Mac OSX Mountain Lion

Apple — OS X Mountain Lion. Even more innovation comes to the Mac..

Fixing the inconsistencies between iOS and OSX is a good idea. Look forward to trying it out.

That said, I haven’t found Lion to be as stable as Snow Leopard so far.

RAF Fighter Pilot’s Helmet

RAF Fighter Pilots Helmet+ Headphones and electrics. | eBay

Always wanted a fighter pilots helmet, ever since watching Top Gun as a young fella!

First, what are we working with:

So we are working with a Solaris 8 system, a Sun-Fire V440, end of life was 2007!

# uname -a
SunOS syd71 5.8 Generic_108528-27 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V440

Any mirroring in place?

Use the unix df command to list mounted filesystems; if the filesystem path contains either “md” or “vx” then some form of volume management is in use. In this case, there doesn’t appear to be any.

syd71# df -k
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0 4034088 1695730 2298018 43% /
/proc                      0       0       0     0%    /proc
fd                         0       0       0     0%    /dev/fd
mnttab                     0       0       0     0%    /etc/mnttabc
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3    3008649 1498560 1449917    51%    /var
swap                 9056952      24 9056928     1%    /var/run
swap                 9057000      72 9056928     1%    /tmp
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0s0
                     70310728 53873312 15031204    79%    /data2
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0s0
                     70310728 2584548 66319968     4%    /data1

Best also check the swap file configuration:

syd71# swap -l
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1 32,9 16 12289776 12289776

As you can see from the highlighted line above, the swap partition is only on the root disk, slice 1.

Is Solstice Disksuite installed?

We are going to use Solaris Volume Manager (SVM; formerly known as Online: DiskSuite, and later Solstice DiskSuite). This is a software package for creating, modifying and controlling RAID-0 (concatenation and stripe) volumes, RAID-1 (mirror) volumes, RAID 0+1 volumes, RAID 1+0 volumes, RAID-5 volumes, and soft partitions. It has been superseded by ZFS in Solaris 10 onwards, and many users employ Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) as an alternative. It’s free, and was always a good option for root disk mirroring. From this point onwards I will refer to it as SVM as everything else is just too long to type!

syd71# pkginfo -i | grep SUNWmd
system      SUNWmdb        Modular Debugger
system      SUNWmdbdm      Modular Debugger Demo Source
system      SUNWmdbx       Modular Debugger (64-bit)
system      SUNWmdg        Solstice DiskSuite Tool
system      SUNWmdi        Sun Multipath I/O Drivers
system      SUNWmdiu       Sun Multipath I/O Drivers (usr)
system      SUNWmdix       Sun Multipath I/O Drivers (64-bit)
system      SUNWmdnr       Solstice DiskSuite Log Daemon Configuration Files
system      SUNWmdnu       Solstice DiskSuite Log Daemon
system      SUNWmdr        Solstice DiskSuite Drivers
system      SUNWmdu        Solstice DiskSuite Commands
system      SUNWmdx        Solstice DiskSuite Drivers(64-bit)

What version of SVM is it?

syd71# pkginfo SUNWmdr
system      SUNWmdr        Solstice DiskSuite Drivers
syd71# pkginfo -l SUNWmdr
   PKGINST:  SUNWmdr
      NAME:  Solstice DiskSuite Drivers
  CATEGORY:  system
      ARCH:  sparc
   VERSION:  4.2.1,REV=1999.12.03.10.00
   BASEDIR:  /
    VENDOR:  Sun Microsystems, Inc.
      DESC:  Solstice DiskSuite Drivers
    PSTAMP:  12/03/99-10:06:11
  INSTDATE:  Jun 27 2005 16:50
    VSTOCK:  258-6252-11
   HOTLINE:  Please contact your local service provider
    STATUS:  completely installed
     FILES:       28 installed pathnames
                   8 shared pathnames
                   8 directories
                  11 executables
                1027 blocks used (approx)

Version 4.2.1, which is probably the latest available for Solaris 8.

Do we have some free disks in order to set up mirroring?

Use the format command to list disks configured on the system

# format
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c1t0d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
          /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/sd@0,0
       1. c1t2d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
          /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/sd@2,0
       2. c1t3d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
          /pci@1f,700000/scsi@2/sd@3,0
       3. c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0 <SUN-StorEdge3510-327P cyl 34873 alt 2 hd 64 sec 64>
          /scsi_vhci/ssd@g600c0ff0000000000048cb0f02547800
       4. c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0 <SUN-StorEdge3510-327P cyl 34873 alt 2 hd 64 sec 64>
          /scsi_vhci/ssd@g600c0ff0000000000048cb4f7554fe00
       5. c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB594EB54200d0 <SUN-StorEdge3510-327P cyl 35424 alt 2 hd 127 sec 127>
          /scsi_vhci/ssd@g600c0ff0000000000048cb594eb54200
Specify disk (enter its number):

The first disk, highlighted on line 3, is the existing root disk. The disks highlighted on lines 5 and 7 are possible mirror candidates as their size and geometry are identical to the existing root disk.

Verify that nothing is using the selected mirror disks by initially examining the partition tables. On the root disk we see a selection of specifically sized and labeled partitions (highlighted):

format> verify

Primary label contents:

Volume name = <        >
ascii name  = <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
pcyl        = 24622
ncyl        = 24620
acyl        =    2
nhead       =   27
nsect       =  107
Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
  0       root    wm       0 -  2835        3.91GB    (2836/0/0)   8193204
  1       swap    wu    2836 -  7089        5.86GB    (4254/0/0)  12289806
  2     backup    wm       0 - 24619       33.92GB    (24620/0/0) 71127180
  3        var    wm    7090 -  9216        2.93GB    (2127/0/0)   6144903
  4 unassigned    wm    9217 - 12052        3.91GB    (2836/0/0)   8193204
  5       home    wm   12053 - 24104       16.60GB    (12052/0/0) 34818228
  6 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0
  7 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0

Note the following about the root disk:

1. Partition 2 (line 15) represents the entire disk and is rarely used, except for Oracle ASM
2. Partition 6 and 7 haven’t been used, and are available for SVM meta databases
3. The disk has 24619 usable cylinders, of which 24104 are used. The remainder will be used for partition 7 meta databases

And on the selected mirror disk, we see what appears to be a standard “empty” partition:

Specify disk (enter its number)[0]: 1
selecting c1t2d0
[disk formatted]
format> verify

Primary label contents:

Volume name = <>
ascii name  =
pcyl        = 24622
ncyl        = 24620
acyl        =    2
nhead       =   27
nsect       =  107
Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
  0       root    wm       0 -    90      128.37MB    (91/0/0)      262899
  1       swap    wu      91 -   181      128.37MB    (91/0/0)      262899
  2     backup    wu       0 - 24619       33.92GB    (24620/0/0) 71127180
  3 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0
  4 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0
  5 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0
  6        usr    wm     182 - 24619       33.67GB    (24438/0/0) 70601382
  7 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)            0

And there is nothing unusual in the vfstab (i.e. no mentions of the selected mirror disk being used in any way):

syd71# cat vfstab
#device         device          mount           FS      fsck    mount   mount
#to mount       to fsck         point           type    pass    at boot options
#
#/dev/dsk/c1d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c1d0s2 /usr          ufs     1       yes     -
fd      -       /dev/fd fd      -       no      -
/proc   -       /proc   proc    -       no      -
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1       -       -       swap    -       no      -
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0       /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s0      /       ufs     1       no      logging
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3       /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s3      /var    ufs     1       no      logging
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s5       /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s5      /apps   ufs     2       yes     logging
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s4       /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s4      /opt    ufs     2       yes     logging
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0s0       /data2  ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0s0       /data1  ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB594EB54200d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB594EB54200d0s0       /data   ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
swap    -       /tmp    tmpfs   -       yes     -

Copy the partition setup to the chosen mirror disk:

SVM is not a “whole disk” mirroring solution, rather it works on a partition by partition basis. The target partition needs to exist before you set it up as a mirror. When attempting to mirror a complete disk, the easy way to do this is to use the prtvtoc command to print out the “volume table of contents” and then write it to the target disk:

prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2

Note 1: Be sure you get the drive names absolutely correct, or you WILL destroy data! This will NOT ask you if you are sure, and there is NO WAY to undo this if you get it wrong!

Note 2: It’s a good idea to add the partition for your SVM state databases before opting the partition table to the second disk. You will need this partition in the next step.

Establish the state databases:

These small databases contain all of the information SVM needs to operate, and the configuration information of the RAID volumes we create.

metadb -af -c 3 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s7
metadb -af -c 3 /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s7

The parameters above are:

• –a: add databases
• –f: force, basically create the initial databases
• –c: the number of copies in case of database corruption. Additionally SVM requires a majority of databases to be available for correct operation; in an ideal world you would place additional copies on a third drive. In reality most people configure a parameter to override this requirement.

Create the RAID devices:

Next we initialise the partitions which we want to mirror. From the root disk partition table listed above, they are:

• 0 — root
• 1 — swap
• 3 — var
• 4 — opt
• 5 — apps

metainit -f d01 1  1 c1t0d0s0
metainit -f d11 1  1 c1t0d0s1
metainit -f d31 1  1 c1t0d0s3
metainit -f d41 1  1 c1t0d0s4
metainit -f d51 1  1 c1t0d0s5

metainit -f d02 1  1 c1t2d0s0
metainit -f d12 1  1 c1t2d0s1
metainit -f d32 1  1 c1t2d0s3
metainit -f d42 1  1 c1t2d0s4
metainit -f d52 1  1 c1t2d0s5

The “1 1″ parameter tells metainit to create 1 stripe with 1 partition.

Create the Mirrors:

Next we create the parent mirror devices, and attach the first side, the existing root disk:

metainit d00 -m d01
metainit d10 -m d11
metainit d30 -m d31
metainit d40 -m d41
metainit d50 -m d51

We won’t add the second side of the mirrors until we configure the system to boot from mirror device, and perform a reboot.

Configure the root device:

Now that we have SVM mirror devices created, we need to configure Solaris to access them correctly. SVM creates new device files under /dev/md/dsk and /dev/md/rdsk and unless the vfstab file is updated to point to these new device files, it will not be taking advantage of the RAID configuration. For the root partition, the metaroot command will perform this task for you. If it only did that, it would be a pretty useless command, as you need to edit the vfstab file to update the other partition entries as well. Luckily, it also updates the /etc/system kernel configuration file with the necessary entries for SVM.

metaroot d00

Modify vfstab for any other root disk mounts:

Now we need to update the vfstab entries for swap, var, opt, apps:

#device         device          mount           FS      fsck    mount   mount
#to mount       to fsck         point           type    pass    at boot options
#
#/dev/dsk/c1d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c1d0s2 /usr          ufs     1       yes     -
fd      -       /dev/fd fd      -       no      -
/proc   -       /proc   proc    -       no      -
/dev/md/dsk/d10       -       -       swap    -       no      -
/dev/md/dsk/d00       /dev/md/rdsk/d10      /       ufs     1       no      logging
/dev/md/dsk/d30       /dev/md/rdsk/d30      /var    ufs     1       no      logging
/dev/md/dsk/d50       /dev/md/rdsk/d50      /apps   ufs     2       yes     logging
/dev/md/dsk/d40       /dev/md/rdsk/d40      /opt    ufs     2       yes     logging
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB0F02547800d0s0       /data2  ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB4F7554FE00d0s0       /data1  ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
/dev/dsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB594EB54200d0s0        /dev/rdsk/c6t600C0FF0000000000048CB594EB54200d0s0       /data   ufs     2       yes     logging,forcedir
ectio
swap    -       /tmp    tmpfs   -       yes     -

Lock the filesystem and shutdown the server:

To ensure that no further changes are made to the filesystems prior to booting onto the new volumes, run the locks command and reboot immediately.

# lockfs -fa
# /usr/sbin/shutdown -y -g0 -i0

While at the OBP prompt, configure device aliases and the boot-device parameter to automatically boot from either drive in the event of a failure:

% show-disks

Pick your mirrored disk from the list and then setup an alias:

% nvalias mirror ^y (that is a <control>-y to paste the device path)

Change your boot-device to first try the normal disk alias, then use your mirror disk:

% setenv boot-device disk mirror
% reset-all

When the system is booting, you will see errors relating to SVM drivers as follows:

forceload of misc/md_trans failed
forceload of misc/md_raid failed
forceload of misc/md_hotspares failed

You can safely ignore these messages, as they relate to SVM elements which we haven’t created. If you wish, you can create a volume for transaction logs, a RAID 5 volume, and define a disk as a hotspare in order to remove these errors Alternatively, you could edit out those driver references in the /etc/system file.

Attach the second mirrors:

metattach d00 d02
metattach d10 d12
metattach d30 d32
metattach d40 d42
metattach d50 d52

After doing the met attach, there will be lots of disk I/O while the mirrors sync. You can use the metastat command to view status of operation:

metastat | grep State | egrep -v Okay

Other things to fix, the Solaris boot block and the State Database Qurom:

In the event of a primary disk failure, the system should keep running from the second drive. If you reboot though, the system may not start up as there is no “bootblock” on the second disk. Let’s fix that:

# installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0

If you only have two mirrored root disks (DiskSuite 4.2.1, Solaris 8), put this setting in your /etc/system:

set md:mirrored_root_flag=1

And you’re done.

This is nuts.

How things change.

You would think that being 17383 kilometers (roughly) away would insulate me from all of that.

<rant>

So for the last time, in descending order, If You Are New To Computers, Please:

1. Buy an iPad. Seriously. Expensive compared to a netbook, but you will use it! You will never edit your photo’s, and all you really want is email, Facebook, the web, and Skype. Get somebody who is not new to computers to add music / upgrade the software once every 3 months or so.
2. Buy a Mac. Spare me the “more expensive, can’t get Microsoft Word, I wouldn’t know how to use it” crap. Is it more expensive when you believe you absolutely need to buy antivirus, and then PC World charge you well over 250euro to clean it up after you get one? Shut up about MS Word already. And the last thing… you are new to computers, right? Learn it.
3. Don’t buy anything from PC World or Curries. They will sell you shit. Dell would still be my best bet.
4. Read dialog boxes before clicking on them.

1. Vendor with agenda whispers sweet “I will solve all your backup problems with these new storage arrays of ours” nothings to senior manager with no knowledge of, or inclination to ask those who know the backup environment…
2. Senior manager instructs storage manager with no real knowledge of or inclination ever to use said vendors storage products, or indeed ever waste his beloved spindles on backup, to “Engage this vendor to report on our backup problems”
3. Manager to poor unsuspecting NetBackup engineer with 10+ years major enterprise experience, running a nearly 900 client, 8000 backup job a night environment with typically less than 0.5% failure rate: “What’s with all these backup problems we have?”

I just absolutely fucking love it.

I see a couple of glasses of wine in my future tonight!

Steps:

1. Watch video above
2. Howl at the gobshite reactions on Liveline with Joe Duffy (from Nialler9)
3. Marvel at the astute, insightful, devastating counter arguments from Blindboy of the Rubberbandits
4. Rejoice in the new found new found infamy of the “Anthony” character

Insider tip: the exterior church scenes are from Castletroy, Limerick (I should know my little boy was baptised there). No idea where the interior scenes are from.

Really, really impressed with the well reasoned answers from Blindboy. Daycent!

…the result of today’s match between Munster and Leinster pleases me