BigAdmins

In Unix sticky bit is permission bit that protects the files within a directory. If the directory has the sticky bit set, a file can be deleted only by the owner of the file, the owner of the directory, or super user. This prevents a user from deleting other users’ files from public directories. A t or T in the access permissions column of a directory listing indicates that the sticky bit has been set, as shown here:

drwxrwxrwt 5 root sys 458 Oct 21 17:04 /public

Sticky bit cab be set by chmod command. You need to assign the octal value 1 as the first number in a series of four octal values.

# chmod 1777 public

A disk lable is a special area for storing information about the disk’s controller, geometry, and slices (or partitions). This information is called the disk’s label and in Unix its called volume table of contents (VTOC). Writing slice information onto disk is called labeling a disk. Before label a disk you have to define its slices.VTOC is widely used in Solaris and it support less than 1TB of data. EFI ( Extensible Firmware Interface) is a new type of disk label which support disk that are larger than 1TB and cannot be converted back to VTOC.

Solaris supports both types VTOC disk label and the EFI disk label. Solaris 10 (and later versions of Solaris 9) provides support for disks that are larger than 1 TB on systems that run a 64-bit Solaris kernel. The EFI label provides support for physical disks and virtual disk volumes. The UFS file system is compatible with the EFI disk label, and you can create a UFS file system greater than 1 terabyte.

The traditional VTOC label is still available for disks less than 1 terabyte in size. You can use the format-e command to label a disk less than 1TB with an EFI label.

The advantages of the EFI disk label over the VTOC disk label are as follows:

• Provides support for disks greater than 1 TB in size.
• Provides usable slices 06, where slice 2 is just another slice.
• Slices cannot overlap with the primary or backup label, nor with any other partitions. The size of the EFI label is usually 34 sectors, so partitions start at sector 34. This feature means that no partition can start at sector zero.
• Sizes are reported in blocks. No cylinder, head, or sector information is stored in the EFI label.
• Information that was stored in the alternate cylinders area, the last two cylinders of the disk, is now stored in slice 8.
• If you use the format utility to change partition sizes, the unassigned partition tag is assigned to partitions with sizes equal to zero. By default, the format utility assigns the usr partition tag to any partition with a size greater than zero. You can use the partition change menu to reassign partition tags after the partitions are changed.
• Solaris ZFS  uses EFI labels by default.

But there some restrictions with EFI disk labels and those are:

• You cannot boot from a disk with an EFI disk label.
• The EFI disk label is not supported on IDE disks.
• The EFI specification prohibits overlapping slices. The entire disk is represented by c#t#d#.
• The SCSI driver, ssd or sd, currently supports only up to 2 terabytes. If you need greater disk capacity than 2 terabytes, use a disk and storage management product such as Solaris Volume Manager to create a larger device.
• Layered software products intended for systems with EFI-labeled disks might be incapable of accessing a disk without an EFI disk label.
• You cannot use the fdisk command on a disk with an EFI label that is greater than 1 terabyte in size.
• A disk with an EFI label is not recognized on systems running previous Solaris releases.
• You cannot use the Solaris Management Console’s Disk Manager tool to manage disks with EFI labels. Use the format utility to partition disks with EFI labels. Then, you can use the Solaris Management Console’s Enhanced Storage Tool to manage volumes and disk sets with EFI-labeled disks.
• The EFI disk label provides information about disk or partition sizes in sectors and blocks, but not in cylinders and heads.
• The following format options are either not supported or are not applicable on disks with EFI labels:
  • The save option is not supported because disks with EFI labels do not need an entry in the format.dat file.
  • The backup option is not applicable because the disk driver finds the primary label and writes it back to the disk.

  If you have volume manger VxVM EFI disks wont work under Solaris 9. But Solaris 10 supports. Its in fact VxVM is not supporting as you could label, create ufs filesystems on these disks and so on. But when you do vxdisksetup you will get errors.

Ref : Sun Docs, Veritas Docs

Changing the ip address in Solaris is straight forward. But its not a one or two click methods like in Windows. There is one important advantage in solaris 10 is that there is no need of reboot of the server against its predecessor solaris 9 where you need to reboot to make the changes permemnant. In order to change the IP temperorily in both Solaris 9 and 10 is

# ifconfig <interface> <ip_address> <netmasks> <broadcast address>

You can figure out the interface name by using ifconfig command. Now to change the IP under solaris 9 and older version, just open /etc/hosts file and add or edit the entry for the IP address and the hostname. You need to reboot the server so that the changes will take place.

In Solaris 10 there is one more file you need to edit which is /etc/inet/ipnodes (ipnodes file is for IPv6, without adding an entry to the file, the IP address (IPv4) will not active but SUN has fixed this issue).  Next restart the network services and the changes will take place

#svcadm restart newtork/physical

No reboot, no downtime. Cool !

After the acquisition of SUN, Oracle indicated its first ever release of Solaris Operating systems. But the release will be in 2011. John Fowler (an Oracle Executive VP) announced company’s plan for the first ever release of Solaris under Oracle. View his webcast for more details. http://www.oracle.com/dm/11h1corp/53947_systems_strategy_webcast.html. We need to wait for some time to get more details on the upcoming Solaris 11

Here is the detailed configuration guide to set up ipmp, with the inputs from Sun docs, Summary of typical IPMP Configurations

1.  Production and test interfaces in the same IP subnet
1.1  With defaultrouter
1.2  Without defaultrouter
1.3  With dedicated hosts acting as test targets with “host-routes”
1.4  Configuration example for 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3

Read more…

Here is how to check the Oracle Solaris Version you are running

	$ uname -a
	SunOS mysunserver 5.10 Generic_125100-06 sun4v sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-T1000 Solaris
	$

	Solaris 10 uses the SunOS 5.10 kernel, Solaris 9 uses the SunOS 5.9 kernel...
 Read more...

Whether you’re unsatisfied with your Solaris system performance or just want to get the most out of what the machine is capable of, there is a cyclical process to improve it, which consists of determining where the processing slow-down is occuring (the bottleneck), fixing it, then repeating the process, until the most significant bottlenecks are reduced.

First, we should learn about some tools to help us monitor system performance. SAR (the system activity reporter) is the time-honored (and very cryptic) standard UNIX performance monitoring tool. How do we use SAR to see what the Sun server has been doing?

Read more…

System Administrators one of the nightmare is the boot fail. If the booting failed in a VxVM then it will be more problem. But Veritas Volume manager is a very friendly application every Sys Admins love. If you know what you are doing you can recover a failure pretty easy.  In the following example, the host has a failed bootdisk (c0t0d0). Fortunately, the system is using Veritas volume manager, with a mirror at c0t1d0. The following sequence of steps can be used to restore the system to full redundancy.

System Failed to boot

When the system attempts to boot, it fails to find a valid device as required by the boot-device path at device alias “disk”.

screen not found.
Can't open input device.
...

Now only way to boot is from OK prompt and find  devalias for corresponding to the veritas mirror:

ok devalias
vx-rootmirror            /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk@1,0:a
vx-rootdisk              /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk@0,0:a
. . .

Boot the system from the mirror device “vx-rootmirror”:

ok boot vx-rootmirror

As the system boots, Veritas volume manager detects that the volumes on the rootdisk are not accessible, and detaches those plexes from the root volumes. In spite of this, the system is able to boot cleanly from the mirror device with no operator action required.

ok boot vx-rootmirror

Boot device: /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk@1,0:a  File and args:
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic_108528-16 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Starting VxVM restore daemon...
VxVM starting in boot mode...
/usr/sbin/prtconf: getexecname() failed
vxvm:vxconfigd: WARNING: Detaching plex rootvol-01 from volume rootvol
vxvm:vxconfigd: WARNING: Disk rootdisk in group rootdg: Disk device not found
configuring IPv4 interfaces: hme0.
Hostname: orasrv
VxVM starting special volumes ( swapvol rootvol var )...
VxVM general startup...
dumpadm: no swap devices could be configured as the dump device
The system is coming up.  Please wait.
starting rpc services: rpcbind done.
Setting netmask of hme0 to 255.255.255.0
Setting default IPv4 interface for multicast: add net 224.0/4: gateway pegasus
Starting sshd...
This platform does not support both privilege separation and compression
Compression disabled
syslog service starting.
savecore: no dump device configured
savecore: no dump device configured
dumpadm: no swap devices could be configured as the dump device
Oct 28 14:06:20 orasrv savecore: no dump device configured
Print services started.
/dev/bd.off: not a serial device.
volume management starting.

  No VVR license installed on the system; vradmind not started.

  No VVR license installed on the system; in.vxrsyncd not started.
The system is ready.

Check status of the disk in VX

Note that the device c0t0d0s2 is listed as “failed”, and the all plexes on that device are listed DISABLED/NODEVICE.

# vxdisk list
DEVICE       TYPE      DISK         GROUP        STATUS
c0t1d0s2     sliced    rootmirror   rootdg       online
-            -         rootdisk     rootdg       failed was:c0t0d0s2

# vxprint -ht
Disk group: rootdg

DG NAME         NCONFIG      NLOG     MINORS   GROUP-ID
DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME         RLINK_CNT    KSTATE   STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX UTYPE
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME         PLEX         VOLNAME  NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
DC NAME         PARENTVOL    LOGVOL
SP NAME         SNAPVOL      DCO

dg rootdg       default      default  0        1035555399.1025.orasrv

dm rootdisk     -            -        -        -        NODEVICE
dm rootmirror   c0t1d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -

v  rootvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 ROUND     -        root
pl rootvol-01   rootvol      DISABLED NODEVICE 13423200 CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootdisk-B0  rootvol-01   rootdisk 17690399 1        0         -        NDEV
sd rootdisk-02  rootvol-01   rootdisk 0        13423199 1         -        NDEV
pl rootvol-02   rootvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-01 rootvol-02  rootmirror 0      13423200 0         c0t1d0   ENA

v  swapvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        swap
pl swapvol-01   swapvol      DISABLED NODEVICE 2100000  CONCAT    -        WO
sd rootdisk-01  swapvol-01   rootdisk 13423199 2100000  0         -        NDEV
pl swapvol-02   swapvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-02 swapvol-02  rootmirror 13423200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

v  var          -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        fsgen
pl var-01       var          DISABLED NODEVICE 2100000  CONCAT    -        WO
sd rootdisk-03  var-01       rootdisk 15523199 2100000  0         -        NDEV
pl var-02       var          ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-03 var-02      rootmirror 15523200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

Replace the failed boot disk and restore redundancy

The administrator replaces the failed disk with a new disk of the same geometry. Depending on the system model, the disk replacement may require that the system be powered down. Once the operating system can “see” the new disk c0t0d0 via the format command, the administrator tells Veritas volume manager to rescan the system via the “vxdctl enable” command.

# format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c0t0d0 <SEAGATE-ST19171W-0024 cyl 5266 alt 2 hd 20 sec 168>
          /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/sd@0,0
       1. c0t1d0 <SEAGATE-ST19171W-0024 cyl 5266 alt 2 hd 20 sec 168>
          /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/sd@1,0
Specify disk (enter its number): ^D

# vxdctl enable

# vxdisk list
DEVICE       TYPE      DISK         GROUP        STATUS
c0t0d0s2     sliced    -            -            error
c0t1d0s2     sliced    rootmirror   rootdg       online
-            -         rootdisk     rootdg       failed was:c0t0d0s2

Now the administrator can make use of “vxdiskadm” to manage the process of replacing the boot disk volumes.

# vxdiskadm

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

 1      Add or initialize one or more disks
 2      Encapsulate one or more disks
 3      Remove a disk
 4      Remove a disk for replacement
 5      Replace a failed or removed disk
 6      Mirror volumes on a disk
 7      Move volumes from a disk
 8      Enable access to (import) a disk group
 9      Remove access to (deport) a disk group
 10     Enable (online) a disk device
 11     Disable (offline) a disk device
 12     Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
 13     Turn off the spare flag on a disk
 14     Unrelocate subdisks back to a disk
 15     Exclude a disk from hot-relocation use
 16     Make a disk available for hot-relocation use
 17     Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVM's view
 18     Allow multipathing/Unsuppress devices from VxVM's view
 19     List currently suppressed/non-multipathed devices
 20     Change the disk naming scheme
 21     Get the newly connected/zoned disks in VxVM view
 list   List disk information

 ?      Display help about menu
 ??     Display help about the menuing system
 q      Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: 4

Remove a disk for replacement
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk/RemoveForReplace

  Use this menu operation to remove a physical disk from a disk
  group, while retaining the disk name.  This changes the state
  for the disk name to a "removed" disk.  If there are any
  initialized disks that are not part of a disk group, you will be
  given the option of using one of these disks as a replacement.

Enter disk name [<disk>,list,q,?] list

Disk group: rootdg

DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE

dm rootdisk     -            -        -        -        NODEVICE
dm rootmirror   c0t1d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -

Enter disk name [<disk>,list,q,?] rootdisk

  The following volumes will lose mirrors as a result of this
  operation:

        rootvol swapvol var

  No data on these volumes will be lost.

  The requested operation is to remove disk rootdisk from disk group
  rootdg.  The disk name will be kept, along with any volumes using
  the disk, allowing replacement of the disk.

  Select "Replace a failed or removed disk" from the main menu
  when you wish to replace the disk.

Continue with operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) y

  Removal of disk rootdisk completed successfully.

Remove another disk? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

 1      Add or initialize one or more disks
 2      Encapsulate one or more disks
 3      Remove a disk
 4      Remove a disk for replacement
 5      Replace a failed or removed disk
 6      Mirror volumes on a disk
 7      Move volumes from a disk
 8      Enable access to (import) a disk group
 9      Remove access to (deport) a disk group
 10     Enable (online) a disk device
 11     Disable (offline) a disk device
 12     Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
 13     Turn off the spare flag on a disk
 14     Unrelocate subdisks back to a disk
 15     Exclude a disk from hot-relocation use
 16     Make a disk available for hot-relocation use
 17     Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVM's view
 18     Allow multipathing/Unsuppress devices from VxVM's view
 19     List currently suppressed/non-multipathed devices
 20     Change the disk naming scheme
 21     Get the newly connected/zoned disks in VxVM view
 list   List disk information

 ?      Display help about menu
 ??     Display help about the menuing system
 q      Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: 5

Replace a failed or removed disk
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk/ReplaceDisk

  Use this menu operation to specify a replacement disk for a disk
  that you removed with the "Remove a disk for replacement" menu
  operation, or that failed during use.  You will be prompted for
  a disk name to replace and a disk device to use as a replacement.
  You can choose an uninitialized disk, in which case the disk will
  be initialized, or you can choose a disk that you have already
  initialized using the Add or initialize a disk menu operation.

Select a removed or failed disk [<disk>,list,q,?] list

Disk group: rootdg

DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE

dm rootdisk     -            -        -        -        REMOVED

Select a removed or failed disk [<disk>,list,q,?] rootdisk

Select disk device to initialize [<address>,list,q,?] list

DEVICE       DISK         GROUP        STATUS
c0t0d0       -            -            error
c0t1d0       rootmirror   rootdg       online

Select disk device to initialize [<address>,list,q,?] c0t0d0

  The following disk device has a valid VTOC, but does not appear to have
  been initialized for the Volume Manager.  If there is data on the disk
  that should NOT be destroyed you should encapsulate the existing disk
  partitions as volumes instead of adding the disk as a new disk.
  Output format: [Device_Name]

  c0t0d0

Encapsulate this device? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) n

  c0t0d0

Instead of encapsulating, initialize? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) y

  The requested operation is to initialize disk device c0t0d0 and
  to then use that device to replace the removed or failed disk
  rootdisk in disk group rootdg.

Continue with operation? [y,n,q,?] (default: y) 

  Replacement of disk rootdisk in group rootdg with disk device
  c0t0d0 completed successfully.

Replace another disk? [y,n,q,?] (default: n) n

Volume Manager Support Operations
Menu: VolumeManager/Disk

 1      Add or initialize one or more disks
 2      Encapsulate one or more disks
 3      Remove a disk
 4      Remove a disk for replacement
 5      Replace a failed or removed disk
 6      Mirror volumes on a disk
 7      Move volumes from a disk
 8      Enable access to (import) a disk group
 9      Remove access to (deport) a disk group
 10     Enable (online) a disk device
 11     Disable (offline) a disk device
 12     Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group
 13     Turn off the spare flag on a disk
 14     Unrelocate subdisks back to a disk
 15     Exclude a disk from hot-relocation use
 16     Make a disk available for hot-relocation use
 17     Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVM's view
 18     Allow multipathing/Unsuppress devices from VxVM's view
 19     List currently suppressed/non-multipathed devices
 20     Change the disk naming scheme
 21     Get the newly connected/zoned disks in VxVM view
 list   List disk information

 ?      Display help about menu
 ??     Display help about the menuing system
 q      Exit from menus

Select an operation to perform: q

Goodbye.

Having replaced the disk in Veritas volume manager, the disk device is now listed as “online“, and VxVM is in the process of attaching the replacement plexes to the original volumes.

# vxdisk list
DEVICE       TYPE      DISK         GROUP        STATUS
c0t0d0s2     sliced    rootdisk     rootdg       online
c0t1d0s2     sliced    rootmirror   rootdg       online

# vxprint -ht
Disk group: rootdg

DG NAME         NCONFIG      NLOG     MINORS   GROUP-ID
DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME         RLINK_CNT    KSTATE   STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX UTYPE
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME         PLEX         VOLNAME  NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
DC NAME         PARENTVOL    LOGVOL
SP NAME         SNAPVOL      DCO

dg rootdg       default      default  0        1035555399.1025.orasrv

dm rootdisk     c0t0d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -
dm rootmirror   c0t1d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -

v  rootvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 ROUND     -        root
pl rootvol-01   rootvol      ENABLED  STALE    13423200 CONCAT    -        WO
sd rootdisk-05  rootvol-01   rootdisk 2100000  13423200 0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl rootvol-02   rootvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-01 rootvol-02  rootmirror 0      13423200 0         c0t1d0   ENA

v  swapvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        swap
pl swapvol-01   swapvol      DISABLED RECOVER  2100000  CONCAT    -        WO
sd rootdisk-06  swapvol-01   rootdisk 15523200 2100000  0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl swapvol-02   swapvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-02 swapvol-02  rootmirror 13423200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

v  var          -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        fsgen
pl var-01       var          DISABLED RECOVER  2100000  CONCAT    -        WO
sd rootdisk-04  var-01       rootdisk 0        2100000  0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl var-02       var          ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-03 var-02      rootmirror 15523200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

# vxtask list
TASKID  PTID TYPE/STATE    PCT   PROGRESS
   161           PARENT/R  0.00% 3/0(1) VXRECOVER rootdisk
   162   162     ATCOPY/R 01.22% 0/13423200/163680 PLXATT rootvol rootvol-01

After about an hour, all of the plexes have been synchronized, and full operating system redundancy has been restored:

# vxtask list
TASKID  PTID TYPE/STATE    PCT   PROGRESS

# vxprint -ht
Disk group: rootdg

DG NAME         NCONFIG      NLOG     MINORS   GROUP-ID
DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
RV NAME         RLINK_CNT    KSTATE   STATE    PRIMARY  DATAVOLS  SRL
RL NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    REM_HOST REM_DG    REM_RLNK
V  NAME         RVG          KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX UTYPE
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE
SV NAME         PLEX         VOLNAME  NVOLLAYR LENGTH   [COL/]OFF AM/NM    MODE
DC NAME         PARENTVOL    LOGVOL
SP NAME         SNAPVOL      DCO

dg rootdg       default      default  0        1035555399.1025.orasrv

dm rootdisk     c0t0d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -
dm rootmirror   c0t1d0s2     sliced   3359     17690400 -

v  rootvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 ROUND     -        root
pl rootvol-01   rootvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootdisk-05  rootvol-01   rootdisk 2100000  13423200 0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl rootvol-02   rootvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   13423200 CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-01 rootvol-02  rootmirror 0      13423200 0         c0t1d0   ENA

v  swapvol      -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        swap
pl swapvol-01   swapvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootdisk-06  swapvol-01   rootdisk 15523200 2100000  0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl swapvol-02   swapvol      ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-02 swapvol-02  rootmirror 13423200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

v  var          -            ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  ROUND     -        fsgen
pl var-01       var          ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootdisk-04  var-01       rootdisk 0        2100000  0         c0t0d0   ENA
pl var-02       var          ENABLED  ACTIVE   2100000  CONCAT    -        RW
sd rootmirror-03 var-02      rootmirror 15523200 2100000 0        c0t1d0   ENA

Credit: veritas documentation

Solaris 10 has introduced a lots of new features and one of them is to tune the kernel without rebooting the system. So that you can modify the kernel in a live production system. Many kernel parameters have been replaced by so called resource controls in Solaris 10. It is possible to change resource controls using the prctl command. All shared memory and semaphore settings are now handled via resource controls, so any entries regarding shared memory or semaphores (shm & sem) in /etc/system will be ignored. Before going into details let us check what is semaphore.

Read more…

Mirrored boot volumes have the potential to be easier or harder to work with than general volumes. The boot volume (referred to as rootvol) must not be a stripe or RAID_5 device. It should be composed of simple, one-disk copies. This simplifies the checks necessary to determine device independence. However, boot devices have other special requirements, due to the way the operating system deals with this key device.

Read more…