How to configure NTP server and client on Solaris 10 and Solaris 11

In this post, I will describe the step by step method that how we will configure the NTP server and client on Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 Operating system. Network time protocol is most important part of any UNIX operating system. We will setup the NTP daemon on both the operating system but before moving to main point we will understand first NTP mechanism.

As you know NTP ( Network time Protocol) is one of the oldest internet protocol still in use and it allows the synchronization of computer clocks distributing UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) over the network.

NTP Service on Solaris 10 and Solaris 11:

Solaris 10 used the SMF utility (Service Management Facility) and the NTP service is now managed by SMF (Service Management Facility). NTP daemon configured using Service management facility (svc:/network/ntp:default) and a bunch of sample ntp.conf files to quickly configure a machine as a client or as a server. On Solaris 11 only ships with NTP v. 4, the NTP v. 4 service is identified by the name ntp4. You can check the ntp status using below command.

sun# svcs status ntp

STATE  STIME   FMRI

online 10:14:23 svc:/network/ntp:default

If you see the above command output it is shown that network time protocol services is enable and online on the server.

Steps for Configuring a NTP client:

Suppose your machine is just a client machine, then you can just take the /etc/inet/ntp.client file and copy it to /etc/inet/ntp.conf.

multicastclient 127.0.0.1

If you see the configuration it's a passive configuration for a Server host which listens for NTP server putting packets on the NTP multicast network, 127.0.0.1. If your machine is on LAN without NTP server then in that case we are not recveied any packet and for this we need to use Public NTP server for host.

In my case, I'm using the Indian pool in.pool.ntp.org and my configuration file contains:

server 2.in.pool.ntp.org

server 1.asia.pool.ntp.org

server 3.asia.pool.ntp.org

Normally NTP requires a poll period to elapse before starting synchronizing your clock. If you want NTP to start immediately, which you most probably will if you're configuring a desktop environment, you can take advantage of iburst keyword, introduced in NTP v. 4: it instructs NTP to start the synchronization almost right away.

server 2.in.pool.ntp.org ibrust

server 1.asia.pool.ntp.org ibrust

server 3.asia.pool.ntp.org ibrust

You must make sure you're configuring NTP implementation corresponding to the syntax you're using.

Setting up the drift file:

The last thing which is remaining for NTP server setup in the client machine is to set up  drift file location. On my machine it is 

driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift

After setup the drift file configuration we will start the NTP servivce again 

sun# svcadm restart svc:/network/ntp:default

sun# svcs status svc:/network/ntp:default

STATE  STIME   FMRI

online 12:20:12 svc:/network/ntp:default 

Once the service is running, you can check which server you're using with ntpq, Please run the below command to check the ntpq.

sun# ntpq -p

Setting up an NTP server:

Now in above step you see the NTP service has been started successfully, so now, you'll probably want to setup all of your machines.

If you're in a LAN, you can setup an internal NTP server which will provide data to other clients on your LAN. As before, you can take inspiration from the server configuration file shipped with Solaris 10 or Solaris 11, /etc/inet/ntp.server.

After setting up the drift file and the clients you're going to use, you can examine the other options and fine-tune them at your taste. Let's give a quick look at it.

server 127.127.XType.0

Now you have configured the NTP server properly. Please comment on the post if you have any suggestion.

Solaris Package administration in Solaris 10

In this post, we will get the knowledage about the package administartion on Solaris operating system. As you aware that on solaris server the packages administration work is quite different from other Unix operating system. Solaris system has different architecture for this one.

So, we will discuss first which command is generally used on Solaris 10 server which are listed below.

pkginfo- It displays all software package information.
pkgadd- It installs all software packages to the system.
pkgrm- It removes a package from the system.
pkgchk- It checks package installation state.
pkgtrans- It translates packages from one server format to another.

Commands & Syntax for checking a package information:

For checking a packages information on Solaris 10 operating system we will used the "pkginfo" command. You can find the all command and syntax related to "pkginfo" is listed below.

• Please use the below command to display information about installed software packages.

          sun# pkginfo | more

• Please use the below command to view additional information.

          sun# pkginfo -l | more

• Please use the below command to view information of a specific package.

          sun# pkginfo -l SUNWman

• Please use the below command to find how many packages are currently installed.

          sun# pkginfo | wc -l

• To list all installed software packages, please use the below command.

          sun# more /var/sadm/install/contents

These above commands with their syntax are daily used on Solaris 10 platform.

Commands & Syntax for checking a package installation:

For checking an information about packages are installed or not on the server , we need to use "pkgchk"  command. Please find the below example as describe below.

• Please use the below command to check the contents & attributes of a currently installed package.

          sun# pkgchk SUNWpkgs

• Please use the below command to list the all files contained in a software package.

          sun# pkgchk -v SUNWpkgs

• Please use the below commands to find if the contents & attributes of a file have changed since it was installed with its software package.

          sun# pkgchk -p /etc/shadow  

• Please use the below commands to list information about selected files that make up a package.

          sun# pkgchk -l -p /usr/bin/showrev

If the packages is installed already then in that case "pkgchk" command don't show any output that clear meaning is that packages is already installed on the server.

Commands & Syntax for adding a package software:

For adding a packages on the server, we will used the "pkgadd" command. Please find the below commands and their syntax which is daily used on Solaris operating system.

• Please use the below command to add a software packages from DVD. For this you need to move on dvd directory where all the packages are listed.

          sun# pkgadd -d . SUNWpkgs

Using above command you can add the packages from DVD.

Commands & Syntax for removing a package software:

For removing the packages from the server, we will used "pkgrm" command. Please find the below commands and their syntax as listed below.

• Please use the below command to remove the software packages.

          sun# pkgrm SUNWpkgs

• Please use the below command to remove a package from the spool directory.

          sun# pkgrm -s /export/pkg SUNWldam

Commands & Syntax for translating a packages format:

For translating a packages format from one format to another , we will used the "pkgtrans" command for the same.

• Please use the below command to translate a package from file system format in /var/tmp to data stream format.

          sun# pkgtrans /var/tmp /tmp/SUNWpkgs.pkg SUNWpkgs

• Please use the below command to create a data streamed package.

          sun# pkgtrans -s Product /var/tmp/stream.pkg SUNWpkgg SUNWpkgs

 Using above commands and synatx we can easily translate their file format to stream format. If you have any doubt regarding this post please comment on the post.

How to enable SAR (System Activity Reporter) on Solaris Server

In this post, You can find the information one of the most important monitoring tool application on Solaris operating system. SAR (System Activity Reporter) is used to troubleshoot the performance issue on Sun Solaris Servers.

Using SAR (System Activity Reporter) we can troubleshoot or monitored the disk, memory or cpu performance issues on the Solaris operating system servers.

It is widely used performance tools for monitoring purpose but this utility also have some disadvantages. SAR utility consume lot of disk space when it is generated the report as well as /var file system space get increase rapidly.

Now in the below post we will step by step method to enable the SAR on Solaris Operating system.

Step by step procedure to enable SAR (System Activity Reporter):

1. In the first step we will check the current service status of SAR. To check this thing we will used below command which is mention below.

sun#svcs status sar
disabled        Mar_9  svc:/system/sar:default

or

sun#svcs -a | grep -i sar
disabled        Mar_9  svc:/system/sar:default

If you see the current status of SAR service it is disable. You can use both the above syntax to find out the current service status.

2.  As you seen in above step, the SAR service is disable on the Sun Solaris system so in this step we will enable it.

sun#svcadm enable svc:/system/sar:default

Check the status of service again as per below command.

sun# svcs status svc:/system/sar:default
enabled        Mar_9  svc:/system/sar:default

3.  Now in this step, we will make a setup for automatic data collection. Normally once we enable the services of SAR, the default script for SAR utility are located the below directory location.

/usr/lib/sa/sa1: This is a shell script to collect and store data in the binary file /var/adm/sa/sadd, where dd is the current day.

/usr/lib/sa/sa2: This is a  shell script for generating daily report in the file /var/adm/sa/sardd, where dd is current day.

As these above script are used normally to collect the automatically data from Solaris Server. If you required the daily report or weekly report then you need to add both the script in crontab file which is describe in next step.

4.  If you required the SAR report regularly then you need to make an entry of above script on the crontab file.

#crontab -e

Using these command you can edit the existing file and make an entry of above script according to your requirement when you want to generate the report.

Please comment on the post, if you have any issue related to this SAR post.

How to run Oracle Explorer on Sun Solaris 11

In this post I will explain how to run Oracle Explorer file on Solaris 11 operating system. Explorer files are used as a snapshot when we need to check all hardware issues or internal issue. The explorer files keeps all these information.

Oracle SUN Solaris explorer is a collection of scripts and binary executable files which collect all information and creates a detailed snapshot of Oracle Sun Solaris system configurations.

Oracle Sun Solaris Explorer is always installed on Global zone using root user which are running only Sun Sparc system and Solaris X86 systems as well as we are gathers information related to drivers, patches, recent system event history, and log file entries from the Oracle Explorer Data Collector output.

Before moving to run the explorer files we need to understand which packages is required to installed and configure the explorer files.

1. First we need to download the Service tools bundle from any ftp servers and extract them and run the script with extension syntax.

# ./install_stb.sh -ext

2. In this step we will uncompressed and untar the Explorer tar file using below command.

# cd /var/tmp/stb/extract/Explorer

# uncompress Explorer.tar.Z

# tar xvf Explorer.tar

3. In this step we will install Explorer packages and create directories "SUNWexplo" and "SUNWexplu" to install the required packages.

# pkgadd -d . SUNWexplo SUNWexpl

4. Now we will run the explorer command to obtained the logs files from the Sun Solaris system.

  #explorer

  

Normally on Solaris server the default location to run the above command is /usr/sbin/explorer which create & send the explorer log file.

If you want the create default configuration file only first time please use the below syntax.

  # explorer -g 

If you want to check explorer version please run the below command.

  # explorer -V

        

Normally in most of the Solaris server the default path of the explorer output is /var/explorer/output but it depends where you installed the Explorer.

How to configure YUM Server in Red hat linux 6

In this post, We will get know how to install or configure the Yum server on Red Hat Linux 6 operating system.

As you know their are several ways using which we can install the packages or rpm on the server. Please find the below step by step method to install the packages using YUM.

1. In the initial step please install the cd in cdrom and open a terminal for mount the cd in /mnt directory.

#mount –o loop /dev/cdrom /mnt

Here, we mount the CD of ISO in /mnt direcoty. You must enough space on /mnt folder before mounting this ISO.

2. Now in second step we will create a directory where we make a YUM repository.

#mkdir /rhel6

In this directory we will install all the YUM configuration files.

3. Now we will copy all the files from mount folder to newly created folder.

#cp –rvf /mn/* /rhel6

4. In this step, we will install the required packages which is required for create a repo on the server.

#cd /rhel6/Packages 

#rpm –ivh python*

#rpm –ivh createrepo*

These above packages is required for repostiory creation in YUM server.

5. Now move back again repodata directory and create a new repo for repository installation.

#createrepo  –v /rhel6/Packages

This is install all the packages on /rhel6 directory which is used for YUM configuration.

6. In this step we will create a new repo files in this directory.

#cd /etc/yum.repos.d/

#rm –rf *

#vi ss.repo

[Packages]

baseurl=file:///rhel6/Packages 

gpgcheck=0

enable=1

In this step if any exsiting repo if you found please remove it and create a new repo.

7. In the final step we will clean the repo and check the list of all rpm's using below commands.

#yum clean all

#yum list

Hope, using this post, you can easily install and configured the packages on the Red Hat Operating system. Please comment on the post if you encouter any issue.

NFS mount on Solaris 11 Non-Global zones

In this post, we would learn how we mount one folder from one Non-Global zone to another zone on Solaris 11 operating system.

As you know, in linux server it is less difficult in comparision to Solaris server. Here, I will take a two local zone "sun01" & "sun02". Let's take an example, we will mount one folder named "/export/backup" from "sun01" local zone to another zone "sun02" on "/project/export/data" location.

Step by Step method of NFS mount on Solaris 11:

1. In the first step we will create the directory on "sun02" zone where we want to mount the folder. 

sun02#mkdir /project/export/data

2. In second step, we will make a configuration for this process. So for this work you need to login on global zone with root access and make an entry on the dfstb configuration file.

sun#vi /etc/dfs/dfstab

share -F nfs -o rw=sun02 /zones/sun01/root/export

If you see the above entry, we have provided the read/write access to directory on sun02 server where we mount the folder from sun01 local zone.

3. In next step you need to login on sun02 server and mount the shared folder using below command.

sun02#mount sun:/zones/sun01/root/export/backup /project/export/data

4. Once you run the above command the folder is mount from one local zone to another zone temprarily. You can go to the directory and verify that the data which is listed on /export/backup folder is show on sun02 directory.

5. In the last step you need to restart the NFS service on the global zone so the configuration files and other changes makes affect. But these configuration are available until we are not taking reboot of the zone.

Please comment on the post, if you have any issue regarding the NFS mount sharing process. I will try to resolve such issue as soon as possible.

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.