Gotchas when migrating from Samba to Oracle Solaris 11 SMB Server

I am in the middle of migrating "Oracle Solaris 11 non-global zone running Samba" to an "Oracle Solaris 11 kernel zone running SMB server".
This blog isn't going to explain why you want to move and/or advantages/disadvantages, but I may get to do that at a later date. It is he to warn you about some things which you may not be aware of.

How to copy a file from Solaris Global Zone to a Kernel Zone without a network

I posted this Tweet on twitter a while ago

Damn wish there was a way to copy a file from #Solaris global zone to a kernel zone with out going over network.

and Darren Moffat pointed out a /system/shared which is read only from the zone but is writeable from the global zone. Here is a quick example:

Hoy to copy a file from Solaris Global Zone to a Kernel Zone without a network

I posted this Tweet on twitter a while ago

Damn wish there was a way to copy a file from #Solaris global zone to a kernel zone with out going over network.

and Darren Moffat pointed out a /system/shared which is read only from the zone but is writeable from the global zone.

solaris-kz# ls /system/shared/
solaris-kz# touch /system/shared/ReadOnly
touch: cannot create /system/shared/ReadOnly: Read-only file system
solaris-kz# df /system/shared/
/system/shared     (/dev/kz/sdir/shared@0):296322344 blocks 28136253 files

global-zone# zoneadm list -vc
  ID NAME        STATUS   PATH  BRAND      IP   
   0 global      running  /     solaris    shared
   1 solaris-kz  running  -     solaris-kz excl 

global-zone# ls /system/volatile/zones/solaris-kz/zonepath/root/shared/
global-zone# touch /system/volatile/zones/mysqlsrv/zonepath/root/shared/myfile   

solaris-kz# ls /system/shared/
myfile

Compile GEOS geometry library on Solaris 11 using Oracle Developer Studio 12.5

This is a follow on from my posts about installing PostGIS in those posts I used GNU compilers, but I have managed to get parts to compile with Developer Studio 12.5.

If you are looking for the GNU version then it is here: Compile PostgreGIS (GEOS geometry library) on Solaris 11 (11.3) using gcc

Compile Proj4 reprojection library on Solaris 11 using Oracle Developer Studio 12.5

This is a follow on from my posts about installing PostGIS in those posts I used GNU compilers, but I have managed to get parts to compile with Developer Studio 12.5.

If you are looking for the GNU version then it is here: Compile PostgreGIS (Proj4 reprojection library) on Solaris 11 (11.3) using gcc

Install PostGIS on Solaris 11 (11.3)

I said I would install PostGIS for a student project but I wish I never said yes, since it has taken over a week to compile it.

As you may guess there are not many working instruction out in the wild!

I will break down this step-by-step guide into different blogs entries otherwise it will get very long.

• Compile PostgreSQL on Solaris 11 (11.3)
• Proj4 reprojection library (GNU compilers)  or (Developer Studio 12.5) 
• GEOS geometry library (GNU compilers) or (Developer Studio 12.5)
• GDAL

I had to compile all software using GCC since Solaris Studio gave to many problems:

Compile PostgreGIS (GDAL) on Solaris 11 (11.3)

Before you install PostGIS you will need to install some of the requirements.

GDAL. is a translator library for raster and vector geospatial data format.

Compile PostgreGIS (GEOS geometry library) on Solaris 11 (11.3)

Before you install PostGIS you will need to install some of the requirements.

GEOS geometry library, version 3.3 or greater, but GEOS 3.5+ is recommended to take full advantage of all the new functions and features.

Compile PostgreGIS (Proj4 reprojection library) on Solaris 11 (11.3)

Before you install PostGIS you will need to install some of the requirements.

Proj4 reprojection library is used to provide coordinate reprojection support within PostGIS.

Compile PostgreSQL on Solaris 11 (11.3)

I know PostgreSQL is available as a binary from http://www.postgresql.org and to be honest I have always used it but just in case you need to go down the PostGIS route then you may need to recompile it.

References: PostgreSQL 9.5.3 Documentation

# pkg install developer/gcc-45 build/gnu-make
# export PATH=/usr/gcc/4.5/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/sfw/bin:/usr/lib:/usr/gnu/bin:
# bzip2 -dc postgresql-9.5.3.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
# cd postgresql-9.5.3

Install PostgreSQL on Solaris 11 (11.3)

Here are some quick instruction on how to install PostgreSQL on Solaris 11.3.

• PostgreSQL 9.5: http://www.postgresql.org/

Add a user

At this time  postgres user exists on Solaris, so I am going to use that, but just in case then:

# groupadd -g 90 postgres
# useradd -u 90 -S files -s /usr/bin/pfksh -d / -g postgres postgres

# grep postgres /etc/passwd  /etc/group
/etc/passwd:postgres:x:90:90:PostgreSQL Reserved UID:/:/usr/bin/pfksh
/etc/group:postgres::90:

Setup

Convert Oracle Solaris 11.3 Native (Non-Global) Zone to a Kernel Zone

I think more and more people will start using Kernel Zone and I have a feeling that will soon be the only zone that Solaris will offer soon. So, I thought I would show how to convert a none-global zone into a kernel zone.

References:

• How to Get Started Creating Oracle Solaris Kernel Zones in Oracle Solaris 11 by Duncan Hardie
• Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Kernel Zones
• Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones

Oracle Solaris 11.3: SMB 2.1 will it make a difference

As you will be aware Oracle Solaris 11.3 supports SMB 2.1 which brings improvements over SMB/Samba 3.6 version on Solaris 11.2:

• Reduces the previous number of SMB 1.0 commands and sub commands from over a hundred to just 19 commands.
  
• Supports a new caching model called Lease. This model enables the client to have multiple opens on a single file which helps in holding on to the cache.
  
• Provides more scalable performance for high-speed networks and includes the following performance benefits:
  
  • SMB payload requests can scale up to 1MB instead of 64K.
    
  • Reduces CPU utilization on the server and client.
    
  • SMB clients gain the performance benefit of not losing local caching when the same file is opened multiple times.
    

Comparing SMB versions(dialect):
SMB 3.02: Windows 2012 R2
SMB 3.00: Windows 2012    , Samba 4.1
SMB 2.10: Windows 2008 R2 , Solaris 11.3
SMB 2.00: Windows 2008    , Samba 3.6 (dialect=1.5)
SMB 1.00:                 , Solaris 11.2 (dialect=1.5)

I decided to run some test on Windows 7 clients using IOzone Filesystem Benchmark to measure file performance (What you're really testing is your system's buffer cache + disk cache + disk speed combo) using a collection of different servers.

Oracle Solaris 11 Derived Manifest and modifying the boot system

This is a follow on from last last blog entry "Oracle Solaris 11 Derived Manifest with Automated Installation", where I mentioned that I could not examine the disk partitions of the new system since the aiuser does not have permission to run fdisk.

Quote: "The derived manifest script can run commands to read system attributes. AI runs the script as role aiuser. The aiuser role has all the privileges of a non-privileged user plus the following additional privileges: solaris.network.autoconf.read, solaris.smf.read.* 

The aiuser role is non-privileged except that it can read more information from the system than other non-privileged users. The aiuser role cannot change the system."

Oracle Solaris 11 Derived Manifest with Automated Installation

I have been looking at Derived Manifest recently so that I can have one manifest to control the installation of Oracle Solaris 11.2 FCS on our dual boot desktops.

Ref:

• Installing Using an Install Server (Solaris 11.2)
• Setting Up an AI Server (Solaris 11.2)
• Creating a Derived Manifest Script (Solaris 11.2)

PXE booting for Oracle Solaris using Windows DHCP server

A quick blog entry about getting Solaris PXE boot working with Microsoft Windows DHCP server. I was always told it was easy but I never managed to get it to working even though a lot of people I talked to had it working.

The problem was that our network was not correctly configured for PXEbooting. Problem was our network need PortFast enable (Good Ref: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and PortFast).

With that enabled it was a matter of just setting the right parameters in the Scope Options of the DHCP server. (Good ref: PXE booting with WDS – DHCP Scope vs IP Helpers)

Option 060: Client identifier. Set to PXEClient 
Option 066: Boot Server Host Name: Solaris_auto_installer
Option 067: Bootfile Name: 0143162EC46C31.bios 
Option 043: Vendor Specific Info: 01 04 00 00 00 00 FF (Ref: Differential Analysis - WDS & DHCP Separation ) 

With the above set your x86 systems will be able to find the AI Server.

Goodbye UW IMAP! Hello Dovecot! Oracle Solaris 11 setup guide for Dovecot

After many years of being faithful to UW IMAP it was time to move on. The move was required since UW IMAP was no longer being supported and I was having problems using it with latest version of Horde Webmail, so I decided to install Dovecot on our Oracle Solaris 11 systems.

I was surprised how easy the installation went to get Dovecot working on Solaris 11, which was pleasing.

References:

• Welcome to the Dovecot Wiki
• http://wiki2.dovecot.org/
• IMAP server with dovecot
• http://karellen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/imap-server-with-dovecot.html
• Solaris 10 に Dovecot 2.1 をインストールする方法
• http://blog.torigoya.net/2012/07/01/solaris10-dovecot

Install Firefox 30 (latest version) onto Oracle Solaris 11

As you know Oracle Solaris 11 (11.1, 11.2) comes with Firefox 17 ESR and Mozilla 17 ESR, which is very good news. I have had no problems with this version until now when I upgrade our Oracle Database 12c to 12.1.0.2 and found out that I could no longer access the Enterprise Manager Database Express via the browser since you require Firefox 24+.

Thankfully someone has compiled there our later version and placed them in mozilla contrib locations http://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases.

Setting up SSL for Solaris 11 LDAP (ldapclient to use LDAPS)

Following on from my last blog about "Setting up SSL for Solaris 11 LDAP client (changing AD password from Solaris)" I thought I would finish it off by changing my name service from LDAP to LDAPS. Hopefully your system is already talking to Active Directory over LDAP for all your authentication ("Solaris 11 Authentication Login with Active Directory").

Step 1: Setting up SSL for Solaris 11 LDAP client (changing AD password from Solaris)

Setting up SSL for Solaris 11 LDAP client (changing AD password from Solaris)

I have been using LDAP for years for our authentication and using LDAP Active Directory for about 3 years, but this was always using ldap so I thought I would start looking at SSL.

This blog entry will look at the initial setup and how you can talk to the AD server over SSL. The information here is nothing new and is all covered in the references but hope this shorter version helps.

References:

• Changing Active Directory passwords via LDAP using PHP
• http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~smp/resources/ad-passwds
• Enabling SSL in the Active Directory Connector
• http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E20295_01/html/821-0422/aarjc.html
•  Steps to setup SSL for Solaris LDAP client (certutil and openssl)
•  https://blogs.oracle.com/baban/entry/steps_to_setup_ssl_using 
•  Authenticating UNIX/Linux to Windows 2008R2. Part 2 : Solaris 10
•  http://osdude.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/authenticating-unixlinux-to-windows-2008r2-part-2-solaris-10/