Wednesday June 10, 2009
Deploying Apache HTTP Web Server on Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems
A a Sun BluePrints™ article authored by me explains details on Deploying Apache HTTP Web Server on Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems, and invoke Web services from the storage appliance. In addition, scenarios designed to aid consolidation efforts and simplify management are included. Readers should look into individual organizational requirements before considering the described solutions or other deployment options to see if additional product features can be of value. For example, several Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System capabilities, such as snapshots, cloning, and replication, often can further enhance infrastructure deployments.
Posted at 10:24AM Jun 10, 2009 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun |
Tuesday April 21, 2009
MySQL Cluster Database 7: Performance Benchmark
We recently conducted a Performance Benchmark of the newly released version of MySQL Cluster database software version 7.0 using the DBT2 Benchmark. The results are very impressive.
Highlight of the results:
Note that these results were obtained using 1GB Gigabit Ethernet. We expect improved performance for high speed cluster interconnect like InfiniBand and Dolphinics interconnect solutions. Testing using these interconnects is currently underway.
Some of the KEY features of MySQL cluster 7 include "ability to add nodes and node groups online" and "Data node multithreading support" You can look at the list of new feature available in MySQL cluster 7 here.
See below for the deployment architecture details. In the case of a 2 node scenario, the data node processes were running on TWO Sun Fire x4450 system with 8 processor cores per data node. The MySQL server nodes were running a combination of Sun Fire x4450 systems and Sun Fire x4600 systems as shown in the deployment diagram below.
In the case of a 4 node scenario, FOUR x4450 system were used to deploy the Data Nodes, each data node using 8 cores. The MySQL Server nodes were running on a combination of TWO Sun Fire x4600, ONE Sun Fire x4240 and FOUR Sun Fire x4450 systems.(co-located with data node systems). Other relevant details are captured in the deployment topology diagram below.
Important Notes:
1. Each MySQL server was bound to 3 processor cores using "processor set" feature(to accommodate more MySQL Servers on the available hardware). It is observed that we get increased TPM/MySQL Server and slight decrease in the response time with 4 processor cores per MySQL server). An example: With 3 processor cores assigned for the MySQL server process, we get the TPM of 12988 for 1 Server, 20 Warehouses. With 4 processor cores, the TPM increases to 19113 with decrease in the response time from 52ms to 34ms.
2. TPM - New-order transactions per minute. It
should be noted that the each transaction comprises of about 30
queries, so average response time per query if calculated would be ~3ms. More
details on the "transaction" are available in the TPC-C specification document and DBT2 code base.
3. The MySQL 6.3 Cluster saturate with fewer number of MySQL servers. For comparison purpose, we ran the tests with equal number of MySQL servers for both MySQL Cluster 6.3 and 7.
Database Test 2 (DBT-2) : DBT2 is an open source benchmark developed by OSDL (Open Source Development Labs ). Significant updates to the benchmark were made to simplify its ability to run with a clustered database such as MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition. DBT2 simulates a typical OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) application that performs transactions with around ten to twenty SQL statements per transaction within five distinct transaction types. The DBT2 benchmark can be used as a good indicator in regards to the expected performance of any application that performs fairly simple transactions and executes these transactions in a repetitive fashion.
For the benchmark results above, DBT2 and MySQL Cluster
were configured as an “in memory” database to simulate typical “real-time”
database configurations. It should be noted that performance results are being
measured as new-order transactions per minute (TPM). The changes made to the
DBT2 benchmark are documented and can be found on the SourceForge page for DBT2
downloads. It can also be downloaded from ww.iclaustron.com.
More information on MySQL Cluster
MySQL Cluster 7 Architecture and New Features
MySQL Cluster Evaluation Guide
Benchmarking Highly Scalable MySQL Clusters - A While Paper published in 2007
Posted at 10:14PM Apr 21, 2009 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun | Comments[3]
Tuesday November 25, 2008
Solaris 10 - Increasing Number of Processes Per User
We came across this problem when working with one of the ISV application. We were simulating workload for performance tests and realized that the load simulation tool was generating 30000+ processes/LWP. The load siluation tools was running on UltraSPARC T2 based system with Solaris 10 and 32 GB RAM.
Looked up the resources on the web for increasing the number of processes on Solaris 10 system on PER UID. Came across couple of blog entries (Giri Mandalika, Spiralbound.net) which provided good starting point but were not complete solution to our problem. We needed to increase the number of processesper user to more than current setting of 30000
bash-3.00# ulimit -a
core file size (blocks, -c) unlimited
data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited
file size (blocks, -f) unlimited
open files (-n) 260000
pipe size (512 bytes, -p) 10
stack size (kbytes, -s) 8192
cpu time (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes (-u) 29995
virtual memory (kbytes, -v) unlimited
Trying to increase the "max user processes" would fail with the following error:
bash-3.00# ulimit -u 50000
bash: ulimit: max user processes: cannot modify limit: Invalid argument
bash-3.00#
After going through the Solaris 10 Tunable Guide for Process sizing learned that there are 5 related parameters related to process sizing.
maxusers - The maximum number of processes on the system, The number of quota structures held in the system. The size of the directory name look-up cache (DNLC)
reserved_procs - Specifies the number of system process slots to be reserved in the process table for processes with a UID of root
pidmax - Specifies the value of the largest possible process ID. Specifies the value of the largest possible process ID. Valid for Solaris 8 and later releases.
max_nprocs - Specifies the maximum number of processes that can be created on a system. Includes system processes and user processes. Any value specified in /etc/system is used in the computation of maxuprc.
maxuprc - Specifies the maximum number of processes that can be created on a system by any one user
Looked at the current values for these parameter:
bash-3.00# echo reserved_procs/D | mdb -k
reserved_procs:
reserved_procs: 5
bash-3.00# echo pidmax/D | mdb -k
pidmax:
pidmax: 30000
bash-3.00# echo maxusers/D | mdb -k
maxusers:
maxusers: 2048
bash-3.00#
bash-3.00# echo max_nprocs/D | mdb -k
max_nprocs:
max_nprocs: 30000
bash-3.00#
bash-3.00# echo maxuprc/D | mdb -k
maxuprc:
maxuprc: 29995
So, in order to set the max per user processes in this scenario, we were required to make the changes to "pidmax" (upper cap), maxusers, max_nprocs & maxuprc
Sample entries in /etc/system & reboot
set pidmax=60000
set maxusers = 4096
set maxuprc = 50000
set max_nprocs = 50000
After making the above entries, we were able to increase the max user processes to 50000.
bash-3.00# ulimit -a
core file size (blocks, -c) unlimited
data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited
file size (blocks, -f) unlimited
open files (-n) 260000
pipe size (512 bytes, -p) 10
stack size (kbytes, -s) 8192
cpu time (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes (-u) 49995
virtual memory (kbytes, -v) unlimited
bash-3.00#
bash-3.00# echo reserved_procs/D | mdb -k
reserved_procs:
reserved_procs: 5
bash-3.00# echo pidmax/D | mdb -k
pidmax:
pidmax: 60000
bash-3.00# echo max_nprocs/D | mdb -k
max_nprocs:
max_nprocs: 50000
bash-3.00# echo maxuprc/D | mdb -k
maxuprc:
maxuprc: 50000
bash-3.00#
Note: If you are operating within the 30000 limit (default pidmax setting) the blog entry referred above seems to work fine. If you are looking at increasing the processes beyond 30000, it we need to make adjustment to other dependent parameters stated in this blog entry.
Posted at 10:16PM Nov 25, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Tech-Tips |
Tuesday November 11, 2008
Unique Experience - EDUSAT & VTU
I delivered a session on Server Virtulization to VTU(Visvesvaraya Technological University) students. This was unique experience for me. For the first time, I delivered a session that was LIVE broadcast over Satellite. The session was received by around 100 engineering colleges. I should have the statistics on exact number of student attended in next few days. I understand the count was about ~1000. I will post the link to the presentation & stats once available. I wasn't aware that the EDUSAT is actively used for e-learning by VTU. You can find more details here
Posted at 10:18PM Nov 11, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun |
Friday August 22, 2008
OpenSolaris 2008.05 - X Display Redirect Problem
I am using OpenSolaris 2008.05 on my desktop and needed to run installer on remote UNIX system on regular basis. OpenSolaris settings by default weren't allowing me to redirect the X display to my work station when I use program like “rlogin” or “telnet”(Which by the way are NOT secure programs BUT some times you don't have choice). I could get around this problem using "ssh -X" and worked for me in most cases. But some cases, I needed telnet/rlogin and “X” Display redirect going.
Problem:
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
hostname
hasham-pc
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
xhost +
access
control disabled, clients can connect from any host
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
telnet 10.12.161.36
Trying
10.12.161.36...
Connected
to 10.12.161.36.
Escape
character is '^]'.
login:
root
Password:
Last
login: Fri Aug 22 08:42:11 from hasham-pc.India
Sun
Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.10 Generic January 2005
You
have new mail.
-bash-3.00#
echo $DISPLAY
hasham-pc:0.0
-bash-3.00#
hostname
aa002
-bash-3.00#
ping hasham-pc
hasham-pc
is alive
-bash-3.00#
/usr/openwin/bin/xclock
Error:
Can't open display: hasham-pc:0.0
-bash-3.00#
Tried looking up in OpenSolaris forum and didn't fine any solution. This forum entry(http://forums.opensolaris.com/thread.jspa?threadID=350) was good starting point for me to troubleshoot. Verified that the service "x11-server" configuration is set to allow TCP_LISTEN (OpenSolaris 2008.05 has it enabled by default)
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
svccfg -s x11-server listprop options/tcp_listen
options/tcp_listen
boolean true
Started looking at the “Xorg” settings. Noticed that the “Xorg” process is starting with "nolisten tcp" option. See the argv[8] & argv[9] in the below output.
Hasham@hasham-pc:~# ps -ef|grep Xorg
After looking at the man page for “Xorg” & later “Xserver”, learnt that Xserver script is responsible for passings some of these arguments. I was hoping for Happy ending! Looked the Xserver script("/usr/X11/bin/Xserver) and everything appeared in order. The “Xserver script” is using "SMF" property(options/tcp_listen) to pass value. In this case, it was set to "true". No problem with “Xserver script” - No happy ending!
Are there any other SMF services related Xorg? The first thing to find out which service is responsible for starting Xorg process?
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
svcs -p
"gdm"
it is! Man "gdm" reveled the another set of configurations
files involved - /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf,
/etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf ? After reading through these file, learned
that you could change the run time options for Xserver using these
files. Noted that you could use "gdmsetup" to alter the
configuration instead of editing the files manually.
Hasham@hasham-pc:~#
gdmsetup
Changed
the setting under Security Tab
Before
the Change:
After the Change:

It
adds the following entry to /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf (Under security
Section)
DisallowTCP=false
Restart X Server.(Logout and Login will do) We are good to go! X Display Redirect works fine now!
Summary of changes that were needed:
1.
"options/tcp_listen" Setting for "x11-server" set
to true (See below for listing and setting the value)
List the Property Value:
Hasham@hasham-pc:~$
svccfg -s x11-server listprop options/tcp_listen
options/tcp_listen
boolean true
Changethe Property Value:(You need to be "root" for to change the settings)
root@hasham-pc:~#
svccfg -s x11-server setprop options/tcp_listen = true
2.
Use "gdmsetup" and Uncheck "Deny TCP Connection to X
Server" under Security Tab
3.
Restart X Server (Logout and Login will do)
Posted at 12:35PM Aug 22, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Tech-Tips |
Monday August 04, 2008
Using ZFS iSCSI LUN
ZFS - A New Approach to Data Management - Works on Pooled Storage Model and eliminates the need of volume manager. If you are new to ZFS, you may want to take look at ZFS resources here One of the important feature of ZFS that people don't talk as much is "iSCSI support". Steps below should help you quickly bring up the iSCSI configuration using ZFS. The setup here includes OpenSolaris 2008.05 running on dual core AMD system. This system will be configured to provide ZFS iSCSI volume(iSCSI target). A system running Solaris 10 is used as iSCSI client(initiator). In this case the "iSCSI client" is a virtual machine running Solaris 10 05/08 on the same physical system. Note that these steps should work seamlessly on any other system with Solaris 10.
High Level Steps:
Step 1: Create Volume: In existing ZFS pool OR Create a New Pool if you have spare disk(s)
Since I am running OpenSolaris 2008.05, it by default comes with ZFS as
root file system which means we already have a default ZFS pool configured. We will
create a new volume on this default pool. You can list the currently configured ZFS Pools & ZFS volumes using the commands below.
-bash-3.2# zpool list
NAME SIZE USED AVAIL CAP HEALTH ALTROOT
rpool 230G 19.8G 210G 8% ONLINE -
-bash-3.2#
-bash-3.2# zfs list -t volume
No volumes Listed
Create a new volume on default pool name "rpool". Note the use of "-V" switch and 2gb as size.
-bash-3.2#zfs create -V 2gb rpool/testvol
-bash-3.2# zfs list -t volume
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool/testvol 2G 207G 62.7M -
-bash-3.2#
Listing the properties of the newly created volume. Note the "shareiscsi" value. It's set to "off" by default
-bash-3.2# zfs get all rpool/testvol
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
rpool/testvol type volume -
rpool/testvol creation Mon Jul 28 11:31 2008 -
rpool/testvol used 2G -
rpool/testvol available 207G -
rpool/testvol referenced 16K -
rpool/testvol compressratio 1.00x -
rpool/testvol reservation none default
rpool/testvol volsize 2G -
rpool/testvol volblocksize 8K -
rpool/testvol checksum on default
rpool/testvol compression off default
rpool/testvol readonly off default
rpool/testvol shareiscsi off default
rpool/testvol copies 1 default
rpool/testvol refreservation 2G local
Step 2: Make Volume as it iSCSI target
Check if you already have any iSCSI target configured on the system using the below command.
-bash-3.2# iscsitadm list target
-bash-3.2#
No targets Reported. Now let's make the "new ZFS volume" as iSCSI target using the command below. Verify the settings for the volume.
-bash-3.2# zfs set shareiscsi=on rpool/testvol
-bash-3.2# zfs get shareiscsi rpool/testvol
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
rpool/testvol shareiscsi on local
Verify that the ZFS iSCSI target is listed using the command below:
-bash-3.2# iscsitadm list target
Target: rpool/testvol
iSCSI Name: iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:cad2198d-1048-4657-cf4f-aed99a4726fa
Connections: 0
Note Down the iSCSI name, we will need it at the time of the iSCSI Client configuration.
3. Configure Solaris10 system as iSCSI Client and Access the iSCSI LUN
Login As Root user. Verify the number of Disks Seen by the OS - You can use "format" command for this. Note the number of disk reported before the "iSCSI client" setup.
bash-3.00# format
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0d0 <DEFAULT cyl 2085 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63>
/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1,1/ide@0/cmdk@0,0
Specify disk (enter its number):
As you can see, this system is reporting ONE Disk in "format" command output. Now let's proceed with the iSCSI client configuration. Note that you
can configure iSCSI client to be in "discover mode" or "Static Mode". The
steps below are for static mode. We are also assuming that this system
wasn't configured to use iSCSI target. You may have to tweak these
steps if you are already using iSCSI on your system.
bash-3.00# iscsiadm list static-config
No staitic configuration is reported. Add a static configuration Using the below command. Note that "iSCSI
Name" provided and the IP address is the address of the iSCSI Target
system.
bash-3.00# iscsiadm add static-config iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:cad2198d-1048-4657-cf4f-aed99a4726fa,129.158.226.83
bash-3.00# iscsiadm list static-config
Static Configuration Target: iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:cad2198d-1048-4657-cf4f-aed99a4726fa,129.158.226.83:3260
bash-3.00#
Enable the iSCSI client(initiator) in Static Mode using the below command:
bash-3.00# iscsiadm modify discovery --static enable
Note the detection of new device in system log messages.
bash-3.00# dmesg|tail -5
Jul 28 12:11:47 dhcp-cblr03-226-127 genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] sd1 is /scsi_vhci/disk@g010000e0815ba8fc00002a00488d6a28
Jul 28 12:11:47 dhcp-cblr03-226-127 genunix: [ID 265984 kern.warning]
WARNING: Page83 data not standards compliant SUN SOLARIS 1
Jul 28 12:11:48 dhcp-cblr03-226-127 genunix: [ID 408114 kern.info]
/scsi_vhci/disk@g010000e0815ba8fc00002a00488d6a28 (sd1) online
Jul 28 12:11:48 dhcp-cblr03-226-127 genunix: [ID 834635 kern.info]
/scsi_vhci/disk@g010000e0815ba8fc00002a00488d6a28 (sd1) multipath
status: degraded, path /iscsi (iscsi0) to target address:
0000iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:cad2198d-1048-4657-cf4f-aed99a4726faFFFF,0
is online Load balancing: round-robin
Jul 28 12:11:54 dhcp-cblr03-226-127 /sbin/dhcpagent[52]: [ID 732317
daemon.warning] accept_v4_acknak: ACK packet on e1000g0 missing
mandatory lease option, ignored
bash-3.00#
Now let's run "format" command again to see if report the newly
detected device. You may choose to use it as raw device or use it under volume manager control. The steps here partition the device and create a UFS file system.
bash-3.00# format
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0d0 <DEFAULT cyl 2085 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63>
/pci@0,0/pci-ide@1,1/ide@0/cmdk@0,0
1. c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0 <DEFAULT cyl 1021 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32>
/scsi_vhci/disk@g010000e0815ba8fc00002a00488d6a28
Specify disk (enter its number): 1
selecting c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0
[disk formatted]...
truncated output...
format> p
Please run fdisk first.
format> fdisk
No fdisk table exists. The default partition for the disk is:
a 100% "SOLARIS System" partition
Type "y" to accept the default partition, otherwise type "n" to edit the
partition table.
y
format> p
Truncted output.....
partition> p
Truncated output.......
partition> mod
Select partitioning base:
0. Current partition table (original)
1. All Free Hog
Choose base (enter number) [0]? 1
Truncated output.......
Do you wish to continue creating a new partition
table based on above table[yes]?
Free Hog partition[6]?
Enter size of partition '0' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]: 1gb
Enter size of partition '1' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]:
Enter size of partition '3' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]:
Enter size of partition '4' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]:
Enter size of partition '5' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]:
Enter size of partition '7' [0b, 0c, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]:
Okay to make this the current partition table[yes]? yes
Enter table name (remember quotes): "new"
Ready to label disk, continue? yes
Verify the parition table information:
partition> p
Current partition table (new):
Total disk cylinders available: 1020 + 2 (reserved cylinders)
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 1 - 512 1024.00MB (512/0/0) 2097152
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
Truncated output....
.....
partition> quit
format> quit
bash-3.00#
4. Create & Mount the File System on iSCSI LUN
Next step is to create a UFS file system on the iSCSI LUN. Note the device
name passed to format command is iSCSI LUN slice 0 (s0) - The slice we
created using the "partition menu" of the format command.
bash-3.00# newfs /dev/rdsk/c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0s0
newfs: construct a new file system /dev/rdsk/c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0s0: (y/n)? y
/dev/rdsk/c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0s0: 2097152 sectors in 512 cylinders of 128 tracks, 32 sectors
1024.0MB in 26 cyl groups (20 c/g, 40.00MB/g, 19456 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -F ufs -o b=#) at:
32, 81984, 163936, 245888, 327840, 409792, 491744, 573696, 655648, 737600,
1311264, 1393216, 1475168, 1557120, 1639072, 1721024, 1802976, 1884928,
1966880, 2048832
bash-3.00#
Mount the file system using the command below:
bash-3.00# mount /dev/dsk/c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0s0 /mnt
bash-3.00# df -k /mnt
Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c2t010000E0815BA8FC00002A00488D6A28d0s0
984911 1041 924776 1% /mnt
We are now READY to use file system created on ZFS iSCSI volume. You may want to update "/etc/vfstab" file for file systems to be mounted automatically across system reboots.
Posted at 12:43PM Aug 04, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun | Comments[1]
Tuesday July 29, 2008
GUI Installer Requirement - Solaris Zones
Folks who work with Zones may find this useful. Let's say you have created Zones on Solaris workstation. If you are in global zone, you end up accessing these zones using "zlogin" command. It's a special interface that let's you "login" to zone from the Global zone without supplying the root password. Of course you need to be "root" in Global zone to use this command. This access method is sufficient in most of the cases except when you need GUI. For example, if you are installing third party application that requires GUI access. There are various ways to initiate a GUI session(VNC Server, Use of Reflection etc) to the Zone or System.
The below given steps are quick way to get GUI access to the Zone - especially if you working on your workstation. I find this convenient. The same steps apply for any Solaris system and not restricted to Zones alone.Note, that we are using "ssh" capability of display forwarding.
First Step is to enable "ssh" access for "root" user on the Zone. Default configuration of "ssh" doesn't allow, "root" user to login to the system. You enable the access by editing the "ssh" configuration file "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" and modify the entry that control "root" access. Then restart the "ssh" service.
root@zone1:[/] # vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config - "Change PermitRootLogin no" to "PermitRootLogin yes"
root@zone1:[/] # svcadm restart ssh
Now from the Global zone, you can login to Zone using "ssh" with "-X" option. Note that you need your /etc/hosts file up to date with IP address to host mapping. Otherwise you may use the IP address of the Zone.
bash-3.00# ssh -X zone1
The authenticity of host 'zone1 (10.12.161.101)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is d2:cf:ec:f3:89:7e:da:74:1f:27:b2:25:88:0e:f5:44.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'zone1,10.12.161.101' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Password:
Last login: Mon Jul 28 09:08:29 2008 from 10.12.161.35
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.10 Generic January 2005
root@zone1:[/] #
Test the ability to launch the GUI application.
root@zone1:[/] #/usr/openwin/bin/xclock
^C
You are good to go!
Posted at 10:07AM Jul 29, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Tech-Tips |
Monday July 28, 2008
Sun xVM VirtualBox and Host Interface Networking – OpenSolaris 2008.05 as Host OS
The Sun xVM VirtualBox allows you to tun run unmodified OS as virtual machine. The current version available is 1.6.2. You can get it from here. It redirects you to Sun Download Center.
The
Sun xVM VirtualBox is Type-II hypervisor which means you install it
on top of the base OS – often called Host OS. You can then create
virtual machines – often called Guest OS. If you are not familiar
with the hypervisor concepts and terms used in the Server
virtulization topic, you may want to look at this Sun Blueprint Article by Chien-Hua Yen
One
of the cool thing about Sun xVM VirtualBox is that, it support all
major operating systems as Guest and Host OS.
Networking & Guest OS:
NAT(Network Address translation) is the quickest and easiest way to get access to external network from the virtual machines(Guest OS). This access method is transparent to the users as it does not require any changes on Host OS or the Guest OS.
If
you require access to the Guest OS from external network (e.g. remote
access using SSH, NFS, Windows Share etc) NAT method is not
sufficient. In such cases, you may want to look at “Host
Interface Networking”. More information on this is available in
the user manual for virtual box available here.
In nut shell, this process involves creating a virtual network interface and use of "network bridge" concept. The steps below are for Sun xVM VirtualBox running on OpenSolaris 2008.05 as Host OS and Solaris 10 07/08 as Guest OS. Installing “Sun xVM VirtualBox” , and “Creating and installing Solaris Virtual Machine” steps are not included. I must admit, steps for installing Virtualbox on OpenSolaris and creating virtual machine with Solaris Guest were quite straight forward.
My observations is that, on some of the OpenSolaris Builds, the “setup scripts” don't work out of the box. You can use the below given steps for MANUALLY configuring the host based networking for your Guest OS. In this case, the Guest OS is Solaris 05/08 .The same should work for other Guest OS.(Host Configuration Steps remain the same)
Manually Configuring the Host based Networking:
Step 1: You need a MAC address for the virtual NIC to be created. One way to generate this is to Click on Virtual Machine Settings, Network Tab, Generate MAC. Note down the MAC address.
Step 2: Create the Virtual NIC on the HOST OS
-bash-3.2# uname -a
SunOS
hasham-pc 5.11 snv_86 i86pc i386 i86pc
-bash-3.2#
/usr/lib/vna nge0 00:e0:81:5b:a8:a9 <= Provide MAC Address from
earlier Step
Verify the Virtual NIC is created.
-bash-3.2# dladm show-link
LINK CLASS MTU STATE OVER
nge0 phys 1500 up --
vnic0
vnic 1500 unknown nge0
Step
3: In order for this configuration to persist across reboot, create a
startup script. You can use the simple script as given below. If you
plan create multiple VNIC OR already have VNIC, this script can be
enhanced to handle specific VNIC. Currently it deals with “vnic0”
by default
-bash-3.2#
cat /etc/rc3.d/S99vnic.sh
#!/usr/bin/bash
/usr/lib/vna
nge0 00:e0:81:5b:a8:a9
Step 4: Go to Virtual Machine Settings(In this case Solaris 05/08), Network Tab and provide the details of the Virtual NIC. As shown in the picture below. Note that attached to default to NAT, it has been changed to “Host Interface”

Step
-5: Boot your Guest OS – In this case, Solaris 05/08, and
configure the Network Interface as DHCP or Static IP address. In
this case, the Virtual NIC is as seen by Guest OS is e1000g0. One of
the easy way to re-configure your network and system configuration
FOR Solaris is to use “sys-unconfig” command. Note that this
revert system system's configuration to an "as-manufactured"
state, ready to be re-configured again including host name,
networking, TZ, root password etc. I prefer configuring it bye
editing/creating the configuration files.
You should be able use the VNIC in the same way for ANY other Guest OS. I have tested this with Windows XP as Guest OS and works fine. No changes in the HOST OS configuration steps. On Windows XP Guest OS, network configuration was changes to use DHCP. Based on your Network Interface card, you may be required to install driver for it in the Guest OS.
See screen shots below for making changes to the Virtual Machine Configuration to use Host based Networking.
Windows XP Virtual Machine Screen shot - Intel NIC Listed under "My Network". Also access to/from other systems on the network works.
Posted at 09:16AM Jul 28, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun | Comments[4]
Monday July 14, 2008
Using DTrace in Zones - An Example
After Creating a Zone successfully on my Solaris 10 08/07 on x64 system, I
encountered the “useradd” issue. When I ran "useradd" in
the zone resulted in error as shown below:
root@zone1:[/]#
useradd -g staff -m -d /export/test -s /usr/bin/bash -c "Test
User" test
UX: useradd: ERROR: Cannot update
system files - login cannot be created.
root@zone1:[/]#
Zone creation/install process was without any error messages. So as
first step, looked at the man page for useradd. The error is documented in the DIAGNOSTICS section of the
man page.
The following indicates that the
/etc/passwd or /etc/shadow files do not exist:
UX: useradd: ERROR: Cannot update
system files - login cannot be created.
Good feeling of knowing the cause of the problem was short lived. These files were present on the system
root@zone1:[/]# ls -lt /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
sys 716 Jul
6 08:50 /etc/passwd
root@zone1:[/]# ls -lt /etc/shadow
-r-------- 1 root
sys 372 Jul
6 08:50 /etc/shadow
Are these files corrupt or inconsistent? It was the next thing to verify. If these files edited manually(which is not a good
practice), may get out of sync. I verified this by running
“pwck”. No errors reported, indication of files in order.
OK, so what next - May be DTrace ? - I had not used DTrace in Zones before, I thought this would be good problem to solve using DTrace. First target was to see if any useful scripts in "DTrace Toolkit" that could of help.
Zones
by default, run with reduced set of privileges for
security reasons. If you want, you can grant additional privileges to
Zones. Not all privileges can be granted. See Solaris Container and
Resource Manager Guide for more details. Note the pros & cons
of granting privileges to zones. Since I am the only user for this
system, the
decision was easy for me.
For running DTrace, you need to grant "dtrace_user" and "dtrace_proc" privileges to the zone. See the steps below:
Without privileges this how the output of "Listing DTrace Probes" looks
root@zone1:[/etc]dtrace -l
ID PROVIDER MODULE
FUNCTION NAME
No probes are available as you can see from above output
Grating Privileges:
global#
zonecfg -z mysql2 info
limitpriv
<======
List Current Privileges for the zone
limitpriv:
Add Privilges using the below commands:
global# zonecfg -z mysql2 set limitpriv=default,dtrace_proc,dtrace_user
global# zonecfg -z mysql2 info limitpriv <======
List modified Privilges for the zone
limitpriv: default,dtrace_proc,dtrace_user
Reboot the Zone to reflect the new settings
global# zoneadm -z zone1 reboot
root@zone1:[/]dtrace -l|wc -l
483
root@zone1:[/]
Note that even after granting the
DTrace privileges, LIMITED number of probes are available within a zone(Only a subset of what is available in global zone).
This number is 40000 plus when you are in global zone.
DTrace
Toolkit has lot useful scripts. For this problem, which appears to be
"some files missing" , the toolkit script "errinfo" was very useful. It
reported syscall failure.
root@zone1:[/DTraceToolkit-0.99]./errinfo -n useradd
EXEC
SYSCALL ERR DESC
useradd
xstat 2 No such file or directory
useradd
open 2 No such file or directory
useradd
xstat 2 No such file or directory
useradd
open 2 No such file or directory
^C
root@zone1:[/DTraceToolkit-0.99]
As
you can see from above output, open, xstat is failing when running
"useradd". Next step was to find out for which file(s) these system
calls are failing. I used another script from the toolkit "statsnoop"
root@zone1:[/DTraceToolkit-0.99]./statsnoop -t xstat
UID PID COMM FD PATH
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /usr/sbin/passmgmt
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /lib/libsecdb.so.1
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /lib/libc.so.1
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /lib/libnsl.so.1
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /lib/libcmd.so.1
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /etc/passwd
0 15838 passmgmt 0 /etc/shadow
0 15838 passmgmt -1 /etc/user_attr
0 15837 useradd 0 /usr/sbin/useradd
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libsecdb.so.1
0 15837 useradd -1 /lib/libproject.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /usr/lib/libproject.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libc.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libnsl.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libcmd.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libproc.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/librtld_db.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libelf.so.1
0 15837 useradd 0 /lib/libctf.so.1
From the "statsnoop" script output, you can see that, it is returning an error for "/etc/user_attr" file. On verification, noticed that this file doesn't exist.
root@zone1:[/DTraceToolkit-0.99]ls -lt /etc/user_attr
/etc/user_attr: No such file or directory
root@zone1:[/DTraceToolkit-0.99]
I faced this problem right after the Zone installation. Given that, no other changes have been made to the zone after install, missing file from the zone could be because of incomplete install of a package. For finding out which package this file belongs to, I ran the following commands in the global zone where "useradd" was working fine.
global# pkgchk -l -p /etc/user_attr
Pathname: /etc/user_attr
Type: editted file
Expected mode: 0644
Expected owner: root
Expected group: sys
Referenced by the following packages:
SUNWcsr
SUNWmconr SUNWpostgr-82-server-data-root
Current status: installed
global# pkgchk -a SUNWcsr
global#
No errors reported. Package installation appears fine in the global
zone. When I ran the same command in Zone, I got the error as reported
below:
root@zone1:[/] pkgchk -a SUNWcsr
ERROR: /dev
group name <sys> expected <root> actual
ERROR: /etc/user_attr
pathname does not exist
root@zone1:[/]
By
adding DTrace Specific Privileges to Zones, we were able to run DTrace
in zones and identify the root cause of the problem. The file
"/etc/user_attr" which is
part of SUNWcsr package was missing. After restoring it, "useradd"
command works
without any issues.
Posted at 01:04PM Jul 14, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun |
Friday July 04, 2008
Setting up MySQL Cluster using Solaris Zones
1.1 Create Zone Using command line:
Step 1.1.1: Configure the ZoneStep 1.1.4: Accessing the Zone
A new command “zlogin” is available to access the zone from GLOBAL zone without supplying user name/password.#
zoneadm -z mysql1 reboot
Repeat
above steps for the remaining 3 zones. Note that you have to use
unique IP address for each zone.
| MySQL Cluster Component |
Zone Name |
IP Address |
| MGT Node |
mysql1 |
10.12.161.101 |
| SQL Node |
mysql2 |
10.12.161.102 |
| Data Node 1 |
mysql3 |
10.12.161.103 |
| Data Node 2 |
mysql4 |
10.12.161.104 |
2. Installing MySQL Cluster Software
2.1 Download & Install
the MySQL Cluster Software for Solaris x64
2.2 Setup "my.cnf"
configuration for MySQL Server
2.3 Verify access to
the MySQL Server
2.4 Edit ".profile" for root
user
2.1 Download
& Install the MySQL
Cluster Software for Solaris x64. Download
Link
Transfer the downloaded binary to all the zone. You can transfer the
file using ftp to the individual zone and follow the steps below
Important Note: We have created
"sparse root zone", /usr file system is shared as read only to
non-global zones. The way mysql binaries are packaged and as per the
install instructions, you need to create link "/usr/local/mysql"
to the directory where "MySQL binaries are located". Since
/usr file system is read-only from non-global zone for sparse root zone configuration, we use the below
given workaround. You can achieve the same by playing with "mysql_install_db"
script.
Ensure that we are in global zone
bash-3.00#
zonename
global
bash-3.00#
mkdir /mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64
bash-3.00# ln -s /mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64
/usr/local/mysql
<>
Now we can proceed with the
installation in the zone. Verify if you are logged in to
required zone.
bash-3.00#
zonename
mysql1
bash-3.00#
pwd
/
bash-3.00#
ls my*
<=====
MySQL Binaries transferred under "/" directory of zone
mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64.tar.gz
bash-3.00# gzip -d mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64.tar.gz
bash-3.00#
tar -xf mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64.tar
bash-3.00#
ls -ltd /usr/local/my*
lrwxrwxrwx
1 root root 42 Jul 1 19:09 /usr/local/mysql ->
/mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64
bash-3.00#
groupadd mysql
bash-3.00#
useradd -g mysql mysql
bash-3.00#
chown -R mysql:mysql /mysql-cluster-gpl-6.2.15-solaris10-x86_64
bash-3.00#
cd /usr/local/mysql
bash-3.00# pwd
/usr/local/mysql
bash-3.00#
./scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
Installing
MySQL system tables...
OK
Filling
help tables...
OK
Truncated
output
...............
You
can test the MySQL daemon with mysql-test-run.pl
cd
./mysql-test ; perl mysql-test-run.pl
2.2 Setup "my.cnf"
configuration for MySQL Server
Copy Sample "my.cnf" shipped with MySQL as configuration file
for our environment
root@mysql1:[/]
# cd /usr/local/mysql/support-files/
root@mysql1:[/usr/local/mysql/support-files]
# cp my-small.cnf /etc/my.cnf
bash-3.00#
./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
[1]
26530
080701 19:24:28 mysqld_safe Logging
to
'/usr/local/mysql/data/mysql3.err'.
080701
19:24:28 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from
/usr/local/mysql/data
2.3 Verify
access to the MySQL Server
bash-3.00#
./bin/mysql
Welcome
to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your
MySQL connection id is 1
Server
version: 5.1.23-ndb-6.2.15-cluster-gpl MySQL Cluster Server (GPL)
Type
'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.
mysql>mysql>
exit
Bye
bash-3.00# pwd
/usr/local/mysql
bash-3.00#
./bin/mysqladmin shutdown
Edit
".profile" for root user
Include PATH to MySQL Binaries and Default Shell Prompt Change
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin;export
PATH <=====PATH to MySQL Binaries added
PS1="\u@\h:[\w]
# ";export PS1
<=====default PROMPT changes.
Repeat the
steps on other three zones before proceeding further. After end of
these steps, we will have four zones namely "mysql1", "mysql2", "mysql3" & "mysql4"
3. Configuring
& Testing MySQL
Cluster
3.1
Configuring
the management node
3.2 Configuring
the Data and SQL Nodes
3.3 Starting and Stopping the Cluster
3.4 Testing Cluster Operation
3.1 Configuring
the management node
Follow
the steps below to configure the management node:
root@mysql1:[/]
# mkdir /var/lib/mysql-cluster
root@mysql1:[/]
# cp /usr/local/mysql/support-files/config.small.ini
/var/lib/mysql-cluster/config.ini
root@mysql1:[/]
# cd /var/lib/mysql-cluster/
root@mysql1:[/var/lib/mysql-cluster]
# vi config.ini
<=========== Edit the file and
make the changes as shown below [NDBD
DEFAULT]
NoOfReplicas:
2
DataDir:
/usr/local/mysql/data
FileSystemPath:
/usr/local/mysql/data
#
Data Memory, Index Memory, and String Memory
DataMemory:
600M
IndexMemory:
100M
BackupMemory:
64M
[MGM
DEFAULT]
PortNumber:
1186
DataDir:
/usr/local/mysql/data
[NDB_MGMD]
Id:
1
HostName:
10.12.161.101
#
<========== Replaced localhost entry with IP address of MGT
Node Zone IP
ArbitrationRank:
1
[mysqld]
Id:
2
HostName:
10.12.161.102
# <========== Replaced localhost entry with
IP address of SQL Node Zone IP
[NDBD]
Id:
3
HostName:
10.12.161.103
#
<========== Replaced localhost entry with IP address of Data
Node-1 Zone IP
[NDBD]
Id:
4
HostName:
10.12.161.104
#
<========== Replaced localhost entry with IP address of Data
Node-2 Zone IP
Before we start MGT Node processes, let's finish the configuration on SQL Node & Data Nodes
3.2 Configuring
the Data and SQL Nodes
Posted at 09:29AM Jul 04, 2008 by Hashamkha Pathan in Sun | Comments[2]