I’ve just published a (brief) account of the history of Sun Microsystems. Yes, a big part of my business revolves around Sun, Solaris, and related technologies – but the reason I got involved in the first place is because Sun itself is such an interesting company.
Have a read of The History of Sun Microsystems and let me know what you think.
In 2005 I was having some issues with big F15k domains. They have a mix of 1gb/s and 100mb/s network cards, which all used the same Solaris driver family. Setting the port speeds meant editing the ce.conf file, and any typos or mistakes here either hung the kernel on boot (not good news in a big F15k domain) or just ignored the settings.
I ended up writing a script that would automatically work out what ce cards were present in the Solaris domain, and then automatically generate a ce.conf configuration file. The script grew in complexity when it became clear the F15ks and mid-frame machines (SF6500 etc.) had a radically different PCI addressing scheme.
I ended up writing and submitting a tech tip to Sun’s BigAdmin website. You can read the whole sordid story at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/config_ce_cards.html
This is a collection of scripts and tools developed by us, which are freely available for download.
All scripts and tools are copyright © G.A.E. Ltd
You may distribute under the terms of the GNU General Public License with the exception that it cannot be placed on a CD-ROM or similar media for commercial distribution without the prior approval of the author.
This code is provided with no warranty of any kind, and is used entirely at your own risk.
More tools, FAQs, and information can be found on SiliconBunny, our Silicon Graphics information site.
Description: Used on hosts with Solaris Disksuite volume management. The script parses metastat output and checks the status of metadevices. Any errors are collated and a status report is emailed.
Platform: Solaris
Installation: Edit the SYSADMINS variable, changing it to an email address where you want alerts sent.
Usage: Run from cron every hour, takes no command line options
Download: ods_breakage.ksh
Description: Sun’s Cassini Ethernet (ce) cards are available in either 100mb or 1gb versions. The same driver is used for both. Problems arise because speed and duplex settings cannot be set from within /etc/system. Instead, a configuration file must be used. The syntax is cryptic and prone to mistakes – at the worst case, a poorly written configuration file can cause a kernel panic on bootup. This script will parse /etc/path_to_inst and generate a ce.conf configuration file, forcing 100mb ce cards to 100mb/full duplex, and letting 1gb cards auto-negotiate.
Platform: Solaris
Installation: Copy the script somewhere. Edit the PATH_TO_INST and OUTPUT variables to point to /etc/path_to_inst and where you want your ce.conf to be placed (usually somewhere like /kernel/drv/ce.conf)
Usage: Once the above variables have been set, run the script. A new ce.conf file will be generated, and the settings will take effect the next time the machine is booted.
Download: ce_settings.ksh
Description: During performance testing on F15k domains, it was required to remove memory from several system boards to gauge relative performance when increasing CPU count, memory, and both together. Rather than physically removing the boards, this script was developed. It uses the Sunfire’s DR to unconfigured memory from selected system boards.
The operation of the script is very simple, and can be used as the basis to automate many DR commands on Sunfire machines.
Platform: Solaris
Installation: Place the script somewhere in a Sunfire domain. Must have root privileges to run.
Usage: Run the script. It will display a listing of memory on system boards, and ask you what you want to disable. Enter the details, and the script calls cfgadm to disable that memory.
Download: mem_dis.ksh
Description: Before IP MultiPathing (IPMP) came along in Solaris 8, it was difficult to have 2 ethernet interfaces connecting your host to the same LAN in a failover configuration. This script pings a highly-available source (usually your default router or switch) and calls ifconfig to down an interface and up the spare if the ping fails. Your two interfaces should be connected to seperate switches for maximum availability.
Platform: Solaris, ideally pre-8
Installation: Copy the script somewhere, and run from root’s crontab every 5 or 10 minutes, depending on how much of a delay you can handle when an interface fails.
Usage: The script takes one argument, the IP address to ping.
Download: if_check.sh
Description: While IRIX comes with the XLV volume manager, the license to mirror (plex) your volumes is an expensive extra. This script allows you to clone the root disk, creating a bootable spare which is not normally mounted, allowing easy root disk recovery.
Platform: IRIX
Installation: Copy the script somewhere and run from root’s crontab. You may need to edit the disk device names to match your machine’s configuration.
Usage: Run from root’s crontab. The script takes no arguments.
Download: clone_root_disk.ksh
Description: Tired of remembering and typing in the ndd variables to check the speed and duplex settings of an ethernet port? This script automates the drudge work – just give it an interface type (hme, ce, bge) and an instance number, and it will tell you how that port is configured.
Platform: Solaris
Installation: Place the script on your host and run as root.
Usage: Run as root. It will take two command line arguments – the interface type, and the instance number.
Download: int_check.ksh
Description: kstat can return a lot of useful information about the state of your ethernet interfaces. However, the syntax can be confusing and difficult to remember. This script functions as a wrapper around kstat – tell it the interface type and instance number, and it will return configuration details. It’s important to note that older cards, like hme, will return less information than newer cards, like ce. This is due to driver improvements as opposed to deficiencies in kstat.
Platform: Solaris
Installation: Place the script on your host and run as root.
Usage: Run as root. It will take two command line arguments – the interface type, and the instance number.
Download: kstat_check.ksh
Description: This script is an example of what can be done with EMC’s Symcli tools and Symmetrix Business Continuance Volumes (BCVs). In this example, an Oracle database is running on the main Symmetrix disks. The BCVs are mounted on another host, which contains a datawarehouse. The script unmounts the BCV volumes, mirrors them to the main disks, and then splits them off again, remounting them on the host. You then have a hot copy of your live Oracle database which can be imported into your datawarehouse without any impact on the production system.
Note that there are many variables involved (volume types, hosts, Oracle database, etc.) and so this script should be taken as an example of what it is possible to do.
Platform: Solaris host with Veritas Volume Manager, connected to an EMC Symmetrix, with Symcli installed
Installaton and Usage: Don’t! Read the script, understand what it does, and then use that as the basis for your own scripts, customised for your own needs.
Download: split.ksh
In June 2001 I wrote an article for SysAdmin Magazine showing how to script NIC failover in Solaris. IPMP wasn’t introduced until the 10/00 release of Solaris 8 (or MU2 if you’re keeping score that way). At the time the environments being managed were Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7 – the site upgrade to 8 was a long way off.
So I came up with some scripts to enable NIC failover between two ethernet interfaces on the same VLAN. The script itself was pretty basic and relied on ndd and ping – a bit belt and braces, but as the article explains, there were no other cost-free options at the time.
You can find the original article on the SysAdmin Magazine website at http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9368/sam0106j/0106j.htm
| Telephone/Fax: 07779 149281 | Skype: siliconbunny | Email: [email protected] |
| LinkedIn: Tom Kranz | Skype: siliconbunny |
