Wednesday Nov 04, 2009
Recently, I discovered a way to switch between tasks inside a WTS or VNC session (same as <cmd><tab> with native OS X applications): Just replace the <cmd> key by the <alt> key, and you can switch applications inside the WTS or VNC session just as you would do if you were directly logged in to those systems.
Wednesday Nov 04, 2009
Sometimes, I'd like to know which profile I am using with my current Firefox instance (for example if an instance has been open for a long time, or if I'm running two instances (using firefox -P -no-remote) at the same time.
I found the solution on this web site:
Start Tools->Error Console (or press <ctrl><shift>j)
Then, in the Code line at the top (you can jump to it using <ctrl>o), enter the following code and press Return (or click the "Evaluate" button):
alert(Components.classes["@mozilla.org/file/directory_service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIProperties).get("ProfD", Components.interfaces.nsIFile).path);
It will show the full path of your profile in a popup window. The name of the profile is the last string after the last dot.
Monday Nov 02, 2009
As mentioned earlier, I am using rsync to copy complete directory trees:
$ cd /source_dir
$ rsync -avz . /dest_dir
It will copy all files, including hidden ones, in directory /source_dir, into the destination directory /dest_dir. In case /dest_dir does not already exist, rsync will create it (at least on my Nevada 72 system).
There may be cases where rsync does not work correctly, for example when there are very long file names. Good to know that there's another easy way to do it:
$ cd /source_dir
$ find . -print -depth | cpio -pdm /dest_dir
The -depth parameter makes find print directory names first, and -pdm with cpio means (from man cpio):
-p: reads a list of file path names from stdio and copies those files to the destination tree.
-d: creates directories if necessary
-m: keep file modification times
Destination directory /dest_dir has to exist before starting the above commands.
Monday Nov 02, 2009
The following OpenSolaris page contains all download links for Firefox 3.6b1, 3.5.5, and 3.0.15, Thunderbird 3.0b4 and 2.0.0.23, and Seamonkey 2.0b1 on OpenSolaris and Solaris 10:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Community+Group+desktop/development
You can still find Firefox 2.0.0.20 linked here:
http://blogs.sun.com/blogfinger/entry/firefox_for_solaris_latest_versions2
You can also browse all Firefox versions for all platforms here:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
And the latest Acrobat Reader (current version is 9.2) for OpenSolaris is - as always - available via the following page:
http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/
Friday Jul 10, 2009
These are the direct links for downloading Firefox 3.5 for Solaris:
You can still find the links to the latest Firefox 2 version (2.0.0.20) in this blog entry, and to Firefox 3.0 in this blog entry.
If you are visiting the Mozilla web site from a Solaris system, your system will be automatically detected, and you can a see link which shows "Download Firefox - Free" and "3.5 for SunOS". That link directs you to the Mozilla development page on OpenSolaris.org. Unfortunately, the Solaris versions are not yet mentioned on the "Other Systems and Languages" web page (actually, that's why I am maintaining the Firefox for Solaris links in my blog), but who knows - maybe we'll see it there in a while.
Friday Jul 10, 2009
These are the direct links for downloading the latest versions of Firefox 3 for Solaris:
You can still find the links to the latest Firefox 2 version (2.0.0.20) in this blog entry.
If you would like to install multiple versions of Firefox on your Solaris system, you can use the tarballs or my script for renaming a Firefox package.
Oh - and if you are running Solaris or OpenSolaris on x86, I suggest to install the recently released Adobe Reader 9.1 for Solaris x86!
Wednesday Apr 01, 2009
These are the direct links for downloading the latest versions of Firefox 3 for Solaris:
You can still find the links to the latest Firefox 2 version (2.0.0.20) in this blog entry.
If you would like to install multiple versions of Firefox on your Solaris system, you can use the tarballs or my script for renaming a Firefox package.
Oh - and if you are running Solaris or OpenSolaris on x86, I suggest to install the recently released Adobe Reader 9.1 for Solaris x86!
Thursday Mar 26, 2009
Believe it or not. Adobe has finished and made available Adobe Reader 9 for Solaris x86! You can download it from here (in .bin (self-extracting executable), .tar, and .pkg format). System requirements are mentioned here (minimum Solaris level are s10u5 or OpenSolaris 2008.11).
Thursday Mar 26, 2009
Recently, I encountered an article on Heise Security (for the English version, click here) and found it very useful. The article recommended to change the property browser.identity.ssl_domain_display from 0 to 1 in about:config so that the area in which the favicon is displayed (left to the URL line) will also display the domain name. The change will make it much easier to identify a secure web sit before entering personal or otherwise sensitive information like passwords, so I also recommend it. You can find screen shots at the bottom of the mentioned article.
Thursday Mar 05, 2009
These are the direct links for downloading the latest versions of Firefox 3 for Solaris. Because there are several security bug fixes implemented in 3.0.7, I strongly recommend to install them soon:
You can still find the links to the latest Firefox 2 version (2.0.0.20) in my previous blog entry on Firefox versions for Solaris.
If you would like to install multiple versions of Firefox on your Solaris system, you can use the tarballs or my script for renaming a Firefox package.
Monday Feb 09, 2009
Recently, I encountered the rsync man page by accident (maybe as one of the lines in the top 10 Google search results?) and was quite surprised to find rsync examples where there was no remote host in any of its arguments. Doesn't rsync stand for something like "remote synchronization"?
So here's how it works:
If you want to copy all files in a directory and all directories and files below to another directory (for example on another file system on a different disk), use the following command:
$ rsync -avz /source_dir/ /dest_dir
Note the added slash after /source_dir. This command will recursively copy all files and directories in directory /source_dir to directory /dest_dir (will create it if it doesn't exist). If you omit the trailing slash, it will create a new directory /dest_dir/source_dir. The rsync command will copy links as links, not as the original files they point to (similar to the default behavior of Solaris or GNU tar). If the rsync command was run before at least once, it will copy only the changed or newly added files. It will not remove destination files if files have been removed in the source directory.
Example: Copy all directories and files in directory /tmp/1 to empty directory /tmp/2:
Monday Feb 09, 2009
These are the direct links for downloading the latest versions of Firefox for Solaris:
Note that you can easily install multiple version of Firefox on Solaris, using either the tarballs or my script for renaming a Firefox package.
Wednesday Feb 04, 2009
Good news: You can save a lot of money easily! Here's how it works:
Go to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList (for the US or Canada) or http://www.spritmonitor.de (for Europe) or a similar site where car drivers can enter data of their cars and their tank fillings. Search for similar cars like yours (same engine/power/cylinder capacity, same year of manufacture), look for the average and also for the lowest fuel consumption of these cars (maybe also for the highest).
Let's take the 2004 Toyota Prius. The average range is 46.3 mpg but the best is 62 mpg! Even if you do are not the perfect eco driver, you might be able to achieve 60 miles per gallon.
Suppose you are typically driving 20,000 miles a year. That's 20,000/46.3 = 432 gallons of fuel for the average 2008 Prius. Now let us do the same calculation for the fuel efficient driver: 20,000/60 = 333.3 gallons. Considering a price of 1.7 US $ per gallon, that's about $165 less (870.5 kg less CO2) per year. Not too bad!
What about the 2004 Ford F150 Pickup 2WD 8 cyl 5.4 L? Average mpg is 15.3, worst is 12 and best is 19 mpg. For 20,000 miles a year, that would be 20,000/15.3 = 1,307.2 gallons in average or 1,052.6 for the best driver. Difference is more than $432, so you should be able to save more than $400 (2.25 metric tons CO2) per year (and even more if you are used to driving at high speed and/or with too low air pressure in your tires, or if you use your car instead of your bike for getting fresh rolls in the morning)! For just a fraction of the saved money, you could buy a good computer racing game. Or do indoor cart racing once a year.
For those of you living in Europe, you will save even more (as fuel prices are a lot higher than in the U.S.). In my case, for about 20,000 km (12,427 mi) per year on a Toyota Corolla Combi 1.6 (station wagon), I achieved 5.7 liters per 100 km (41 mpg) in average, compared to 7.5 liters per 100 km (31.4 mpg) for the average driver. With a fuel price of 1.39 EUR per liter (5.25 EUR per gallon), I saved about 500 EUR (and more than 800 kg CO2) per year compared to the average driver, or twice as much compared to a driver that prefers an F1 driving style.
And this is the "car" I am using for short distances, including shopping in my home village - saved me another 100 EUR (plus the fitness center fees) and 160 kg CO2 per year:
Tuesday Jan 27, 2009
Inspired by this and then this blog entry, I thought it was now time for me to get my own experience with iSCSI.
Here's the result:
- On my eco-friendly server running OpenSolaris 2008.11, I created a new ZFS volume (not a ZFS file system!) with iSCSI sharing switched on:
$ zfs create -o shareiscsi=on -V 180G pool2/mac-tm
cannot share 'pool2/mac-tm': iscsitgtd failed request to share
filesystem successfully created, but not shared
- Well, that did not work well. Better search and install the iSCSI packages first:
$ pkg search -rl iscsi | nawk '{print $NF}' | \
nawk 'BEGIN{FS="@"}{print $1}' | sort -u
PACKAGE
pkg:/SUNWiscsi
pkg:/SUNWiscsitgt
$ pkg install SUNWiscsi SUNWiscsitgt
DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB)
Completed 2/2 18/18 0.86/0.86
PHASE ACTIONS
Install Phase 74/74
PHASE ITEMS
Reading Existing Index 9/9
Indexing Packages 2/2
- Then, I wanted to delete (destroy, in ZFS speak) and create the zvol again:
$ zfs destroy pool2/mac-tm
cannot destroy 'pool2/mac-tm': volume has children
use '-r' to destroy the following datasets:
pool2/mac-tm@zfs-auto-snap:frequent-2009-01-23-12:15#
- OK, I understand that an automated snapshot had already been created in the meantime. Destroy the zvol with its snapshots, and create the zvol again:
$ zfs destroy -r pool2/mac-tm
$ zfs create -o shareiscsi=on -V 180G pool2/mac-tm
- Check if the shareiscsi property is on for our volume:
$ zfs get shareiscsi pool2/mac-tm
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
pool2/mac-tm shareiscsi on local
- List all defined iSCSI targets:
$ iscsitadm list target
Target: pool2/mac-tm
iSCSI Name: iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:3f4f551a-41ab-4a3a-adf9-ea3ce5c2789c
Connections: 0
- Looks great! On the MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.5.6, I installed the globalSAN iSCSI initiator software (version 3.3.0.43) from Studio Network Solutions, after downloading from this link.
- Then I rebooted the Mac (as required by the globalSAN iSCSI software).
- Next step was to mount the iSCSI drive:
a) Click on the globalSAN iSCSI icon to display its control panel:
b) Click on the + symbol in the lower left corner to get the following popup:
c) Enter the IP address or host name of the OpenSolaris server, leave the port number as it is, and enter the target name (the last column in the line starting with iSCSI Name: in the output of the iscsitadm list target command on your OpenSolaris server - in our case, it's iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:3f4f551a-41ab-4a3a-adf9-ea3ce5c2789c ), and press the OK button. The iSCSI control panel will then look like:
d) Click the Connected switch at the end of the iSCSI target line (the line which starts with iqn) to get the following popup:
e) Press the Connect button to connect to that iSCSI target. As we did not specify CHAP or Kerberos authentication, the connect will work without user and password. For a walkthrough and more on CHAP authentication, click this link.
After pressing the Connect button, the control panel will look like:
At this time, the newly created volume will show up in Disk Utility. Note that I clicked on the Persistent button to build the connection again after a reboot - I didn't try rebooting to check, but believe it will work.
- Then, I created a Mac OS X volume in Disk Utility.
a) Click on the disk drive and then on the Erase tab, enter a new name for the volume (or leave it as it is), and press the Erase... button. The following screen will displayed to show the progesss:
After the erase is completed, the new volume will show up in the left part of the Disk Utility (For this screen shot, I created the volume again after providing the name ZFS-180GB for the volume. Not sure if it's possible to rename a volume without formatting it):
- Now the volume is usable in Time Machine.
a) Click on the Time Machine icon in System Preferences to start its control panel:
b) Click on Change Disk to change the destination volume for Time Machine (the lock in the lower left corner has to be unlocked first to allow for the change):
c) Select the new volume and press Use for Backup. Then, just start the backup (or wait 120 seconds until it starts automatically):
Mac OS X Time Machine has started its first backup on a ZFS volume!
However, as always in my blog entries, this is no guarantee that it
will always work as described, or that the backup and restore will also
work after your next Mac OS X upgrade, or that there will be no errors
or problems with such a setup. What I can tell you is that a simple
restore attempt worked for me just as if I had done it from a USB disk!
Up to now, I have always disconnected the USB disk drive before closing
the Mac's lid so that a Time Machine backup would not be interrupted in
the middle. Not sure what would happen if a Time Machine backup is
running while you close the lid, so better read the docs and test it, or just always
unmount Time Machine's active volume before letting your Mac sleep.
And I discovered that if an iSCSI volume is mounted before closing the lid, the Mac Book Pro cannot transition into deep sleep mode with a power consumption similar to the switched off state. It somehow sleeps, but with rotating fan and a steady front LED. And in order to wake it up, I had to open and close the lid several times. So the steps to do before closing the Mac's lid are:
- Eject (unmount) the volume (use the eject menu item after right-clicking on the volume's icon on the desktop).
- Disconnect the iSCSI target (and all others) in the globalSAN iSCSI control panel in the Mac OS X System Preferences, by unmarking the tick in column Connected for all targets. A confirmation popup will be shown when unmarking the Connected tick.
After waking up your Mac next time, just tick the Connected mark in the globalSAN iSCSI control panel again and confirm the popup that will be shown. If you did not choose another destination disk for Time Machine in the meantime, Time Machine will recognize the iSCSI drive as a valid destination volume automatically and use it for its next scheduled backup.
BTW For an interesting article on how to use ZFS iSCSI sharing with a Linux client, please click here.
Friday Jan 23, 2009
Using DTrace's destructive actions, you can perform actions on your operating system you never thought of before, like backup files with a zfs snapshot right before a user deletes them, or halt any process before it is ended.
With the help of the files in directory /usr/demo/dtrace, the DTrace Toolkit, and my colleagues who showed me the best probe for intervening before a process is really ended, I wrote and tested the following short DTrace script to halt certain processes before they are ended. It can be very useful if you encounter a large number of short-lived processes which you could not analyze otherwise. In the following example, we are looking only for processes running with userid 4 (username adm) and with the executable name date. I saved it as file name stopper.d.
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -ws
syscall::rexit:entry
/(execname == "date") && uid == 4/
{
printf ("%d(%d): %d %d %d %d, %s, >%s<: %Y", pid, ppid, uid,
curpsinfo->pr_projid, curpsinfo->pr_zoneid,
curpsinfo->pr_dmodel, cwd, curpsinfo->pr_psargs, walltimestamp);
/* stack(); */
/* ustack(); */
/* system ("pmap -x %d", pid); */
printf ("\nStopping Process %d ...", pid);
stop();
printf (" done.");
system ("ps -eo user,pid,ppid,s,zone,projid,pri,class,nice,args | nawk '$2==\"%d\"{print}'", pid);
}
Be warned! Adapt the filter rules carefully on a test system before using the script on the system on which you want to halt processes! Use the script on your own risk - I cannot guarantee for anything!
For listing the stopped processes, you can use the following command:
$ ps -eo user,pid,ppid,s,zone,projid,pri,class,nice,args | \
nawk '$4=="T" && /date/{print}'
And for ending these stopped processes, you can use that one:
$ ps -eo user,pid,ppid,s,zone,projid,pri,class,nice,args | \
nawk '$4=="T" && /date/{system ("kill -9 "$2)}'
For testing, I created a script named start-50-date-processes.ksh to start 50 date processes roughly at the same time, then started the DTrace script above as user root:
./stopper.d
and afterwards started the test script as user
adm:
./start-50-date-processes.ksh
A sample output looks like:
$ ./stopper.d
dtrace: script './stopper.d' matched 1 probe
dtrace: allowing destructive actions
CPU ID FUNCTION:NAME
1 3413 rexit:entry 21922(5058): 4 3 0 1, /var/adm/bin, >date<: 2009 Jan 23 13:47:37
Stopping Process 21922 ... done.
adm 21922 5058 T global 3 57 IA 24 date
1 3413 rexit:entry 22005(5058): 4 3 0 1, /var/adm/bin, >date<: 2009 Jan 23 13:47:41
Stopping Process 22005 ... done.
adm 22005 5058 T global 3 47 IA 24 date
0 3413 rexit:entry 22090(22089): 4 3 0 1, /var/adm/bin, >date<: 2009 Jan 23 13:47:56
Stopping Process 22090 ... done.
adm 22090 1 T global 3 44 IA 20 date
... (some more lines)
For stopping the DTrace script, just press <ctrl>c in the window where you started it. Stopping the script will not let the stopped processes continue - they remain in the "T" (for Trace) status until they are killed.
The DTrace script will run faster if you comment out its last line (where it executes the ps command for each stopped process).
And here's the test script (for starting 50 date processes) which I executed as user adm:
$ cat start-50-date-processes.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
i=50
while [[ i -gt 0 ]]; do
date &
(( i = i - 1 ))
# or (( i-- )) with ksh93 on Solaris 10, or OpenSolaris
done
Wednesday Jan 21, 2009
I think some of you will find the following (n)awk one-liner useful. I am using it from time to time and thought I should document it so that I do not have to think about where to place the "a++" part, for example.
It will print out lines of a file that match a certain pattern, plus some more lines that follow. In this example, I am searching for lines that contain the string "usb" in /var/adm/messages, and print that line plus 4 more (for more lines, decrement the number in the first curly brackets accordingly). A line number will also be printed out for each line:
$ nawk '/usb/{a=-5}{if (a<0){print NR, $0};a++}' /var/adm/messages
Wednesday Jan 21, 2009
Not sure if you knew already - there is a tool available which collects all relevant data for analyzing application cores, for example by Sun's service and support engineers. It's called pkgapp (not pkgadd ;-) ) and can be directly downloaded by clicking this link.
When started (after extracting in a directory like
/opt/pkgapp) using:
$ /opt/pkgapp/pkgapp -c /path_to_core_file -p /path_to_executable
it collects all libraries for that executable, several proc tool outputs, and more, and packs it into a tar file in a new directory below the current directory.
If you would like to test it, you can just create a core with the gcore command:
$ gcore PID
Where PID is the process ID of a currently running process for which you would like to create the core file. The process will not be killed; it will continue running.
A sample session looks like the following (hostname and hostid replaced by dummy entries):
$ id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)
$ /usr/bin/sleep 30&
[1] 17825
$ gcore 17825
gcore: core.17825 dumped
$ /opt/pkgapp/pkgapp -c core.17825 /usr/bin/sleep
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Sun Microsystems RSD pkgapp 3.0 Solaris [01/21/2009]
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* OS release [5.11]
* Platform [SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000]
* Checking [-c] is a core or pid [using core /var/tmp/pkgapp/core.17825]
* Checking corefile for a valid pldd [pldd is good with 4 elements]
* Process root [/usr/bin/sleep]
* Databin parameter [-s] checks [reset to /var/tmp/pkgapp]
* Databin found [/var/tmp/pkgapp]
* Databin writable check [success]
* Databin used/created is [/var/tmp/pkgapp/pkgapp-012109-02]
* Creating temp area [/tmp/pkgapp.18627/]
* Checking if corefile is truncated [core seems truncated - may not be useful]
* Checking if corefile cksum = filesz [core cksum matches file size, may be fine]
* Process binary [sleep]
* Checking usage history [not recently run]
* sleep binary bit version [32]
* Checking path [-p] to binary name [failed, path includes binary name]
* Resetting path [-p] parameter [/usr/bin]
* Checking path [-p] is a directory [success]
* Locating sleep [success]
* Checking located sleep is 32 bit [success]
* Binary located [/usr/bin/sleep]
* Adding binary to pkgapp.pldd [success]
* Grabbing pldd [success]
* Grabbing pstack [success]
* Grabbing pmap [success]
* Grabbing pcred [success]
* Grabbing pflags [success]
* Grabbing pargs [success]
* Not Including the core/gcore
* Javatools [-j] not set [skipped]
* Grabbing /var/adm/messages [success]
* Grabbing uname -a [success]
* Grabbing date/time [success]
* Grabbing showrev -p [success]
* Grabbing pkginfo -l [success]
* Grabbing /etc/release [success]
* Grabbing coreadm [success]
* Grabbing ulimit [success]
* Grabbing libs [success]
* Making lib paths app/ [success]
* Making lib paths libs/ [success]
* Processing file 1 of 48
* Processing file 2 of 48
* Processing file 3 of 48
...
* Processing file 46 of 48
* Processing file 47 of 48
* Processing file 48 of 48
* Linking libraries [success]
* Libraries linked [48 ttl]
*
* Using hostid for naming .tar.gz [12345678]
* Writing file [pkgapp-12345678-sol01-090121-094026.tar.gz]
*
* Done gathering files
* Writing dbxrc & opencore.sh files [success]
* Writing manifest-090121-094026.log [success]
* Writing pkgapp-args-090121-094026 [success]
* Creating final tarfile [success]
* Compressing tarfile [success]
* End of runtime logging
* Saving history info [/var/tmp/pkgapp-history/history-090121-094026.log]
* Saving runtime log [/var/tmp/pkgapp-history/runtime-090121-094026.log]
* Removing [-r] temp area/files [left alone]
*
* Operations Complete
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Upload the following file(s) to your supportfiles.sun.com Cores Directory at Sun
1) File(s) located in directory /var/tmp/pkgapp/pkgapp-012109-02
[ pkgapp-12345678-sol01-090121-094026.tar.gz ]
2) File(s) located in directory /var/tmp/pkgapp/
[ core.17825 ]
Note: pkgapp has not included the core.17825 with the above pkgapp tar
Please rename the file appropriately and upload to the same location
Thank you.
Sun Software Technology Service Center (STSC)
...
Tuesday Jan 20, 2009
Tired of testing of <ctrl><alt><cmd> with the left or right arrow key to find out how to move the cursor word by word for moving the input mark or for extending the character selection?
Maybe the small table below is a useful word-by-word and beginning/end of line movement reminder for you when working with Mac OS X:
| Application |
Version |
move cursor w/w
|
change selection w/w
|
move cursor b/eol
|
change selection b/eol
|
Textedit
|
1.5
|
<alt> |
<shift><alt> |
<cmd> |
<shift><cmd> |
| Firefox |
3.0.5 |
<alt> |
<shift><alt> |
? |
? |
Mac Mail
|
3.5
|
<alt> |
<shift><alt> |
<cmd> |
<shift><cmd> |
StarOffice
|
9
|
<alt>
|
<shift><cmd> |
<cmd> |
? |
NeoOffice
|
2.2.5
|
<cmd> |
<shift><cmd> |
<fn> |
<shift><fn> |
Adium
|
1.3.2
|
<alt> |
<shift><alt> |
<ctrl> |
<shift><ctrl> |
Nedit (X11)
|
?
|
<ctrl>
|
<shift><ctrl> |
?
|
?
|
Tuesday Jan 20, 2009
Read this book. Reduce your impact on the environment: Try to consume 25% less electrical energy this year. Ask for FSC certified wood products. Use your bike (with or without a trailer) for distances less than 3 km/2 miles. When driving a car, drive less fast.
Why? Read this book. Or maybe because you need a new challenge. Or just because it's fun to impress your neighbors (who are used to see you in a car) by coming home from shopping or from work on a bike.
Thursday Jan 15, 2009
Lori Alt, project lead for the ZFS boot project, explains in this video how booting Solaris from ZFS works.
The first 5 minutes covers the main feaures of ZFS. At about 05:45, Lori starts describing the Solaris boot process (SPARC and x86) and the special considerationg when using ZFS for booting, including some remarks on grub. A great primer if you want to know what happens when Solaris is booting. The video is also available in m4v format for viewing on an iPod, for example.
|
|
|
|
