Archive
Posts in Solaris
Displaying netstat statistics at various intervals
I periodically need to review netstat data to debug network problems, and prefer to view the deltas between two adjacent runs. The Solaris netstat utility can be passed a time interval, which will cause it to display the difference between two runs: Netstat is some good stuff!
$ read more →Extracting SMF site manifests
SMF is one of the new features in Solaris 10, and provides the infrastructure needed to start and stop all of the processes that make up a useful system. SMF maintains a repository to store a variety of meta data to describe a service, and this information includes the state of a given service. The state of a service can be enabled if the service is supposed to start when the system boots, or disabled if the service isn't supposed to start when the system boots. I am a big fan of disabling every service that isn't needed to make the server perform it's function, and this is one area where I think SMF shines…
$ read more →Displaying CPU capabilities with Solaris
Solaris has been a 64-bit operating system for longer than I can recall. In addition to supporting 64-bit applications, Solaris also supports 32-bit applications, and is capable of running as a 32-bit entity on 32-bit platforms. If you need to see if 32- or 64-bit applications are supported on a given platform, you can run isainfo with the "-v" option: If you would like to see which hardware capabilities (e.g., MMX extensions) are available, you can run isalist: If you are curious what the optimal instruction set is for your platform, you can run optisa with the output of isalist as the argument: Tis all about knowing what your platform is capable of!
$ read more →Using mdb to locate the value of a symbol
I recently needed to locate the value of a specific symbol in the .data segment of an ELF executable. Prior to learning that mdb and gdb could be used to perform this lookup, I typically did the following: Use nm to locate the symbol and it's offset from .data Use readelf or elfdump to locate the address of .data Run hexdump on the library or executable that I wanted to lookup a value in, and check for a value at the address of step 1 + step 2 This seemed tedious, so I asked around to see if there was an easier way. It turns out I was overcomplicating this, as mdb and gdb can be used to resolve the symbol for me. Here is how to use mdb to display the value of the symbol mod_log_forensic in the library mod_log_forensic.so: It's all about simplifying your IT life…
$ read more →Solaris device in use checking
One nifty feature that recently made it's appearance in Solaris 10 is device in use checking. This feature is implemented by the libdiskmgt.so.1 shared library, and allows utiltiies to see if a device is being used, and what it is being used for. This is really neat, and I love the fact that format now prints what each partition on an active device is being used for: I digs me some Solaris!
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