Parm Patram » Solaris

Solaris fix for boot problems

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:23:25 +0000

A kernel patch caused the machine to panic, leaving it in a confused state. I was able to boot from a CD and back out the patch, but it did not update the boot archive, even after issuing
/sbin/bootadm update-archive -R /a

to fix:

Boot into the disk failsafe, then run:

/a/boot/solaris/bin/create_ramdisk -R /a

fix terminal when in single user mode (Solaris)

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:28:22 +0000

ksh -o vi
export TERM=vt100
/usr/openwin/bin/resize
or, If booted from CD or in failsafe:
/a/usr/openwin/bin/resize

LDOM console connection hangs

admin — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:02:21 +0000

Problem: not able to connect to the console

-> start /CH/BL1/SP/cli
Are you sure you want to start /CH/BL1/SP/cli (y/n)? y

…just hangs indefinitely

Solution: We need to reset the serial port to the blade.

-> reset /CH/BL1/SP
Are you sure you want to reset /CH/BL1/SP (y/n)? y
Performing hard reset on /CH/BL1/SP

-> start cli
Are you sure you want to start /CH/BL1/SP/cli (y/n)? y

… connects successfully to the console now.

Sun Blade ILOM

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:32:08 +0000

connecting to sun blades

start /CH/blade/SP/cli
start SP/console

Solaris equivalent of ethtool

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:33:38 +0000

for i in `ndd -get /dev/${DEV} \? | awk '{print $1}'| grep ^[a-z]`;
do
echo -n "$i:"; ndd -get /dev/${DEV} $i;
done

Running a nohup command over ssh

admin — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:32:25 +0000

The problem is that the ssh session will wait for the command to complete and the ‘&’ to background the task does not seem to work. The net result is that the script running the nohup ssh command hangs.

This is because by default ssh does not allocate a TTY to run a command. You can force TTY allocation by using the ‘-t’ option to ssh, which will permit backgrounding, and the ssh command will return immediately.

In order to demonstrate, create a file /tmp/sleepy like so:

#!/bin/bash
while ( true ); do
echo `date` “sleep”
sleep 1
done

This command will invoke the script over ssh using nohup and &:

ssh -t localhost ‘nohup /tmp/sleepy &’

Solaris: force user to change password at next logon

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:18:15 +0000

passwd -f

Sun XSCF usage

admin — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:34:47 +0000

XSCF> showdcl -v -a
DID   LSB   XSB   Status   No-Mem   No-IO    Float    Cfg-policy
00                Running                             FRU
      00    00-0           False    False    False
      01    -
      02    -
      03    -
      04    -
      05    -
      06    -
      07    -
      08    -
      09    -
      10    -
      11    -
      12    -
      13    -
      14    -
      15    -
XSCF> console -d 00 -f
Connect to DomainID 0?[y|n] :y

BigBrother script to monitor raidctl and metastat mirrors on Solaris

admin — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:53:55 +0000

#!/bin/sh

# ext-proto
#
# BIG BROTHER - PROTOTYPE EXTERNAL SCRIPT
# Sean MacGuire
# Version 1.9
# Mar 13th, 2002
#
# (c) Copyright Quest Software, Inc.  1997-2002  All rights reserved.
#
# Adapted to test RAID on Sun boxes (either raidctl or metastat or both)
# parmanand patram
# Nov 23rd 2010.

#
# SCRIPTS IN THE BBHOME/ext DIRECTORY ARE ONLY RUN IF
# THEY ARE DEFINED IN THE ENTRY FOR THE CURRENT HOST
# LISTED IN THE ext/bb-bbexttab FILE.
#

################################### SETUP #############################
#
# root must run a crontab like every 5 minutes to provide raidctl output
# 0,15,30,45 * * * * for VOLUME in `/usr/sbin/raidctl -l| grep Volume: | awk -F':' '{print $2}'`; do /usr/sbin/raidctl -l $VOLUME > /tmp/raidctl_${VOLUME}_txt; done >/dev/null 2>&1
#
# Additional setup is as 'normal' bb extension test.

#
# BBPROG SHOULD JUST CONTAIN THE NAME OF THIS FILE
# USEFUL WHEN YOU GET ENVIRONMENT DUMPS TO LOCATE
# THE OFFENDING SCRIPT...
#
BBTEST="RAID"
BBPROG=$0; export BBPROG

#
# BBHOME CAN BE SET MANUALLY WHEN TESTING.
# OTHERWISE IT SHOULD BE SET FROM THE BB ENVIRONMENT
#
# BBHOME=/home/sean/bb; export BBHOME   # FOR TESTING

if test "$BBHOME" = ""
then
        echo "BBHOME is not set... exiting"
        exit 1
fi

if test ! "$BBTMP"                      # GET DEFINITIONS IF NEEDED
then
         # echo "*** LOADING BBDEF ***"
        . $BBHOME/etc/bbdef.sh          # INCLUDE STANDARD DEFINITIONS
fi

#
# NOW COLLECT SOME DATA
# IN THIS CASE, IT'S THE STATUS OF THE RAID CHECKED BY raidctl AND metastat
# FOR MONTREAL, QUEBEC

# SELECT SOME LEVELS... GREEN IS THE DEFAULT...

WARN='undef'       # this test will never have a warning. RAID is either OK or not OK.
PANIC='yes'      # GO RED AND PAGE if FAILURE is set to 'yes'

# zero out the output file
cat /dev/null > $BBTMP/$BBTEST

# perform the raidctl tests
COLOR="green"

# IMPORTANT: user bb cannot run raidctl, so root must run a cron script to dump out
# raidctl info for each volume into /tmp/raidctl_VOLUME_txt

for VOLUME_FILE in `ls /tmp/raidctl_c*t*d*_txt`; do

        VOLUME=`echo $VOLUME_FILE | awk -F'_' '{print $2}'`
        TEST=`cat $VOLUME_FILE | egrep -v '^c|^Volume|Sub|Disk|-' | grep -v GOOD`
        if [ "$TEST" = '' ]; then      #disk is 'GOOD'
                echo "OK for RAID volume $VOLUME" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                cat $VOLUME_FILE >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                echo "-----------------------------------------" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
        else    # disk has problems
                COLOR="red"
                echo "FAILURE on RAID volume $VOLUME" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                cat $VOLUME_FILE >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                echo "-------------> ${TEST} <-----------------" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
        fi
done

# perform the metastat tests
for MIRROR in `/sbin/metastat | grep Mirror | awk -F':' '{print $1}'`; do
        TEST=`/sbin/metastat $MIRROR | grep 'State:' | grep -v Okay`
        if [ "$TEST" = '' ]; then      #mirror id OK
                echo "RAID mirror $MIRROR OK:"
                        /sbin/metastat $MIRROR >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                echo "-----------------------------------------" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
        else    # disk has problems
                COLOR="red"
                echo "FAILURE in RAID mirror $MIRROR" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                        /sbin/metastat $MIRROR >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
                echo "-------------> ${TEST} <-----------------" >> /$BBTMP/$BBTEST
        fi
done

#
# AT THIS POINT WE HAVE OUR RESULTS.  NOW WE HAVE TO SEND IT TO
# THE BBDISPLAY TO BE DISPLAYED...
#

# MACHINE NAME MUST EITHER BE A REAL MACHINE NAME, OR
# LOOK LIKE A REAL MACHINE (in the case of arbitrary measurements
# like temperature).  IF THE NAME YOU ARE USING DOESN'T EXIST
# IN THE DNS THEN IT SHOULD BE LISTED IN THE bb-hosts FILE WITH noping,
# PREFERABLY IN IT'S OWN GROUP...

MACHINE="`hostname`"

#
# THE FIRST LINE IS STATUS INFORMATION... STRUCTURE IMPORANT!
# THE REST IS FREE-FORM - WHATEVER YOU'D LIKE TO SEND...
#
LINE="status $MACHINE.$TEST $COLOR `date`
RAID staus of disks
`cat /$BBTMP/$BBTEST`

# NOW USE THE BB COMMAND TO SEND THE DATA ACROSS
$BB $BBDISP "$LINE"                     # SEND IT TO BBDISPLAY

Solaris flare installation using Web Start.

admin — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:24:31 +0000

http://www.sun.com/software/whitepapers/wp-solarisinst/solaris_installation_deployment.pdf

and

http://www.sun.com/blueprints/1101/webstart.pdf

how to use Flash Archive from CD boot instead of from JumpStart Server:

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/flash_archive.jsp

Basic boot commands:

http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/sun/solaris10/solaris10_basic_installation.pdf