Solaris X86 on OCI BareMetal or Virtual Machine?

For Solaris workloads Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
offers multiple options: Bare Metal and Virtual Machine
on AMD or Intel CPUs.

With Virtual Machines you are flexible with Memory and CPU
Configurations. From 1 OCPU (core) up to 64 and up to 1 TB RAM.
Depending on your load you can change the size of the VM, but
you need to reboot to activate the VM with the new settings.

Bare Metal have fix sizes from 512 GB RAM up to 2 TB and
between 36 OCPU up to 160 OCPU. The available shapes
may be limited on your cloud region.
Bare Metal have currently the limitation you can't attach
UHP (Ultra High Performance) block volumes.

For both types Bare Metal and VM you are not charged if you shutdown
your instance.

My current favorite is the VM type because of the flexibility to resize.
So far I did not encounter high performance impact by the Virtualization layer.

Solaris 11.4 x86 in Oracle Cloud OCI VM

Oracle currently offers the Oracle Cloud in 40 regions.
One of the many options available is a Solaris 11.4 x86 Virtual Machine.
You can create a VM with up to 1TB RAM and 64 OCPUs (cores).

The creation is very easy and the setup is done in a few minutes.

How to create a VM can be found on the Oracle Solaris Blog


The OS management is currently not available to monitor the Solaris instances.
The commercial JomaSoft VDCF tool is an option to be used for monitoring.

I/O performance depends on the configuration of the block volumes and on
the CPU resources used by the Virtual Machine.
But even with 16 cores I never reached more than 100MB/s

Solaris 11.4 SRU51 (Nov 2022) - virtinfo enhancements for Solaris Zones

In the past virtinfo provided only minimal information about the underlying global zone.

root@marcel49:~# uname -a
SunOS marcel49 5.11 11.4.47.119.2 sun4v sparc sun4v non-global-zone

root@marcel49:~# virtinfo get all
NAME            CLASS       PROPERTY VALUE
non-global-zone current     -        -
logical-domain  parent      -        -
non-global-zone unsupported status   not supported in non-global-zone
kernel-zone     unsupported status   not supported in non-global-zone
logical-domain  unsupported status   not supported in non-global-zone


After upgrade to SRU51, we have details from the parent.

Remark: I modified our serial number in the output below.
The serial is helpful if you need to open a case with Oracle Support.

root@marcel49:~# uname -a
SunOS marcel49 5.11 11.4.51.132.1 sun4v sparc sun4v non-global-zone

root@marcel49:~# virtinfo get all
NAME            CLASS       PROPERTY              VALUE
non-global-zone current     zonename              marcel49
non-global-zone current     chassis-serial-number AK99999999
non-global-zone current     parent-hostname       g0049.jomasoft-lab.ch
logical-domain  parent      -                     -
non-global-zone unsupported status                not supported in non-global-zone
kernel-zone     unsupported status                not supported in non-global-zone
logical-domain  unsupported status                not supported in non-global-zone

Output of values is also supported

root@marcel49:~# virtinfo -c current get -H -o value parent-hostname
g0049.jomasoft-lab.ch

New Features in Solaris 11.4 SRU51 (November 2022)

Another quarterly Solaris SRU including new features

Live Memory Reconfiguration for Kernel Zones on x86
Setting disk IDs for Kernel Zone live storage migration
Propagating hosting environment information in to zones
zpool/zfs -o atime/pathname
/dev/full device
mkfile size argument update
FOSS: GCC 12, perl 5.36, Unbound DNS server
EOF: hal-cups-utils

Stay tuned for more blogs about this new features

How easy is it to import OpsCenter created systems into JomaSoft VDCF ?

Ops Center is Oracle's management and monitoring tool for Oracle Solaris.
Premier Support for the current version 12.4 ends April 2024.

JomaSoft VDCF is a lightweight CLI management and monitoring tool with similar features.
VDCF could be an alternative for customers with focus beyond April 2024.

Find more information about VDCF
https://www.jomasoft.ch/vdcf/

This blog shows how easy it is to integrate systems created using OpsCenter into VDCF.
After the import VDCF can be used to operate, manage, update and monitor this systems.

We will import 3 systems into VDCF. First the SPARC S7 control domain and then two LDoms
where one is running Solaris 10 and the second is running Solaris 11.4. The process is done in a few minutes. It is required to execute 2 commands on each system to install the JomaSoft VDCF Client pkg and add the required ssh key.

Step 1 / Install VDCF pkg and key on each target system

On Solaris 11.4 SRU60 (Aug 2023) and later we need to use 2 commands

# wget http://vdcf/pkg/$(uname -p)/JSvdcf-client.pkg
# yes | pkgadd -d ./JSvdcf-client.pkg all

On older Solaris versions one command works

# yes | pkgadd -d http://vdcf/pkg/$(uname -p)/JSvdcf-client.pkg all

## Downloading...
..............25%..............50%..............75%..............100%
## Download Complete

Processing package instance <JSvdcf-client> from <http://vdcf/pkg/sparc/JSvdcf-client.pkg>

JomaSoft VDCF - Client(sparc) 8.3.5

Copyright (c) 2005-2022 JomaSoft GmbH
All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.

## Executing checkinstall script.

Using </opt/jomasoft/vdcf> as the package base directory.

## Processing package information.

## Processing system information.
## Verifying disk space requirements.
## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed.
## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.

This package contains scripts which will be executed with super-user
permission during the process of installing this package.

Do you want to continue with the installation of <JSvdcf-client> [y,n,?]

Installing JomaSoft VDCF - Client as <JSvdcf-client>

## Installing part 1 of 1.
/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/conf/patch_kernel.cfg
/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/pkgs/JSvdcf-sync.pkg
/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/release
/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/rexec/asr_mgr_config
/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/rexec/cdom_config

<snip>

/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/smf/vdcf_iscsi.xml

/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/smf/zfs_encryption_load_key.xml/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/smf/zfs_on_nfs.xml

[ verifying class <none> ]

## Executing postinstall script.

*** MANUAL-TASK TODO ***

Add Public Key of root at Management Server to vdcfexec authorized_keys using :

/opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/sbin/update_key -u <FLASH_WEBSERVER_URL>

Installation of <JSvdcf-client> was successful.

# /opt/jomasoft/vdcf/client/sbin/update_key -u http://vdcf

Obtaining public key ... done.

SSH Key updated successfully.

Step 2 / Import the systems into VDCF

The step to integrate the systems into the VDCF tool is by executing a single simple node import command on the VDCF central management server.

First we have to import the control domain.

-bash-5.1$ time node -c import name=s0012

Importing new Node s0012 ...

Warning: Permanently added 's0012,192.168.100.12' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
Discover Systeminfo ...
Discover Rootdiskinfo ...
Discover Diskinfo ...
This may take some time, it depends on the number of disks
.......................
Discover Netinfo ...

Node configuration successfully added.

WARN: No matching build found. Patchlevel 4.48.0.1.126.1 set as build name.
System registration done for s0012.
registering disks from node s0012
New visible Lun 60002AC000000000000004AF0001507B Size: 30.00 GB
New visible Lun 60002AC000000000000004C00001507B Size: 30.00 GB
New visible Lun 60002AC000000000000004C20001507B Size: 30.00 GB
New visible Lun 60002AC000000000000004C80001507B Size: 30.00 GB
New visible Lun 60002AC000000000000004CC0001507B Size: 30.00 GB
Registered BootDisk of Node s0012: 60002AC000000000000004D20001507B Size: 50.00 GB
Registered new Lun: 60002AC000000000000004E00001507B Size: 30.00 GB
Registered new Lun: 60002AC000000000000004E10001507B Size: 30.00 GB
Found Control Domain s0012 (primary).
Found new control domain on 's0012'
importing node datasets from node s0012
Root Dataset s0012_root (ZPOOL: rpool) with Size 49.79 GB successfully imported from Node s0012
Successfully added node filesystem 'ROOT/s11.4.48.0.1.126.1' with mountpoint '/' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'ROOT/s11.4.48.0.1.126.1/var' with mountpoint '/var' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE' with mountpoint '/var/share' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/tmp' with mountpoint '/var/tmp' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/kvol' with mountpoint '/var/share/kvol' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/zones' with mountpoint '/system/zones' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/cores' with mountpoint '/var/share/cores' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/crash' with mountpoint '/var/share/crash' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export' with mountpoint '/export' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export/home' with mountpoint '/export/home' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export/home/admin' with mountpoint '/export/home/admin' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'guests' with mountpoint '/guests' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/sstore' with mountpoint '/var/share/sstore/repo' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 's0012_root'
No vServer found on Node s0012.

WARN: Add console configuration manually using: console -c add node=s0012

Node s0012 import finished

real 1m18.610s

user 0m15.031s
sys 0m56.736s

Now we can import the ldom1 with Solaris 10 and ldom2 with Solaris 11.4

-bash-5.1$ time node -c import name=ldom1

Importing new Node ldom1 ...

Warning: Permanently added 'ldom1,192.168.20.201' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Discover Systeminfo ...
psrinfo: Physical processor view not supported
Discover Rootdiskinfo ...
Discover Diskinfo ...
This may take some time, it depends on the number of disks

Discover Netinfo ...
Discovered Node ldom1 as Guest Domain ldom1 on Control Domain s0012

Importing Guest Domain ldom1 ...
Discovering CDom s0012 ...
Found Control Domain s0012 (primary).
using partitioning.cfg as profile for root disk.
GDom ldom1 (Imported GDom) is created.
Commit guest domain to update configuration
AutoBoot for GDom ldom1 set to false
Network 'management' for GDom 'ldom1' defined
Assigned disk 60002AC000000000000004AF0001507B as ROOTDISK to GDom ldom1
committing guest domain <ldom1>
Updating ActiveBuild from '-' to 'imported' for Node ldom1
System registration done for ldom1.
node with all vservers being checked: ldom1
check on node ldom1 successful
patch deployment updated from node ldom1
registering disks from node ldom1
importing node datasets from node ldom1
Root Dataset ldom1_root (ZPOOL: rpool) with Size 29.79 GB successfully imported from Node ldom1
Successfully added node filesystem 'ROOT/_SUNWCAT_S' with mountpoint '/' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom1_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export' with mountpoint '/export' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom1_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export/home' with mountpoint '/export/home' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom1_root'
No vServer found on Node ldom1.
Node ldom1 import finished

real 1m3.560s

user 0m13.010s
sys 0m37.529s

-bash-5.1$ time node -c import name=ldom2

Importing new Node ldom2 ...

Warning: Permanently added 'ldom2,192.168.20.202' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
Discover Systeminfo ...
Discover Rootdiskinfo ...
Discover Diskinfo ...
This may take some time, it depends on the number of disks

Discover Netinfo ...
Discovered Node ldom2 as Guest Domain ldom2 on Control Domain s0012
Importing Guest Domain ldom2 ...
Discovering CDom s0012 ...

Found Control Domain s0012 (primary).
using partitioning.cfg as profile for root disk.
GDom ldom2 (Imported GDom) is created.
Commit guest domain to update configuration
AutoBoot for GDom ldom2 set to false
Network 'management' for GDom 'ldom2' defined
Assigned disk 60002AC000000000000004E00001507B as ROOTDISK to GDom ldom2
committing guest domain <ldom2>
WARN: No matching build found. Patchlevel 4.0.0.1.15.0 set as build name.
Updating ActiveBuild from '-' to '4.0.0.1.15.0' for Node ldom2
System registration done for ldom2.
registering disks from node ldom2
importing node datasets from node ldom2
Root Dataset ldom2_root (ZPOOL: rpool) with Size 29.79 GB successfully imported from Node ldom2
Successfully added node filesystem 'ROOT/solaris' with mountpoint '/' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'ROOT/solaris/var' with mountpoint '/var' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE' with mountpoint '/var/share' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/tmp' with mountpoint '/var/tmp' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/kvol' with mountpoint '/var/share/kvol' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/zones' with mountpoint '/system/zones' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export' with mountpoint '/export' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export/home' with mountpoint '/export/home' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'export/home/admin' with mountpoint '/export/home/admin' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'guests' with mountpoint '/guests' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'
Successfully added node filesystem 'VARSHARE/sstore' with mountpoint '/var/share/sstore/repo' (ZPOOL: rpool) to dataset 'ldom2_root'No vServer found on Node ldom2.
Node ldom2 import finished

real 1m20.849s
user 0m18.075s

sys 0m51.073s

After this successful import, we can use VDCF's gdom command to manage this two ldoms.

-bash-5.1$ gdom -c show cdom=s0012

Name  cState rState           CDom  Model           OS Patch-Level   
      Cores Max-Cores VCPUs RAM/GB #V Comment

ldom1 ACTIVE ACTIVE (RUNNING) s0012 ORCL,SPARC-S7-2 10 150400-40 (U11+) 0 0 1 4.0 0 Imported GDom

ldom2 ACTIVE ACTIVE (RUNNING) s0012 ORCL,SPARC-S7-2 11 4.0.0.1.15.0 (U4) 0 0 1 4.0 0 Imported GDom

Operation, Migration, Patch/Update and Monitoring using VDCF is as easy as importing with its consistent CLI.

Check out the VDCF demo videos about other powerful features
https://www.youtube.com/user/JomaSoftVideo

Using Ops Center on current Solaris 11.4 SRUs is a fight

Ops Center causes troubles, because it uses old software versions,
which are not available anymore by default on current Solaris 11.4 SRUs.

It requires python 2.7 & perl 5.22

On Control Domains using SRU48 or later you even need to open a Oracle Support Service Request to download a required Agent bugfix.

Here a few MOS Doc Ids with details about the workarounds

Ops Center 12.4: CDOM Agents fail to start after a Solaris upgrade to 11.4 SRU 48 (Doc ID 2892465.1)

Ops Center 12.4 upgrades to Solaris 11.4 SRU 39 on an EC will fail (Doc ID 2826475.1)

Ops Center Will Not Start After Upgrading to Solaris 11.4.3- SRU 30 - Svc:/application/scn/ajaxterm:default is Restarting Too Quickly (Doc ID 2760685.1)

Ops Center: Running With Solaris 11.4 SRU21 or Higher Precautions (Doc ID 2783309.1)

If you are happy with CLI tools, the JomaSoft VDCF framework is an alternative management software.
https://www.jomasoft.ch/vdcf/

Oracle Systems Engineering Forum 2022

Join the Oracle Systems Engineering Forum 2022 (online on zoom)

Areas: Oracle Cloud @ customer, Oracle ZFS, Oracle ZDLRA, Oracle SPARC and Solaris

Dates: Nov 1st and 2nd

Register here

Support State of Oracle SPARC T5-2 Server

The SPARC T5-2 is a very successful server, but a bit old now.
Oracle shipped the last T5-2s five years ago in 2017.

Oracle still supports this server, but after 5 years after Last Ship
replacement parts delivery is not  guaranteed anymore.

But there are newer generations of Oracle SPARC servers available
with faster CPUs and Memory and less use of power. There are various
options to migrate the existing Ldoms, Zones or Apps to the new servers.

Take a look at the new SPARC servers at
https://www.jomasoft.ch/hardware/

New Features in Solaris 11.4 SRU48 (August 2022)

Another quarterly Solaris "feature" SRU including

Kernel Zones: Live storage migration
New defaults for Auditing
quota check removed from /etc/profile
zfs list/get -u (unsorted)
Memory Reservation Pool for OSM
svcs ISO standard date format
Python 2.7 Freeze/Remove admin helper scripts
Node.js 18 for Solaris x86
Configurable ldmd certificate locations for LDoms
Ruby 3.1

and many, many FOSS updates

Stay tuned for more blogs about this new features

PostgreSQL - IPS packages available for Solaris 11.4 SPARC

On our JomaSoft Website we launched a download page for Open Source software

https://www.jomasoft.ch/downloads/#js-opensource

You can find current PostgreSQL packages
versions 13.8, 14.5 and 15 Beta3

Solaris 11.4 SRU45 (May 2022) - zstd compression utility

Solaris 11.4.45 includes now the zstd compression utility.

-bash-5.1$ zstd -V
*** zstd command line interface 64-bits v1.5.0, by Yann Collet ***

To compare I have a Oracle DB19c home as a tar file.
I executed this tests on a SPARC S7 LDom with 1 core

# ls -lh 19c.tar
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       6.66G May 23 17:36 19c.tar

zstd does a higher compression compared to lz4, but takes
more time.

# time zstd 19c.tar -o 19c.tar.zstd
19c.tar              : 39.24%   (7153274368 => 2806612298 bytes, 19c.tar.zstd)

real    3m26.408s
user    3m29.804s
sys     0m6.698s


# time lz4 19c.tar
Compressed filename will be : 19c.tar.lz4
Compressed 7153274368 bytes into 3629706666 bytes ==> 50.74%

real    2m35.092s
user    2m25.227s
sys     0m6.852s

# ls -lh 19c.tar.lz4 19c.tar.zstd
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       3.38G May 23 17:36 19c.tar.lz4
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       2.61G May 23 18:14 19c.tar.zstd

With decompression zstd is a bit faster than lz4.

# time unlz4 19c.tar.lz4
Decoding file 19c.tar
19c.tar.lz4          : decoded 7153274368 bytes

real    2m9.913s
user    1m23.008s
sys     0m8.339s


# time unzstd 19c.tar.zstd
19c.tar.zstd        : 7153274368 bytes

real    1m52.263s
user    1m1.836s
sys     0m9.236s

New Features in Solaris 11.4 SRU45 (May 2022)

Every month after the CPU (Critical Patch Update) Oracle releases
a new feature Release for Oracle Solaris.

In May 2022 it is again a BIG one

Kernel Zone Memory Live Reconfiguration (MLR) on SPARC
ZFS File Retention
vmstat uses sstore for history
packet filter (PF) filewall for Solaris 10 Branded Zones
Zstandard (zstd) fast compression utility
NTP Monitor only mode (new SMF ntp:monitor)
PHP: version 8.1 added and version 7.3 removed
Puppet: version 6.26 added / version 5 and Puppet Master removed

and many, many more FOSS updates

Stay tuned for more blogs about this new features

How to Migrate from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11

Solaris 10 was released in 2005. Currently Solaris 10 is in extended Support
and Oracle is planing to provide patches till 01/2024.

Great News About Extended Support for Oracle Solaris 10 OS

There is no easy upgrade from Solaris 10 to 11 because Solaris 11
includes many new features not available in Solaris 10.

best option
At our customers we install new Solaris 11 systems or LDoms and install
the application, do the configuration and move the data from Solaris 10.

compromise option
If your application is not supported on Solaris 11 or you want to migrate
away from older hardware in short time. Then your option is Solaris 10 Branded
Zones. You can install Solaris 10 Branded Zones on a Solaris 11 server
based on a 1:1 archive from your Solaris 10 System.

Lift and Shift Guide - Migrating Workloads from Oracle Solaris 10 SPARC Systems to Oracle Solaris 10 Branded Zones


next step: sysdiff
If you already have a Solaris 10 Branded Zone, you can use the new sysdiff tool
to identify application binaries and files and convert this into a Solaris 11 ips package.
This ips package can then be deployed on a Solaris 11 Server.

sysdiff: moving Oracle Solaris 10 legacy 3rd party apps to 11.4

If you need support for such migrations just contact our experienced consultants at JomaSoft
https://www.jomasoft.ch/about/#team

Solaris 11.4 SRU42 / Non-Production Personal Use Update

For developers Solaris 11.4 GA was made available in 2018.

Updates/SRUs are (only) delivered to customers with support contract.
Since Oracle changed to the continuous delivery model there was
no update for developers since 42 months.

This changed today !!

The public Solaris IPS repository contains the SRU42

http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/en/index.shtml


More details on:
https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/post/announcing-the-first-oracle-solaris-114-cbe

Solaris 11.4 SRU42 (Feb 2022) - /var/share/cores FS and coreadm defaults

/var/share/cores is now a separate filesystem

-bash-5.1$ zfs list rpool/VARSHARE/cores
NAME                  USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
rpool/VARSHARE/cores   31K  22.1G    31K  /var/share/cores

If you upgrade from a previous SRU to SRU42 or later,
cleanup /var/share/cores first, because the files
will be migrated to the new filesystem.


coreadm has now better defaults for the core file naming

root@marcel49:~# coreadm | head -3
     global core file pattern: /var/cores/core.%z.%f.%u.%p
     global core file content: default
kernel zone core file pattern: /var/cores/kzone.%z.%t

with this new core file pattern, the cores can be easier identified
and are less often overwritten.

root@marcel49:~# ls -lh /var/cores/core.marcel49.sleep.0.21198
-rw-------   1 root     root       4.16M Feb 25 13:19 /var/cores/core.marcel49.sleep.0.21198

If the pattern was not configured before the upgrade to SRU42 or later
the new default is set automatically.

If you used another pattern before you upgraded to SRU42 or later
you can set it manually to the new standard/default.

coreadm -g /var/cores/core.%z.%f.%u.%p

Solaris 11.4 SRU42 (Feb 2022) - LDom Migration Class 2

SRU42 introduced a new LDom Migration Class. This class
allows to do Cross CPU Live Migration between SPARC S7,M7 and M8
CPUs. LDoms using this migration-class2 can use the ADI features
of this new CPUs and still can Live Migrate between this modern
SPARC Servers.

To change the cpu-arch setting you need to shutdown and unbind
your LDom

# ldm stop g0061
# ldm unbind g0061
# ldm set-domain cpu-arch=migration-class2 g0061
# ldm bind g0061
# ldm start g0061

The JomaSoft VDCF Management Software recognises this new
cpu-arch with Version 8.2.2 or later.

Find out more about VDCF
https://www.jomasoft.ch/vdcf/

Solaris 11.4 SRU42 (Feb 2022) - ansible

The Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU42  (Feb 2022) delivers ansible 2.10.
It is not installed by default. To use ansible install this 3 packages

pkg install ansible jinja2 pyyaml

Then create your own small ansible config file

-bash-5.1$ cat .ansible.cfg
[defaults]
inventory=/export/home/marcel/ansible_hosts

and you are ready to start

-bash-5.1$ ansible --version
ansible 2.10.15.post0
  config file = /export/home/marcel/.ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/export/home/marcel/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.7/vendor-packages/ansible
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.7.10 (default, Dec 22 2021, 02:24:16) [GCC 10.3.0]


The ansible Users Guide can be found here
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/index.html

Solaris 11.4 SRU42 (Feb 2022) - zpool status -s

zpool status -s does now report many details about
the allocations on the disks


-bash-5.1$ zpool status -s all v0144_data

  pool: v0144_data
    id: 13650650466694793377
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 1s with 0 errors on Thu Jan 20 08:24:49 2022
config:

NAME     STATE  READ WRITE CKSUM AUNIT LSIZE PSIZE SLOW RPAIR RSLVR ALLOC  FREE %FULL
v0144_d  ONLINE    0     0     0     -     -     -    -     -     - 15.4G 34.3G  31.0
  c1d1   ONLINE    0     0     0   512   512   512    -     -     - 7.26G 12.6G  36.5
  c1d6   ONLINE    0     0     0   512   512   512    -     -     -  8.1G 21.6G  27.2
errors: No known data errors

New Features in Solaris 11.4 SRU42 (Feb 2022)

Every month after the CPU (Critical Patch Update) Oracle releases
a new feature Release for Oracle Solaris.

In February 2022 it is a BIG one

Ansible 2.10
OpenSSL 3.0
ldm command enhancements
Ldom migration-class2 for SPARC T7/S7/T8
split -b
coreadm enhanced defaults
zpool -s flag
Apache 2.4.52
new FS /var/share/cores

and many, many FOSS updates

Stay tuned for more blogs about this new features

Current State and Updates for Oracle Solaris 01/2022

Oracle Solaris 11.4 is supported by Oracle at *least* till 11/2034.
I'm not aware of any other Vendor with such a long term guarantee.

Today, 18th January 2022 the SRU41 (CPU JAN 2022) was released.
All the details on MOS in Doc 2433412.1
Every quarter a CPU (Critical Patch Update) is made available,
which is recommended to be installed on production systems.

Every month after the CPU a SRU with several new features
is released. Stay tunned for February 2022 !

Additionally Patches for Solaris 10 and ESU for Solaris 11.3
was made available. This updates are only available for Customers
with "Extended/Vintage Support"

Solaris 11.3 ESU 36.27   MOS 2759706.1
Solaris 10   a few new patches

This Extended Support for the older Solaris Releases ends on 01/2024.
Time to plan and prepare upgrades to Solaris 11.4.