Archive
Posts from 2007
Getting the Solaris format utility to work with an expanded LUN
A while back I wrote an article titled dynamically growing a Clariion LUN with Solaris. In the article I described how to update the VTOC on a UN that was resized on the storage array. One of my colleagues came to me a few weeks back and told me the procedure was not working, and he couldn't assign a new size (200GB in this case) to the device in format. This made me curious, so I started poking around…
$ read more →Locating the device that contains an EXT3 label
On most Linux hosts, the first field of the /etc/fstab file contains labels instead of disk partions. This simplifies file system management, since you don't have to update the fstab file if you move a drive to a new controller, or add additional drives to a system. If you want to locate the partition that is associated with a label, you can use the findfs utility: You can also use the findfs utility to locate a partition by UUID The findfs utility is extremely useful, and is just one of a number of cool programs (others include blkid, e2label, partinfo and findsuper) in the e2fsprogs package! Giddie up!
$ read more →Viewing the contents of an ISO image from the command line
I had several ISO images lying around on my desktop, and decided to go through each image and purge the ones I no longer need. Several image files weren't labeled, so I decided to fire up the isoinfo utility to figure out what the mystery ISO images were. The first image I checked was a Solaris 10 update 4 DVD, as you can see from the "Volume id" field in the isoinfo "-d" (print primary volume descriptor) output: To double check that the volume descriptor was correct, I also ran isoinfo with the "-l" (list files) option to generate a file listing of each ISO image: With this information in hand, I added useful labels to the mystery images. Nice!
$ read more →Concert review Alice In Chains acoustic hour
Roughly ten years ago one of my friends loaned me his copy of the Alice In Chain's MTV unplugged CD. Since that time, I've listened to that CD thousands of times, and have become one of the biggest Alice In Chains fans on the planet. I have had the opportunity to see Jerry Cantrell play a number of shows across the country, and attended an Alice In Chains show earlier this year. During that show, the guys from AIC played an awesome acoustic set, which left me wanting more…
$ read more →Summarizing Java heap utilization with jmap
Java has become one of the most successful languages to hit the IT industry. One of the reasons behind it's high rate of adoption is that fact that Java manages memory resources for the programmer. This makes programming significantly easier, but introduces additional complexity, since engineers need to size the Java heap and pick a garbage collection algorithm (or in the case of generational collectors, more than one) that best matches an application's workload. Fortunately, two extremely useful tools allow you to observe the Java heap: the DTrace hotspot provider and the Java jmap utility…
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