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SunFire Systems Design and Configuration GuideSunFire Systems Design and Configuration Guide

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Qualifying a Solaris Configuration

This section defines what qualifying a Solaris configuration is, describes the tested and supported software chosen in this article for minimization, and defines what is not supported.

This section contains the following topics:

  • "What Is Qualification?" on page 8

  • "What Software Is Supported?" on page 8

  • "Solaris OE Versions" on page 8

  • "Solaris Secure Shell" on page 8

  • "Domain-Specific Components" on page 9

  • "Support Software Components" on page 10

  • "Additional Applications" on page 12

What Is Qualification?

Qualification is the process of identifying packages needed for an application by applying the minimization methodology to it. (See "Minimization Methodology" on page 21.)

The software and software versions in this article were chosen as a representative sample, meeting many customer needs based on typical usage of Sun Fire V1280, 6800, 12K, and 15K domains.

What Software Is Supported?

The software mentioned in this article is provided as an example of minimizing a Solaris domain and does not imply that Sun provides support for issues with third-party applications. For example, although ORACLE 9i is used as an example in this article, Sun does not provide support for the ORACLE software or attempt to produce a minimized configuration for it.

Sun provides support only for a minimized domain the software runs on; providing that the minimized configuration is based on one of the defined profiles in this article and the configuration is not missing any of the required packages.

Sun does support other Sun applications such as Sun ONE Application Server, Sun Validation Test Suite software, and so on, described in this document.

Solaris OE Versions

We selected Solaris OE versions 8 and 9 as the baseline to use for domain minimization. For UltraSPARC III based Sun Fire V1280, 6800, 12K, and 15K systems, you can use Solaris OE versions 8 or 9. If you use Solaris 8 OE, we recommend Solaris 8 (2/02) OE. For Solaris 9 OE, we used the Solaris 9 (12/02) OE.

All software testing was performed on both Solaris OE versions 8 and 9, unless noted.

Solaris Secure Shell

Solaris Secure Shell is a replacement for unsecured services such as Telnet, FTP, and r*(rcp, rsh, etc) commands. Solaris Secure Shell provides a medium for secure communication between networked hosts, and it avoids the legacy security problems unsecured services had, such as sending passwords unencrypted and session data being prone to snooping network traffic.

Solaris 9 OE incorporates bundled and supported Secure Shell software. Solaris 8 OE does not include supported Secure Shell software.

This article uses OpenSSH in its Solaris 8 OE domain testing; however, it is not a supported element in the configuration. OpenSSH can be downloaded at http://www.sunfreeware.com. For more information about OpenSSH, refer to http://www.openssh.org and to the Sun BluePrints book titled Secure Shell in the Enterprise.

Domain-Specific Components

Sun Fire systems have critical components in them to increase reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). The software is specialized for the hardware it supports and is redundant on other systems.

Dynamic Reconfiguration

Dynamic reconfiguration (DR) is the process of modifying a running domain by adding or removing hardware components, such as CPU or IO boards, without bringing the domain down.

Capacity On Demand 2.0

Capacity on Demand 2.0 software allows enforcement of policies regarding usage of additional CPU boards. It is a facility that allows adding new boards to domains by installing RTU license keys. It provides an ability to monitor capacity-on-demand resources through commands executed on the SC.

Capacity on demand is a CPU-only transaction. The software is part of Sun Management Services 1.3 on the Sun Fire 12K and 15K, and part of the firmware on the Sun Fire 6800 SC.

Capacity On Demand 2.0 software uses the License Processing System (LPS) on the Sun Fire 6800, 12K, and 15K SC for tracking usage. LPS is stored in the non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) on Sun Fire 6800 SCs and stored in the file system of the Sun Fire 12K and 15K systems.

NOTE

The Sun Fire V1280 firmware 5.13.13 does not support Capacity On Demand 2.0 software.

Sun Management Services 1.3

Sun Management Services 1.3 is the latest version of the Sun Fire 12K and 15K domain management software. It allows administrators to perform configuration and administrative tasks to domains; allows dynamic reconfiguration events to be scheduled; allows monitoring of running domains; and allows diagnostics to be performed on domains.

Sun Management Center 3.5 Domain Agent Software

Sun Management Center 3.5 is the standard GUI interface that Sun uses for configuring and monitoring system resources.

Additional products build on top of the Sun Management Center framework and use its plug-in architecture to expose their functionality. A good example of this is the SMS 1.3, which uses the plug-in architecture of Sun Management Center to provide the ability to execute dynamic reconfiguration from it.

Sun Management Center 3.5 server is installed on an external Solaris system. Software has to be installed on the domain for Sun Management Center 3.5 to be able to monitor it. Only the domain agent software needs to be installed.

NOTE

Some of the examples in this article refer to Sun Management Center 3.0. Note that Sun Management Center 3.5 became available during the writing of this article, and it is that version which is supported on minimized configurations defined in this article. The most important thing to gain from the examples that refer to Sun Management Center 3.0 is the problem being addressed, rather than the fact it occurred with a specific version of the software.

Support Software Components

The following applications allow users to maintain the integrity of their systems by keeping up-to-date with system patches. Also, these applications allow Sun service personnel to quickly and efficiently gather valuable information about system state.

Solaris Patch Manager 1.0

Solaris Patch Manager is a patch management system that allows easy analysis of patches required for a domain; provides an ability to automatically keep patch levels current; and can validate the authenticity of signed patches that are downloaded.

Sun Explorer 4.1

Sun Explorer data collector is a collection of scripts that gathers system information and generates a report.

NOTE

Generated reports can be automatically emailed to Sun, if outbound Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) is enabled.

Sun Explorer data collector is included with Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0. The most current version as of this article is version 4.1.

Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0

Sun Remote Services Net Connect is a web-based, remote monitoring, data collection, and system configuration reporting service.

It provides an ability for an administrator to self-monitor Sun systems. For customers with support contracts, such as SunSpectrum Gold or SunSpectrum Platinum, Sun Remote Services Net Connect data output can be sent to Sun for analysis.

NOTE

Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0 currently does not work on the Sun Fire V1280. Check for software patches or updates after the release of this article.

Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0.x should be installed on each domain of a system and configured according to the Customer Installation Guide. The security implications for installing and configuring Sun Remote Services Net Connect are beyond the scope of this article.

NOTE

Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0 installs Sun Explorer data collector as part of the installation. It inspects the system for any installed versions of Sun Explorer data collector. If a different release is present, such as v4.0, then Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0 installation routine asks to uninstall the other version and install the version included with Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0. If the user does not select uninstall, then the Sun Remote Services Net Connect 3.0 installation aborts.

Sun Validation Test Suite 5.1

Sun Validation Test Suite 5.1 performs diagnostic tests to validate Sun hardware by checking the connectivity and functionality of hardware devices, controllers, and peripherals.

Additional Applications

The following applications are often bundled with the Solaris 9 OE. These applications are compatible with Solaris 8 OE and are tested on both versions.

ORACLE 9i

ORACLE 9i is a fully featured version of Oracle's RDBMS. This application is popular for use on domains.

Sun ONE Software

Sun ONE (formerly iPlanet™) Application Server is a subset of the components that make up the Sun Open Network Environment suite of applications.

The components on which this article focuses are the following:

  • Sun ONE Web Server 6.0.

  • Sun ONE Application Server Enterprise Edition 6.5.

  • Sun ONE Application Server Platform Edition 7.0.

NOTE

Sun ONE Application Server Enterprise Edition 7.0 was not available at the time of writing this article.

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