Unix


I built a stock Solaris 10 VM in the lab a few weeks ago. After adding the fifth zone to it to host a NIS domain, it started suffering “out of memory” errors like the following:
May 3 14:30:59 sol10-a tmpfs: [ID 518458 kern.warning] WARNING: /tmp: File system full, swap space limit exceeded
May 3 14:31:53 sol10-a tmpfs: [ID 518458 kern.warning] WARNING: /zones/sol10-z5/root/etc/svc/volatile: File system full, swap space limit exceeded
May 3 14:32:10 sol10-a tmpfs: [ID 518458 kern.warning] WARNING: /tmp: File system full, swap space limit exceeded
May 3 14:32:34 sol10-a genunix: [ID 470503 kern.warning] WARNING: Sorry, no swap space to grow stack for pid 5650 (cron)

This is easy to fix if you know Solaris administration, but if not:
-bash-3.00# swap -l
No swap devices configured

This is a problem. The simple answer is to add more swap space, staring with a new disk to *host* the swap space. I added a 2GB thin-provisioned disk to the ESX VM, rebooted it, then ran the following:
-bash-3.00# devfsadm
-bash-3.00# format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c1t0d0 <default cyl 4092 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32>
/pci@0,0/pci15ad,1976@10/sd@0,0
1. c1t1d0 <default cyl 2085 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63> zones
/pci@0,0/pci15ad,1976@10/sd@1,0
2. c1t2d0 <default cyl 1021 alt 2 hd 128 sec 32>
/pci@0,0/pci15ad,1976@10/sd@2,0
Specify disk (enter its number): 2
selecting c1t2d0
[disk formatted]

FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
type - select (define) a disk type
partition - select (define) a partition table
current - describe the current disk
format - format and analyze the disk
fdisk - run the fdisk program
repair - repair a defective sector
label - write label to the disk
analyze - surface analysis
defect - defect list management
backup - search for backup labels
verify - read and display labels
save - save new disk/partition definitions
inquiry - show vendor, product and revision
volname - set 8-character volume name
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
format> fdisk
No fdisk table exists. The default partition for the disk is:

a 100% "SOLARIS System" partition

Type "y" to accept the default partition, otherwise type "n" to edit the
partition table.
y
format> part

PARTITION MENU:
0 - change `0' partition
1 - change `1' partition
2 - change `2' partition
3 - change `3' partition
4 - change `4' partition
5 - change `5' partition
6 - change `6' partition
7 - change `7' partition
select - select a predefined table
modify - modify a predefined partition table
name - name the current table
print - display the current table
label - write partition map and label to the disk
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
partition> print
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 1020 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wu 0 - 1019 1.99GB (1020/0/0) 4177920
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
8 boot wu 0 - 0 2.00MB (1/0/0) 4096
9 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0

partition> 0
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0

Enter partition id tag[unassigned]: swap
Enter partition permission flags[wm]:
Enter new starting cyl[1]:
Enter partition size[0b, 0c, 1e, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]: 2g
`2.00gb' is out of range
Enter partition size[0b, 0c, 1e, 0.00mb, 0.00gb]: 1.99g
partition> print
Current partition table (unnamed):
Total disk cylinders available: 1020 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 swap wm 1 - 1019 1.99GB (1019/0/0) 4173824
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wu 0 - 1019 1.99GB (1020/0/0) 4177920
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
8 boot wu 0 - 0 2.00MB (1/0/0) 4096
9 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
[611/1860]
partition> label
Ready to label disk, continue? y

partition> quit

FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
type - select (define) a disk type
partition - select (define) a partition table
current - describe the current disk
format - format and analyze the disk
fdisk - run the fdisk program
repair - repair a defective sector
label - write label to the disk
analyze - surface analysis
defect - defect list management
backup - search for backup labels
verify - read and display labels
save - save new disk/partition definitions
inquiry - show vendor, product and revision
volname - set 8-character volume name
!<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
quit
format> label
Ready to label disk, continue? y

format> quit
-bash-3.00# swap -a /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0
-bash-3.00# swap -l
swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 32,192 8 4173816 4173816
-bash-3.00# echo "/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 - - swap - no -" >> /etc/vfstab

To recap:
devfsadm
format
2
fdisk
y
part
print
0
swap

1.99g
label
y
quit
label
y
quit
swap -a /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0
swap -l
echo "/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 - - swap - no -" >> /etc/vfstab

yes, one of those is a blank line to accept the default cylinder “1”.
The info for this post was taken very directly from UtahSysAdmin.com. Huge thank you to Kevin for his post, which I needed to modify slightly to get my VM running.

EDIT: I am currently unsure if the last “echo” statement is right. After a recent reboot, swap wasn’t mounted untill I removed that entry from /etc/vfstab. Soliciting comments. Thanks!

I ran into a problem 2 years ago where I couldn’t remember the native packet capture tool for Solaris and couldn’t install tcpdump, so i thought I’d put down as many as many native packet capture commands as I knew, by OS, in a single place.  I’ll update this as I find more, since there’s hundreds of Operating systems out there.

  • AIX: iptrace: /usr/sbin/iptrace [ -a ] [ -b ][ -e ] [ -u ] [ -PProtocol_list ] [ -iInterface ] [ -pPort_list ] [ -sHost [ -b ] ] [ -dHost ] [ -L Log_size ] [ -B ] [ -T ] [ -S snap_length] LogFile
  • FreeBSD: tcpdump (I think): tcpdump [ -adeflnNOpqRStuvxX ] [ -c count ] [ -C file_size ] [ -F file ] [ -i interface ] [ -m module ] [ -r file ] [ -s snaplen ] [ -T type ] [ -w file ] [ -E algo:secret ] [ expression ]
  • HP-UX: nettl: nettl requires a daemon start, and other setup: /usr/sbin/nettl -traceon kind… -entity subsystem… [-card dev_name…] [-file tracename] [-m bytes] [-size portsize] [-tracemax maxsize] [-n num_files] [-mem init_mem [max_mem]] [-bind cpu_id] [-timer timer_value]
  • Linux 2.4 and higher:
    • tcpdump (some distros): tcpdump [ -AdDefKlLnNOpqRStuUvxX ] [ -c count ] [ -C file_size ] [ -G rotate_seconds ] [ -F file ] [ -i interface ] [ -m module ] [ -M secret ] [ -r file ] [ -s snaplen ] [ -T type ] [ -w file ] [ -W filecount ] [ -E spi@ipaddr algo:secret,… ] [ -y datalinktype ] [ -z postrotate-command ] [ -Z user ] [ expression ]
    • wireshark (some distros, used to be called “ethereal”): GUI-config, no command-line, use tethereal (now tshark) for that
    • tshark: tshark [ -a <capture autostop condition> ] … [ -b <capture ring buffer option>] … [ -B <capture buffer size (Win32 only)> ]  [ -c <capture packet count> ] [ -C <configuration profile> ] [ -d <layer type>==<selector>,<decode-as protocol> ] [ -D ] [ -e <field> ] [ -E <field print option> ] [ -f <capture filter> ] [ -F <file format> ] [ -h ] [ -i <capture interface>|- ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -n ] [ -N <name resolving flags> ] [ -o <preference setting> ] … [ -p ] [ -q ] [ -r <infile> ] [ -R <read (display) filter> ] [ -s <capture snaplen> ] [ -S ] [ -t ad|a|r|d|e ] [ -T pdml|psml|ps|text|fields ] [ -v ] [ -V ] [ -w <outfile>|- ] [ -x ] [ -X <eXtension option>] [ -y <capture link type> ] [ -z <statistics> ] [ <capture filter> ]
  • Mac OSX: tcpdump (among others): tcpdump [ -adeflnNOpqRStuvxX ] [ -c count ] [ -C file_size ] [ -F file ] [ -i interface ] [ -m module ] [ -r file ] [ -s snaplen ] [ -T type ] [ -w file ] [ -E algo:secret ] [ expression ]
  • Solaris: snoop: snoop [ -aPDSvVNC ] [ -d device ] [ -s snaplen ] [ -c maxcount ] [ -i filename ] [ -o filename ] [ -n filename ] [ -t [ r | a | d ] ] [ -p first [ , last ] ] [ -x offset [ , length ] ] [ expression ]
  • Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and beyond:

Any others anyone wants added (or corrected), just comment or email and I’ll update this.
(Edit 7/29/08 – change tcpdump link)
(Edit 10/13/08 – add tshark info, thanks Jefferson!, and wireshark on Windows)
(Edit 2/23/2012 – repost since a DB problem lost this post.  Thanks wayback machine!)

A quick CLI reference for perl people…

perl -e ' my @t=localtime(time() + $ARGV[0]*24*60*60); $t[4]++; $t[5]+=1900; print "$t[4]/$t[3]/$t[5]\n";' XX

I’ve needed this 2x today already, and hope it helps you!

Edit:
Someone made a comment, as people on the internet are prone to do, so here’s the long-form non-one-liner version:


#!/usr/bin/perl
my $addDays = shift;
my ($second, $minute, $hour, $day, $month, $year, $dayOfWeek, $dayOfYear, $daylightSavings) = localtime(time());
my ($fsecond, $fminute, $fhour, $fday, $fmonth, $fyear, $fdayOfWeek, $fdayOfYear, $fdaylightSavings) = localtime(time() + $addDays*24*60*60);

#fix 0 = 1 values, and "0 = 1900" problem:
$month++;
$fmonth++;
$year+=1900;
$fyear+=1900;

print "today is: $month/$day/$year\n";
print "$addDays days from today is: $fmonth/$fday/$fyear\n";

Run it as:

rob@laptop:~$ fdate.pl 50
today is: 1/25/2012
50 days from today is: 3/15/2012

We had an issue recently where we needed a dummy krb5.keytab file for an operation prior to creating the real keytab:
echo -e "\0005\0002\c" >/etc/krb5.keytab

I’ve been working on something completely new for the past 2 months which has involved a lot of travel. 95% travel, which leaves precious little time to write new articles, especially as I’ve been spending my off-hours learning HP-UX 11 and Solaris 8 and 10. And I still have AIX 5 to learn too.

Apperantly Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris have a little quirk around how they work with DHCP and setting the system’s DNS name. In our test lab, all our systems are assigned addresses via Microsoft DHCP, which then registers (and un-registers) non-Windows systems in DNS properly. However, the x86 Solaris systems we built for a customer test came up with name “unknown”, every single reboot. Changing /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname.pcn0 or /etc/hostname.vmxnet0 (physical or VMWare) to reflect the new proper hostname, however, didn’t affect the server on reboot – the settings would still be there, but not reflected in the OS, in /etc/hosts, or in DNS.

A bit of searching turns out a bunch of posts talking about editing /etc/nodename to put in the system name, but that file doesn’t exist out of the box on a “complete” or “minimal” install, and I’m always hesitant to create new files by hand in /etc/ unless I’m 100% sure that’s what’s needed. According to this post on Sun.com, some logic, and some testing, I think what’s going on is:

  1. Solaris expects DHCP to set the hostname of a system based on MAC address
  2. In case DHCP does not set a hostname via MAC address, or if that hostname is wrong, Solaris provides an override mechanism called /etc/nodename
  3. Because it’s an override, /etc/nodename is not created as a blank file, since that could be construed as “override DHCP with nothing”
  4. Therefore, every new box I build needs touching after final login

I’m not a huge fan of this, but I’m also not a fan of the number of times I need to click a mouse on an OS Install using software from the last year. The short version of all this is:

If you have a Solaris 10 box on DHCP named “unknown”, best practices is to set the hostname on the DHCP server. Otherwise echo newservername > tee /etc/nodename and reboot. (with “tee” in the pipeline, you can “sudo” this command as well).