OpenSolaris Tips and Tricks

igor — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:03:34 +0000

OpenSolaris is SUNs attempt to pretend they are open source. This page should be a place holder for information concerning things like installation, administration and other peculiar things.

Some useful documentation can be found at the SUN Solaris website:

[Developer] http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/devref_toc/
[Community Tools] http://opensolaris.org/os/community/tools/
[OpenSolaris] http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/documentation/
[SUN] http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/47.16

Setup

System Setup

One can use the Solaris Management Console for system setup:


    /usr/sadm/bin/smc &

LDAP Setup Client setup is described here:

[LDAP Client] http://docsun.cites.uiuc.edu/sun_docs/C/solaris_9/SUNWaadm/SYSADV5/p61.html

Zone Setup

[Zones] http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zones/
[Zone Examples] http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb/zones.html

Network Setup

Useful documentation can be found at:

[Network Setup] http://solaris-x86.org/documents/tutorials/network.mhtml

In order to get a network interface configured for dhcp do the following:


    touch /etc/hostname.{interfacename}
    touch /etc/dhcp.{interfacename}
    ifconfig {interfacename} dhcp start
    ifconfig {interfacename} dhcp status

Note: When setting up a server and name resolution does not work even though /etc/resolv.conf has been created correctly, try to do the following:


    cp /etc/nsswitch.dns /etc/nsswitch.conf

This must be done in order for the system to use DNS servers.

Software Package Management

Software packages for OpenSolaris can be administered with the Product Registry GUI:


    prodreg

[Prodreg Guide] http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-1985/6mhm8o5v5?a=view

The prodreg utility really sucks and there is a better way to install 3rd party software packages, namely with pkgadd:

 
    pkgadd -d /cdrom/cdrom0/Solaris_11/Product SUNWbash

The previous command would add bash the bash package to the system.

[Pkadd Guide] http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-1985/6mhm8o601?a=view

Installation of SVN is described here, but it does not support SSL so install SVN through pkg-get (see next subsection):

[SVN] http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/tools/scm/svn_help/

Proper Package Management for OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris base installation sucks! Since we want more cool software to run and a nice package management front end, pkg-get should be installed:


    /usr/sfw/bin/wget http://www.blastwave.org/pkg_get.pkg
    pkgadd -d pkg_get.pkg all

More information can be found at:

[Package Management] http://www.blastwave.org/howto.html

sudo, vim and subversion with SSL support are easily installed through pkg-get.

Zone Manipulation

The zone manipulation commands are quite similar to the ones used for XEN:


    zoneadm list -cv             # list all zones and their status
    zoneadm -z vfm boot          # boot vfm zone
    zlogin -C vfm                # login to vfm zone over the console

Perl and CPAN Workarounds

The CPAN version distributed with OpenSolaris is terribly broken! The following checklist should help to configure CPAN:

Make sure GNU make is used and can be executed as a root user. I just symlinked gmake into a directory which is in everyones path:


    ln -s /usr/sfw/bin/gmake /usr/bin/make

If you haven’t already done this during the openRTSP compile procedure do the following:


    sudo ln -sf /usr/sfw/bin/gcc /usr/ucb/cc        # this is a bug workaround for OpenSolaris

Do NOT upgrade CPAN through the CPAN shell! You have to do it manually! Thus download the cpan module from cpan.org, and execute the following commands:


    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    sudo make install

Change CC (C-Compiler) parameters which CPAN and Perl uses since they have options for the SUN C-Compiler which are not known to gcc:


    sudo vim /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/i86pc-solaris-64int/Config.pm
    ....
     - change cccdlflags from '-KPIC' to '-fPIC'
     - change optimize from '-x03 -xspace -xildoff' to '-O3'
    ....

Now you can start CPAN and install modules:


    sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell

OpenRTSP

In order to compile OpenRTSP for OpenSolaris do the following:


    genMakefiles solaris
    sudo ln -sf /usr/sfw/bin/gcc /usr/ucb/cc        # this is a bug workaround for OpenSolaris

Parallels and Qemu Installation

In order to install OpenSolaris in these virtual machines, it is necessary disable dma for cdrom atapi devices. For more information check this link http://www.inf.furb.br/~javito/?p=39.

ByteLabs: OpenSolaris Tips and Tricks