Notes from the Main Sequence: Eric Reid - Sun ISV Engineering

I like VirtualBox. It does what I need -- often times it does many different things via multiple clients on the same server.

Recently, I've been creating OpenSolaris VirtualBox clients, and, again, they do what I need. Except when it comes to accessing OpenSolaris repositories. With default NAT networking, an OpenSolaris client tends to have slower networking, and at times when I'm installing several packages from pkg.opensolaris.org,  I'll get:

 # pkg install amp
          :
          :
 pkg: Maximum number of network retries exceeded during download. Details follow:
          :
          :

Frustrating, to be sure, but there is a way to put up with all the waiting:

  # export PKG_CLIENT_TIMEOUT=300   # Seconds (default=30)
  # export PKG_TIMEOUT_MAX=10       # Attempts (default=4)

Now, although your pkg commands won't be any faster without tweaking the VirtualBox networking stack, they will eventually finish. This works outside of VirtualBox as well.

I work with Open Source Communities. Part of that involves the quest to make Community offerings more accessible, easier to install, and easier to integrate with our platforms.

OpenSolaris comes with the notion of software repositories (much like its Linux cousins) which facilitate easy install of Sun, Community and other software. While popular F/OSS software is available straight from the Communities themselves, often times having it also available (even if we don't add anything appreciable to it) in an OpenSolaris Repository can make for an easier install experience.

That's what I hope to do very soon with Drupal, Joomla!, and several other F/OSS offerings. To that end, the OpenSolaris Community recently announced the availability of Source Juicer, a web-based, automated mechanism to build and deploy IPS packages into the /pending, and ultimately, the /contrib Repositories.

At this moment, and thanks to helping with the Beta testing,  I've gotten the following packages into the temporary /pending repository (eventually, Source Juicer will send things directly into the 'real' /pending, but this gets us on our way to /contrib):

• Drupal 5
  
• Drupal 6
  
• Acquia Drupal
  

So, I say to you, and to the OpenSolaris Community, and the Drupal Community - do you run OpenSolaris? Wanna try these out? If so:

• Make sure you're running OpenSolaris 2008.11 or a later /dev snapshot

• Point 'pkg' or Package Manager at the temporary /pending repository as follows:

% pfexec pkg authority -O http://jucr.opensolaris.org/pending  JuicerPending

• Install the package of your choice (in this case, the Apache Web Server requirement will pull in the Apache Web Server if not already installed0:
  

% pfexec pkg install drupal6

• In this case, Drupal 6.x will be installed in /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/drupal6

Try these and other packages that will appear in /pending. This will help us vet the packages, and get them promoted to /contrib sooner.

I had a lovely 'aha' moment today. This 'aha' is nothing new, except to me.  Today, I tried ZFS snapshots for the first time, and it made my life SO much easier! My thanks to colleague Tom Daly for the suggestion!

We're testing Drupal on Webstack on OpenSolaris. The MySQL database we're using totals about 20GB on disk - not big, but heretofore it was created via a script of MySQL commands, including lots of inserts. To populate the database to a 'fresh' state took about 50 minutes on a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120.

"Why not try ZFS rollback," asks Tom, nonchalantly. Ding! Aha!

OpenSolaris uses ZFS for everything, even booting. It's the default filesystem type. Our database resides on a ZFS mount (in a Zone, no less, back-mounted from the global zone!). This is a perfect use of the ZFS 'snapshot' and 'rollback' commands. To wit:

First, we need re-instantiate the database only once, and get it to just the place we want as our 'unsullied starting-point' database. 

Snapshot the ZFS mount in the global zone (before the '@' is the ZFS volume, after is the snapshot name):

bash# zfs snapshot /tank2/db0/data@freshdb      
bash# zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                             USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
tank2/db0/data@freshdb              0      -  13.5G  

Time: 10 seconds

Test to your heart's content, mess up the database all your want. Ready for a fresh, unspoiled MySQL database? Well, just roll it back!

bash# zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                             USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
tank2/db0/data@freshdb           166M      -  13.5G  -
bash# zfs rollback /tank2/db0/data@freshdb
bash# zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                             USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
tank2/db0/data@freshdb              0      -  13.5G  -

Do this as many times as you need. Fresh databases in seconds, not upwards of an hour.

Just wanted to share...

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A new week, a new OpenSolaris install experience...

Picked up a new replacement 'everything' server last week, a Shuttle SN68SG2. The intent is to upgrade my main work server, and take advantage of some latest technologies:

• Multi-core lower-power AMD CPU
• OpenSolaris xVM technology for virtualization right on top of hardware hypervisor
• Gigabit Ethernet (I tend to schlep a lot of big .iso images from box to box here)

So I tricked this box out (under $500!) as follows:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz, dual-core, 65W) CPU
• 2 x 2GB DDR2 400 memory
• 250GB SATA disk

Installing the latest Nevada (nv78), went fairly well, except for the NIC. The rundown:

• CPU/memory: works (frkit isn't happy with dual-core, but that's a known issue)
  
• SATA: works!
• Audio: not yet tested [update: it works]
  
• USB 2.0: works
• Firewire: not yet tested
• Onboard graphics: works great with bundled nVidia driver, driving 1680x1050 Benq monitor
• Onboard NIC (nVidia 630a chipset): 'nge' driver did not recognize this chipset, but Murayama-san's 'nfo' 2.X driver does (once again, Arigato Gozaimashita, Murayama-san!)

Next step: playing with xVM (which this CPU allows via AMD-V). Stay tuned.

Finally got around to trying the OpenSolaris Developer Preview (aka Project Indiana) this morning... it's cool, it's partial, it's a step in the Right Direction... what really caught my eye was that I could place this CD-sizes image on USB Flash Drives and Boot Live... and it Just Worked in seconds... although on my Toshiba Satellite A205:

  1) Sound doesn't work
  2) Time of day wasn't correct (or asked for initially)

But, really, it's not disappointing at all for Preview 1... I like it!
 

...a Satellite Pro A205-4777 laptop, to be specific... my dear wife came home with one of these last week after listening to me whine about my primary desktop being in the shop...

OK... so... this doesn't have NVidia or ATI graphics (it's Intel GMA 950), but when I installed Nevada b73 this weekend, it went fairly well. The exceptions:

• 10/100 Ethernet: the skge driver from SysKonnect works, modulo some tweaking in the /etc/driver_aliases file.
• Intel 4965 abgn wireless: not yet supported [Update: the recently-released 4965 OpenSolaris driver does not yet support this card]
  
• Intgrated Audio: not yet supported [Update: thanks to Pradhap for pointing me to the OSS driver on Solaris.. it works!]
  

Methinks it's time for this Sun/Intel partnership to focus on driver support :)