage of time the processor is idle and is not waiting for I/O

A high %wio generally means a disk slowdown has occurred.

  Enable file system journaling on Solaris 7 and 8

Solaris 7 and 8 include a native implementation of file system journaling. This feature, known as "intent logging" or just "logging" enables FASTER file system operation and FASTER system boot. 

It's trivial to implement and safe to use. The new logging feature is an option to the Unix File System (UFS), which is the standard file system for all disk partitions on SUN servers, except for partitions holding swap space. By default, the journaling option is disabled. Logging is enabled on a per file system basis, and it can even be enabled on / (root file system) and other operating system partitions.

Background

Solaris UFS logging works by allocating space from the file system's free blocks. Within that space, all metadata changes to the file system are written. Metadata includes directory and I-node information but not file data blocks, essentially everything but the actual data within the file. So, for example, a "file create" modifies the directory structure and allocates a new I-node, and those activities are written to the logging space. Once the metadata changes are made to the logging area, the system is free to perform other operations to the file system. In the background, the information in the log is flushed to the file system and updates the appropriate directory and I-node structures, completing the file system operations.

The logging data is written sequentially within the log space. It's therefore much faster for the operating system to complete metadata changes via logging and background flushing than by directly modifying the metadata (via random I/O) spread across the disk. The size of the logging space is based on the size of the file system, and equals 1 MB per 1 GB of file system space, up to 64 MB. The space is used as a circular log: if the log space is about to fill up, new metadata change requests are paused while the log is emptied. As changes are moved from the log to the file system, that log space is made available, and new metadata changes can be written to the logging space.

Usually with UFS, if the system crashes during any file system operation, the entire system must have its consistency checked via the fsck command. That command can take several minutes per file system because it checks all metadata and file data to ensure the structures are correct, free, and used, and that the I-node block counts are correct. It also confirms that the free space available is current, repairs inconsistencies, and occasionally requires manual intervention to fix large problems. Files and even directories can be lost, depending on the operations occurring at the time of the crash. 

Because metadata changes are made first to the log space rather than to the file system, the consistency check for a logged file system after a crash is a simple and fast operation. The system evaluates the logging data and determines which changes had completed against the underlying file system, which had yet to start, and which were in progress. Those completed or not yet started are removed from the log, and those partly completed are either undone or completed. If there's sufficient data in the log to complete the operation, it's completed. Otherwise, the changes made are removed from the underlying file system.

People familiar with database operation will recognize the similarity between database transaction processing and the activities here. The end result is that the underlying file system is consistent, and no thorough consistency checking is needed. That operation completes in a few seconds per file system.

Using logging

Starting with Solaris 7, there's a new logging option to the mount command and in the /etc/vfstab system configuration file. Logging only appears in a couple other places within Solaris. The mount command shows which partitions are mounted and lists logging in the options fields for each partition on which logging is enabled. Finally, at system boot time, the fsck phase reports per partition whether each is stable, logging, or being checked. There are no other status commands available to determine the state of logging.

A = Device to mount
B = Device to fsck
C = Mount point
D = Filesystem Type
E = Fsck pass (unimportatnt with logging)
F = Mount at boot
G = Mount options

# ------------------------------------------------------------------
# A                B                   C       D     E   F   G
# ------------------------------------------------------------------
fd                 -                   /dev/fd fd    -   no  -
/proc              -                   /proc   proc  -   no  -
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3  -                   -       swap  -   no  -
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0  /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0  /       ufs   1   no  logging
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s6  /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s6  /usr    ufs   2   no  logging
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1  /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s1  /var    ufs   3   no  logging
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7  /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s7  /home   ufs   4   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5  /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s5  /opt    ufs   5   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t8d0s0  /dev/rdsk/c0t8d0s0  /u01    ufs   6   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t9d0s0  /dev/rdsk/c0t9d0s0  /u02    ufs   7   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t10d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c0t10d0s0 /u03    ufs   8   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t11d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c0t11d0s0 /u04    ufs   9   yes logging
/dev/dsk/c0t12d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c0t12d0s0 /u05    ufs   10  yes logging
/dev/dsk/c1t13d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c1t13d0s0 /app    ufs   11  yes logging
/dev/dsk/c1t14d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c1t14d0s0 /users  ufs   12  yes logging
swap                 -                 /tmp    tmpfs  -  yes -

Logging increases performance, decreases fsck time, removes the risk of a file system corruption, can be used on all UFS partitions (including root), and is free.

Solaris Syslog Daemon Debugging

The log system messages daemon syslogd reads and forwards system messages to the appropriate log files and/or users, depending upon the priority of a message and the system facility from which it originates. The configuration file /etc/syslog.conf controls where messages are forwarded. The syslogd daemon ignores any faulty entry in /etc/syslog.conf, specially spaces instead of tabs are not recognized by syslogd. Therefore always check the entries in /etc/syslog.conf in the debugging mode of syslogd.

How to check /etc/syslog.conf

# /etc/init.d/syslog stop
# /usr/sbin/syslogd -d

getnets() found 1 addresses, they are: 0.0.0.0.2.2
amiloghost() testing 193.247.121.196.2.2
cfline(*.err;kern.notice;auth.notice      /dev/sysmsg)
cfline(*.err;kern.debug;daemon.notice     /var/adm/messages)
cfline(mail.info;mail.debug               /var/log/maillog)

syslogd: line 14: unknown priority name "debug    /var/log/maillog"

cfline(*.alert;kern.err;daemon.err        operator)
cfline(*.alert                            root)
cfline(*.emerg                            *)
cfline(user.err                           /dev/sysmsg)
cfline(user.err                           /var/adm/messages)
cfline(user.alert                         root, operator)
cfline(user.emerg                         *)

syslogd: version 1.70
Started: Sat Jan  6 10:11:47 2001
Input message count: system 0, network 0
# Outputs: 10

5 3 3 3 5 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 X CONSOLE: /dev/sysmsg
7 3 3 5 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 X FILE: /var/adm/messages
X X 6 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X UNUSED:
3 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 X USERS: operator
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 X USERS: root
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X WALL:
X 3 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X CONSOLE: /dev/sysmsg
X 3 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X FILE: /var/adm/messages
X 1 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X USERS: root, operator
X 0 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X WALL:

                Per File Statistics
File                            Tot     Dups    Nofwd   Errs
----                            ---     ----    -----   ----
/dev/sysmsg                     0       0       0       0
/var/adm/messages               0       0       0       0
        0       0       0       0
operator                        0       0       0       0
root                            0       0       0       0
WALL                            0       0       0       0
/dev/sysmsg                     0       0       0       0
/var/adm/messages               0       0       0       0
root,operator                   0       0       0       0
WALL                            0       0       0       0

syslogd: restarted
off & running....
sys_poll blocking, init_cnt=0

# ^D
# /etc/init.d/syslog start

Line 14 in /etc/syslog.conf are filled up with spaces instead of tabs. Replace the spaces with tabs and syslogd will accept the new entry in Line 14.

Does each Oracle Process use more than 100M memory ?

If you check the oracle process with the OS comand "pmap" or "top", you can see that each oracle process use more than 100M memory. Is this a problem on the Oracle installation or something else? It seems that pmap counts the SGA size as the private memory segment of each oracle process, but we believe the SGA size should be shared.

Output from "top" on our Solaris System with Orcale 8.1.7.0

PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE   TIME    CPU COMMAND
-----------------------------------------------------------------
361 oracle   258  59    0  124M   88M sleep   0:01  0.00% oracle
373 oracle    11  59    0  122M   88M sleep  41:50  0.00% oracle
363 oracle    11  59    0  119M   88M sleep   0:01  0.00% oracle
365 oracle    11  58    0  119M   88M sleep   0:17  0.02% oracle
359 oracle     1  59    0  119M   89M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle
377 oracle     1  59    0  119M   88M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle
375 oracle     1  58    0  119M   88M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle
367 oracle     1  58    0  118M   89M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle
371 oracle     1  58    0  118M   89M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle
369 oracle     1  58    0  118M   88M sleep   0:00  0.00% oracle

Memory Allocation for Oracle Processes

On many UNIX platforms and specially on Sun platforms, the text of the Oracle binary and shared libraries are actually shared between background processes if these instances share the same ORACLE_HOME. So you need to subtract the shared text of the oracle binary and the shared libraries in the result of the OS commands.

Even pmap and pmen utilities make mistakes between these memory divisions, and sometimes SGA and text executable are often added incorrectly.

Determine the memory used by each Oracle background process on a Solaris

This can be used by anyone who has privleges for the pmap, which can be found in /usr/proc/bin/. First, we need to find the process id (PID) of the Oracle background  process you wish to determine the memory size for. This is done by issueing the following command:

# ps -u oracle -f

   UID   PID  PPID  C    STIME TTY      TIME CMD
oracle   359     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:00 ora_pmon_DIA3
oracle   361     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:01 ora_dbw0_DIA3
oracle   363     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:01 ora_lgwr_DIA3
oracle   365     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:18 ora_ckpt_DIA3
oracle   367     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:01 ora_smon_DIA3
oracle   369     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:00 ora_reco_DIA3
oracle   371     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:00 ora_snp0_DIA3
oracle   373     1  0 12:26:17 ?       41:50 ora_s000_DIA3
oracle   375     1  0 12:26:17 ?        0:00 ora_d000_DIA3
oracle   377     1  0 12:26:18 ?        0:00 ora_d001_DIA3

Second, you then enter the following commands for the DB Writer process (ora_dbw0_DIA3) with process id = 361 as an example.

# /usr/proc/bin/pmap 361 | grep "shmid"
80000000 82992K read/write/exec/shared [ shmid=0x2 ]

# /usr/proc/bin/pmap 361 | grep "total"
total 124232K

Then you take the total size: 124232K and subtract the SGA size which the line marked with "shmid=" above, in this case it is 82992K. So, 124232K minus 82992K is 41240K. So, the DBWR background process is approximately 41.2 MB. Repeat this steps for all the background processes.

Sizing up Solaris Memory with the RMCmem Package

How much memory is needed on SUN Solaris? Explaining memory in Solaris by reviewing the different types of memory and introducing a set of tools, the RMCmem package.

Install RMCmem Package

Download the RMCmem tools available from ftp://playground.sun.com/pub/memtool. The package includes a kernel module that provides extra instrumentation.

# cd /tmp
# zcat RMCmem3.8.2.tar.gz | tar xvf -
# pkgadd -d .

The package is installed in /opt/RMCmem (see README in this directory)

Virtual / Physical Memory Usage

Solaris is a virtual memory system. The total amount of memory that you can use is increased by adding swap space to the system. If you ever see "out of memory" messages, adding swap space is the usual fix. Performance of the system is very dependent on how much physical memory (RAM) you have. If you don't have enough RAM to run your workload, performance degrades rapidly.

Physical memory usage can be classified into four groups:

  • Kernel memory mapped into kernel address space

  • Process memory is mapped into a process address space

  • Filesystem cache memory that is not mapped into any address space

  • Free memory that is not mapped into any address space

RMCmem includes a simple command to summarize this:

# /opt/RMCmem/bin/prtmem

Total memory:             989 Megabytes
Kernel Memory:             60 Megabytes
Application:              110 Megabytes
Executable & libs:         42 Megabytes
File Cache:               757 Megabytes
Free, file cache:          11 Megabytes
Free, free:                 6 Megabytes

Total physical memory

The total physical memory can be seen using prtconf. Memory is allocated in units called pages, and you can use the 'pagesize' command to see the size in bytes per page:

# /usr/sbin/prtconf | grep Memory
Memory size: 1024 Megabytes

# /usr/bin/pagesize
8192

Kernel memory

Kernel memory is allocated to hold the initial kernel code at boot time, then grows dynamically as new device drivers and kernel modules are used. Kernel tables also grow dynamically, unlike some older versions of Unix. As you add hardware and processes to a system, the kernel will grow. In particular, to keep track of all the memory in a system, the kernel allocates a page table structure.

If you have several gigabytes of RAM this table gets quite large. The dynamic kernel memory allocator grabs memory in large "slabs," then allocates smaller blocks more efficiently. This means that the kernel tends to grab a bit more memory than it's really using. If there is a severe memory shortage, the kernel unloads unused kernel modules and devices and frees unused slabs. The simplest summary of kernel memory usage comes from sar. To show the kernel memory allocation (KMA) activities use (see man sar for more details).

# sar -k 1

SunOS diamond 5.7 Generic_106541-12 sun4u    04/28/01

sml_mem   alloc  fail   lg_mem    alloc  fail  ovsz_alloc  fail
6873088 6044236     0 44818432 43761720     0    11231232     0

Application process memory

Application processes consist of an address space divided into segments, where each segment maps either to a file, anonymous memory (the swap space), System V shared memory, or a memory mapped device. The mapped files include the code and initialized data for the command and all its shared libraries.

What we really want to know, is the amount of RAM used by each segment. This is shown by the pmem command in the RMCmem package.

# /opt/RMCmem/bin/pmem 361

361:    ora_dbw0_DIA3
  Kbytes Resident Shared Private Permissions       Mapped File
   82992   82992   82992       - read/write/exec   [shmid=0x2]
      16      16       8       8 read/exec         libc_psr.so.1
      16      16       8       8 read/exec         libmp.so.2
       8       8       8       - read/write/exec   libmp.so.2
........      ..      ..       . ...............   ...........
     112      80      72       8 read/exec         libelf.so.1
       8       8       8       - read/write/exec   libelf.so.1
      16      16       8       8 read/exec         libkvm.so.1
       8       8       8       - read/write/exec   libkvm.so.1
--------  ------  ------  ------  ------
  124232   93040   92728     312

Now we can see that the process address space size is 124232 kilobytes; 93040 kilobytes of that are currently resident in main memory, wherein 92728 kilobytes are shared with other processes while 312 kilobytes are private. When this command started only the 312 kilobytes of private memory were taken from the free list.

If we now go through all the processes on the system, add up how much private memory they use, and also add in the shared memory for each mapped file, we'll know how much application memory is in use. This summary is shown by prtmem as we saw in the beginning, and the detail is listed by the memps command in RMCmem.

# /opt/RMCmem/bin/memps

PID     Size Resident   Shared  Private  Process
...  .......   ......   ......     ....  .............
359  118904k   93608k   92800k     808k  ora_pmon_DIA3
367  118184k   93152k   92704k     448k  ora_smon_DIA3
369  117928k   93120k   92704k     416k  ora_reco_DIA3
371  118040k   93136k   92720k     416k  ora_snp0_DIA3
365  119040k   93120k   92712k     408k  ora_ckpt_DIA3
377  118344k   93080k   92720k     360k  ora_d001_DIA3
363  119088k   93056k   92720k     336k  ora_lgwr_DIA3
375  118344k   93048k   92720k     328k  ora_d000_DIA3
361  124232k   93040k   92728k     312k  ora_dbw0_DIA3
373  121608k   93032k   92728k     304k  ora_s000_DIA3

Filesystem cache memory

This is the part of memory that is most confusing, as it is invisible. You can only tell it's there if you access the same file twice and it is quicker the second time.

The RMCmem package adds kernel instrumentation that counts up all the pages for each cached file. The memps -m command lists the files that are cached in order of the amount of memory they're consuming.

One problem is that within the kernel, the file is only known by its inode number and filesystem mount point. The directory pathname for the file may not be known.

The RMCmem package tries to solve this problem by catching file names as files are opened (by interposing on the vnode open code) and making an inode-to-name lookup cache in the kernel. This cache size is limited (to 8192 entries by default), and the file may have been opened before the kernel module was loaded, so it can't always find the name.

# memps -m

   Size   InUse E/F Filename

 21064k  21064k F   /usr (inode   540488)
  8184k    824k F   /usr (inode   260922)
  7752k   7752k F   /usr (inode   540429)
  7480k   7480k F   /usr (inode   540428)
  7480k   7480k F   /usr (inode   540427)
  6896k   6896k F   /usr (inode   540450)
  ....    ....  .   .... ......   ......

 ... and so on down to lots of files  ...

# cd /usr
# find . -inum 540488
./local/jdbc/ora817/old/libserver8.a

More infos about the RMCmem package can be found here as PDF

Using Sun Solaris Manuals directly from CD-ROM

Solaris  8:

cd /cdrom/sol_8_doc
./ab2cd                      (Start)
http://quorum:8888           (Using the Doc online)
./ab2cd stop                 (Stop)

Solaris  7:

cd /cdrom/sol_7_1199_doc
./ab2cd                      (Start)
http://diamond:8888          (Using the Doc online)
./ab2cd stop                 (Stop)

DLT-TAPE UNIT INSTALLATION on Solaris 7/8/9

Installation Instructions will cover the installation of the DLT tape peripheral hardware and configuration of the system to communicate with the DLT tape peripheral. In this example we use a «QUANTUM DLT7000».

The Solaris system must have the appropriate SCSI interface for DLT drive to attached to, a SCSI single-ended DLT drive can be attached only to a SCSI single-ended interface. The same is true for SCSI differential attachment. Solaris includes a driver to efficiently communicate with SCSI tape drives, such as the DLT tape peripheral.

Perform the installation as follows:

Shut down your Sun workstation/server and power off the machine and all scsi-devices. Connect the DLT to the scsi-bus using good cables and make sure the bus is terminated correctly. Set the scsi-id; id 4 or 5 are the most common to use.

If possible use a separate or underutilized SCSI bus for the DLT. Running the tape drive on the same bus as the disk drives will never let you achieve any good throughput. You bought the DLT because of performance didn't you ?

1. STOP-A (L1-A) Power on the devices/machine again and halt the boot process with.

(or press the BREAK key if you have an ASCII console).
2. probe-scsi-all Verify that the drive is connected properly.

Note: output from probe-scsi will not always be correct if you enter the PROM monitor by breaking the boot process!
3.

boot -rv

Boot the system and log in as root. When booting you should see a message similar to these: "st1: ".
4.

cd /kernel/drv

 

Change directory to /kernel/drv.

Edit the st.conf file by adding the following:

 

tape-config-list="QUANTUM DLT7000","Quantum DLT7000","DLT7-data";
DLT7-data = 1,0x38,0,0x8639,4,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,3;

tape-config-list="<DLT tape unit>","<DLT reference name>","<DLTdata>"

  • tape-config-list is a variable defined by a series of tape configuration parameters listed below:
     

  • <DLT tape unit> is the vendor and product ID string for the DLT device.

     Depending on the DLT tape peripheral you are installing, you must insert the appropriate vendor and product ID for
     <DLT tape unit> as described in the following table:

    DLT Tape Product

    <DLT tape unit>

    DLT7000 QUANTUM DLT7000 (Total string character count, including spaces, must equal 15).
  • <DLT reference name> is a name you select that the system will use to identify the DLT device. This reference does not change the DLT product ID. When the system boots, the reference name will be displayed in the list of peripheral devices recognized by the system.
     

  • <DLT-data> is a variable containing a series of additional DLT device configuration information. You select a name in place of the <DLT data> string. You will continue editing the st.conf file by defining the name you selected for <DLT data>. The definition depends on the DLT tape peripheral you are installing. For a DLT7000 series unit add the following line:

    1,0x38,0,0x8639,4,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,3;

<DLT data> contains 10 parameters and are described following:

1

The first parameter, is the version number and should not change.

0x38

The second parameter, designates the DLT tape type as defined in /usr/include/sys/mtio.h.

#define MT_ISOTHER 0x36 /* generic other type of tape drive */
#define MT_ISDLT
  0x38 /* sun: SCSI DLT tape drive */

0

The third parameter is the block size. Since the DLT tape drive uses variable block size, this value should be zero.

0x8639

The fourth parameter, 0x8639, is a summation of values that represent selected device options. The table below lists the options and the corresponding value:

Option                       Value

ST_VARIABLE                  0x0001
ST_BS
F                       0x0008
ST_BSR
                      0x0010
ST_LONG_ERASE                0x0020
ST_NOWS_EOD                  0x0200
ST_NLOADABLE                 0x0400
ST_NO_RECSIZE_LIMIT          0x8000

The man st page has more information about these and other possible device options. For certain applications, it may be necessary to consider adding or removing one or more of the device options.

4

The fifth parameter, 4, defines the number of densities. The maximum definable number of densities is 4.

0x82
0x83
0x84
0x85

The sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth parameter are used for system selection of tape densities. Use these values for a DLT 7000 Tape Drive.

3

The tenth parameter defines which density the system will use as the default density. The sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth parameters in the <DLT data>string are referenced by the system as 0, 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The 3 value for the tenth parameter selects the 0x85 density code as the system default density.

After editing the st.conf file, reboot the system:

5.

shutdown-i0-g0
boot -rv

Reboot the System
The -r switch in the boot command enables a kernel compile and includes the creation of device special files used for communication with the DLT device. The -v switch enables verbose mode display of system bootup. With verbose mode, the system should indicate that the DLT tape peripheral is attached by displaying the <DLT reference name>string you selected.
6.

mt -t /dev/rmt/0 status

Enter the following command to verify the installation:

Vendor 'TANDBERG' Product 'DLT7000 ' tape drive:
sense key(0x0)= No Additional Sense residual= 0
retries= 0
file no= 0 block no= 0

The target drive designations assigned by Solaris may take on values higher than already established in the /dev/rmt/ path. This is not a problem but during a boot -rv, Solaris does not remove tape device files for drives that are no longer attached to the system. This can increase the effort in locating the device file for the configured drive, however, this can be minimized by first deleting the tape device files:

rm /dev/rmt/*

then either boot the system with a:

boot -rv

or issue the following at the command line prompt:

drvconfig -i st; tapes

If the DLTtape is the only drive on the system, it's target assignment should be zero. The Solaris man pages have more information on drvconfig and tapes.

  Reconfigure Devices on Solaris

If you remove or add a device on Solaris then the devices files must be recreated, either with boot -rv or devfsadm. For example to renumber the logical tape drive devices do the following: Tape drives were numbered beginning with /dev/rmt/3 instead of /dev/rmt/0. The physical devices pointed to by the logical /dev/rmt/[012] devices no longer existed, and we wanted to renumber the valid devices beginning at /dev/rmt/0.

  1. Cleanup non-existent tape drive devices with devfsadm.

    # devfsadm -C -c tape -v
     
  2. Remove all /dev/rmt logical links.

    # rm -f /dev/rmt/*
     
  3. Recreate all /dev/rmt logical links with devfsadm

    #
     devfsadm -c tape -v

devfsadm

devfsadm(1M) maintains the /dev and /devices namespaces. It replaces the previous suite of devfs administration tools including drvconfig(1M), disks(1M), tapes(1M), ports(1M), audlinks(1M), and devlinks(1M).

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-C

Cleanup mode. Prompt devfsadm to cleanup dangling /dev links that are not normally removed. If the -c option is also used, devfsadm only cleans up for the listed devices' classes.

-c device_class

Restrict operations to devices of class device_class. Solaris defines the following values for device_class: disk, tape, port, audio, and pseudo. This option may be specified more than once to specify multiple device classes.

  OpenBoot Diagnostics

The Solaris operating system gets the jumpstart for its booting from a hardware-level interface called the OpenBoot PROM or OBP for short. OpenBoot at its heart has an interactive command interpreter with a varied set of functions. OBP is a firmware which is stored in the socketed startup PROM of the computer and consists of two parts, the PROM and the NVRAM.

As stated earlier while the PROM acts as the interface for access to diagnostics and drivers, the NVRAM consists of some editable user defined parameters. Non Volatile information like the system identification information, device aliases etc are stored in the NVRAM.The OpenBoot PROM is programmable and can be programmed based on Forth, which is an interactive
programming language much like shell scripting.

The main tasks performed by the OpenBoot firmware are:

  • Initializing and Testing system hardware ( POST , power on self test)
  • Interactive Debugging
  • Management of NVRAM Parameters
  • Start the Operating System boot
Useful commands at OK prompt.
Dignostics : boot  General
banner 
this command shows the following  systems hardware informatiion : Model, architecture, processor,keyboard, openboot version, Serial no. ethernet  address & host id.

test floppy - test floppy disk drive
test net - test network loopbacks
test scsi - test scsi interface
test-all    test for all devices with selftest method

watch-clock  
Show ticks of real-time clock

watch-net
Monitor network broadcast packets

watch-net-all
Monitor broadcast packets on all net interfaces

probe-scsi
Show attached SCSI devices
 
probe-scsi-all 
Show attached SCSI devices for all host adapters- internal & external.
boot - boot kernel from default device.
Factory default is to boot
from DISK if present, otherwise from NET.

boot net - boot kernel from network
boot cdrom - boot kernel from CD-ROM
boot disk1:h - boot from disk1 partition h
boot tape - boot default file from tape
boot disk myunix -as - boot myunix from disk with flags "-as"

DEVALIAS

ok>show-devs
ok cd /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3 
ok .properties
ok ls
f00809d8 tape
f007ecdc disk
ok .speed
CPU Speed : 200.00MHz
UPA Speed : 100.00MHz 
PCI Bus A : 66Mhz
PCI Bus B : 33Mhz
printenv
Display all variables and current values.
 
setenv <variable>
Set variable to the given   value.
 
set-default  <variable>
Reset the value of variable to the factory default.
 
set-defaults 
Reset variable values to the factory defaults.
Key Sequences
These commands are disabled if the PROM security is on. Also, if your system has full security enabled, you cannot apply any of the suggested commands unless you have the password to get to the ok prompt.
Stop - Bypass POST. This command does not depend on security-mode. (Note: some systems bypass POST as a default; in such cases, use Stop-D to start POST.)
Stop-A  Abort.
Stop-D - Enter diagnostic mode (set diag-switch? to true).
Stop-F - Enter Forth on TTYA instead of probing. Use exit to continue with the initialization sequence. Useful if hardware is broken.
Stop-N  Reset NVRAM contents to default values.

 Start an OpenBoot Diagnostics

<STOP A>
OK setenv diag-switch? true
OK setenv auto-boot? false
OK reset-all

OK test-all or obdiag

Configure Graphics Console (e.g. Sun XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator) instead of serial TTYA

OK show-displays
Select the graphics accelerator, e.g. b

OK nvalias mydev <CTRL-Y>
OK setenv output-device mydev
OK setenv use-nvramrc? true
OK reset-all

Why doesn't my .forward file work?

Overview

If you are having problems where you have created a $HOME/.forward file in your home directory to forward e-mails from one account to another and it just won't forward them?

Set correct Permissions

First make sure the file isn't group or world writable.

-rwxrwxr-x 1 zahn dba 0 Jan 9 12:17 .forward   # wrong
-rwxr-xr-x 1 zahn dba 0 Jan 9 12:17 .forward   # OK

Lastly, make sure your home directory isn't group or world writable.

drwxrwxr-x 14 zahn dba 4096 Jan 9 12:20 zahn   # wrong
drwxr-xr-x 14 zahn dba 4096 Jan 9 12:20 zahn   # OK

Simple Shell Script to backup your Files

Overview

A backup strategy is more complex than creating a redundant copy of disk storage and considering the strategy a success. A successful backup strategy must detail how the backup media are rotated, how the media are archived, how the system will be recovered, and what the backup software will do to create the backup. Although all parts of the backup strategy are equally important, this tip will focus on the backup script and will detail a flexible backup script that uses built-in Solaris software tools which create a reliable local backup of a Solaris machine.

Introduction

The backup script will accomplish the following goals:

  • Create a backup archive that is as easy to restore a single file as it is to restore an entire file system.
  • The backup script will run autonomously. The only human intervention will be to swap media and review output.
  • The filesystems or directories to backup can be specified in the script. Using automounter you can even specify remote filesystems.
  • The script will create a detailed log of the backup.
  • The script will send an abbreviated email summary of the backup to the administrator.
  • After a successful backup, the script will verify to some extent the contents of the backup media.
  • The backup script will be able to run on any Solaris 2.6 or greater machine without modification.

Tools used

We use the well known utilities TAR, GZIP and DD, because they are available on any Unix system. They are very well tested and simple to use. In case of an emergency it is important to have a simple way to restore, independent of complex tools and incompatible software releases.

Magnetic Tape Control

The utility MT sends commands to a tape drive. Many of these commands are familiar, but some are not. The script will use these mt commands.

  • rewind – rewind the tape
  • rewoffl – rewind the tape and eject it (go offline)
  • eom – space to end of recorded media on tape
  • weof – write count EOF marks at current position on tape
  • status – display current status of tape

Script

Click here for the Shell Script