While listening to National Public Radio (my favorite Bolshevik station), I heard a story that most sysadmins of Solaris and Oracle Sun hardware would probably enjoy.

Right after Haikus of Das Kapital and before Knitting Tips from Madamme Defarge," All Things Considered ran a cool story about The Geek Group.

That's kinda what BigAdmin has been all about: helping Do-It-Yourselfers (DIY's) get the job done. (You'd make your life easier if you took the damn Solaris Sysadmin Training Courses already, but I understand. It's been a while for me, too.)

And that's right in line with what Justin Kestelyn, author of the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) blog, is doing with the OTN. Make sure to read his post about the future of BigAdmin (and SDN).

We're going to have a hiccup or two during the transition to Oracle, but please stay with us; in the long run, Oracle's resources will help us get more and better content to you, and provide more interesting ways for us to talk to each other.

Here's what Bob Rhubart, of The Arch Beat blog had to say:

"The combination of the Sun Developer Network (including java.sun.com), BigAdmin, and the Oracle Technology Network will result in the largest, and most diverse, community of Developers, Database Administrators, SysAdmins, and Architects. The richness and diversity of these communities will truly be remarkable."

Where To Find Us

So, just to be clear, here's what's still working and where to find it:

• BigAdmin Hub, though it's going to take us a bit to start posting new content again.
• Content Submissions to the BigAdmin Hub, though it's going to take us a bit to respond to new content submissions.
• BigAdmin Wiki, as usual you can post your own content on our wiki, though we may be slow to promote it over the next couple of weeks.
• BigAdmin Newsletter will be published in late February, though in the future we may consolidate its content within other OTN newsletters.
• BigAdmin's RSS Feeds
• BigAdmn Twitter Channel, though you'll have to put up with me instead of delighting in Constance's banter.
• Facebook's BigAdmin Page, though it'll be me posting instead of Robert.

Also be sure to look for BigAdmin under the Communities heading in the left nav bar of the OTN.

Farewell to Close Friends

If you have submitted content to BigAdmin in the past, you have probably spoken to Constance McKenzie. When the advent of online communities brought into question the need for quality standards in technical content, Constance had the unenviable job of keeping BigAdmin's content useful while preserving the voice of the authors, many of whom spoke English as a second or third language. Despite being handicapped by one or more graduate degrees, Constance jumped headlong into all the latest Web 2.0 mediums and promoted BigAdmin's content religously. Constance was also the keeper of our editorial, web, and legal standards. Which means she kept us out of trouble. If you got your BigAdmin goodies, you have Constance to thank. She was the author of the BigAdmin Newsletter, most of our MOTD's (message of the day), and our Twitter Channel, among other things. You can continue to twitter with Constance at the CMacWasHere channel

If you read The History of BigAdmin, Part I, you know that Robert Weeks was one of the founders of BigAdmin. You may also know that he really digs his Mustang Bullit (and that I want to steal it). What you may not know is that he was the driving force behind BigAdmin since its inception. He's the guy who cared the most about treating Sun's sysadmins right, about protecting BigAdmin as a free and open resource. He had a day job as a Sun engineer that took up most of his time, but he never failed to put in the extra hours to post content, test scripts, design new interfaces, update the HCL, and handle so many other things I couldn't begin to list them here. The back-end content management tools he created for us helped a skeleton team work through a large volume of content. Without that, we would have been lined up against a wall and shot long ago. It's because of the dedication of Robert Weeks that BigAdmin and, more importantly, its charter to serve the needs of sysadmins with free and open content and community, was embraced by Oracle.

- Rick

The people of Burundi have overwhelmingly approved the Oracle-Sun deal.


"We approved the deal because we think BigAdmin's Device Detection Tool is very nice. We use it always."

"And also because the name Solaris is very pretty. In the Batwa language it means 'capacious jug.'"

The men of Burundi agreed.

"We invite all the people of the nation of Oracle to come and play the Burundi drum!"

"They make Version 2.3 of the Device Detection Tool excellent! It now supports new platforms including SPARC Solaris, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and FreeBSD 6.0, 6.4, 7., 7.1 and 7.2. And it collects more system configuration information!"

"This gives us more time to beat the Burundi drum."

"And drink Burundi beer!"

When asked if they knew how to find the improved Device Detection Tool they said "Who doesn't! It's part of the BigAdmin HCL!"

To commemorate the event, the nation of Burundi has declared a national holiday.

"For our great friends, the people of Oracle and Sun!"

- Rick

When I dialed up Jesse James with the news that BigAdmin's Upgrade Resources for System Administrators hub had just been upgraded, he said...

"Whatever, man. Quit calling me."

Well, whatareyagonnado? Not everybody can be a cheerful sysadmin, ya know?

But Ginny Henningsen can! She took what Karen Perkins started with, added some of her own experience and that of her friends, nipped a little here, cut a little there, tossed in a super graphic, and came up with a very nice version of the hub.

Solaris 10 Upgrade Resources for Sysadmins

The new hub has six sections, just like the single-action revolver used by Jesse's outlaw namesake:

• Overview
• Why Upgrade?
• Patching
• Planning
• Implementation
• Post Upgrade

We think our new hub is purtier than Sandra Bullock. Check it out and tell us what you think. Then call Jesse.

- Rick

One of the comments we got at LISA 09 BoF in Baltimore was that between blogs, wikis, forums, and other receptacles of content, it was getting difficult to figure out where the docs were.



So we went looking for them and put together a quick summary of all the Sun sysadmin-related docs we could find, whether they were on docs.sun.com, wikis, or wherever.





Here's what we found:

Photo courtesy of Geek Logie

Sun's Sysadmin-Related Documentation

• Overview
• Applications
• Middleware
• OS/Virtualization/HA/Networking
• System Management
• Hardware
• Storage

Let us know if we missed any.

In case you're wondering how this hub relates to the Documentation link in the right nav bar, here's the difference...

1. The Documentation link in the right nav bar takes you to the Documentation Section. That section lists the docs that have been submitted by readers as links to BigAdmin. They can include Sun docs, Linux docs, Oracle docs, whatever you think would interest sysadmins. In other words, you have control over what's included in this list. If you'd like to submit more links, go to the BigAdmin Submission Page.
2. The System Administration Documentation for Sun Products hub lists all the Sun sysadmin-related docs we could find. The BigAdmin Staff owns that page.

We'll improve our nomenclature in the coming months, but for now, let me know if that distinction isn't clear.

- Rick

This blog is about a new Sun BluePrint, Best Practices For Moving to the Solaris 10 Operating System. If you want to be that way, you can skip straight to the BluePrint.

And not read the part about the wicked cool video game racing seat.

And the Ferraris.






(Read a review of this racing seat at www.playseat.com.)

OK, so the racing chair is not mine yet, but I have my eye on it.

I need it so I can beat my 17-year old daughter at Need for Speed.

When we first started playing, we were using this kind of controller:

She kicked my ass.

So I bought this steering wheel:

It came with brake and throttle pedals. I also bought a TV dinner table (remember those?) and mounted the wheel on it. Now we're pretty much even.

But the TV-table/steering wheel combo still wobbles, and Need for Speed requires precise steering. Or you go off the road at 150 mph. Or smack into a pile of tires because some dirty bastard coming up from behind spun you. Stuck inside a pile of tires and road debris, you get to listen to the spectators jeer while you while you try to find Reverse with the stupid paddle shifters.

Unfortunately, the only steering wheel I could afford comes with paddle shifters. I hate paddle shifters. Paddle shifters are for posers. Unless you actually race your Ferrari. If you don't race your Ferrari and it has a paddle shifter, guess what? You're a poser.

That's right, a Poser.

Poser, poser, poser.

OK, if you eat a lot of smelly cheese, the correct term is poseur. If you'd like a real definition of poseur, go to this site, but be advised that its content may be considered offensive by people who take offense at things:

Urban Dictionary's definition of "poseur".

Poseur, poseur, poseur.

I'd much rather continue talking about video games and the fascinating definitions in Urban Dictionary, but I have a job to do. So I'm gonna tell you about this new BluePrint written by the fine folks in Sun's BluePrints organization. It's called...

Best Practices For Moving to the Solaris 10 Operating System

Sun wants you to read the BluePrint in case you are:

1. Thinking about upgrading to Solaris 10, but
2. Aren't exactly sure what's involved in the upgrade process

The BluePrint covers....

• Why upgrading to Solaris 10 makes fiscal sense in this economy (it's not about the cool features)
• How to plan your upgrade so you get the benefits you want
• How to implement your plan so you get the results you intended
• The tangible benefits you get from Solaris 10 (resource utilization, performance, availability, etc.)

What makes Sun BluePrints so good is that they're written by experts in the field under the guidance of Kemer Thomson, who has been running Sun's BluePrint program since back in 01. That's almost in the other millennium. (I bet I can kick his ass in Need for Speed.)

Check it out. (While you're at it, also see the Solaris 10 Upgrade Resources for System Administrators.)

And tell me where to find that racing seat for cheap. I want enough money left over to buy the helmet. Swear to God I'll wear it around the house.

- Rick

(Photo courtesy of www.circletrack.com.)

This is a perfect wave. If you surf, you'll appreciate how the offshore wind first ruffles the surface of the approaching swells and then sculpts the face of the tube into perfection.

I can almost feel the cold wind on my back.

Photo courtesy of 43 Things.

This is not a perfect wave. I can't tell you what this feels like because even looking at a wave this size scares me half out of my mind.

Photo courtesy of Sean Davey at Surf Photo Art.

The waves are kinda like our use of categories and collections. The perfect wave? That's what we'd like to do. The not so perfect wave? That fits us better on this one. For now.

If you recall, the Sections and Categories blog entry of a few weeks ago explained how sections work. Sections are the main types of content BigAdmin provides, such as Articles, XPerts, Wikis, etc. Categories are simply the way to filter a section by the type of content. In other words, if you want to see all the Articles about Performance, you can go to the Articles section and select the Performance category from the pull-down menu. For example:

In a perfect world, we would also give you the capability to see all the sections for a particular category. In other words, if you were interested in all the content about Performance, whether it was a blog, a wiki, a video, or whatever, you would select the category and from the results, filter the results by blog, wiki, or whatever.

We kinda sorta do that, but in an imperfect way. We use collections. If you want to find all the content that BigAdmin publishes about databases, go to the database collection. It will list all the articles, blogs, wikis, interviews, videos, whatever.

Here are a few other differences between categories and collections:

• You can see a list of all collections on one page, but you can only see a list of all categories from the pull-down menu of each section.
• A resource can belong to multiple collections, but to only one category. This is a bit easier to see in the content submission page.
• There are many more categories than there are collections.

Ideally, categories and collections would be the same thing. For now, they continue to be separate things. Would we like to fix that? Yes. Can we? Not yet. So for now, please bear with us, and:

• Use categories to filter the content in a section.
• Use collections to see a list of all content, regardless of section, for a particular topic.

If you'd like to see more excellent surf photography, including a picture of the biggest wave I've ever seen (Outside Sunset, Hawaii), go to www.surfphotoart.com.

- Rick

The beginning of a new year rocks because it gives me an excuse to ignore that list of things I have to get done, the other list of things I should do, and that crumpled, worn out, stale, and guilt-ridden list of things I know that I'm never going to get done. Instead, I can start a new list with all the things I want to do.

Like make an F-15 (see comments) do this.

Or sneak into Robert's garage and take his AWESOME Mustang Bullit for a joy ride.

If you have teenagers, you probably know that being a teenager today can suck the BigZucchini. No matter what you do, you're WRONG. To keep her sanity, my teenage daughter tacked this quote onto her bedroom wall:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel small around you. We were born to manifest the glory that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And when we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

You may recognize it from the movie Coach Carter spoken by the character Timo Cruz.

But according to the website Date to Be Remarkable, it was written by Marianne Williamson and used by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural speech as president of South Africa.

I didn't know that.

I still owe you an explanation of BigAdmin's collections, and that will come this week. But I wanted to begin the new year with a wish that in 2010 you, BigAdmin, and the kick-butt, take-names technologies we play with will dare to be remarkable.

- Rick

This blog has three parts, each written for a different type of sysadmin:

• For Sysadmins Who Love Justice
• For Cheap Bastard Sysadmins
• For Hardass Solaris Loyalists

For Sysadmins Who Love Justice

If you love justice, you need to take this survey. Yes, I'm fed up with surveys, too. But please take this survey. Why? Because The Tick wants you to. When The Tick says ..."Honk If You Love Justice"...do you honk? Of course you do. This is why you are my favorite kind of sysadmin. I usually get flipped off when I honk for Justice, but I don't mind. Because I Love Justice. So please take this survey. Because The Tick loves justice, too.

Survey About Solaris 10 Adoption

In appreciation for your cooperation,
The Tick hopes you will enjoy
this hilarious video
by Russell Peters:
Caution: ethnic humor and foul language:
White People, Please Beat Your Kids

For Cheap Bastard Sysadmins

OK, so you worship the Almighty Buck. You memorize each issue of The Economist. You steal the nickels from the "Leave a Penny" trays at convenience stores. You guard your time wisely and aren't willing to part with a single minute without getting something in return. We have an inducement for you: if you take the survey (should take about 10 minutes if you tell the truth, much less if you lie), we'll give you a 30% discount off the purchase of this book:

Last time I checked, InformIT was offering free shipping.

But remember, you can't just get the discount. You have to take the....

Survey About Solaris 10 Adoption

For Hardass Solaris Loyalists

You don't take kindly to people who let their kids scream in restaurants, who fail to help little old ladies cross the street, and who pick on weaklings. You're not going to be bought off by a book discount because you already know what's in the damn book and probably disagree with half of it.

So I'll explain why we want you to take this survey.

Sun wants more Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 customers to upgrade to Solaris 10. Why? Because we will make more money if you upgrade to Solaris 10. To begin with, there's less of a chance that one of our (pesky) competitors will convince you to upgrade to their (inferior) OS. But also because once you are using (the most awesome) Solaris 10 you will be tempted to buy some of our (great) new hardware. Which will let you do more for less and spend the remainder on more Sun goodies. Or exotic cars.

But there is still enough idealism left in us that we only want you to upgrade if it makes sense for you. (I may have a late model Harley, but I also really, really love my 2001 Ducati.)

So, rather than hit you over the head with a blunt marketing instrument, Sun would like to understand why some of you would rather remain with Solaris 8 or Solaris 9. That knowledge would help us design products and services to support you, such as Solaris 8 Vintage Support. It would also help us aim our Solaris 10 marketing in the right direction. For example, if you don't upgrade because you think it'll be more expensive, we can focus our time on proving why it won't. Instead of hollering about the cool new features that you already know about. But aren't interested in because you think they're too expensive.

In other words, we want you to take the survey so we can work with you better. And avoid looking stupid. Or losing you to our (lame) competitors who will sell you their (inferior) products.

Solaris 10 Adoption Survey

- Rick

To continue with an explanation of BigAdmin's structure in response to questions raised at LISA Baltimore....

All of BigAdmin's content is grouped into sections, which the home page calls out as "Resources and Sections":

Each section lists all the content of a particular type, such as:

• Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)
• Drivers/Device List
• Tech Tips
• Blogs and Wikis
• Feature Articles
• From the Forums
• Shell Commands (ShellMe)
• Solaris 10 Applications

(This is only a partial list. Here is the complete list of all sections).

In other words, if you wanted to browse all of BigAdmin's Feature Articles, you would select 5. Articles and FAQ's:

Here is what you would see:

By default, BigAdmin's most recently published and updated feature articles are displayed in that list, most recent on top. However, you could filter all the Feature Articles by category:

You can see all the categories in a section by "pulling down" the category menu:

When you select a particular category, the list is updated to display only the feature articles in that category.

Next blog: collections.

- Rick

Some of the comments we received at LISA 09 pointed out that BigAdmin's content was difficult to navigate.

I agree.

Particularly for new users.

BigAdmin started as a way to provide information you couldn't find anywhere else, was built from the ground up, has evolved to meet the changing needs of sysadmins, and has gotten a bit messy.

Kinda like your own desk. It looks like hell, but you know exactly where everything is.

But pity the poor bastard who has to fill in for you.

One day soon, we hope, BigAdmin will get a chance to clean up the clutter.

Because for now you have to work with what we've got, I'll use the next few blogs to explain how the content is organized, how to find things, and what is in which pile.

But first I want to talk about the problem that BigAdmin is trying to help you deal with. Because only by understanding that problem will you understand the logic behind BigAdmin.

If you are not interested in this brief history lesson, go straight to What Is BigAdmin and How Do I Use It?

A Brief History of Content

From the moment God said, "Let there be light" until a few years ago, a means of commerce came into being that was so effective it spread across virtually all cultures of the globe: You gave somebody a pile of cash and they gave you a product and its documentation. The simplicity of that transaction was breathtaking.

The documentation was particularly cool if it came in a big ol' 3-ring binder. Why? Because you could open it up and lay it flat right beside the product. There has never been a better delivery vehicle for documentation than the 3-ring binder. Not even stone tablets.

But then high-tech became cool. And Cool dictates that 3-ring binders are Not. The result? The information that used to live in that 3-ring binder is now distributed across online documentation sites, magazine articles, books for sale at Amazon, wikis that may or may not be up to date, blogs that may or may not know what the hell they're talking about, forum discussions that may or may not be answered, websites with content of questionable credibility, the product interface, and maybe even labels on the product.

More than once I have fantasized about getting my buddies together, putting it all in a big pile, lighting it on fire, and dancing around it with spears and painted faces until we were all back to the simplicity of the Stone Age.

So What Are We Doing About It?

BigAdmin wants to be your three ring binder.

We can't reverse the course of history, but we want you to come to BigAdmin first and let us take you to where the content is. We are continuously searching for the resources to help you do your job and organizing them so you know where they are. That means docs, support, training classes, blogs, wikis, discussions, articles, videos, books. Sometimes we publish the content ourselves, sometimes we point to other places where it has been published. Whatever, wherever.

How are we doing? When you consider what information a sysadmin needs to adopt, deploy, and integrate Sun technologies into a heterogeneous environment, we have a long way to go. We simply don't cover enough of Sun's technologies in enough real-world scenarios. There is so much we are not aware of. Our interface is not nearly dynamic enough. Our information architecture is a bit sloppy. And as you have pointed out, our navigation is confusing.

But we're running as fast as we can to catch up. So far, we have:

• Over 3500 resources, both original content and links to content.
• Almost 10,000 entries in the HCL.
• A list of more than 11,000 applications that run on Solaris 10.
• Thirty landing pages for sysadmin topics that first give you an overview of a topic and then link you to all the resources we know about. Some of them, such as the Patches Hub are pretty good. We're working on more.

How to Send Us Suggestions

There's a lot more to do, but we can't do it alone. As Robert Weeks explained in The History of Bigadmin Part I, BigAdmin was patterned after the community bulletin boards of yore. It's all about sharing what you know. How can you help?

• Tell us about any content you find useful.
• When you have a specific improvement or find an error on a particular page, use the Feedback mechanism at the bottom right of the page (look for the little plus sign). Just remember that a lot of the pages we link to do not have the little plus sign.
• Use our Suggestion Box. It's also available from the blue menu on the right of every BigAdmin page.

Next blog: sections, collections, and topic hubs.

- Rick