Gangadhar's Weblog: Solaris Security Group

Recently I have given a talk on OpenSolaris and how to contribute to it at BMS
college, Bangalore. This is as a part of Code For Freedom workshop
(www.codeforfreedom.com). For this event I have prepared a handout on
how to compile and fix a bug in OpenSolaris Source code. I faced problems 
in getting the steps copied here, so I have attached the pdf and odt formats 
of the handout here.

howtofixabug.pdf

howtofixabug.odt

I got an opportunity to write an article on Zones for a local magzine here. One month back
I finished it, but blogging it now. I know there are so many articles,parpers on net. 
But I thought to put it in different way. After going through someexisting papers, 
articles and by keeping system administrator in mind I came up with aformat. My colleague,
friends Ananth Shrinivas and Vineeth Pillai were preparing for some zone presentainon at
that time and we all collaborated and came up with a nice article. Especially if you 
want to talk to a customer about zones in 10 mins, you canrefer this. If you find some
more details we can add to this, feel free to drop a message. 

On one of my Solaris10 system, I have configured a zone and none of network services are starting. Not rpcbind inetd or telnet.

Solution:

After setting up, installing and booting the zone, we have to get into the zone console for sysconfig procedure..

#zlogin -C zonename

After doing the sysconfig steps like network setup, hostname, kerberos etc, the zone will restart and all services will be up and running then.

If you have installed a patch such that it cannot be backed out.(patchadd -d option). Generally we do this for saving the disk space.

Is there a way to back out the patch?

Yes, If the same system existed and the patch was installed on it then the backout pkg could be copied from it to the other system and then patchrm should work.

I never saw a Solaris box until I entered IIT Guwahati, where I did my M.Tech in Computer Science. Before that I knew only two OSs: Windows and Linux. Most of my assignments were done on Windows and a little bit on Linux. Most of the Indian students work on Windows, and Linux is also picking up. I read about SunOS in books in my OS course, but never saw a SunOS box. When I entered IITG, I saw a Solaris box which was accessible only to Lab administrators. All students were working on Linux and Windows. I had an opinion that Sun Solaris was used only in big servers and it was not for any desktop users. When I joined Sun in 2003, for my surprise I saw all employees using Solaris on their desktops.

Many of my friends thought that Solaris was Linux based. Some had heard of it but never seen a box. Most of the people have an assumption that it is not for desktop users.

Now the question is - Why Solaris adoption is so low?

I can think of a few factors.

a)Lack of awareness among students. Presentations in just a few big Universities is not enough.

Only a few big institutions like IITs and some Universities have Solaris boxes. I don't know how many students are working on them. No ordinary college has a Solaris box. Students are the next teachers and s/w engineers. They should know about Solaris, then we can forget about marketing. No company gives a training on Linux to their newly joined freshers because they come with a skillset of Linux. I want to see Solaris in the freshers resumes. Once usage of solaris starts ISVs automatically start developing solutions for Solaris.

Sun has made a good move by open sourcing its software. It is the time to ramp up the Solaris in colleges and in community.

b) Not user friendly. People think they need some Solaris certification to work on it.

c) Not free.

Even if it is free, people can't download because of low bandwidth. One solution could be to distribute solaris free with computer magazines just like linux did.

What Sun can do now? I can think of few ways to increase the solaris adoption in India.

a) Allowing to replicate Solaris copies.

b) Marketing like what Google did.
The best marketing is "word of mouth", Colleges and Unversities are the right places.

c) Establish a seperate group in Sun who will just showcase Sun products in colleges and universities all over India.

d) I appreciate the move "Giving software for free and charge for support".

e) Showcasing Sun products in all kind of technical conferences.

Sun is very good in innovating technologies, I can say a leader, but not as good in spreading it. India is a very good market place and Sun has a very good line of s/w and h/w products. It can rock here. We just have to show the people the technology and how they can use it.

Hi Folks, My name is Gangadhar Mylapuram. People call me "Ganga". I am part of OP/N1 RPE in India. I work in Solaris commands, Patching, SMF, Zones and Naming area. I finished 2 years in Sun today. What can I say... It is a great place to work.