Sysadmin

I looked for a single web page that summarized how to upgrade OpenSolaris from one of the released version to the latest /dev (currently B109). I couldn’t find a consolidated answer so here is my version.

$ pkg set-authority -O http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev dev $ BUILD=`uname -v | sed -e "s/snv_//" -e "s/[a-z]//"` $ pfexec pkg refresh $ pfexec pkg install entire@0.5.11-0.${BUILD} $ pfexec pkg install SUNWipkg@0.5.11-0.${BUILD} $ pfexec pkg install SUNWinstall-libs $ pfexec pkg image-update

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I was looking forward to Cisco…

Posted by Charles Wimmer in Uncategorized on March 16, 2009

I was looking forward to Cisco’s UCS announcement today. Now I’m just disappointed with the lack of detail. #cisco #ucs

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How to install VMware tools on OpenSolaris

Posted by Charles Wimmer in OpenSolaris, VMware on March 14, 2009

I recently installed OpenSolaris 2009.06 B108 on VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 3. I tried to install the Solaris 10 VMware tools. Much to my surprise, there was only one error.

Unable to copy the source file
/usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/autostart-vmware-user.sh
to the destination file
/usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/9999.autostart-vmware-user.sh.

All I had to do to fix this problem was: pfexec mkdir -p /usr/dt/config/Xsession.d

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Data migration from SUSE to NetApp

Posted by Charles Wimmer in NetApp, OpenSolaris, Solaris, Solaris 10 on March 8, 2009

I’ve been tasked with moving about 6T of data from an aging SUSE box (9.x) to a CIFS share on a NetApp. The data is currently being shared out via SAMBA, but we want to retire the box because it is a few Dell PowerEdge 220s trays going out of support.

My initial thought was to mount the CIFS share on the NetApp from the SUSE box and use rsync to do the data migration. I figured that if I only moved the data across the network once I would get the best performance. I had a ton of trouble with this. I’m guessing the mount_smb in this old SUSE box just wasn’t up to snuff. I got all kinds of permissions problems and timeouts on the writes. For the data that actually did get copied, I only got about 100G-200G per day throughput. I know the NetApp is capable of significantly higher throughput, so I looked for another way to move the data.

Since my normal tool of choice is Solaris, I looked for a Solaris solution. Solaris 10 update 6 is the current version we use in my shop. I couldn’t find an elegant solution on Solaris 10. What I did come up with was mount_smbfs on OpenSolaris.

I downloaded a copy of OpenSolaris 2009.06 B108 and installed it in a VM. I mounted the old and new locations via mount_smbfs and I’m using rsync to do the copies. I don’t have the performance information yet, but after about four hours there have been no errors and the speed looks *very* good. Even though I added another network hop, I was able to remove the weakest link from the data flow, mount_smb on SUSE 9.x.

If I can remember, I’ll update with some performance numbers when I have them.

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My favorite IOS command: ’sh d…

Posted by Charles Wimmer in Cisco on March 7, 2009

My favorite IOS command: ’sh dot ass’ #cisco #ios

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grrr. . . Sol10 U6 slower than U1 on a v210

Posted by Charles Wimmer in Solaris, Solaris 10 on March 7, 2009

Isn’t that a kick in the pants. Unpatched Sol10 U1 is MUCH faster than fully patched U6 or fully patched Sol9 on a Sunfire v210. At least for the most important web app I host.

I’m not talking 10% or 15% either. I’m talking 2x-3x.

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