Repartitioning Contiguous Space in Solaris

Recently, a system owner aked me for help because they had run out of space on one of their filesystems (FS). As a result, this was causing problems with the application they had running. Unfortunately, this FS was being used for database files so we couldn't just remove or

Remounting Part of an FS Elsewhere

The following details loopback file system (FS) mounts. These allow one to effectively mount a portion of an FS elsewhere, providing access to the underlying sub-tree(s) via alternate pathnames wherein a symlink may not be appropriate. Our host details are:

Extracting Individual Files from an Archive

Too often, I only need a single file or a couple of files from an archive.
One answer to this is to just extract the entire archive so that I can
get to those particular files.  The more precise answer is to simply
extract only those files that I need and place them where I want them.

VxVM DG Disabled

During a recent SAN maintenance, we ran into an issue on a few hosts that
were unfortunately single pathed to the SAN and lost connectivity to it.
The SAN-presented disk devices were under Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM)
control which started to present I/O errors as a result and displayed

Process Memory Usage

Since resources on a host are finite, it can be useful to know the
impact of a process or processes on those resources.  In this instance,
we'll take a look at a process' use of memory.  Our details for this are:

Notes on Packages in Solaris 11

While working out details for a separate write up, I started stumbling
through Solaris' new handling of packages, IPS.  Unlike previous versions
of Solaris which used the traditional "pkgXYZ" commands, directory
structures, etc, IPS (image packaging system) uses a completely new

VLAN Tagging and Vanity Naming in Solaris 11

While awaiting Solaris 11 to be released, I've recently been poking
around in Solaris 11 Express for a preview of what to expect.  In setting
up a test box, I needed to set up VLAN tagging (802.1q trunking) on
an interface.  Due to some of the new Solaris 11 networking features,

Configuring iSCSI Initiators in Solaris

In part 1, we worked through how to set up iSCSI targets in Solaris
(the server side).  Now, for part 2, I present my notes on how to set
up the initiators in Solaris on the client side.  Our host details for
this are the same as part 1:

Configuring iSCSI Targets in Solaris

While reviewing potential ideas for several environments, I started
looking into the use iSCSI as a means of providing remote storage.
With that in mind, this is part 1 of my iSCSI notes, detailing the
configuration of a test Solaris iSCSI target node which would provide

Replicating a ZFS FS Between Hosts

Occasionally, it can be useful to fully replicate a volume of data from
one host to another.  Perhaps you need to mirror a production filesystem
(FS) for use in development, need a sane backup, etc.  The following
describes one way of doing this using ZFS.  Additionally, we're going

Replacing a Failed SVM Disk

At some point, everyone deal's with a disk failure, as I had to do
recently.  In this case, it was a root disk.  Thankfully, however,
it was mirrored with SVM (Solaris Volume Manager).  Unfortunately, disk
failures aren't the type of thing that should happen too frequently so

Sending Messages to Users

Recently while working on a problem with someone else, I needed to have
them run a series of commands with specific options.  Since we were
both working remotely, it wasn't as simple as telling them to look
over my shoulder.  Though I tried telling them the commands over the

Granting Elevated Privileges in Solaris

root, root, root, everybody always wants root.  Developers, application
administrators, users, they all seem to find a reason to "need" root
access.  Since normally these needs are for access to particular files
or to perform very specific tasks, only a subset of root's access is

Finding Open Files in Solaris

During a recent discussion, another sysadmin asked that I write him a
tool to identify any open files on a particular file system (FS) in a
Solaris environment.  Rather than reinvent the wheel, I provided him
with the steps outlined here.  Our host details are:

File Integrity Checks via Package DB

After a system has been installed, files tend to change over time.
These changes may be deliberate, part of normal host operation, the
result of an errant 'chmod', etc.  Tools like Samhain, AIDE, and Tripwire
(note 0) have been devised specifically to identify such changes which

Configuring NFS in Solaris

Networked environments allow for the sharing of many resources, including
filesystems (FS).  As a long time industry standard in UNIX, NFS (network
file system) provides access to remote filesystems which appear similar
to local resources on client hosts.  Since Sun Microsystems originally

Recreate a Solaris UFS FS

Have you ever wondered what options were used to create a UFS filesystem
(FS) on a Solaris host?  Normally when you ask that question, it
seems someone will refer you to passing '-N' to 'newfs'.  Unfortunately,
this response will only provide you with default parameters to build a

Adding Swap Space in Solaris

Following up on "Adding Swap Space in FreeBSD", we take a look at the same
with Solaris.  As in the FreeBSD writeup, the usage of a free disk slice
or else a swap file is discussed.  The following details our host info:

Mounting ISO Images

So you've created a fresh ISO image and now you want to use it, verify
its contents, etc.  Whatever your purpose, it is fairly trivial to
mount the image file and access it.  The following are our host details:

op, An Alternative To sudo

**** What is op? ****

For those unfamiliar with op, one can think of op as being similar
to sudo.  As taken from the man page (op.1):