Sunday, October 28, 2012

Tribblix Pre-Release!

A new offspring of the OpenSolaris family is rising: Tribblix!

Announced as a live-dvd by Peter Tribble on the OpenIndiana discussion list, let's see how this new SVR4 packaged system moves along!

Note, the new tab on Network Management.



Tibblix is Peter Tribble's incarnation of an SVR4 based OS, leveraging Illumos at the core. This is an Intel only distribution at this point. Tribblix is a brand-new pre-release, downloaded as a live-dvd, and based upon OpenIndiana.


[html] Announcement: October 23, 2012
[html] Distribution Home Page
[html] Download Page
[html] Installation Guide
[html] Basic Usage Starting Pointers
[html] Peter Tribble Blog

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Available in PDF: Bell System Technical Journal, 1922-1983



Alcatel-Lucent released the entire Bell System Technical Journal catalog in PDF format. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/
With this posting of the Bell System Technical Journal from volume 1 issue 1 in July 1922 to the final issue published in December 1983, we are pleased to be able to open the vault of this knowledge to our global technical colleagues.
A search for UNIX includes:

Ritchie, D.M.; Johnson, S.C.; Lesk, M.E.; Kernighan, B.W.
Kernighan, B.W.; Lesk, M.E.; Ossanna, J.F. Jr.
Ritchie, D.M.; Thompson, K.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

SPARC at 25: Past, Present and Future

DON'T MISS...

SPARC at 25: Past, Present and Future
Presented by the Computer History Museum Semiconductor Special Interest Group


This panel will discuss the origins and evolution of the SPARC processor on its 25th anniversary. When a small startup -- Sun Microsystems -- decided to develop their own microprocessor in the mid 1980's, it chose a Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) architecture. The 1987 debut of the Sun-4, the first SPARC based computer, ignited meteoric growth at Sun and ultimately transformed the industry. The panelists will recollect the technical and business challenges of this revolutionary path, the risks and rewards of the development of multiple generations of increasingly complex chips, and the critical role of software. The panel will also address the current state of the market, and speculate on future challenges and opportunities.

Panelists presenting include industry giants:
Andy Bechtolsheim, Rick Hetherington, Bill Joy,David Patterson, Bernard Lacroute, Anant Argawal

Thursday, November 1, 2012
Event: 11:00 AM
Lunch: 12:00 Noon

Computer History Museum
1401 North Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, California 94043

Thursday, October 4, 2012

X Windows Programming for Script Builders

X Windows Programming for Script Builders

Abstract:

From the original days of computing systems, there were various layers including hardware, firmware, kernel, and shell. As systems became more complex, access to the computer went from serial ports to desktop graphical consoles based upon proprietary windowing systems. Over time, X Windows became the standard environment for desktop UNIX systems. Some hybrid environments were created which combined the textual shell with graphical interfaces - one such environment is "dtksh".

Manuals:

Some of the best manuals available, for X Windows Desktop Korn shell programming are available from Oracle (formerly created by Sun Microsystems.)
  • [html] Common Desktop Environment: Desktop KornShell User's Guide
  • [html] Chapter 1 Introduction to Desktop KornShell
  • [html] Chapter 2 A Sample Script
  • [html] Chapter 3 Advanced Topics
  • [html] Chapter 4 A Complex Script
  • [html] Appendix A dtksh Commands
  • [html] Appendix B dtksh Convenience Functions
  • [html] Appendix C The script_find Script
  • [html] Common Desktop Environment: Programmer's Overview
  • [html] Common Desktop Environment: Programmer's Overview / Desktop Korn Shell (dtksh)


Solaris:

Since the advent of CDE, Solaris shipped "dtksh" and examples with their operating system. The following are examples on a Solaris 10 platform.
V240/user$ cd /usr/dt/share/examples/dtksh
V240/user$ ls -al
total 140
drwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 512 Jan 2 2010 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 root bin 512 Jan 2 2010 ..
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2487 Dec 17 2004 CallbackTest2
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 4645 Dec 17 2004 CallDataTest4
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 10674 Dec 17 2004 crMovesText1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1736 Dec 17 2004 DtCursorTest2
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 5265 Dec 17 2004 DtWsTest1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 6007 Dec 17 2004 EventHandlerTest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1870 Dec 17 2004 ListBounds1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2249 Dec 17 2004 ListItemPos1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1847 Dec 17 2004 ListPosSel1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1463 Dec 17 2004 PopupTest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1677 Dec 17 2004 SelBoxResTest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 4097 Dec 17 2004 SessionTest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2865 Dec 17 2004 TextCutBuf1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2326 Dec 17 2004 TextDisp1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 1829 Dec 17 2004 TextFXYPos1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2518 Dec 17 2004 TransEventTest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 2168 Dec 17 2004 TransTest1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 990 Dec 17 2004 WorkProcTest1
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 4033 Dec 17 2004 XdrawTest

Other Examples:

Former Sun engineer Brendan Gregg includes a variety  of examples on his personal web page, regarding "dtksh".

Solaris Services

Abstract:
Services in the System VR4 world were traditionally managed through facilities such as /etc/rc scripts, /etc/initab, and /etc/inetd.conf family of facilities. There were disadvantages regarding these families, regarding configuration differences, monitoring for failures, and provisioning. Solaris 10 introduced SMF, or Solaris Service Management Facility, which is now available in most modern operating systems. This script helps to recursively display the dependent services.

Script:
The script must remain in your execution path and must have the executable bit set.
#!/bin/ksh
# script: r_svcs2.sh
# author: david halko
# license: cddl - must retain authorship note in any usage
# purpose: recursively show dependent services maximum level of 4 deep
# version: 1.0 - released using + instead of tabs for blogspot illustration
# usage: r_svcs2.sh [service]
# examples: r_svcs2.sh inetd
# r_svcs2.sh gdm2-login
#
Param="${1}"
Deep="${2}"

[ "${2}" = "++++" ] && exit # exit if too many levels deep

if [ "${1}" = "" ]; then
nawk '/^#/ !/^#/ { exit }' `whence ${0}`
else
echo "${Deep}\c"
svcs -H ${Param} 2>&1 || exit
svcs -dH ${Param} 2>&1 | nawk '{ print $3 }' | sort -u | while read Param2
do
r_svcs2.sh "${Param2}" "+${Deep}"
done
fi

Help Screen:
The help screen will come up as default if you do not supply any options.
V240/user$ r_svcs2.sh
#!/bin/ksh
# script: r_svcs2.sh
# author: david halko
# license: cddl - must retain authorship note in any usage
# purpose: recursively show dependent services maximum level of 4 deep
# version: 1.0 - released using + instead of tabs for blogspot illustration
# usage: r_svcs2.sh [service]
# examples: r_svcs2.sh inetd
# r_svcs2.sh gdm2-login
#

Example Run:
The expanded dependencies can get quite large. An arbitrary number of 4 levels deep was coded into the script to keep the script from running for hours on slow machines. A simple run is illustrated below.
V240/user$ r_svcs2.sh gdm2-login
disabled Sep_29 svc:/application/gdm2-login:default
+online Sep_29 svc:/system/filesystem/local:default
++online Sep_29 svc:/milestone/single-user:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/milestone/devices:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/milestone/network:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/network/loopback:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/cryptosvc:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/filesystem/minimal:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/identity:node
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/installupdates:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/keymap:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/manifest-import:default
+++disabled Sep_29 svc:/system/metainit:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/patchchk:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/sysevent:default
++online Sep_29 svc:/system/filesystem/minimal:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/device/local:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/filesystem/usr:default
+online Sep_29 svc:/system/utmp:default
++online Sep_29 svc:/milestone/sysconfig:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/milestone/single-user:default
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/sysidtool:net
+++online Sep_29 svc:/system/sysidtool:system

Monday, October 1, 2012

Virtualization: IaaS, DaaS, AaaS

Abstract:

The market is always talking about clouds, virtualization, and other buzwords. For significant enterprises, who depend on Oracle hardware, hypervisors, OS's, and Applications - this short set of resources may prove helpful.
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service:

A very concise PDF showing basic virtualization best practices under SPARC.

A short PDF on Oracle VM virtualization for Red Hat Linux, Oracle Linux, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows on Intel.

DaaS and AaaS: Database & Applications as a Service:

Oracle VM management tools for SPARC & Intel roll up transparently into Oracle Enterprise Manager…

Oracle Enterprise Manager facilitates Best Practices in provisioning of Database RAC Clusters and Patching
Oracle Enterprise Manager allows for Application provisioning, where third-party packaged templates are available or one can create their own templates.

Integrated Cloud Monitoring: Hardware, Hypervisor, Clusters, OS, Database, Applications:

There are GUI Cluster, Host, and Application Monitoring templates for point-and-click provisioning.

Closing Thoughts:

Implementing the freely available management software from Oracle, nearly everything could be made seamlessly H-A and D-R without human intervention. With so much of our software being Oracle based, it is a no-brainer to use the cloud software we have a right-to-use when we are already paying maintenance on the products.