Tech Dogg's Dox Tox
Posted in Work at 10:24:17 AM on 25 September 2008 | Comments: 0
Support for RAC on zones has just today been announced for Solaris Cluster Express (SCX) 9/08. You can learn more about this new support by going to the Solaris Cluster Express area on the OpenSolaris web site.
The RAC on zones feature introduces some new, and changes some very fundamental, Sun Cluster concepts, and sets in motion some very big changes in the way you might have thought of Sun Cluster.
Here are the concepts about which you'll likely be hearing more in the future.
In Sun Cluster that's running on the Solaris 9 OS, a node is defined as a physical machine that contributes to cluster membership and is not a quorum device. In this environment, a cluster is a collection of one or more nodes that belong exclusively to that collection.
In Sun Cluster that's running on the Solaris 10 OS, however, these concepts change. A node is now a zone that is associated with a cluster. A voting node is a zone that contributes votes to the total number of quorum votes, that is, membership votes in a cluster. This total determines whether the cluster has sufficient votes to continue operating. And, a non-voting node is a zone that does *not* contribute to the total number of quorum votes, that is, membership votes in a cluster.
In this environment, a cluster is a collection of one or more nodes (that is, zones) that belong exclusively to that collection. A global cluster (a new term for an old concept) and zone cluster (a new concept) are types of clusters.
A global cluster is a type of cluster that is composed only of one or more global-cluster voting nodes and optionally, zero or more global-cluster non-voting nodes.
Note: A global cluster can optionally also include solaris8, solaris9, lx (linux), or native brand, non-global zones that are not nodes, but high availability containers (as resources).
A global-cluster voting node is a native brand, global zone in a global cluster that contributes votes to the total number of quorum votes, that is, membership votes in the cluster. This total determines whether the cluster has sufficient votes to continue operating.
A global-cluster non-voting node is a native brand, non-global zone in a global cluster that does not contribute votes to the total number of quorum votes, that is, membership votes in the cluster.
A zone cluster, which is a new concept, is a type of cluster that is composed only of one or more cluster brand, voting nodes. A zone cluster depends on, and therefore requires, a global cluster. A global cluster does not contain a zone cluster. You cannot configure a zone cluster without a global cluster. A zone cluster has, at most, one zone cluster node on a machine.
Note: A zone-cluster node continues to operate only as long as the global-cluster voting node on the same machine continues to operate. If a global-cluster voting node on a machine fails, all zone-cluster nodes on that machine fail as well.
As you can see, this new feature turns Sun Cluster concepts on their head. You'll hear more about these changes in the coming months.
The clzonecluster man page (PDF) tells you more about the command that you use to manage zone clusters.
As always, let me know what you think.
Posted in Work at 11:41:29 AM on 30 May 2008 | Comments: 0
The Sun Cluster team yesterday contributed over two million additional lines of source code to the open source community, completing a promise the team made almost one year ago to open source the complete Sun Cluster product under the name Open High Availability Cluster.
Read the official press release.
But a more notable facet of this announcement is that all remaining unencumbered man page source for Sun Cluster was released as well.
This man page source, which is in nroff format, is available to you to use under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), Version 1. Feel free to contribute your own content to, discuss, and modify this source. The Sun Cluster writers would love to hear what you think. Leave a comment and we'll get back to you.
To download and extract the man page source you want, complete the following steps.
- In a new browser tab or window, open the page Open HA Cluster man Page Source.
- Keep the Sun lawyers happy by reading the CDDL disclaimer.
- At the top of the page, click the OHAC Downloads link.
The OHAC Downloads page is displayed.
- In the table on the OHAC Downloads page, click the links for the man page tarball files you want and save each tarball file to disk.
- When you're done, come back to this page.
- Extract the man page source files.
% ls -al total 558 drwxr-xr-x 3 techdogg staff 512 May 30 10:35 . drwxrwxrwx 73 techdogg staff 3.5K May 30 10:27 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 206K May 30 10:27 ohac-man-20080528.tar.bz2 -rw-r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 26K May 30 10:27 ohacds-man-20080528.tar.bz2 -rw-r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 19K May 30 10:35 ohacgeo-man-20071203.tar.bz2 -rw-r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 10K May 30 10:27 ohacqs-man-20080528.tar.bz2 % bzcat ohac-man-20080529.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - x ., 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1/libschost.so.1.1, 9289 bytes, 19 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/Intro.1cl, 13662 bytes, 27 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/claccess.1cl, 11639 bytes, 23 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/cldevice.1cl, 32859 bytes, 65 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/cldevicegroup.1cl, 51677 bytes, 101 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/clinterconnect.1cl, 23798 bytes, 47 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/clnasdevice.1cl, 27534 bytes, 54 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/clnode.1cl, 39424 bytes, 77 tape blocks ... % bzcat ohacds-man-20080529.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - x ., 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man5, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.apache.5, 11828 bytes, 24 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.dns.5, 6991 bytes, 14 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.hadb.5, 7773 bytes, 16 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.hadb_ma.5, 6944 bytes, 14 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.iws.5, 12364 bytes, 25 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.jsas-na.5, 7472 bytes, 15 tape blocks x ./man/man5/SUNW.jsas.5, 7550 bytes, 15 tape blocks ... % bzcat ohacqs-man-20080529.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - x ., 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1cl/clquorumserver.1cl, 13043 bytes, 26 tape blocks x ./man/man1m, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man1m/scqsd.1m, 3290 bytes, 7 tape blocks x ./man/man4, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x ./man/man4/scqsd.conf.4, 2884 bytes, 6 tape blocks x ./man/README, 52 bytes, 1 tape blocks x ./man/CDDL.txt, 18924 bytes, 37 tape blocks % bzcat ohacgeo-man-20071203.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - x man, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x man/man1m, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks x man/man1m/geoadm.1m, 16732 bytes, 33 tape blocks x man/man1m/geohb.1m, 13660 bytes, 27 tape blocks x man/man1m/geopg.1m, 38142 bytes, 75 tape blocks x man/man1m/geops.1m, 16541 bytes, 33 tape blocks x man/README, 52 bytes, 1 tape blocks x man/CDDL.txt, 18924 bytes, 37 tape blocks
The man page source files are extracted and placed in a subdirectory named man/, which contains a subdirectory for each man page section.
% pwd /home/techdogg/manpagesource % cd man /home/techdogg/manpagesource/man % ls -al total 68 drwxr-xr-x 12 techdogg staff 512 Nov 26 2007 . drwxr-xr-x 3 techdogg staff 512 May 30 10:35 .. -r--r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 18K Nov 26 2007 CDDL.txt -r--r--r-- 1 techdogg staff 52 Nov 26 2007 README drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 29 10:55 man1 drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 1.0K May 28 11:59 man1cl drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 29 10:55 man1ha drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 1.5K Nov 26 2007 man1m drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 2.0K May 29 10:55 man3ha drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 28 11:59 man4 drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 1.0K May 28 11:59 man5 drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 29 10:56 man5cl drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 29 10:56 man7 drwxr-xr-x 2 techdogg staff 512 May 29 10:56 man7p % man -M . cldevice Reformatting page. Please Wait... done Sun Cluster Maintenance Commands cldevice(1CL) NAME cldevice, cldev - manage Sun Cluster devices SYNOPSIS /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice -V /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice [subcommand] -? /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice subcommand [options] -v [+ | device ...] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice check [-n node[,...]] [+] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice clear [-n node[,...]] [+] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice combine -t replication-type -g replication-device-group -d destination-device device /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice export [-o {- | configfile}] [-n node[,...]] [+ | device ...] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice list [-n node[,...]] [+ | device ...] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice monitor [-i {- | clconfigfile} ] [-n node[,...] ] {+ | disk-device ...} /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice populate /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice refresh [-n node[,...]] [+] /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice rename -d destination-device device /usr/cluster/bin/cldevice repair [-n node[,...]] {+ | device ...} Sun Cluster 3.2 Last change: 14 Sep 2007 1 Sun Cluster Maintenance Commands cldevice(1CL) --More--(4%)
Visit http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ha-clusters/ohac/ for additional Open High Availability Cluster source code and more information.
Note that the open source code does not include some encumbered Sun Cluster source code. Nonetheless, you can still build a completely usable high availability cluster from this source with Sun Studio 11.
Posted in Work at 11:12:41 AM on 02 April 2008 | Comments: 0
Come and get it! Sun Cluster 3.2 2/08 is now available.
You can find descriptions of the latest set of new features in Sun Cluster 3.2 2/08 at What's New in the Sun Cluster 3.2 2/08 Software. You can find descriptions of the latest set of new features in Sun Cluster 3.2 2/08 Geographic Edition at New Features and Functionality.
You can download Solaris Cluster 3.2 2/08 at the Solaris Cluster 3.2 2/08 download page.
Posted in Life at 10:35:46 AM on 13 November 2007 | Comments: 0
A list of patches that apply to Sun Cluster is now available at the Sun Cluster Wiki Patch Klatch. Note that you'll need an account on SunSolve to download the patches listed at the Sun Cluster Wiki Patch Klatch. Please let me know what you think of the Sun Cluster Wiki Patch Klatch, good, bad, or ugly... or indifferent.
Posted in Work at 8:51:31 AM on 07 November 2007 | Comments: 0
The new Sun Cluster Wiki is open for business!
The Sun Cluster Wiki will serve as a free information community center for Sun Cluster people everywhere. It'll be a place where Sun Cluster fanatics and users alike can share and find unique and useful information that isn't found anywhere else in the world.
And it'll be a place where we can all have a good time.
Information you can find right now on the Sun Cluster Wiki includes:
- Announcements about Sun Cluster and related software
- Frequently answered questions
- How to Use the Sun Cluster Wiki
- Release Notes Information, including Release Notes for future releases and past and present Release Notes Supplements
- Pages that re-organize official Sun Cluster 3.2 documentation (on docs.sun.com and elsewhere) into handy crib sheets
- Sun Alerts that affect Sun Cluster
- Voodoo Documentation (the “documentation” you've handwritten on Post-it® Notes stuck to your console's monitor)
Information that you will very soon find on the Sun Cluster Wiki includes:
- Hardware qualifications
- Patches that affect Sun Cluster
- Information about N1 Service Provisioning System (SPS) plug-ins for Sun Cluster
- Anything else you want to contribute
Please let me know what you'd like to see on the Sun Cluster Wiki. I'd like to hear from you.
Brian.Keith@sun.com
Sun Cluster Wiki administrator
Posted in Work at 2:51:06 PM on 01 June 2007 | Comments: 4
Which product name do you prefer and why?
- Solaris Cluster
- Sun Cluster
Posted in Work at 2:30:06 PM on 05 March 2007 | Comments: 8
Everyone loves to complain. Especially about docs.sun.com. People inside and outside Sun complain that it's difficult to find information about a topic, mostly because of problems with its search engine. So they say, anyway.
But that's not the problem,
I think.
What is?
We dump product brands.
Too frequently.
With too much alacrity.
And then we replace them with "new and improved" brands. How are our customers supposed to keep up with that?
I went on a job interview last October (another topic, another blog). When I bragged to my interviewer, once a Solaris system administrator, that I'd formerly worked at Sun as a technical writer, he launched into a little dervish about Solaris documentation. All of a sudden I didn't feel so good. I live for moments like this, you know?
"How am I supposed to know that Sun calls its volume manager DiskSuite?" he asked. "And how am I supposed to find documentation for it if I don't know what it's called? Sun assumes its customers know the names of their products. You know what? They don't!"
This got me to thinking.
Was he right?
See for yourself. Enter "volume manager" on docs.sun.com, and this is what you get:
Was he right? Appears so. I don't see any hits for DiskSuite. Do you?
Hold on though. The truth is, I do.
Sort of.
Sun calls DiskSuite Solaris Volume Manager now. Since Solaris 9.
If you wade past the initial entries for Sun Cluster (yet another topic for another blog), you see entries for Solaris Volume Manager, aka DiskSuite. Of course I know that because I'm the one who has to change all the old brand references in the documentation.
But how's my unhappy camper supposed to know that?
This question got me to thinking even more.
Why does Sun dump product brands so frequently? I mean, here's just a sample:
| iPlanet [whatever] | Sun Open Net Environment (ONE) [whatever] | Sun Java System [whatever] | |
| SunStorage | Sun StorageTek | ||
| Patch Manager | Sun Update Connection | Solaris Connection | |
| Forte for Java 4 | Sun Open Net Environment (ONE) Studio 4 | Sun Java System Studio 4 | |
| Web Start Flash | Solaris Flash | ||
| Online: DiskSuite | Solstice DiskSuite | Solaris Volume Manager | |
| SunPlex Manager | Sun Cluster | Sun Java System Cluster | Solaris Cluster |
| N1 Grid Containers | Solaris Containers | ||
I'm sure you can think of a few yourself.
Compare that with a few other brands, brands that haven't changed--as far as I know anyway:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Office
- Norton Antivirus (Symantec even kept the brand after it bought Norton!)
- Norton PartitionMagic
- Symantec pcAnywhere
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Premiere
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe FrameMaker (like Symantec, Adobe also decided to keep the brand after buying Frame)
What gives? Why do we feel the urge to change our product brands so often, if at all?
Are we that insecure?
When I was 15, I went to a carnival that my hometown hosted every year. Along the midway, I discovered the amusement where you have to burst a balloon with a water pistol. You know, the one where you shoot a stream of water into a hole and inflate the balloon?
The thing I remember most about winning the stuffed toy that day is this: I won because, unlike everybody else, I focused only on shooting the water into the hole that inflated the balloon. Everyone else was focused on everyone else. (Well okay, to know that, I had to have looked, but I did that only once, at the beginning.)
That's what I see happening here. We're worrying too much about what our competitors are doing or not doing, when they're doing it or when they're not doing it. We're responding. Not leading.
That's why you see things like "This Computer" and Documents on the Solaris 10 desktop. I mean, come on. Really.
Yeah, the Java and Solaris brands are probably our most popular brands right now. But do we have to forsake all our other just-as-worthy brand names for their sake every time some competitor appears to scrape away a subfraction of a percentage point from our market share?
Well, do we?
But who am I to ponder these kinds of questions? In the big corporate schema: nobody really. I just work here.
Nonetheless, I worry. I worry what customers--or worse--potential customers, feel when they try to find information about Sun Cluster 3.2 on docs.sun.com, and can't, simply because they don't know we've gone and changed its brand to "Solaris Cluster".
All product or service names are the property of their respective owners.
Posted in Work at 5:07:05 PM on 22 February 2007 | Comments: 0
In this space, in the future, you'll be seeing more about my thoughts on solaris and sun cluster documentation, as well as general documentation issues. For now, I just want to make sure that my blog is working as I'd like it to.