Solaris Express Install Workarond

Solaris Express Pains

We install all Sun unbundled software and many ISV applications like Oracle on each build of
Solaris and over the last 12 months we had 10 cases where the install failed directly or indirectly
becuase of changes to the output from uname.  Hard to beleive

10 times we have had to put work around in place, never hard, but time
consuming and not adding a lot of value to the customer ( and boring )

So I am very very happy to see Angelo Rajadurai and Jon Hasalam
have between them come up with a d script to change the uname output
on the fly. Install your software and then change it back :)

Over a number pints in a famous old Dublin Pub ( that doesn't really narrow the search
a lot )  I reminded Bryan that dtrace isn't just for Performance it can help solve
so many QA problems too. dtrace is for everyone not just performance people

 Angelo and Jon wrote it !



#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -Cs
#include<sys/systeminfo.h>

#pragma D option destructive

syscall::uname:entry
/ppid == $1/
{
self->addr = arg0;
}

syscall::uname:return
/ppid == $1/
{
copyoutstr("SunOS", self->addr, 257);
copyoutstr("PowerPC", self->addr+257, 257);
copyoutstr("5.10", self->addr+(257*2), 257);
copyoutstr("Generic", self->addr+(257*3), 257);
copyoutstr("PPC", self->addr+(257*4), 257);
}
syscall::systeminfo:entry
/arg0==SI_ARCHITECTURE/
{
self->arch = arg1;
}

syscall::systeminfo:return
/self->arch && ppid == $1/
{
copyoutstr("PowerPC", self->arch,257);
self->arch=0;
}

syscall::systeminfo:entry
/arg0==SI_PLATFORM && ppid == $1/
{
self->mach = arg1;
}

syscall::systeminfo:return
/self->mach && ppid == $1/
{
copyoutstr("APPL,PowerBook-G4", self->mach,257);
self->mach=0;
}

Posted at 11:41AM Jun 01, 2005 by damienf in Solaris  |  Comments[0]

I'll never live this down

I have been given the honor of being part of Sun's 2nd "Change Agents" poster campaign. While I greatfull for this honor ( I'll get you Darrin if it takes years ) my choice as a "poster boy" is rather strange as I'm far from Brad Pitt. I reckon that all the good looking folks were used first time round.

My team mates have, showing their usual level of respect honored me further by creating their own version of the poster including a rather nice picture of me in China. ( Brutus I'll get you too. )

Posted at 02:53PM May 24, 2005 by damienf in General  |  Comments[0]

My Intro

Posted at 09:29AM May 24, 2005 by damienf in General  |  Comments[0]

access woes

I had the displeasure of breaking Solaris 10 on my Acer Ferrari 3200
( not its fault tried to BFU to the latest nevada build with a Solaris 10
BFU script ) so I could not use our ip sec based remote secure access service.

For those that like me choose to shoot themselves in the foot from time
to time I suggest you use frkit to upgrade your systems. See just how
good Solaris performs on a laptop, opensolaris.org has or will have shortly
frkit it saves you from yourself.

This meant I needed to go looking for my DES card to use VPN, Of course
I look high and low with no joy, then I see it looking at me thru the
window of the washer !

I have learned 3 important things from this.

1) I do not like windows, nothing religious just Solaris 10
   is better, punchin is much better than VPN !
2) My 4 year old daughter can reach about 4 inches higher than
   I taught ( which is how the DES card ended up in the washer )
3) The DES card worked fine after it dried out ;)

Posted at 02:27PM May 23, 2005 by damienf in General  |  Comments[0]