blog.scottlowe.org » UNIX http://blog.scottlowe.org The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:43:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 en No Solaris-AD Integration Update http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/11/19/no-solaris-ad-integration-update/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/11/19/no-solaris-ad-integration-update/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:05:30 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/11/19/no-solaris-ad-integration-update/ I’m sorry, folks, but I’m not going to have the time or the resources to publish an update to my existing instructions for integrating Solaris 10 into Active Directory. Quite some time ago I had posted that I planned on creating an update to the original instructions so as to incorporate some lessons learned, but it keeps get pushed aside for other tasks that are more important and more relevant to my day-to-day work. Rather than keep readers hanging on for something that will likely never appear, I’d rather just be upfront and frank about the situation. As much as I’d love to spend some time working on the Solaris-AD integration situation and documenting my findings, I just don’t have the time. Sorry.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/11/19/no-solaris-ad-integration-update/feed/ In the Works http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/07/15/in-the-works/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/07/15/in-the-works/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:37:29 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/07/15/in-the-works/ I just wanted to provide a quick update on some articles I have in the works to be (hopefully) published soon.

  • I’m working on an article discussing when to use various NIC teaming configurations with VMware ESX. There are some significant repercussions here for a variety of network configurations, but especially so for configurations involving IP-based storage (iSCSI or NFS).
  • I’m finally wrapping up an article on the Xsigo I/O Director. I’ve been working a Xsigo VP780 in the lab for quite some time, and this article will provide a brief overview along with some tips and tricks.
  • I received word from HP that I should be getting a ProCurve switch in my lab soon, so that means I can provide a ProCurve-oriented version of this NIC teaming and VLAN trunking article.
  • I have some notes on using NetApp Open Systems SnapVault (OSSV) in conjunction with VMware ESX that I plan to post here as well.

New versions of the Linux and Solaris AD integration articles are on the way as well, starting with an update of the Solaris instructions to accommodate Solaris 10 Update 5 and Windows Server 2008.

If there’s anything else you’re interested in seeing, let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: The NIC utilization article is available here.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/07/15/in-the-works/feed/ New BSD Magazine http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/05/07/new-bsd-magazine/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/05/07/new-bsd-magazine/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 15:51:26 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/05/07/new-bsd-magazine/ http://www.bsdmag.org.]]> A new print magazine focused on the various BSD operating systems—FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD—has started up. You can get more information about the magazine at http://www.bsdmag.org.

I’ve written about OpenBSD several times here, and while I’m lightyears from being any sort of BSD expert I have a great deal of respect for the BSDs. (After all, Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD.) If I weren’t so incredibly overloaded on technologies as it is, I’d probably be interested in learning more about all the BSDs. Unfortunately, there’s only 24 hours in a day, and other technologies—like virtualization, VMware, storage, SANs, etc.—already keep me busy enough as it is.

Best of luck to the new BSD Magazine editors! I hope the new magazine is successful.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/05/07/new-bsd-magazine/feed/ Some Notes on Solaris-AD Integration http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/11/27/some-notes-on-solaris-ad-integration/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/11/27/some-notes-on-solaris-ad-integration/#comments Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:29:27 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/11/27/some-notes-on-solaris-ad-integration/ instructions for Solaris-AD integration, and here are some notes that I collected as a result.]]> This afternoon, I walked back through my own instructions for integrating Solaris 10 and Active Directory, and I found that the process wasn’t as smooth as perhaps I’d believed it to be.  As a result of walking back through the process again myself, I’ve collected some notes.  At some point in the near future, these notes will be integrated into a new version of the Solaris-AD integration instructions.

So, without further ado, here are the notes I collected in no particular order:

  • The Blastwave Samba package does not create it’s own smb.conf file in /opt/csw/etc/samba.  This is correctly pointed out in the latest integration instructions, but I wanted to mention it again here.  You’ll need to manually create the /opt/csw/etc/samba/smb.conf file before attempting to join the Solaris server to Active Directory via the ‘net ads join’ command.
  • The defaultServerList portion of the ‘ldapclient manual’ command only supports IP addresses.  The LDAP client service kept going into maintenance mode when using hostnames.  On a hunch, I substituted IP addresses for hostnames, and it worked.  Go figure.
  • Apparently, you can’t use ‘ldapclient mod’ to change an existing attribute map.  I had a hunch about resolving a co-existence issue where both Solaris and Linux are both authenticating against Active Directory—more on that particular topic is coming soon as well—and needed to change the attribute maps for the homedirectory and loginshell attributes.  I ended up editing the ldap_client_file manually (found in /var/ldap; must be made writable using chmod) in order to make the change.  If anyone has a more elegant fix, please let me know.
  • The ‘net ads join’ command correctly creates a Kerberos keytab with the appropriate entries, but places it in the wrong location.  On my test system, it placed the krb5.keytab file in the /etc directory, and Solaris expected it to be in /etc/krb5 instead.  Until I moved that file, authentication against Active Directory consistently failed.
  • It turns out that it’s not really necessary to enable the DNS client using ’svcadm enable svc:/network/dns/client:default’; from what I’ve been able to gather, that’s there as a dependency only.  The ‘nslookup’ and ‘host’ commands seemed to work just fine with this service still disabled.

Again, I’ll be incorporating these changes into a future version of the Solaris-AD integration instructions.  I hope to have that complete within the next week or two, so stay tuned.  In addition, I have information coming to help with the co-existence of multiple UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems all authenticating against the same Active Directory forest, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/11/27/some-notes-on-solaris-ad-integration/feed/ Apparently, I’m Ahead Too http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/10/21/apparently-im-ahead-too/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/10/21/apparently-im-ahead-too/#comments Sun, 21 Oct 2007 07:52:22 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/10/21/apparently-im-ahead-too/ learning Solaris puts me ahead of the curve, according to a recent article by Tom Yager of InfoWorld.]]> I used to read Tom Yager’s “Ahead of the Curve” column when InfoWorld was still a print publication.  Every month, without fail, as soon as the magazine arrived I turned right to his column.  It was one of my primary reasons for reading the magazine, at least in recent years.  I think it’s probably safe to say that Yager’s affection for Mac OS X led me to perform an evaluation of my own and, eventually, to switch to Mac OS X myself based on the results of that personal evaluation.

But then the magazine turned digital/online only, and I stopped following his column.  I already had enough stuff coming in to my various digital inboxes, and didn’t really need another.  Part of the allure of the column had been precisely that it wasn’t digital.

Fast forward to just the other day, when I stumble across his column once more and find that I, too, am “ahead of the curve.”  In his recent article The next best thing to OS X, Yager claims that Sun Solaris 10 is a great fit for places where Mac OS X isn’t.

Given that I have embarked upon a plan to learn Solaris, it’s kind of nice to see an “industry analyst” say that you’re making the right move and that you, too, are ahead of the curve.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/10/21/apparently-im-ahead-too/feed/ Solaris 10 Update 4 on ESX Server http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/09/06/solaris-10-update-4-on-esx-server-2/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/09/06/solaris-10-update-4-on-esx-server-2/#comments Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:28:44 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/09/06/solaris-10-update-4-on-esx-server-2/ CentOS 5.0 on ESX Server a couple of days ago, I didn't really expect any problems today when I tried Solaris 10 8/07 (Update 4) on ESX Server.  I suppose because this Solaris update is more evolutionary than revolutionary, I ran into fewer problems with Solaris than with CentOS.]]> I’ve been looking forward to Solaris 10 8/07 (Update 4) for a while now, eager to see what new technologies and features have been baked into the stable Solaris 10 code base.  I won’t go into all the new bells and whistles, partly because I’m just not knowledgeable enough about them to them justice, and partly because it’s been done better elsewhere.

I didn’t really expect any problems when I went to install Update 4 on ESX Server 3.0.2, and Solaris didn’t disappoint.  The new update installed quickly and flawlessly, and VMware Tools installed without a hitch.  After installation, I modified the VM configuration to use the Intel e1000 driver, mostly because I know that the e1000 driver is supported for VLAN interfaces, something I have been and will continue to be experimenting with over the next day or so.

<aside>By the way, if you’re having problems getting changes to the VMX file to stick (i.e., if VirtualCenter keeps overwriting your changes), then remove the VM from inventory, edit the file, then browse the datastore and add the VM back to inventory.  Your changes to the VMX file will now stick.</aside>

Now that I have Update 4 running on ESX Server, the next step is to try using Solaris Containers (zones) on the virtualized instance, as well as testing the new iSCSI target functionality in Solaris to provide iSCSI storage for the ESX hosts.  I’ll post more information here (it may be slightly delayed because I’ll be in San Francisco next week at VMworld) as soon as I’ve had the opportunity to conduct those tests and have some results.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/09/06/solaris-10-update-4-on-esx-server-2/feed/ VLAN Interfaces with OpenBSD 4.1 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/31/vlan-interfaces-with-openbsd-41/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/31/vlan-interfaces-with-openbsd-41/#comments Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:23:13 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/31/vlan-interfaces-with-openbsd-41/ I’ve been doing some interoperability testing with VMware ESX Server and VLANs (a separate article on that is in the works), and needed a guest OS that supported VLAN interfaces.  From my previous (but limited) experience with OpenBSD, I suspected that VLAN interfaces were indeed supported, and after setting up a quick VM running OpenBSD 4.1 I found that I was indeed correct.  Not only are they supported, they are incredibly easy to setup and configure.

The command to configure a VLAN interface is simply a variation of the standard ifconfig command (note that I’m using a backslash to denote a line continuation, so that I can wrap lines here for readability):

ifconfig <VLAN interface name> vlan <VLAN ID> \
vlandev <physical network device>

So, by example, the command I used to create a VLAN interface for VLAN ID 3 looked like this:

ifconfig vlan3 vlan 3 vlandev pcn0

I did find that I couldn’t name the VLAN interface (“vlan3”, in this case) anything other than vlanX, where X was a number.  I don’t know if this is an OpenBSD limitation, or just an error on my part.  The latter is certainly a distinct possibility.

Once the VLAN interface, is created, then I just followed the standard OpenBSD way of provisioning an interface—create /etc/hostname.ifname (where ifname is the name of the VLAN interface) for each VLAN interface and that should be that.

The ESX Server configuration to support these VLAN interfaces at the guest level was pretty easy, too.  I just had to create a port group with a VLAN ID of 4095 and attach the OpenBSD guest to that port group.  ESX Server automatically passed the VLAN tags up to the guest and everything worked as expected.  (Again, I’ll have a separate article on that published soon.)

Next, perhaps I’ll try this with Linux or Solaris…

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/31/vlan-interfaces-with-openbsd-41/feed/ SUNW to JAVA http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/26/sunw-to-java/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/26/sunw-to-java/#comments Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:59:11 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/26/sunw-to-java/ SUNW to JAVA just not make sense?]]> I’m not a Solaris expert, nor a SPARC expert, nor even a longtime user of their products.  But I do have a lot of respect for their recent engineering efforts in the x86 space, particularly those hardware products released since Andy Bechtolsheim’s return with the acquisition of Kealia a couple of years ago.  The move to open-source Solaris, the increasing visibility of OpenSolaris, the introduction of exciting new technologies such as ZFS…all these things have been building up the “tech cred” that Sun needs to win back (or continue to hold on to) the hearts and minds of technical leaders.  And then this happens—they announce they’re changing the stock ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA.  Huh?

Is it just me, or does this not make sense?  I suppose I kind of see the reasoning behind the move, although I don’t agree with the reasoning.  It all smacks of rebranding all the products with Java, even though most of them didn’t (and don’t) have anything to do with Java.

It all just seems silly to me.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/08/26/sunw-to-java/feed/ Learning Solaris http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/07/31/learning-solaris/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/07/31/learning-solaris/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:49:38 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/07/31/learning-solaris/ Solaris (specifically, Solaris 10 on x86) as the next major technology that I'm going to try to learn.  If anyone has suggestions for resources, websites, blogs, books, hands-on experiments, etc., that might be helpful, I'm open to hear them.]]> I’ve targeted Solaris (specifically, Solaris 10 on x86) as the next major technology that I’m going to try to learn.  I’ve always been fascinated with UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux, and Linux’s popularity on the x86 platform made it much easier to learn because I didn’t have to acquire any exotic hardware.  With Sun’s (apparent) renewed interest in x86/x64, Solaris is much more accessible now than it was in the past.

Obviously, I’m not a complete newbie to the Solaris environment, having written a couple articles on Solaris-AD integration (the latest being found here).  However, I don’t feel like I have a solid understanding of the operating system and its architecture, and I’d feel much more comfortable with that information under my belt.  At some point, the IT industry being what it is, I’ll need to seek some sort of Solaris certification, but that’s not my primary goal.  Understanding the product itself is my primary goal; certification will merely be a side effect.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  • I’ve created a Solaris 10 (32 bit) virtual machine on my VMware ESX Server farm; that’s been the system I’ve used mostly for testing the Active Directory integration instructions.  I’ve also done some work with the automounter (automounting home directories via NFS).
  • I’ve also just recently gotten a Solaris 10 (64 bit) VM running under VMware Fusion on my MacBook Pro; I’ll use that system for more day-to-day operational tasks and getting used to the interface.
  • I have a group of Solaris- and UNIX-related RSS feeds in NetNewsWire, including BigAdmin (What’s New and Feature Articles), Inchoate Curmudgeon, and a del.icio.us tag feed, among others.

I’d certainly appreciate any suggestions from those who may have already been down this path as to specific projects I should undertake, books I should acquire, websites to frequent, RSS feeds to which I should subscribe, etc.  In addition, any guidance as to how I should balance Solaris vs. OpenSolaris (on which one should I focus more effort?) would be very helpful.  And what builds of Solaris/Solaris Express are most beneficial to use?  I’m currently using Solaris 10 Update 3, but I’m not sure if a different build would be better to work with.  That’s the kind of information that would be great to get from those wiser and more experienced.

Wish me luck!

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/07/31/learning-solaris/feed/ OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX Server 3.0.1 http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/05/23/openbsd-41-on-esx-server-301/ http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/05/23/openbsd-41-on-esx-server-301/#comments Wed, 23 May 2007 15:13:01 +0000 slowe http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/05/23/openbsd-41-on-esx-server-301/ OpenBSD, I decided to test the latest version on my server farm running ESX Server 3.0.1.  I was a bit concerned, since this blogger experienced some problems running OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX Server 2.5, but everything seemed to work just fine for me.]]> Having tested a couple of the previous releases of OpenBSD on various versions of ESX Server (OpenBSD 3.8 here and version 3.9 here), I decided to test OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX Server 3.0.1.  I didn’t really expect any problems at first, but then I stumbled across this article describing a problem between OpenBSD 4.1 and ESX Server 2.5.  Fortunately, it appears as if that problem does not affect ESX Server 3.0.1.

The VM configuration was pretty straightforward; just change the SCSI controller to LSI Logic instead of BusLogic and everything should work beautifully.  The OpenBSD 4.1 release notes indicate a new driver for the VMware VMXnet NIC driver, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test this yet; my installation is still using the pcn0 driver.

After installing OpenBSD, I was able to successfully install a number of packages using pkg_add (pulling the packages down via FTP).  Not confident that I had transferred enough data to be sure that I wasn’t going to see the same issue the other blogger ran into with his installation, I fired up Interarchy and transferred a 450MB ISO file via SFTP.  The file transfer completed successfully and I ran into no problems.

I’ll likely experiment with adding the VMXnet driver within the next few days to see how that works and how it affects network performance.

Similar Posts:]]> http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/05/23/openbsd-41-on-esx-server-301/feed/