What's New for System Administrators
This chapter highlights new system administration features that have been added to the Solaris 9 operating environment.
System Resources Enhancements
Description | Release Date |
|---|---|
Solaris 9 Resource Manager Solaris 9 Resource Manager provides improvements to the management of system resources and enables system administrators to do the following:
The resource controls framework allows you to set constraints on the system resources that are consumed by processes and tasks, which are collections of processes that are related to a single activity. Resource pools provide a way to partition system resources, such as processors, and maintain those partitions across reboots. A new fair share scheduler (FSS) has been added that allows the fine-grained sharing of CPU resources on a system. These features enhance your ability to manage how resources are allocated to applications in a server consolidation environment. In the Solaris 9 release, the full functionality is administered through a command-line interface. Performance monitoring and the setting of resource controls can also be done through the Solaris Management Console. For more information on resource management, see the following:
| Solaris 9 |
New Fixed-Priority (FX) Scheduling Class The FX scheduler provides a scheduling policy for processes that require user or application control of scheduling priorities. The priorities of processes that run under FX are fixed. These priorities are not dynamically adjusted by the system. The FX class has the same priority range as the TS, IA, and FSS classes. For more information on the FX scheduler, see the Programming Interfaces Guide and the Multithreaded Programming Guide, and the priocntl(1) and dispadmin(1M) man pages. For restrictions on using the FX and FSS schedulers on the same system, see "Fair Share Scheduler" in the System Administration Guide: Resource Management and Network Services. | Solaris 9 |
New Display Options for the df, du, and ls Commands The df, du, and ls -l commands have a new -h option to display disk usage and file or file system sizes in powers of 1024. This option simplifies interpretation of the output of the df, du, and ls -l commands by providing disk space in Kbytes, Mbytes, Gbytes, or Tbytes if the file or directory size is larger than 1024 bytes. For additional information on these display options, see "New df, du, and lsOptions". See the df(1M), du(1), and ls(1) man pages for further information. | Solaris 9 |
Improved Process Debugging With the pargs and preap Commands Two new commands, pargs and preap, improve process debugging. You can use the pargs command to print the arguments and environment variables that are associated with a live process or core file. Use the preap command to remove zombie processes. For additional information on these commands, see "pargs and preap Commands". See the preap(1) man page and the proc(1) man page for information on using these commands. | Solaris 9 |
Networking
Feature Description | Release Date |
|---|---|
iPlanet Directory Server Integration The Solaris 9 release provides an integrated version of the iPlanet Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory. The iPlanet Directory Server is a powerful, distributed directory server that is designed to manage an enterprise-wide directory of users and resources. This scalable directory service can be used for intranet applications, extranets with trading partners, and e-commerce applications to reach customers over the Internet. The Directory Server is managed through the iPlanet Console, the graphical user interface that is provided with the iPlanet Directory Server. Administrators use the Console to grant access rights, manage databases, configure the directory, and replicate the data to multiple directory servers. Users access the data through any LDAP-enabled client application, such as applications that were developed with the iPlanet LDAP Software Developers Kits (SDKs) for C and the Java™ programming language. Configuration for setup of the iPlanet Directory Server has been simplified by using idsconfig. Server and client configuration information is available in the System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP). See also the iPlanet Directory Server 5.1 Collection at http://docs.sun.com. This collection includes the following books:
The iPlanet LDAP Directory Server 5.1 is integrated in the Solaris 9 release. For licensing terms, refer to the binary code license. | Solaris 9 |
Naming Service Support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Naming service support has been enhanced in the Solaris 9 release. Changes include the following:
For information on security features in the Solaris 9 release, including the Secure LDAP Client, see "Security Enhancements". For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP). | Solaris 9 |
NIS+-to-LDAP Migration Tools The Solaris 9 release announces end-of-software-support for NIS+ and the move to the LDAP-based naming environment. This release includes migration tools to use for migrating from NIS+ to LDAP. For more information on the NIS+ announcement, refer to the following Web site: http://www.sun.com/directory/nisplus/transition.html A detailed discussion of how to migrate from the NIS+ naming service to LDAP is included in the System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (FNS and NIS+). For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP). | Solaris 9 |
Solaris PPP 4.0 Solaris PPP 4.0 enables a system in one location to communicate over telephone lines or leased communications media with a system at a remote location. This implementation of the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is based on the widely used Australian National University (ANU) PPP, and is entirely new for the Solaris operating environment. PPP 4.0 is easily configured through a set of files. PPP 4.0 supports both asynchronous and synchronous communications and offers Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) and Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) authentication. Because Solaris PPP 4.0 is highly configurable, customers can easily tailor PPP to fit their remote communications needs. Also provided is the asppp2pppd conversion script for migrating from the earlier Solaris PPP (asppp) to Solaris PPP 4.0. PPP 4.0 now includes the PPPoE feature, which enables the use of tunneling with PPP. Support for PPPoE was introduced in the Solaris 8 10/01 release. For further information, see the PPP module in the System Administration Guide: Resource Management and Network Services and the pppd(1M) man page. For information on licensing terms, refer to the incorporated material at the following locations: /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWpppd/install/copyright /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWpppdu/install/copyright /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWpppg/install/copyright | Solaris 8 7/01 Updated in Solaris 8 10/01 and Solaris 9 |
Sun Internet FTP Server Sun Internet FTP Server™, hereafter called the FTP Server, is fully compatible with the Solaris 8 FTP software while offering new capability and improvements to performance for Solaris 9 users. The Solaris 9 FTP Server is based on WU-ftpd. Originally developed by Washington University, WU-ftpd is widely used for the distribution of bulk data over the Internet and is the preferred standard for large FTP sites. | Solaris 9 |
Sun RPC Library Extensions The RPC library extensions project extends the Sun ONC+™ RPC library with an asynchronous protocol. Programming interfaces have been added to the Transport Independent Remote Procedure Calls to provide one-way asynchronous messaging and non-blocking I/O. Sun's Telco Platform users can use the RPC library extensions to help with significant semantic changes to the RPC interface. The extensions are useful to customers who require synchronous and asynchronous protocols that require a single-vendor solution. The library extensions provide a range of operations and a level of availability that Sun's network equipment provider customers demand. For further information on ONC+ development, see the ONC+ Developer's Guide. | Solaris 9 |
Enhancements to sendmail The following new features are available in sendmail version 8.12, which is included in the Solaris 9 operating environment:
The following details might be of particular interest:
For further information, see the "Mail Services Topics" in System Administration Guide: Resource Management and Network Services. The series of chapters on mail services provides overview information, some procedures for setting up and modifying your mail service and for troubleshooting, some background information, and details about all of the new features. Note - Version 8.10 of sendmail was first available in the Solaris 8 4/01 operating environment. Version 8.12 of sendmail is available in the Solaris 9 operating environment. | Solaris 8 4/01 Updated in Solaris 9 |
Solaris Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA) The Solaris Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA) has been improved with the addition of a sockets interface to NCA, through which any web server can communicate with NCA with minimal modifications. Web servers such as Apache, iPlanet Web Server, and Zeus are able to make use of NCA performance by using standard socket library functions. Also, NCA now supports vectored sendfile, which provides support for AF_NCA. Finally, the ncab2clf command has been enhanced by adding new options to support the ability to skip records before a selected date and to process a particular number of records when converting log files. For more information about NCA, see "Managing Web Cache Servers" in the System Administration Guide: Resource Management and Network Services. | Solaris 8 7/01 Updated in Solaris 9 |
IP Network Multipathing IP network multipathing provides your system with recovery from single-point failures with network adapters and increased traffic throughput. As of the Solaris 8 10/00 release, if a failure occurs in the network adapter, and if you have an alternate adapter connected to the same IP link, the system switches all the network accesses automatically from the failed adapter to the alternate adapter. This process ensures uninterrupted access to the network. Also, when you have multiple network adapters connected to the same IP link, you achieve increased traffic throughput by spreading the traffic across multiple network adapters. As of the Solaris 8 4/01 release, dynamic reconfiguration (DR) uses IP network multipathing to decommission a specific network device, with no impact on existing IP users. The Solaris 8 7/01 release introduced the new IPMP Reboot Safe feature. When a failed NIC is removed from the system by using dynamic reconfiguration, and a reboot occurs prior to reinsertion of a functioning NIC, the system attempts, but fails, to plumb an interface for the missing NIC. Rather than lose the IP address, the IPMP Reboot Safe feature transfers the IP address to another NIC in the IPMP interface group. For more information, see "IP Network Multipathing Topics" in the System Administration Guide: IP Services. | Solaris 8 10/00 Updated in Solaris 8 4/01 and 7/01 |
IP Network Multipathing DLPI Link-Up and Link-Down Notification Support Link-down notifications enable the IP multipathing daemon to detect physical link failures faster. When a network interface is started, the IP multipathing daemon attempts to enable link-up and link-down notifications from the network interface driver. If the driver supports this feature, a link-down notification is generated when the interface detects the loss of the physical link to the network. A link-up notification is generated when the physical link is restored. The RUNNING flag is unset when a link-down notification is received, and set when a link-up notification is received. The IP multipathing daemon uses the RUNNING flag to monitor the physical link state. For more information, see the IP network multipathing chapters in the System Administration Guide: IP Services. | Solaris 9 |
Mobile Internet Protocol Mobile Internet Protocol (Mobile IP) enables the transfer of information to and from mobile computers, such as laptop and wireless communications. As of the Solaris 8 6/00 release, the mobile computer can change its location to a foreign network and still access and communicate with and through the mobile computer's home network. The Solaris implementation of Mobile IP supports only IPv4. As of the Solaris 8 4/01 release, Mobile IP enables system administrators to set up reverse tunnels. By setting up a reverse tunnel from the mobile node's care-of address to the home agent, you ensure a topologically correct source address for the IP data packet. By using reverse tunnels, system administrators can also assign private addresses to mobile nodes. For more information on the Mobile Internet Protocol, see "Mobile IP Topics" in the System Administration Guide: IP Services. | Solaris 8 6/00 Updated in Solaris 8 4/01 |
Mobile Internet Protocol (Mobile IP) Agent Advertisements Over Dynamic Interfaces Dynamically created interfaces are interfaces that are configured after the mipagent daemon starts. You can now configure the foreign agent implementation to send advertisements over dynamically created interfaces. You can also enable or disable some unsolicited advertisements over the advertising interfaces. For more information on Mobile Internet Protocol, see "Mobile IP Topics" in the System Administration Guide: IP Services. | Solaris 9 |
Berkeley Internet Name Domain An updated version of Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) has been integrated in the Solaris 9 release. The updated version is BIND version 8.2.4. BIND functionality includes the following:
For more information, see the System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP). | Solaris 8 4/01 Updated in Solaris 9 |
Networking Freeware See "Freeware" for information about GNU wget 1.6, Ncftp Client 3.0.3, and Samba 2.2.2 in the Solaris 9 release.
| Solaris 9 |
System Administration Tools
Feature Description | Release Date |
|---|---|
Solaris Volume Manager Solaris Volume Manager provides storage management tools that enable you to create and manage RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5 volumes, as well as transactional (logging) devices and soft partitions. Solaris Volume Manager provides all of the capabilities of Solstice DiskSuite™ and adds the following:
The Solaris 9 release seamlessly supports upgrading existing systems that run Solaris DiskSuite (SDS) to the Solaris Volume Manager without disturbing or changing the configuration. Upgrades of mirrored root file systems are fully and automatically supported. For more information, see the Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide. | Solaris 9 |
Solaris Management Console Solaris Management Console 2.1 is a GUI-based "umbrella application" that serves as the starting point for a variety of management tools. The console comes complete with a default toolbox that contains the following tools:
You can add or delete tools from the default toolbox or create a new toolbox to manage a different set of tools by using the console Toolbox Editor. You can also manage diskless clients, but with commands only, not through the GUI. For further information, see "Solaris Management Console (Overview)" in the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration. | Solaris 8 1/01 Updated in Solaris 9 |
Patch Manager Patch Manager manages patches that are created for the Solaris 9 operating environment and compatible releases. You can display installed patches and their properties, add patches to one or more systems concurrently, remove patches, analyze a system's patch requirements, and download patches from the SunSolve Online service. The new smpatch(1M) command installs patches on single or multiple machines, analyzes patch requirements, and downloads required patches. See the smpatch(1M) man page for further information. | Solaris 9 |
Solaris WBEM Services 2.5 Solaris WBEM Services 2.5 is Sun Microsystems' implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). WBEM is a set of management and Internet-related technologies that are intended to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. Solaris WBEM Services was updated to version 2.5 in the Solaris 9 release. Further information is provided in "Web-Based Enterprise Management Tools". | Solaris 9 |
WBEM CIM Object Manager Now Listens to HTTP Port 5988 The CIM Object Manager listens for remote method invocation (RMI) connections on RMI port 5987 and now listens for XML/HTTP connections on HTTP port 5988. (In the Solaris 8 software release and updates of the Solaris 8 release, the CIM Object Manager listened for XML/HTTP connections on default HTTP port 80.) For further information, see the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide. | Solaris 9 |
SNMP Adapter for WBEM Intended for use by system administrators, the SNMP Adapter for WBEM enables Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) management applications to access system management information that is provided by Solaris WBEM Services. Used with the Solstice™ Enterprise Agent (SEA) Master Agent, the SNMP Adapter for WBEM maps SNMP requests into equivalent WBEM Common Information Model (CIM) properties or instances. The SNMP Adapter for WBEM also remaps the response from the CIM Object Manager into an SNMP response, which is returned to the management application. A mapping file contains the corresponding Object Identifier (OID), class name, property name, and Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) type for each object. The Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide contains information about the SNMP Adapter for WBEM. | Solaris 9 |
Solaris Product Registry 3.0 This registry includes these new features:
For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration. | Solaris 8 1/01 |
Modify Software Groups in Solaris Web Start Program The Solaris Web Start installation method was updated to enable you to modify the selected Solaris Software Group by adding or removing software packages. For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration. | Solaris 8 1/01 |
System Administration Freeware Tools For information about GNU grep 2.4.2 and GNU tar 1.13, see "Freeware". GNU grep 2.4.2 is a pattern matcher. GNU tar 1.13 is an archiver. | Solaris 9 |