fidzu : Solaris

It's that time, make sure you don't forget to Vote in the OpenSolaris annual elections. You'll notice that I'm not going to comment on the issue of the constitution this year, but I do ask for you to consider Octave Orgeron, Joerg Schilling, Peter Tribble, Moinak Ghosh, and all the community guys for OGB. There is a great list of folks on the ballot, including also John Plocher and Dennis Clarke who are fantastic enthusiastic folks.

11 Mar 2010 9:41pm GMT

root@quatro src$ uname -a
SunOS quatro 5.11 snv_133 i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris

root@quatro src$ pkg search gcc
Segmentation Fault (core dumped)
root@quatro src$ exit
exit
benr@quatro src$ pkg search gcc
Segmentation Fault
benr@quatro src$ pfexec pkg search gcc
INDEX           ACTION   VALUE               PACKAGE
description     set      GCC                 pkg:/SUNWgccruntime@3.4.3-0.97
description     set      GCC                 pkg:/developer/gcc/gcc-libgfortran@4.3.3-0.133
description     set      GCC                 pkg:/developer/gcc/gcc-libssp@4.3.3-0.133
description     set      GCC                 pkg:/developer/gcc/gcc-libgcc@4.3.3-0.133

Why does IPS still suck? Seriously, we can't catch errors before segfaulting? And people wonder why I claim that IPS and AI are so immature. I just can't wait for Oracle to cram this down my throat.

I want SX:CE back. Anybody in MPK17 listening!?!? Stop telling customers they are stupid for using post-install scripts, stop pontificating about how you know better. ZFS made claims to rightness and proved itself. IPS has yet to convince me.... its had years, and still has yet.

Update:

I'm getting email from folks asking about the underlying problem here. The issue is that Python freaks if you have alternate version installed an in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH or PYTHONPATH.

root@quatro ~$ pkg search virsh
Segmentation Fault (core dumped)
root@quatro ~$ unset PYTHONPATH
root@quatro ~$ pkg search virsh
Segmentation Fault (core dumped)
root@quatro ~$ unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH
root@quatro ~$ pkg search virsh
INDEX      ACTION   VALUE               PACKAGE
basename   file     usr/bin/amd64/virsh pkg:/SUNWlibvirt@0.5.11-0.128
basename   file     usr/bin/i86/virsh   pkg:/SUNWlibvirt@0.5.11-0.128

But that's not the point I'm making... the point is that there isn't a wrapper to catch these types of issues. IPS is a critical system utility and shouldn't be derailed by something so simple. Its just immaturity.

11 Mar 2010 9:05pm GMT

When the Sun Storage 7000 was first introduced, a key design decision was to allow only a single ZFS storage pool per host. This forces users to fully take advantage of the ZFS pool storage model, and prevents them from adopting ludicrous schemes such as "one pool per filesystem." While RAID-Z has non-trivial performance implications for IOPs-bound workloads, the hope was that by allowing logzilla and readzilla devices to be configured per-filesystem, users could adjust relative performance and implement different qualities of service on a single pool.

While this works for the majority of workloads, there are still some that benefit from mirrored performance even in the presence of cache and log devices. As the maximum size of Sun Storage 7000 systems increases, it became apparent that we needed a way to allow pools with different RAS and performance characteristics in the same system. With this in mind, we relaxed the "one pool per system" rule¹ with the 2010.Q1 release.

The storage configuration user experience is relatively unchanged. Instead of having a single pool (or two pools in a cluster), and being able to configure one or the other, you can simply click the '+' button and add pools as needed. When creating a pool, you can now specify a name for the pool. When importing a pool, you can either accept the existing name or give it a new one at the time you select the pool. Ownership of pools in a cluster is now managed exclusively through the Configuration -> Cluster screen, as with other shared resources.

When managing shares, there is a new dropdown menu at the top left of the navigation bar. This controls which shares are shown in the UI. In the CLI, the equivalent setting is the 'pool' property at the 'shares' node.

While this gives some flexibility in storage configuration, it also allows users to create poorly constructed storage topologies. The intent is to allow the user to create pools with different RAS and performance characteristics, not to create dozens of different pools with the same properties. If you attempt to do this, the UI will present a warning summarizing the drawbacks if you were to continue:

• Wastes system resources that could be shared in a single pool.
• Decreases overall performance
• Increases administrative complexity.
• Log and cache devices can be enabled on a per-share basis.

You can still commit the operation, but such configurations are discouraged. The exception is when configuring a second pool on one head in a cluster.

We hope this feature will allow users to continue to consolidate storage and expand use of the Sun Storage 7000 series in more complicated environments.

1. Clever users figured out that this mechanism could be circumvented in a cluster to have two pools active on the same host in an active/passive configuration.

11 Mar 2010 5:16pm GMT

It will be useful to observe the Mozilla community update their Mozilla Public License v1.1 (The Register, Mozilla Updating the MPL, Cnet News). I haven't been involved in any licensing lately, so I think I'll try to follow this process. I remember when we were plowing through our own licensing gyrations for OpenSolaris. GPL, BSD, MPL, Apache, Write-Your-Own. And a few others. Back and forth. My goodness, it was so long and painful for so many reasons. So, I'm interested in understanding Mozilla's processes and goals for this update and comparing that to what we did five years ago. For OpenSolaris, we settled on writing the Common Development and Distribution License, which is based on MPL v1.1.

Some CDDL information: FAQ on opensolaris.org, CDDL background, Redline diffs (pdf) between MPL v1.1 & CDDL v1.0, Free and Open Source Licensing at Sun (pdf).

11 Mar 2010 9:39am GMT

I am looking forward to doing a quick video conference call next week with the guys in the Moscow OpenSolaris User Group. It will be at 2:30 in the morning for me, so I think I will make it a quick chat. Meeting details here. MOSUG info here. Special thans to Vladimir Legeza for the invite. Hopefully, some day I will be able to get to Russia. Never been. Always wanted to go.

10 Mar 2010 4:53pm GMT

http://blogs.sun.com/video/entry/zfs_dynamic_lun_expansion

09 Mar 2010 8:33pm GMT

http://blogs.sun.com/video/entry/zfs_dedup

09 Mar 2010 8:31pm GMT

The Japanese OpenSolaris community continues to grow. It's now the 3rd largest community in the OpenSolaris world following the Spanish and Indian communities, it's the 3rd most active, and Tokyo is the #1 city outside the United States for sending traffic to opensolaris.org. The community in Japan also continues to diversify as well with general users mixing with kernel developers and globalization engineers. In fact, this diversity is driving the need to run concurrent sessions for beginners and advanced developers and users at community events.

There are multiple parts to the community in Japan:

• Japan OpenSolaris Portal Project (Japanese)
• Japan OpenSolaris User Group (Japanese)
• • For JPOSUG discussions, subscribe to ug-jposug at opensolaris dot org. Post to the JPOSUG Jive web discussion forum (which is tied to the Mailman list).
    
  • Register on opensolaris.org in Japanese (just click the language switcher in the upper right corner of the page to choose Japanese from the list of 25 languages).
    
• Tokyo OpenSolaris User Group (English)
• • For TSUG discussions, subscribe to ug-tsug at opensolaris dot org. You can also find a TSUG page on Facebook. A tiny selection of presentations here.
    
• Japanese Internationalization & Localization Group
  
• • For Japanese I18N discussions, subscribe to g11n-ja-discuss dot opensolaris dot org and/or post to the list via the Jive web discussion forum.
• For live IRC conversations, go to #opensolaris-jp on Freenode.
  

There is a lot going on. I try to track what I can at this tag.

09 Mar 2010 7:54am GMT

After nearly 10 years, I've now left Sun. Thanks to everyone for following my blog for all these years. Please follow my new blog, Wild Webmink, where I have posted a career retrospective.

08 Mar 2010 5:36pm GMT

Ewgeco E200(Disclaimer: I'm biased; Rubaidh built the My Ewgeco web app, and that's how I got my hands on a test unit in the first place.)

We've had a test Ewgeco unit kicking around the office for a while now, and since we've moved out the office, it's been lying in a box with all the other equipment. Over the weekend, I rescued it from storage and hooked it up in the house. And it's been a huge success.

Ewgeco is an energy monitor that shows a real-time display of your electricity, water and gas usage, also recording the information for later analysis. The idea is to show a very simple bar graph user interface with a traffic light system: green means your consumption is low, red means it's much higher than your average. The device calibrates itself to your usage over time to make the traffic lights really mean something (though this takes about a week, so we haven't experienced that yet).

You can retrieve the data from the device and upload it to a web app (which, as I say, we built, so take my gushing praise with that in mind!) where you can spot patterns in usage and feed that information back to actively reduce your energy bills. I haven't tried out the web app since we installed the unit at home - I've only got ~2 days of data now - but I'm really looking forward to giving it a shot from the perspective of the consumer. I'm sure it'll be awesome. :-)

It's dead simple to install the device to measure electricity. You simply wrap a "current clamp" around the mains cable feeding your electricity meter. Done. That's the only one we have installed just now as the gas and water meter installations are a little more involved (though I'm really hoping to at least start measuring gas usage soon). A wizard on the device takes you through connecting to the (wireless) current clamp to retrieve the data, and set your tariffs so you can accurately measure costs.

The real beauty of the Ewgeco device, though, is in the instant feedback. Until now, I've received feedback on our energy usage at most once a month and, more usually once a quarter, when we get a meter reading followed by a bill. Now, it's instant. Switch on the kettle, and you see the electricity graph jump into the red, the number increasing by 3KW. It's already demonstrated that, for example, that it's cheaper to make a cup of coffee (with our coffee maker) than it is to make a cup of tea, even just boiling the right amount of water.

The fun bit is going to be walking around the house with the unit (which is wireless, so you can pick it up and wander around quite happily) and seeing what contributes to the "background" electricity usage in our house. When the house was quiet, I was noticing about 0.5KW background usage. I'd like to see how we can change our behaviour patterns to lower that (though I suspect it's largely down to the fridge, fish tank and a Sun X4100 M2 now sitting in the attic!).

I've been working with Ewgeco for well over a year now, but it hasn't been until I installed the unit in our house that I understood that it's a complete game changer. Visibility into our energy usage, instant feedback and being able to spot longer term trends is definitely going to lower our energy usage, save us money and have us contribute less adversely to the environment.

08 Mar 2010 10:16am GMT

I've missed FAST 2010 yet again.... but, good news! The complete FAST 2010 Proceedings (PDF) are available for free. USENIX members can also view the presentation videos online.

06 Mar 2010 10:28pm GMT

Ales posted some updated application resource files to be localized for auth.opensolaris.org and repo.opensolaris.org. The auth application is already deployed and translated into 25 languages, so it will be great to expand on those community contributions. But there will be an entirely new version of the SCM Console deployed at repo.opensolaris.org later this month (the live version is not localized yet), so we are looking forward to releasing that application in as many languages as possible. Information on contributing to the website localization project.

06 Mar 2010 3:33pm GMT

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert claims it's "beyond stupid" we Americans are not "leading" the world (especially China) in the race to develop clean energy technologies. We Americans are the best, after all, right? Here's Herbert in Watching China Run:

China is a poor country with nothing comparable to the tremendous research, industrial and economic resources that the U.S. has been blessed with. Yet they're blowing us away - at least for the moment - in the race to the future.

And then later he substantiates American superiority with this:

The network of world-class universities and advanced research institutions in the U.S. is by far the most impressive in the world: think Harvard and Stanford and Berkeley and M.I.T. and on and on. If you add to that the venture capital community in the U.S. with its vast experience and the willingness of investors to take risks, and the sheer entrepreneurial talent of the American business community, you end up with an array of resources fully capable of moving the U.S. into a low-carbon, high-growth and extraordinarily productive economy that would be the envy of the world.

But for that to happen - as Bruce Katz, a Brookings executive who was one of the organizers of the conference, pointed out - America's corporate, civic and political leaders will have to "articulate what's really at stake here."

So, in the end, what do we lack? Leaders who can talk. Right. Just what we need. More talk. Oh, also, Herbert uses "wacky and dysfunctional" to describe our public sector leaders.

I don't support these view at all. In fact, the notion of expecting leadership from leaders sounds silly. We elect people to what we think are positions of leadership, and then they turn around and kick us in the teeth . And then the next crew pitches a new set of campaign messages and we somehow think things will be different. Why? Where is the evidence to support this myth? I can't find a shred.

The truth is our leaders are not wacky or dysfunctional in the least (or any more than any of us, anyway), and their lack of articulation is irrelevant. They just don't work for us, that's all. That's why their actions infuriate us. They are loyal to the people who put them in office and have access to them while they are in office. And that's surely not us. So, it's not that our leaders are inept by for not driving projects to create alternative energy technologies. Instead, their job is to milk the exiting system (rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding). And that's oil. When the oil runs out, the U.S. economy will adjust. Until then, the guys running the place will protect the base.

Ever read The Innovator's Dilemma? It's a good book. It documents the ramifications of protecting the base too long without simultaneously preparing for the future. Yet highly intelligent and competent people (in this case managers of otherwise excellent companies) do this all the time. I'm not saying I support a future of fossil fuels. I don't. I'm just saying the notion of expecting the leaders who serve those interests to boldly lead us to a future of clean energy - and ultimately to energy complete energy independence - is ridiculous. We have to do it ourselves. We have to force change from the bottom up. Waiting for change to trickle down from the top is a waste of time.

06 Mar 2010 3:10pm GMT

Mary Lou Dopart, Oracle's Senior Director of Global Customer Programs, posted a welcome message to the OpenSolaris User Groups yesterday, along with a note from Jeb Dasteel, Senior Vice President & Chief Customer Officer. So, it looks like some communication channels are opening up regarding OpenSolaris. The original message was sent to osug-leaders, and a few people responded. I responded as well and offered to help out and forwarded the message to advocacy-discuss since that's a much larger list. I also updated the Advocacy and OSUG pages.

06 Mar 2010 3:09pm GMT

I'm starting to update the Participation page on opensolaris.org by adding context and pointers to Communities, Projects, User Groups, and Subsites that have published contribution documents. In other words, if you run any kind of group in OpenSolaris and take contributions, I'd like to build out a collection of links so we have one place to send people who are new or who may want to review a variety of ways to get involved. It's quite common to trip over new groups in this community that take contributions that I've never even heard of, so from time to time I intentionally go out looking for this information. And since the OpenSolaris community is distributed across many websites and social networks around the world, I'd like to attempt to collect more ways to contribute that are off of opensolaris.org. But the requirement is focused on contributing. I'm not interested in a massive list of spaces (we already have a million of them), I'm only interested in groups that encourage people to contribute directly to a given project. Send mail to jimgris at sun dot com and I'll update the page if I get some good links.

06 Mar 2010 3:08pm GMT

The 18-29 year olds are different. 'The Empathic Civilization': The Young Pioneers Of The Empathic Generation. And I think it bodes pretty well for the future of emerging international communities of all kinds -- technical, scientific, political, environmental, medical, etc. The article seems focused on American and/or Western people, but I wonder what this generation of kids is like in other parts of the world since culture so significantly affects opinion and action. Regardless. If you want to learn about community you need to get around people who do community. Kids. Oh, and by the way, for those above 40 or so, you don't lead in this situation. You follow. Then after you participate and contribute and earn your way you can lead in your area. But remember, everyone leads and everyone follows. That's what I like about communities. Leaders aren't special and opportunity isn't restricted. The kids seem to know that. Why don't we?

06 Mar 2010 3:07pm GMT