System dump for HP-UX v11.x

In this post, I will cover one of the most entertaining and important topic  how we take system dump for HP-UX v11.x version operating system.

let's starting with V11.00, the following things have changed with respect to system dumps.

1. A dump does not necessarily contain all the memory pages.

2. Save core was replaced by 2 different commands:

• Save crash for boot time dump image management.
• Crashutil for port boot dump analysis.

3. Dump area can now be configured both in the kernel, or in the /etc/fstab file. Also, those dump areas don't need to be in the vg00 volume group.

Now we understand what is the role of Dump size.

Dump size:

Default dump size is quite small (not the full memory), but it should be ok for most usage. It can be modified if required using the crashconf utility.

Note: In crashconf , all sizes are in physical pages (4Kb on PA-RISC).

Now we will go for configuration part which is describe below.

Configuration:

Dump area/logical volumes must be created contiguous and with bad blocks relocation disabled. Use the following lvcreate options if creating manually (or use SAM ).

hpx:/># lvcreate -r n -C y ...

Configuring in the kernel:-

lvlnboot can be used to configure dump areas in the vg00 volume group, as long as you have a dump lvol line in the /stand/system file.

Run time configuration:-

Add lines in /etc/fstab with the following format:

device  /  dump  defaults 0 0

Using swap space as dump area:

Swap spaces can still be used as dump areas. In that case, both usage should be explicitly declared:

• use lvlnboot twice ( - +-s +- and - +-v +- options) 
• or put 2 lines in /etc/fstab (one for swap and one for dump type

When the system disk is mirrored, the swap LV is actually mirrored, whereas the same device used for dumping will only write to one disk.

Dump areas usage order:-

Dump areas are used in reverse order of their declaration, so it's important to declare last the dump areas not used for swap if you have some (this speeds up reboot, since swap can be activated before saving the dump image). 

Also, if your run time configuration does not include any dump area in the vg00 volume group, the kernel will first automatically use the primary swap space as dump device. This might slow down the reboot since the dump must be completely saved before reactivating this primary swap. To avoid that

• declare non-swap dump partitions in /etc/fstab 
• add a dump none line in /stand/system to explicitly use run-time configuration only 

Please comment on the post if you have any query regarding the system dump on HP-UX operating system.

zone: error: net0: failed to create VNIC: operation not supported

In this post, I will discuss with you one of the most interesting error which I am facing when I boot the local zone on Solaris 11.3. The description of this interesting issue as describe below.

Description of error:

sun# zoneadm -z sun01 boot

zone 'sun01': error: net0: failed to create VNIC: operation not supported

zoneadm: zone sun01: call to zoneadmd(1M) failed: zoneadmd(1M

I have try to create and configure the  VNIC on Solaris 11.3 operating server but it get failed with the same error.

sun#dladm create-vnic -l net0 vnic01

dladm: vnic creation failed: operation not supported

If you are also facing a such error while booting the local zone on solaris 11 server, then please use the below solution to resolve such issues.

Solution of error:

1. This error "failed to create VNIC: operation not supported" would normally come when there are not enough mac addresses to assign to the zone. So now we need to add alternate mac addresses to the network interface.So before adding the new mac address we will stop LDM.

sun#ldm list-domain

NAME            STATE     FLAGS  CONS   VCPU MEMORY  UTIL NORM UPTIME

primary         active    -n-cv- UART   8    8G      2.0% 2.0% 41d 20h 14m

0004fb0000060000ff1d3d8336112f6f active    -n---- 5001   50   64G     0.1% 0.1% 18h 23m

2. Now log in to the Solaris global zone and check if net0 have additional MAC addresses or not. Please use the below command to check the status.

sun# dladm show-phys -m

LINK               SLOT    ADDRESS           INUSE CLIENT

net0               primary 0:21:f6:d6:d3:e5  yes  net0

                   1       0:14:4f:f9:6d:8d  no   --

                   2       0:14:4f:fb:10:2b  no   --

                   3       0:14:4f:f9:41:d6  no   --

                   4       0:14:4f:f8:dd:c8  no   --

net1               primary 0:21:f6:51:be:4d  yes  net1

3. Now zone will start without any issue, as we have assigned the new mac address to this zone.

sun# zoneadm -z sun01 start

Hope, your issue related to this has been resolved after reading my post. Please let me know if you are facing any issue regarding this error.

How to create whole root zone on Solaris 11

In this post we will see how to install  zone on Solaris 11. In my last post regarding the zone creation you see the zone creation steps about Solaris 10.

Before going to main installation part we need to understand the basic installation methods difference between Solaris 10 & Solaris 11. 

In Solaris 10, we can’t install it without configuring repo on Solaris while in Solaris 11 ,first we need to create a  Solaris 11 repo , then we can install Solaris local zone. In Solaris 11, all the local zones by default uses exclusive ip address. You can’t set the IP address while configuring the zone. After the installation of zone, you can able to configure the IP from the local zone itself.

On my Solaris 11 machine I have already installed one local zone which is used for my R&D work so for this post work I need to install second local zone. So I will clone it from the first local zone.

Step by step method to create a zone on Solaris 11:-

1. In the first step we will create a new local zone. For the zone creation we will used "zonecfg" command and configure the zones as whole root zone without any options supplied.

#zonecfg -z sun02

sun02: No such zone configured

Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone.

zonecfg:sun> create

zonecfg:sun> info

zonename: sun02

zonepath:

brand: native

autoboot: false

bootargs:

pool:

limitpriv:

scheduling-class:

ip-type: shared

hostid:

zonecfg:sun> set zonepath=/zones/sun02

zonecfg:sun > add anet

zonecfg:sun:anet> set linkname=net0

zonecfg:sun:anet> end

zonecfg:sun > verfiy

zonecfg:sun > commit

zonecfg:sun > exit

In the above step, we will create a zne and set the zonepath. In my case my new solaris zone path is "/zones/sun02" in your case you can change your installation zone path. Here, I assign the network interface "net0" for this newly zone.

2. After successfully zone creation in above step 1, we will go for start the Solaris zone installation in this step. As I explained you for solaris 11 local zone installation we required solaris 11 repo which is used for installation part.

sun#zoneadm -z sun02 install

The following ZFS file system(s) have been created:

    rpool/zones/sun02

Progress being logged to /var/log/zones/zoneadm.30220110Z233232Z.sun02.install

       Image: Preparing at /zones/sun02/root.

 AI Manifest: /tmp/manifest.xml.F_ayqq

  SC Profile: /usr/share/auto_install/sc_profiles/enable_sci.xml

    Zonename: sun02

Installation: Starting ...

              Creating IPS image

Startup linked: 1/1 done

        Installing packages from:

solaris  origin:  http://localhost:1008/solaris/ce43f14c4791b5320596e2023cde1ec08709a3af/

DOWNLOAD                                PKGS         FILES    XFER (MB)   SPEED

Completed                            183/183   33556/33556  222.2/222.2  139k/s

PHASE                                          ITEMS

Installing new actions                   46825/46825

Updating package state database               Done

Updating image state                          Done

Creating fast lookup database                 Done

Installation: Succeeded

Note:Man pages can be obtained by installing pkg:/system/manual done. Done: Installation completed in 2392.837 seconds.

Now our newly zone "sun02" has been installed successfully. All the configuration files are keep in /zones/sun02/root directory.

3. In this step we will boot the newly installed zone "sun02".

sun#zoneadm -z sun02 boot

You can check the status of zone that it is running or not after boot.

sun#zoneadm list -icv

ID NAME      STATUS     PATH          BRAND    IP

   0 global   running    /            solaris  shared

   1 sun01    running    /zones/sun01 solaris  excl

   3 sun02    running    /zones/sun02 solaris  excl

if you see the above output newly zone "sun02" is running working fine on the solaris 11 operating system.

4. Now in the next step, we will login on the local zone console to complete the configuration process.

sun# zlogin -C sun02

[Connected to zone 'sun02' console]

You can press enter when you will get this message. Now it is asking for some configuration step we need to give a details one by one.

Time Zone: Regions

select the region that contains your time zone.

Regions

UTC/GMT

Africa

Americas

Antarctica

Arctic Ocean

Asia

Atlantic Ocean

Australia

Europe

Indian Ocean

Pacific Ocean

F2_Continue  F3_Back  F6_Help  F9_Quit

Time Zone: Locations

Select the location that contains your time zone.

Locations

x Afghanistan

x Armenia

x Azerbaijan

x Bahrain

x Bangladesh

x Bhutan

x Brunei

x Cambodia

x China

x Cyprus

x East Timor

x Georgia

x Hong Kong

v India

F2_Continue  F3_Back  F6_Help  F9_Quit

Time Zone

Select your time zone.

Time Zones

Asia/Kolkata

F2_Continue  F3_Back  F6_Help  F9_Quit

System Configuration Summary

Review the settings below before continuing. Go back (F3) to make changes.

Time Zone: Asia/Kolkata

Language: *The following can be changed when logging in.

Default language: C/POSIX

Terminal type: vt100

Users:

No user account

Network:

Computer name: sun02

Network Configuration: Automatic

Support configuration:

Not generating a Support profile as OCM and ASR services are not installed.

Hostname: sun02

So now your zone is fully configured ans installed successfully. You can login in zone very easily. So in next step we will see the post configuration settings which is required on local solaris zone.

5. In the final step you need login to local zone sun02 and configured the ip address on the zone sun02.

sun#zlogin -z sun02

You can successfully login in your newly created solaris 11 zone. Please leave a comment if you have any doubt ,i will get back to you as soon as possible.

How to Create VNIC and Assign a IP Address on Solaris 11

Hello Friends,

In my old post, I described that how we will create a new local solaris zone on global zone. As you know every zone has their own networking but how it is works and configured we need to understand, So in this post, I will explain to you how to create a virtual network on Solaris 11 before zone creation.

For creating Virtual NIC and assigning fix static IP address in Solaris 11 we need to understand the basic difference between older version of Solaris and Solaris 11.

In Solaris 10, according to the NIC manufacturer,physical network interfaces are named as (Ex:bge,e1000g,nxge).But in Solaris 11 onwards,the names are hidden from the view and all the interfaces will be named as net0,net1…netx.

Before forward to main work we need to know that using which command we can check which interface has been mapped to physical interface. Using below command you can check all the network interface details.

sun01# dladm show-phys

LINK              MEDIA                STATE      SPEED  DUPLEX    DEVICE

net0              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge001

net1              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge002

If you want to show all dladm level devices,including VNIC’s & aggregation links,use the below command-

sun01# dladm show-link

LINK                CLASS     MTU    STATE    OVER

net0                phys      1500   up       --

net1                phys      1500   up       --

In Solaris 11,you can give a meaning full description(net1/oracle_VIP) to all the IP address on the system unlike Solaris 10. (e1000g1:2)

How to assigning new IP address to NIC:-

1. We can see how we assigned IP address to the physical interface, so in the first step we will check all the physical interface using below command.

sun01# dladm show-phys

LINK              MEDIA                STATE      SPEED  DUPLEX    DEVICE

net0              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge001

net1              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge002

2. In this step we would know how we will create a new interface so you can use the below command for this.

sun01# ipadm create-ip net1

3. This is the main step to assign the static ip address to the newly created interface net1. You can use below command or syntax to assign the fixed IP.

sun01#ipadm create-addr -T static -a local=10.135.0.2/24 net1

You can change your IP address accordingly. 

4. Now we will Verify whether IP address is configured or not which we assigned on above step.

sun01# ifconfig  net1

net1: flags=1000843 mtu 1500 index 7

        inet 10.135.0.2 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 10.135.0.255

        ether 0a:cB:12:8e:15:e2

If you see the above output, the new IP address is shown on net1 interface successfully. Using above all 4 steps you can know how we will assinged the static ip address to the sun solaris 11 operating system.

Now we will go for Virtual Network Interface creation steps.I can create N number of VNIC’s using single physical interface.These VNIC are treated as actual physical interface and possible to assign to local zones with  full access to it.

How to create a new VNIC using interface net2:-

1. In the initial steps I will run the same command to check out the all physical interface which is available on the Solaris 11 Server.

sun01# dladm show-phys

LINK              MEDIA                STATE      SPEED  DUPLEX    DEVICE

net0              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge001

net1              Ethernet             up         1000   full      bge002

net2              Ethernet             unknown    1000   full      bge003

If you see the above command output network interface "net2" is in unknow state, So in the next step I will create a new VNIC using net2.

2. In this step we will create a new VNIC using net2. In my case i will suppose VNIC name “vnic01”, so for creating the new VNIC we will run the below command which describe below.

sun01#dladm create-vnic  -l net2 vnic01

3.Now, We will plumb the virtual interface and create a default IP to new VNIC.

sun01# dladm create-vnic  -l net2 vnic01

sun01# ipadm create-ip vnic01

sun01# ifconfig vnic01

vnic01: flags=1000842 mtu 1500 index 8

        inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0

        ether 2c:18:10:Ce:1a:12

4. Now we will assign the new IP address to VNIC and verfif that new IP for vnic01 is configured or not.

sun01# ipadm create-addr -T static -a local=10.135.0.3/24 vnic01

sun01# ifconfig vnic01

vnic01: flags=1000843 mtu 1500 index 8

        inet 10.135.0.3 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 10.135.0.255

        ether 2c:18:10:Ce:1a:12

5. In the final step we will try to run snoop on VNIC which we have create now. You can verify through snooping is that VNIC01 is working fine or not.

sun01# snoop -d vnic01

The same way you can create a multiple VNIC and assign a new IP address to it. Hope you got some idea about Solaris 11 networking part after reading this post. Please let me know if you have any doubt regarding this post.

Sun Solaris File System Management

If you are working on Sun Solaris operating system and wants to more grow up on this operating system, you definitely like my post because in this post I will explain you the most important thing file system management.

I will describe all the file systems command in this post which is generally used on all Solaris version operating system. Using these command you are more familiar about the file system management on Solaris server.

How to create a new file system on Solaris Server:-

We are using two type of file system (UFS & ZFS) on Solaris operating system. In this example we are taking UFS file system as for ZFS file system creation information you can found in my older post.

• Create a new file system-

          sun01#newfs /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1

• View minfree value-

          sun01#fstyp -v /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1 | head

• Set minfree value for a new file system-

          sun01#newfs -m 2 /dev/dsk/c0d0s1

• Change minfree value on an existing file system-

          sun01#tunefs -m 1 /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1

In the above my example, my hard disk name is c0d0s1.

How to Monitoring File System Usage on Solaris Server:-

In Sun Solaris Server , you must be aware about the capacity of file system. You can check file system usage using several commands.

• Display the capacity of file systems in readable format-

          sun01#df -h

• Display the disk allocation size in Kbytes-

         sun01#df -k

• Display the available space on a device or disk-

         sun01#df -k /dev/dsk/c0d0s1

• Display the disk usage in readable format-

          sun01#du -h /home

• Display the disk usage including files-

          sun01#du -ak /home

• Display the disk usage in summary format-

          sun01#du -sk /home

How to Checking or repair the File System on Solaris Server:-

We can repair and check the file system on Sun Solaris server. You can use the "fsck" command for this one but make sure you never run the fsck command on a mounted file system. You need umount file system first then run repair or check the Solaris file system.

• Check or repair an unmounted filesystem-

           sun01#fsck /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1

• Check or repair using the mount point directory-

          sun01#fsck /export/home 

• To use a backup superblock number on Solaris server-

          sun01#fsck -o b=32 /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1 

• To use an alternative superblock number-

          sun01#fsck -o b=518432 /dev/rdsk/c0d0s1

Hope, you are like my this post. Please comment on the post if you are facing any issue. I will try to resolve your issue as soon as possible.

How to change a disk in SVM Solaris volume manager

Hope you are doing well at your end. This post documentation explain how to change a disk in SVM ( Solaris volume manager).It means that we have mirrored the disk (RAID1) using SVM. Solaris Volume manager is basically used for creating, modifying & partitioning the different RAID partition.

In this post, I will take my sparc server machine. My Sun Sparc server consist 2 hard disk, let us assume the server has 2 hard disk: c0t0d0 and c0t1d0. We will assume c0t0d0 failed and need to be replaced.

Step by Step Method as described below:

1. In the initial step, we will find that which hard disk is down or faulty. To check this we will used "format" command.

sun01# format

       0. c0t0d0 <__drive type unknown__>

          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/pci@0/scsi@1/sd@0,0

       1. c0t1d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>

          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/pci@0/scsi@1/sd@1,0

If you see the "format" command output, we have two disk "c0t0d0,c0t1d0". Disk "c0t0d0" is in faulty state and it's down, You can see the drive type is in unknown state.

2. If you are running the "metastat" command you can see the status of hard disk which is show status in "need maintenance".

sun01# metastat    # will show status in "need maintenance"

        flags           first blk       block count

     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7

     a        u         8208            8192            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7

     a    p  luo        16              8192            /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7

     a    p  luo        8208            8192            /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7

sun01# metadb -d c0t0d0s7

sun01# metadb

Using above command we delete metadb on failing disk and check that metadb on the other disk.

4. Now, we will unconfigure the corresponding disk which is down right now. This is the main step of this post so you can more careful while running the command which is given below.

sun01# cfgadm -al

sun01# cfgadm -f -c unconfigure c0::dsk/c0t0d0

sun01# cfgadm -al

Using cfgadm command we will unconfigure the c0t0d0 faulty hard disk so that we will replace the down hard disk in next step.

5. Now you can change the faulty disk to new one and reconfigure it again with same name.

sun01# cfgadm -c configure c0::dsk/c0t0d0

sun01# cfgadm -al

6. In this steo we will duplicate partitionning schema of first disk to the second and create metadb.

sun01# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2

sun01# metadb -a -f -c2 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7

7. In second last step you will run all the below command for replacement of the failinf SVM partition.

sun01# metastat

sun01# metareplace -ef d4 c0t0d0s4

sun01# metareplace -ef d3 c0t0d0s3

sun01# metareplace -ef d1 c0t0d0s1

sun01# metareplace -ef d0 c0t0d0s0

sun01# metareplace -ef d5 c0t0d0s5

sun01# metareplace -ef d6 c0t0d0s6

sun01# metasync d0

sun01# metasync d1

sun01# metasync d3

sun01# metasync d4

sun01# metasync d5

sun01# metasync d6

sun01# metasync d7

8. In final step you need to make the disk bootable so that operating system will be boot on the mirror disk.

sun01# installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

Using this step you can make a disk bootable. I hope this post is useful for you. You are requested to please comment on the post if you have any issue, I will try to back you with my answer.

How to Remove a Non-Global Zone from Solaris Server

In this post, I will explain to you how to remove a Non-Global Zone from Solaris Server.

As you aware that Non-Global zone are hosted on Global zone on Solaris Operating system. You can check the Non-Global zone list using "zoneadm" command. It will show you are running and installed zones on Global zones.

Step by Step Method of removal a Non-Global Zone:

First of all you need to check the Non-Global Zone list to ensure which zone is running on the server.

global# zoneadm list -iv

You will see a display that is similar to the following:

ID  NAME     STATUS       PATH                           BRAND      IP
 0    global       running         /                                   solaris    shared
 1    sun01       running         /zones/sun01                solaris    shared

In the above command output you can see the Non-Global Zone "sun01" is running, which we need to remove or delete from Solaris Server.

Now, we need to shutdown the required zone which we need to delete. We can shutdown the Non-Global zone using below commands.

--------------------------------------------

global#zoneadm -z sun01 halt

or

global#zoneadm -z sun01 shutdown

or

global#zlogin sun01 shutdown

-------------------------------------------

In next step when your Non-Global zone shutdown you need to uninstall the local zone. You can used the below method to uninstall the Non-Global Zone.

global#zoneadm -z sun01 uninstall

Using above command Non-Global zone "sun01" has been uninstall successfully.

In the last step you need to remove or delete all dataset and configuration files of Non-Global zone "sun01" from Global zone.

global#zonecfg -z sun01 delete

Using above command all the configuration files related to this Non-Global zone has been deleted successfully. Now you can remove the folder related to this zone.

So using above method we can remove or delete the Non-Global zone from global zone or Solaris Operating system. Please let me know if you are facing any issue during using this process.