want to buy one? check on ebay for “sun” and “sparc”

recipe: what you will need:

  • a T1000 alternatively: ear sealing headphones + music.
  • a LAN switch with DHCP-server/router attached
  • LAN cables (atleast 4x (1x DHCP-server, 1x workstation/client, 1x server port: SC NET MGT PORT, 1x server port: ETH0))
  • an ssh enabled workstation

why?

Escaping all the Spectre/Meltdown Madness surrounding CISC CPUs, user wanted to play with some geeky second hand RISC hardware 🙂

problem: it has NO DVD drive and NO USB port to boot from X-D

so if you need to reinstall this beast, it will all have to be done over network boot.

oracle’s documentation, is almost as worst as apache’s documentation:

it is OVER complicated making it hard to focus on the task that shall be achieved while containing such “useful” sentences like: “To boot from a network, you must connect the network interface to the network.” (T1000 installation guide.pdf) … really? i can’t boot over network if i do not have any network cables attached to my network? never thought that.

init 0
# At the ok prompt, type:
ok setenv boot-device disk0
# where the device-specifier is one of the following:
disk – Specifies the system boot disk (internal disk 0 by default)
disk0 – Specifies internal drive 0
net, net0, net1– Specifies the network interfaces
full path name – Specifies the device or network interface by its full path name.

massively complicated: https://guilleml.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/installing-solaris-10-on-a-sun-enterprise-t1000/

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/817-6958/hbsparcboot-61766/

“The T1’s cores are less complex than those of current high end processors in order to allow 8 cores to fit on the same die. The cores do not feature out-of-order execution, or a sizable amount of cache.”

No out of order = no spectre/meltdown = good.

It comes with OpenBoot = also good and a direct rival to Intel’s EFI adoption. (checkout: https://www.coreboot.org/, coreboot interview: why coreboot?)

https://github.com/openbios

“Open Firmware may be accessed through its Forth language shell interface. It achieves essentially the same functionality as the later EFI standard initiated at Intel, with lower overhead.”

“Sun’s UltraSPARC T1 processor is the industry’s first multi-threaded open source chip architecture.” (src)

first of all: this thing is NOISY as heck. if you turn your vacuum cleaner on full – that noisy.

I have to investigate if this is “normal” or if fan control is off.

The Sun FireTM T1000 server is a scalable and reliable high-performance, entry-level server, offering the following characteristics:

    • Space efficient, rack-optimized 1U form factor for horizontally scaled environments.
    • Chip multithreading technology (CMT) in the UltraSPARC T1 processor with CoolThreadstrademark technology offering six or eight cores, with four threads per core for improved throughput and reduced power consumption.
      • “The UltraSPARC T1 was designed from scratch as a multi-threaded, special-purpose processor, and thus introduces a whole new architecture for obtaining high performance. Rather than try to make each core as intelligent and optimized as they can, Sun’s goal was to run as many concurrent threads as possible, and maximize utilization of each core’s pipeline.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraSPARC_T1
    • Four on-board Ethernet ports providing efficient integration and connectivity.
    • Investment protection with SPARC® V9 binary application compatibility and the Solaristrademark 10 Operating System.
      • The Solaris 10 OS also provides features such as:
        • Solaris Predictive Self-Healing
          • A self healing system automatically diagnoses problems,using the information gleaned from that diagnosis to trigger automated reactions such as dynamically taking a CPU, regions of memory, and I/O devices offline before these components can cause system failure.
        • Solaris Dynamic Tracing
        • support across UltraSPARC platforms.
    • “lights out manager” “ALOM CMT” (telnet via serial/ssh over ethernet) (successor is: “ILOM” purely ethernet/web based server management)
        • The LOM port (Lights Out Management port) is a remote access facility on a Sun Microsystems server. When the main processor is switched off, or when it is impossible to telnet to the server, an operator would use a link to the LOM port to access the server. As long as the server has power, the LOM facility will work, regardless of whether or not the main processor is switched on.
        • Sun seems to use VxWorks to implement this. (atleast so i was told by detailed nmap scan )
        • telnet via serial/com port: You can connect to the system controller serial management port with an ASCII terminal or terminal emulator (such as a serial connection from a workstation). This port is not an all-purpose serial port. This port is a dedicated port used to access ALOM CMT and the server console through ALOM CMT. On your server, this port is referred to as the SER MGT port. This port takes a standard RJ-45 connector.

          Ensure that your console serial port is set to the following parameters:

          • 9600 baud
          • 8 bits
          • No parity
          • 1 stop bit
          • No handshaking
      • Network Performance – Completely rewritten TCP/IP stack dramatically improves the performance and scalability of your networked services.
      • Hardware-Assisted Cryptography:
        • The UltraSPARC T1 multicore processor provides hardware-assisted acceleration of RSA and DSA cryptographic operations. The Solaris 10 Operating System provides the multithreaded device driver (ncp device driver) that supports the hardware-assisted cryptography.
      • Preloaded Java Enterprise System Software

        The server is preinstalled with Java Enterprise System software and includes a free 90-day evaluation license for the following Java Enterprise System software applications:

        • Access Manager – A security foundation that helps manage secure access to an enterprises’ Web applications by offering single sign-on (SSO) as well as enabling federation across trusted networks.
        • Application Server – Provides a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EEtrademark platform) 1.4 compatible platform for developing and delivering server-side Java applications and web services.
        • Calendar Server – A web-based tool that facilitates team collaboration by enabling users to manage and coordinate appointments, events, tasks, and resources.
        • Cluster software – Delivers high availability to enterprise system applications.
        • Directory Server – User-management infrastructure for enterprises that manage high volumes of user information by providing a centralized repository for storing and managing user profiles and access privileges, as well as application and network resource information.
        • Directory Proxy Server – Provides secure firewall-like services for the Directory Server.
        • Instant Messaging – A standards-based, real-time communication and collaboration application.
        • Message Queue – An enterprise-level message server using a standards-based (JMS) messaging solution.
        • Messaging Server – A high-performance, highly secure messaging platform that provides security features that help ensure the integrity of communications.
        • Portal Server – Provides portal services that identify users through centralized identity services using roles, and policies.
        • Web Server – A secure, reliable, easy-to-use web server designed for medium and large business applications.

      The CPU

    • https://sparc.org/blog/
    • https://web.archive.org/web/20110728044139/http://sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf
    • mirror: SPARCV9.pdf
    • “The UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor is unique in its strength and weaknesses, and as such is targeted at specific markets. Rather than being used for high-end number-crunching and ultra-high performance applications, the chip is targeted at network-facing high-demand servers, such as high-traffic web servers, and mid-tier Java, ERP, and CRM application servers, which often utilize a large number of separate threads. One of the limitations of the T1 design is that a single floating point unit (FPU) is shared between all 8 cores, making the T1 unsuitable for applications performing a lot of floating point mathematics. However, since the processor’s intended markets do not typically make much use of floating-point operations, Sun does not expect this to be a problem. Sun provides a tool for analysing an application’s level of parallelism and use of floating point instructions to determine if it is suitable for use on a T1 or T2 platform.[2]In addition to web and application tier processing, the UltraSPARC T1 may be well suited for smaller database applications which have a large user count. One customer has published results showing that a MySQL application running on an UltraSPARC T1 server ran 13.5 times faster than on an AMD Opteron server.[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraSPARC_T1

let’s go: first login

connect “SC NET MGT” directly/via switch to your workstation.

what mac address??

    • ssh via network/LAN/ethernet/TCPIP:
      • start wireshark and directly connect the “SC net mgt” port to a workstation to find out the MAC address of the server
        • you can filter to show only packages from this MAC (wireshark expression)
        • eth.src == 00:21:28:17:8b:XX
      • hook the server up to a DHCP enabled network

what ip address??

    • it takes quiet a while until the “SC net mgt” port get’s an IP Address and becomes usable, so rescan every minute for the next 10 minutes:
    • nmap -sP -PA22 192.168.0.*
      
      Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2018-05-13 19:12 CEST
      Nmap scan report for debian.fritz.box (192.168.0.101)
      Host is up (0.00082s latency).
      MAC Address: 00:21:28:17:8B:XX (Oracle)
    • now you can ssh into ALOM:
    • Default Password: (src)

      When a system is shipped new from the factory, or upon reboot after a setdefaults -a command, a default password is required to log in from an ssh session. The default password is unique for each system. It is derived from the chassis serial number. The chassis serial number can be found on the Customer Information Sheet shipped with each platform and can be found on a label attached to the rear panel of the chassis. The default password is composed of the last 8 digits of the chassis serial number. For example, if the chassis serial number is 0547AE81D0 then the default password is:

      47AE81D0

  • ALOM: power on

    • ssh 192.168.0.101
      
      Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
      
      Oracle Advanced Lights Out Manager CMT v1.7.10
      
      Please login: admin
      Please Enter password: ********
      
      
      sc> poweron -c (yeeehaa... damn this thing is LOUD X-D does it stay that way forever? (QFAN?))

login to solaris via ALOM:

start another terminal, again ssh into ALOM and then hit: console -f

confirm with y

to attach yourself to the “monitor output” and login to solaris itself.

pretty neat for headless server (no VGA, no DVI, no nuthin’).

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19076-01/sparc.t1k/820-0018-10/e-config-booting.html

sc> help
 Available commands
 ------------------
 Power and Reset control commands:
 powercycle [-y] [-f]
 poweroff [-y] [-f]
 poweron [-c] [FRU]
 reset [-y] [-c]
 Console commands:
 break [-D] [-y] [-c]
 console [-f]
 consolehistory [-b lines|-e lines|-v] [-g lines] [boot|run]
 Boot control commands:
 bootmode [normal|reset_nvram|bootscript="string"|config="configname"]
 setkeyswitch [-y] <normal|stby|diag|locked>
 showkeyswitch
 Boot timer commands:
 boottimer <seconds>
 bootretry <number>
 bootfailaction [reset|none]
 bootrecoveraction [reset|poweroff|none]
 Locator LED commands:
 setlocator [on|off]
 showlocator
 Status and Fault commands:
 clearasrdb
 clearfault <UUID>
 disablecomponent [asr-key]
 enablecomponent [asr-key]
 removefru [-y] <FRU>
 setfru -c [data]
 showcomponent [asr-key]
 showenvironment
 showfaults [-v]
 showfru [-g lines] [-s|-d] [FRU]
 showlogs [-b lines|-e lines|-v] [-g lines] [-p logtype[r|p]]
 shownetwork [-v]
 showplatform [-v]
 ALOM Configuration commands:
 setdate <[mmdd]HHMM | mmddHHMM[cc]yy][.SS]>
 setsc [param] [value]
 setupsc
 showdate
 showhost [version]
 showsc [-v] [param]
 ALOM Administrative commands:
 flashupdate <-s IPaddr -f pathname> [-v]
 help [command]
 logout
 password
 resetsc [-y]
 restartssh [-y]
 setdefaults [-y] [-a]
 ssh-keygen [-l|-r] <-t {rsa|dsa}>
 showusers [-g lines]
 useradd <username>
 userdel [-y] <username>
 userpassword <username>
 userperm <username> [c][u][a][r]
 usershow [username]

# example outputs:

showhost
Sun-Fire-T1000 System Firmware 6.7.11  2010/10/12 12:34
Host flash versions:
   OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:43
   Hypervisor 1.7.3.c 2010/07/09 15:14
   POST 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 14:25

usershow
Username         Permissions      Password
admin            cuar             Assigned

showplatform -v
SUNW,Sun-Fire-T1000
Chassis Serial Number: 0916NNE02X

Domain Status
------ ------
S0     OS Standby

showsc -v
Advanced Lights Out Manager CMT v1.7.10

parameter                value
---------                -----
if_network               true
if_connection            ssh
if_emailalerts           false
if_snmp                  false
netsc_dhcp               true
netsc_ipaddr             192.168.0.101
netsc_ipnetmask          255.255.0.0
netsc_ipgateway          192.168.0.1
mgt_mailhost             
mgt_mailalert            
mgt_snmptraps            none
mgt_traphost             
sc_customerinfo          
sc_escapechars           #.
sc_powerondelay          false
sc_powerstatememory      false
sc_clipasswdecho         true
sc_cliprompt             sc                            
sc_clitimeout            0
sc_clieventlevel         2
sc_backupuserdata        true
sc_diag_mode             enabled
diag_trigger             power-on-reset error-reset 
diag_verbosity           normal
diag_level               min
diag_mode                normal
sys_autorunonerror       false
sys_autorestart          reset
sys_eventlevel           2
ser_baudrate             9600
ser_parity               none
ser_stopbits             1
ser_data                 8
netsc_enetaddr           00:21:28:17:8b:XX
sys_enetaddr             00:21:28:17:8b:XX

# this will basically attach you to the main console monitor/output on your screen
# and allows you to login to solaris:
poweron -c
console -f
# you will have to open a new terminal and relogin to do any interaction (poweron)

# this is console output during powerup
Warning: User < > currently has write permission to this console and forcibly removing them will terminate any current write actions and all work will be lost.  Would you like to continue? [y/n]y
Enter #. to return to ALOM.
\
SC Alert: Host System has Reset
0:0:0>
0:0:0>Sun Fire[TM] T1000 POST 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 14:25 
       /export/delivery/delivery/4.30/4.30.4.b/post4.30.4-micro/Niagara/erie/integrated  (root)  
0:0:0>Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
0:0:0>VBSC cmp0 arg is: ffffffff.00000201
0:0:0>POST enabling threads: 00000000.ffffffff
0:0:0>VBSC cntl arg is: ffffffff.00000201
0:0:0>VBSC selecting POST MIN Testing.
0:0:0>VBSC setting verbosity level 2
0:0:0>Start Selftest.....
0:0:0>Master CPU Tests Basic....Done
0:0:0>Init MMU.....
0:0:0>L2 Tests....Done
0:0:0>Test Memory....Done
0:0:0>Setup POST Mailbox ....Done
0:0:0>Extended CPU Tests....Done
0:0:0>Scrub Memory....Done
0:0:0>Extended Memory Tests....Done
0:0:0>IO-Bridge Tests....Done
2018-05-13 17:23:23.668 0:0:0>INFO:
2018-05-13 17:23:23.684 0:0:0>	POST Passed all devices.
2018-05-13 17:23:23.719 0:0:0>POST:	Return to VBSC.
2018-05-13 17:23:23.741 0:0:0>Master set ACK for vbsc runpost command and spin...
/
SC Alert: Host system has shut down.
/
SC Alert: Host System has Reset
ChassisSerialNumber 0916NNE02X

Sun Fire(TM) T1000, No Keyboard
Copyright (c) 1998, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
OpenBoot 4.30.4.b, 16256 MB memory available, Serial #85429110.
Ethernet address 0:21:28:17:8b:76, Host ID: 85178b76.

Boot device: lvm-mirr:a  File and args: 
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_147147-26 64-bit
Copyright (c) 1983, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Hostname: T1000

T1000 console login: May 13 20:48:21 T1000 sendmail[408]: My unqualified host name (localhost) unknown; sleeping for retry

T1000 console login: root
Password: 
May 13 20:49:04 T1000 login: ROOT LOGIN /dev/console
Last login: Tue Aug  8 19:02:31 on console
Oracle Corporation      SunOS 5.10      Generic Patch   January 2005

# ls -lah
total 1032
drwxr-xr-x  23 root     root         512 May 13 20:48 .
drwxr-xr-x  23 root     root         512 May 13 20:48 ..
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           9 Aug  8  2017 bin -> ./usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     sys          512 Aug  8  2017 boot
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     nobody       512 Aug  8  2017 cdrom
drwxr-xr-x  15 root     sys         4.0K Aug  8  2017 dev
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 May 13 20:47 devices
drwxr-xr-x  86 root     sys         4.0K May 13 20:48 etc
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     sys          512 Aug  8  2017 export
dr-xr-xr-x   1 root     root           1 May 13 20:48 home
drwxr-xr-x  16 root     sys          512 Aug  8  2017 kernel
drwxr-xr-x   8 root     bin         5.5K Aug  8  2017 lib
drwx------   2 root     root        8.0K Aug  8  2017 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Aug  8  2017 mnt
dr-xr-xr-x   1 root     root           1 May 13 20:48 net
drwxr-xr-x   6 root     sys          512 Aug  8  2017 opt
drwxr-xr-x  25 root     sys         1.5K Aug  8  2017 platform
dr-xr-xr-x  38 root     root        469K May 13 20:49 proc
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys         1.0K Aug  8  2017 sbin
drwxr-xr-x   4 root     root         512 Aug  8  2017 system
drwxrwxrwt   6 root     sys          397 May 13 20:48 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  40 root     sys         1.0K Aug  8  2017 usr
drwxr-xr-x  46 root     sys         1.0K Aug  8  2017 var
dr-xr-xr-x   6 root     root         512 May 13 20:48 vol


# show os version
uname -r
5.10
cat /etc/release
# manuals can be downloaded here.
Oracle Solaris 10 1/13 s10s_u11wos_24a SPARC
Copyright (c) 1983, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Assembled 17 January 2013

# show info about hardware and health status of components
# amount of physical CPUs
psrinfo -p
1
# CPU details
psrinfo -pv
The physical processor has 32 virtual processors (0-31)
UltraSPARC-T1 (chipid 0, clock 1000 MHz)

psrinfo | wc -l
32

rtdiag -v
System Configuration:  Oracle Corporation  sun4v Sun Fire(TM) T1000
Memory size: 16256 Megabytes

================================ Virtual CPUs ================================


CPU ID Frequency Implementation         Status
------ --------- ---------------------- -------
0      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
1      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
2      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
3      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
4      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
5      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
6      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
7      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
8      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
9      1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
10     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
11     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
12     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
13     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
14     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
15     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
16     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
17     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
18     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
19     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
20     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
21     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
22     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
23     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
24     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
25     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
26     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
27     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
28     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
29     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
30     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  
31     1000 MHz  SUNW,UltraSPARC-T1     on-line  

======================= Physical Memory Configuration ========================
Segment Table:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Base           Segment  Interleave   Bank     Contains
Address        Size     Factor       Size     Modules
--------------------------------------------------------------
0x0            16 GB    4            4 GB     MB/CMP0/CH0/R0/D0
                                              MB/CMP0/CH0/R0/D1
                                     4 GB     MB/CMP0/CH0/R1/D0
                                              MB/CMP0/CH0/R1/D1
                                     4 GB     MB/CMP0/CH3/R0/D0
                                              MB/CMP0/CH3/R0/D1
                                     4 GB     MB/CMP0/CH3/R1/D0
                                              MB/CMP0/CH3/R1/D1


========================= IO Configuration =========================

            IO                                                                                         
Location    Type  Slot Path                                          Name                      Model   
----------- ----- ---- --------------------------------------------- ------------------------- ---------
MB/NET0    PCIE     MB                      /pci@7c0/pci@0/network@4      network-pci14e4,1668          
MB/NET1    PCIE     MB                    /pci@7c0/pci@0/network@4,1      network-pci14e4,1668          
MB/NET2    PCIX     MB                /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/network@1      network-pci108e,1648          
MB/NET3    PCIX     MB              /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/network@1,1      network-pci108e,1648          
MB/PCIX    PCIX     MB                   /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/scsi@2           scsi-pci1000,50  LSI,1064

========================= HW Revisions =======================================

System PROM revisions:
----------------------
OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:43

IO ASIC revisions:
------------------
Location             Path                                          Device                         Revision
-------------------- --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ ---------
MB/IO-BRIDGE                                         /pci@780                 SUNW,sun4v-pci     0
MB/SAS-SATA-HBA                                      /pci@7c0                 SUNW,sun4v-pci     0
MB/SAS-SATA-HBA                                /pci@7c0/pci@0               pciex1166,103.b5   181
MB/SAS-SATA-HBA                          /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8                 pci1166,104.b4   180
MB/GBE0                              /pci@7c0/pci@0/network@4      pci14e4,1668.108e.1668.a3   163
MB/GBE0                            /pci@7c0/pci@0/network@4,1      pci14e4,1668.108e.1668.a3   163
MB/GBE1                        /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/network@1      pci14e4,1648.108e.1648.10    16
MB/GBE1                      /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/network@1,1      pci14e4,1648.108e.1648.10    16
MB/SAS-SATA-HBA                   /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/scsi@2         pci1000,50.1000.3020.2     2

============================ Environmental Status ============================
Fan sensors:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           Sensor             Status    
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F0               RS                 ok
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F1               RS                 ok
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F2               RS                 ok
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F3               RS                 ok

Temperature sensors:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           Sensor             Status    
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/IOB               T_CORE             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0              T_TCORE            ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0              T_BCORE            ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   T_AMB              ok

Current sensors:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           Sensor             Status    
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   I_VCORE            ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   I_VMEM             ok

Voltage sensors:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           Sensor             Status    
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_VCORE            ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_VMEM             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_VTT              ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+1V2             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+1V5             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+2V5             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+3V3             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+5V              ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+12V             ok
0916NNE02F:CH/MB                   V_+3V3STBY         ok

Voltage indicators:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           Indicator          Condition
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/BAT               V_BAT              ok      

LEDs:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Location                           LED                State   
----------------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/SYS                  ACT                steady  
0916NNE02F:CH/SYS                  LOCATE             off     
0916NNE02F:CH/SYS                  SERVICE            off     

============================ FRU Status ============================
Location                           Name      Status  
------------------------------------------------------
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F0               FAN       enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F1               FAN       enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F2               FAN       enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/FT0/F3               FAN       enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH                      MB        enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH0/R0/D0    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH0/R0/D1    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH0/R1/D0    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH0/R1/D1    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH3/R0/D0    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH3/R0/D1    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH3/R1/D0    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH/MB/CMP0/CH3/R1/D1    DIMM      enabled  
0916NNE02F:CH                      PS0       enabled  

============================ FW Version ============================
Version
------------------------------------------------------------
System Firmware 6.7.11  2010/10/12 12:34

====================== System PROM revisions =======================
Version
------------------------------------------------------------
OBP 4.30.4.b 2010/07/09 13:43

Chassis Serial Number
---------------------
0916NNE02X

solaris: basic networking config

ssh into the sun solaris sparc box (SSSB)

yes solaris is UNIX and linux is UNIX but this one is pretty weird (src):

hook up NET0 to your LAN switch:

# list all network interfaces
dladm show-link;
bge0 type: non-vlan mtu: 1500 device: bge0
bge1 type: non-vlan mtu: 1500 device: bge1
bge2 type: non-vlan mtu: 1500 device: bge2
bge3 type: non-vlan mtu: 1500 device: bge3

# the above command does not show if a link is up
# dmesg shows it:
dmesg|grep bge0
May 21 23:47:34 T1000 mac: [ID 469746 kern.info] NOTICE: bge0 registered
May 22 00:11:31 T1000 in.routed[319]: [ID 749644 daemon.notice] bge0 has a bad address 0.0.0.0
May 22 00:11:32 T1000 bge: [ID 801725 kern.info] NOTICE: bge0: link up 100Mbps Full-Duplex

ifconfig bge0 plumb up; # bring up/activate interface?
# assign fixed ip address to interface
ifconfig bge0 192.168.0.224 netmask + 255.255.255.0;
# add net default: gateway 192.168.0.1
route add default 192.168.0.1

# confirm it worked
ifconfig -a;
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000 
bge0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
inet 192.168.0.224 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
ether 0:21:28:17:8b:XX

# enable DNS (change ip of default gateway to suite yours)
echo "nameserver 192.168.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf;
cp /etc/nsswitch.dns /etc/nsswitch.conf;

# test DNS
ping yahoo.com
yahoo.com is alive
# is ssh service active?
svcs -v ssh
STATE NSTATE STIME CTID FMRI
online - 0:36:16 92 svc:/network/ssh:default

# stop ssh service
svcadm disable network/ssh

# start ssh service
svcadm enable network/ssh

# restart service
svcadm restart network/ssh

# per default root login is not allowed
# so you will have to add an "normal" user before you can login via ssh
# add new user "admin"
useradd -m admin
# give admin a password
passwd admin

# now you should be able to ssh into solaris
ssh admin@192.168.0.224

this is what you should see:

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU JUST SSH’D INTO SOLARIS! 🙂

# become root
su
# switch to bash shell (so command auto complete actually works)
bash
# make bash the default shell for root and admin
usermod -s /bin/bash admin
UX: usermod: admin is currently logged in, some changes may not take effect until next login.
usermod -s /bin/bash root

# if you get the error during usage of vi: "xterm-256color: Unknown terminal type"
# go:
export TERM=xterm;
# and try again

# temporary settings that you might also want:

# simplify listing directories
alias ll="ls -lah";

# add /var/opt/csw to binary search path
PATH=$PATH:/opt/csw/bin;

where is my home directory?

this is a pretty new concept for Linux users…

“In Oracle Solaris 11, user accounts are created as Oracle Solaris ZFS file systems. As an administrator, when you create user accounts, you are creating more than a home directory. You are giving users their own file system and their own ZFS dataset. Every home directory that is created by using the useradd and roleadd commands places the home directory of the user on the /export/home file system as an individual ZFS file system. As a result, users have the ability to back up their home directories, create ZFS snapshots of their home directories, and replace files in their current home directory from the ZFS snapshots that they created.

The useradd command relies on the automount service, svc:/system/filesystem/autofs to mount a user’s home directory, so this service should not be disabled. Each home directory entry for a user in the passwd database is of the form /home/username, which is an autofs trigger that is resolved by the automounter through the auto_home map.

The useradd command automatically creates entries in the auto_home map that correspond to the pathname that is specified by using the -d option. If the pathname includes a remote host specification, for example, foobar:/export/home/jdoe, then the home directory for jdoe must be created on the system foobar. The default pathname is localhost:/export/home/user.

Because this file system is a ZFS dataset, the user’s home directory is created as a child ZFS dataset, with the ZFS permission to take snapshots delegated to the user. If a pathname is specified that does not correspond to a ZFS dataset, then a regular directory is created. If the -S ldap option is specified, then the auto_home map entry is updated on the LDAP server instead of the local auto_home map.”

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824_01/html/821-1451/gkhqx.html

solaris software package management commands

pkg
pkg-config pkgadd pkgask pkgcond pkginfo pkgparam pkgrm 
pkg2du pkgadm pkgchk pkgdep pkgmk pkgproto pkgtrans

# show installed software / packages
pkginfo

# install vim
pkgadd -d http://get.opencsw.org/now

what is it?

Sun seems to provide Solaris updates/software packages only for payed users?

http://www.sunfreeware.com/introduction.html

“OpenCSW (pronounced open-cashew /ˈkæʃuː/) is an easy to use open source software distribution installable on top of Solaris and Solaris-based systems. OpenCSW is a community project dedicated to working closely with upstream projects to improve portability of open source software.

OpenCSW Solaris packages are provided in the OS-native SVR4 format. We publish both binary packages and source package definitions, making it possible for others to build on top of OpenCSW’s work.

Follow to getting started.”

you can browser the software archive here: http://mirror.opencsw.org/opencsw/testing/sparc/5.10/

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


The following packages are available:
  1  CSWpkgutil     pkgutil - Installs Solaris packages easily
                    (all) 2.6.7,REV=2014.10.16

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:    

Processing package instance  from <http://get.opencsw.org/now>

pkgutil - Installs Solaris packages easily(all) 2.6.7,REV=2014.10.16
Please see /opt/csw/share/doc/pkgutil/license for license information.
## Processing package information.
## Processing system information.
## Verifying package dependencies.
## 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  [y,n,?] y

Installing pkgutil - Installs Solaris packages easily as 

## Installing part 1 of 1.
/etc/opt/csw/pkgutil.conf.CSW
/etc/opt/csw 
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil
/opt/csw 
/opt/csw/bin 
/opt/csw/etc/pkgutil.conf.CSW
/opt/csw/etc 
/opt/csw/libexec/pkgutil/wget-i386
/opt/csw/libexec/pkgutil/wget-sparc
/opt/csw/share/doc/pkgutil/license
/opt/csw/share/doc/pkgutil/readme
/opt/csw/share/man/man1/pkgutil.1
/opt/csw/var/pkgutil/admin.CSW
[ verifying class  ]
## Executing postinstall script.

Copying sample pkgutil.conf to /opt/csw/etc.
Copying sample pkgutil.conf to /etc/opt/csw.
Copying sample admin from /opt/csw/var/pkgutil to /var/opt/csw/pkgutil.

NOTE!
NOTE! Make sure to check out any changes in /etc/opt/csw/pkgutil.conf.CSW.
NOTE!


Installation of  was successful.

# update package index
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -U
=> Fetching new catalog and descriptions (http://mirror.opencsw.org/opencsw/testing/sparc/5.10) if available ...
==> 3986 packages loaded from /var/opt/csw/pkgutil/catalog.mirror.opencsw.org_opencsw_testing_sparc_5.10

# install vim
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i vim

# list files of that package
/usr/sbin/pkgchk -L CSWvim

# start vim
/opt/csw/bin/vim
# YEAH! VIM RUNNING ON SPARC! THANKS CSW CREW! :)


# install top process monitor (no htop :(
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i top


# show basic info
pkgutil -V
- System -
Pkgutil         2.6.7
Arch            sparc
Solaris         5.10
Pkg patch       119317 (119317-01 installed)
GPG binary      /opt/csw/bin/gpg
Gzip binary     /bin/gzip
Mailx binary    /bin/mailx
MD5 binary      not found (suggestion: install CSWcoreutils)
MD5 module      2.33 (primary choice for MD5)
Perl            5.008004
Perl binary     /bin/perl
Wget binary     /usr/sfw/bin/wget
PATH            /usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/csw/bin

- Configuration -
catalog_not_cached      true (default: true)
catalog_update          14 (default: 14)
deptree_filter_common   false (default: false)
exclude_pattern         not set (default: none)
gpg_homedir             not set (default: none)
maxpkglist              100000 (default: 10000)
mirror                  not set
                        (default: http://mirror.opencsw.org/opencsw/testing)
noncsw                  false (default: false)
pkgaddopts              not set (default: none)
pkgliststyle            2 (default: 0)
pkgrmopts               not set (default: none)
root_path               not set (default: /)
show_current            true (default: true)
stop_on_hook_soft_error not set (default: false)
use_gpg                 false (default: false)
use_md5                 false (default: false)
wgetopts                not set (default: none)

#
pkgutil
pkgutil 2.6.7, install Solaris packages the easy way.

Usage: pkgutil [option]... [package](-[version])...

  -i, --install         Install package
  -u, --upgrade         Upgrade package
  -r, --remove          Remove package (experimental)
  -d, --download        Download only
  -U, --catalog         Update catalog
  -a, --available       Show available packages
      --describe        Describe available packages
  -c, --compare         Compare installed packages to current
  -C, --compare-diff    Same as -c but only show different versions
  -A, --compare-avail   Compare available packages to those installed
  -e, --email=address   Send e-mail with available updates
  -t, --temp=site       Temporarily use this site as primary for download
  -x, --exclude=pattern Pattern to exclude
  -W, --workdir=path    Path to use for work directory
  -P, --pkgdir=path     Path to use for package downloads
  -R, --rootpath=path   Path to use for root_path
      --config=file     Use this configuration file
  -y, --yes             Answer yes on all prompts
  -f, --force           Force updates (sync with mirror)
  -n, --nomod           No modifications are made to the system
  -N, --nodeps          No dependencies
  -D, --debug           Debug mode
      --trace           Set trace mode (-v) for pkgadd/pkgrm
  -h, --help            Show this help
  -v, --version         Show version
  -V, --syscheck        System check
  -l, --list            List installed packages
  -L, --listfile        List files in package
  -F, --findfile        Find files in package
      --deptree=depth   Display dependency tree
      --extract         Extract package content (use with -d)
  -s, --stream          Build a package stream (use with -d)
  -o, --output=file     File name for package stream (use with -s)
  -T, --target=arch:rel Specify architecture and OS release for download
      --single          Single package check (use with -c)
  -p, --param=opt:val   Override configuration option
      --parse           Machine parsable output
      --cleanup         Clean up obsolete packages
      --catinfo         Catalog info

Example: pkgutil -i CSWwget (install wget and its dependencies)

Written and maintained by Peter Bonivart. Web site: http://pkgutil.net.

what is it?

“Pkgutil, written in Perl and licensed under GPL, is a tool to make installation of CSW packages in Solaris easier. It handles package dependencies so all required packages are installed before the desired package automatically.”

repo: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pkgutil/

how to use it: http://pkgutil.wikidot.com/use-with-examples

# popular software that you might also want
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i rsync
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i rsyncd
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i git
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i cmake
#

commands available on terminal/bash/shell:

all available commands under Oracle Solaris 10 sparc 5.10.txt

software repository: https://mirror.opencsw.org/opencsw/testing/sparc/

more packages available repository: http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/en/catalog.shtml?version=entire%400.5.11%2C5.11-0.175.3.1.0.5.2&action=Browse

(oracle itself seems to be unable to get SSL working with tomcat?)

virtualization build in: zones

zoneadm list -cv; # list all zones
  ID NAME             STATUS     PATH            BRAND    IP    
   0 global           running    /               native   shared

# export/home is where most free disk space is check df -th
mkdir /export/home/zones;
chmod 700 /export/home/zone
zonecfg -z zone01
zone01: No such zone configured
Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone.
zonecfg:zone01> create
zonecfg:zone01> set zonepath=/export/home/zones/zone01
zonecfg:zone01> set autoboot=true
zonecfg:zone01> set bootargs="-m verbose"
zonecfg:zone01> commit
zonecfg:zone01> exit

zoneadm list -cv
  ID NAME             STATUS     PATH                           BRAND    IP    
   0 global           running    /                              native   shared
   - zone01           configured /export/home/zones/zone01      native   shared
native   shared

zoneadm -z zone01 verify
WARNING: /export/home/zones/zone01 does not exist, so it could not be verified.
When 'zoneadm install' is run, 'install' will try to create
/export/home/zones/zone01, and 'verify' will be tried again,
but the 'verify' may fail if:
the parent directory of /export/home/zones/zone01 is group- or other-writable
or
/export/home/zones/zone01 overlaps with any other installed zones.
zoneadm -z zone01 install
Preparing to install zone <zone01>.
Creating list of files to copy from the global zone.
Copying <12828> files to the zone.

# startup zone
zoneadm -z zone01 boot;
# login to zone
zlogin -C zone01;

# you will be confronted with those setup screens

# this is just to set correct timezone

# if F2 does not work, try 1. ESC 2. "2"


# now you have solaris inside solaris "wohoo"

# remove zone
zoneadm -z zone01 halt
zoneadm: zone 'zone01': zone is already halted
zoneadm -z zone01 uninstall
Are you sure you want to uninstall zone zone01 (y/[n])? y
# remove config file
zonecfg -z zone01 delete -F

# now what about linux?
/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -y -i wget
mkdir /software
cd /software
wget http://ftp.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/pub/mirrors/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-NetInstall-1804.iso
wget http://ftp.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/pub/mirrors/centos/7/isos/x86_64/sha256sum.txt
shasum -c sha256sum.txt
zoneadm -z lx-zone install -b /software/CentOS-7-x86_64-NetInstall-1804.iso
... does  not work, i guess you can only install 
linux compiled for SPARC architecture on SPARC CPUs?

# Shutdown
shutdown -y -i5 -g0
# or
sync;sync;init 5
# or
poweroff

# reboot
shutdown -y -i6 -g0
# or
sync;sync;init 6
# or
reboot

benchmarks:

cpu: one core

# very simple cross os md5sum benchmark
# create a 1GB file of zeros, a small harddisk benchmark
time dd if=/dev/zero of=md5sumTestFile count=1048576 bs=1024;
1048576+0 records in
1048576+0 records out

real 0m37.646s
user 0m4.330s
sys 0m33.244s

# verify file is 1GB in size
du -h md5sumTestFile;
 1.0G md5sumTestFile
# solaris 10 tested: calculate md5sum with 1x SPARV9 core
time digest -a md5 -v md5sumTestFile;
real 0m31.298s
# same under linux would be
time md5sum md5sumTestFile;
real 0m2.568s (CentOS7, i5-4200U CPU @ 1.60GHz

result: so one virtual (?) UltraSparcT1 Core (SPARV9)@1GHZ is 12x times slower than 1x i5@1.6GHZ Core.

but i only have 4x i5 cores and 32x SPARV9 cores in one physical CPU.

But this benchmark seems to be flawed, because you never know what is the bottleneck: the CPU or the harddisk?

On Lenovo X60S (32Bit Core2Duo) when running this benchmark the CPU is at easy… so i guess it has some hardware accelerated sha stuff in it? (the harddisk is clearly the bottleneck with the CPU idling at 8%)

cpu: all cores: sysbench?

i tried to find a cross os benchmark available for solaris and linux and it should be possible to compile sysbench: https://mysqldatabaseadministration.blogspot.de/2006/09/mysql-benchmarking-3-installing.html

sources: https://github.com/akopytov/sysbench

power usage:

idle/boot: below 150Watts

off: 5 Watts

all CPUs 100%:

noise:

“You know, I thought that nothing could be louder than the Dell Poweredge 1850.

The T1000 makes it seem like the Poweredge is turned off.

And before someone says “it’s designed to be in a server area”, let me add that if you put a bunch of these things in a rack, we’d be talking mandatory OSHA hearing protection required, if not being tagged an EPA superfund site.

It’s a good machine, but not NEARLY powerful enough to justify the noise.

But enough ranting.

What I wanted to ask was whether anyone had tried to replace the fans on the T1000 with quieter aftermarket ones?

Or found some other way to quiet these things down. Thanks.”

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.unix.solaris/JmVVpPJDL7Q

“Hm, some peoples T1000s are quiet, some, including
mine, are loud. And a report that they quiet down after the
POST. Mine don’t. A mystery. Perhaps … oh, there are
some firmware patches for the T1000, 123481-03 and
124751-02 (not sure which is the correct one). And there
are a number of entries in the README for temperature
and fan related issues. Maybe people who got their T1000
after a certain date, or who put in the firmware patch
are the ones with quiet boxes!?!!?”

firmware downloads: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/patches/firmware/release-history-jsp-138416.html#T1000

problem: “normal” users are not allowed to download the firmware patches and are greeted with “You do not have the required access privilege to download this patch.

“The Oracle downloads require a support contract and a MOS account.” (src)

https://updates.oracle.com/download/9641467.html?release=400013210000

oracle: this sucks! please change that!

“Try:
# svcs picl
and see if picl is online.
If not, your box will keep trying to fly by running fans at full speed
and you’ll continue to wish they could actually just fly away.”

solaris?

RISC = no Spectre and Meltdown trouble

ZFS = no bit rot, seems Sun has got stuff right.

it is UNIX alike – but what can it do?

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26505_01/index.html#group-3

what does solaris better than RedHat Linux?

I’ll answer mainly on Solaris and Linux as I know both intimately. Unfortunately I only have limited experience with FreeBSD or OpenBSD.

You’ll get an opinionated answer from me. But then again, any answer you get on this topic will be highly opinionated.

First of all lets look at it from the angle of the OS’s purpose:

  • As a server OS: Solaris has a lot of advantages over Linux. In my mind it’s superior. I’m listing what I find the most important advantages below.
  • As a desktop OS: Solaris development has pretty much abandoned the desktop. It was probably an ok’ish OS for this purpose back in the 80’ties, but you really shouldn’t consider it for desktop purpose in this day and age. Linux is far better as a desktop OS than Solaris. Beware when you read old reports about Solaris’ lack of hardware support. Many of the complaints were related to Solaris not supporting this or that desktop hardware. Irrelevant!

and now on to the advantages as a server OS (in no particular order):

Filesystem. Solaris has ZFS. Linux doesn’t. (FreeBSD has it but not the same quality in my opinion as the Solaris one).

Management. Solaris has SMF. Linux world has been struggling for years in this area with no clear agenda. Now Linux world seem to be rallying behind systemd which is about 15 years late to the party.

Virtualization. Solaris has Zones (aka containers). It is a light-weight virtualization technology. I run 6 hosts (zones) on a 4GB small server with no problems. Linux doesn’t have anything as well supported and battle tested. Solaris Zones are so popular among sysadmins that they are pretty much always used even if the box only hosts a single application, meaning a Solaris sysadmin will always (unconsciously) containerize an application. This revolution among Solaris sysadmins happened after Solaris 10 came out in 2005. Linux has only in the last 2-3 years woken up to the same “revolution” in the shape of Docker (which by the way cannot be compared 1:1 to Solaris Zones). On the topic of virtualization: Solaris has build-in support for network virtualization, called crossbow. I must admit I haven’t used that feature much in production yet, but I’ve used it extensively for proof-of-concepts and for mimicing complex production setups on low cost hardware. I don’t think there’s any equivalent in Linux. If I had to do the same setups on Linux it would cost my employer a lot of money in terms of hardware.

Observability. Solaris has DTrace. If there’s something equivalent on Linux then let me know.

Scalability. Solaris scales much better than Linux on single-image instances (vertical scaling). This is partly due to Solaris’ broader CPU support but also to the architecture of the OS itself. Linux development seems to be betting almost exclusively on horizontal scalability, which definitely has proven its worth, no doubt. However the point here is that with Solaris you can mix and match vertical and horizontal scalability as you see fit for your use case.

Hardware support. Yes, I list that as an advantage. With Solaris you can either deploy on SPARC machines or X86 machines. If you need massive parallelism on a single-image (meaning you don’t want to service 30 Linux boxes to do the same work as a single SPARC box) then consider SPARC. They sucked in period from 2002-2010 but are now really competitive for parallel workloads. If – however – you need that absolute fastest single-thread performance then go with Solaris on X86 with the fastest Intel CPU available. Where I’ve worked I’ve managed Solaris on Dell, Fujitsu X86 servers, HP Servers and of course on Oracle X86 servers. Lately there’s been a decent amount of Solaris on VMware as well. In my home lab I run Solaris on a $150 HP MicroServer. It can’t get much more low cost than that.

Packaging. I like IPS (package manager on Solaris) better than the various package managers on Linux. IPS is well integrated with the Solaris Zone feature and takes advantage of ZFS snapshots. I can minimize downtime much more than with Linux and rollback is a snap. IPS isn’t itself a huge innovation as a package manager (in fact package management was the embarrassment in Solaris before IPS came out in 2011) it is just that it’s so darn well integrated with the rest of Solaris (as I mentioned : Zones and ZFS). On Linux you often feel that each feature area is its own little island.

Stability/Uptime. Solaris is really rock-solid. Linux has come a long way in this area so the gap is definitely much smaller than it used to be. In 2016 I would no longer list this as a major advantage over Linux. However in terms of scheduled downtime I think Solaris does seem to place more importance on never having to reboot than does Linux. It also has some interesting features where ZFS is leveraged to create point-in-time snapshots of the OS (so called Boot Environments) and this makes it easy and fast to go back to a previous state of the OS if needed.

Security. Solaris has always had a fairly large customer base in the areas where strict security is required. This has led to a fair amount of security-related features and almost all of these are available in plain-vanilla Solaris (there’s also an extended version of Solaris called Trusted Solaris which provides so called labelled security but unless you need that level of features then you don’t need it, as everything else is available in standard version of Solaris). The RBAC model is far superior to that of Linux providing a much more fine-grained priv model. The use of roles as opposed to user accounts (root is no longer a traditional user account) is really genius. The use of zones provide an additional barrier and you have the concept of immutable zones as well.

Innovation. Both camps are taking inspiration from each other. However this has been more in the direction of Linux taking inspiration from Solaris than the other way around, in particular when looking at server features.

There you have it. You didn’t ask the reverse question: What can Linux do better than Solaris ? That’s a topic of its own.

src: https://www.quora.com/What-can-Solaris-do-better-than-Linux-and-FreeBSD

OpenSolaris

as Open Source as Solaris can get.

https://illumos.org

“The bulk of the illumos source code is available under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), an OSI-approved free software license based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL).

There are some components with other licenses including BSD and MIT. We also include some software with the GNU General Public License (GPL) or the Lesser/Library General Public License (LGPL).

There still remain some binary-only, closed source components that we inherited from Oracle which we are working to replace. Unlike OpenSolaris, we do not require a closed source compiler.” (src)

distros based on illumos/OpenSolars: OpenIndiana, OmniOS.

“By default, the windowing GUI system is based on the popular MATE system, the continuation of GNOME2, but KDE, XFCE, and Enlightenment could use your help to provide OpenIndiana users with alternative environments.” WOHOOO!

“illumos is a consolidation of software that forms the core of an Operating System. It includes the kernel, device drivers, core system libraries, and utilities. It is the home of many technologies include ZFS, DTrace, Zones, ctf, FMA, and more.
We pride ourselves on having a stable, highly observable, and technologically different system. In addition, illumos traces it roots back through Sun Microsystems to the original releases of UNIX and BSD.”

setup linux?

maybe it will let me control the fans without firmware update. (that is not publicly available? shame on Oracle)

https://askubuntu.com/questions/22108/how-to-control-fan-speed

chosing a distribution for SPARC: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/SPARC-HOWTO-12.html

FreeBSD on Sparc?

checkout the instructions: https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/6.3/sparc64/INSTALL.sparc64

https://www.openbsd.org/sparc64.html

OpenBSD/sparc64 is known or expected to work on this massive amount of supported SPARC machines:

  • Ultra 1/1E
  • Ultra 2
  • Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation
  • Ultra 5/10
  • Ultra 25/45
  • Ultra 30/60/80
  • SPARCengineUltra AX
  • SPARCengineUltra AXe
  • SPARCengineUltra AXi
  • SPARCengineUltra AXdp
  • SPARCengineUltra AXmp
  • SPARCengine CP1500
  • Enterprise 150
  • Enterprise 220R
  • Enterprise 250
  • Enterprise 420R
  • Enterprise 450
  • Enterprise 3000/4000/5000/6000
  • Enterprise 3500/4500/5500/6500
  • Enterprise 10000
  • Sun Blade 100/150
  • Sun Blade 1000/2000
  • Sun Blade 1500/2500
  • Sun Blade T6300
  • Sun Blade T6320
  • Sun Blade T6340
  • Sun Fire V100/V120
  • Sun Fire V125
  • Sun Fire V210/V240/V440
  • Sun Fire V215/V245/V445
  • Sun Fire V250
  • Sun Fire 280R
  • Sun Fire V480/V880
  • Sun Fire V490/V890
  • Sun Fire V1280
  • Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800
  • Sun Fire E2900/E4900/E6900
  • Sun Fire T1000/T2000
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000/M5000
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000/M9000
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000/T2000
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120/T5220
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140/T5240
  • Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
  • Sun SX1500
  • Sun SX2500
  • Sun SX3200
  • Oracle SPARC T3-1
  • Oracle SPARC T3-2
  • Oracle SPARC T3-4
  • Oracle SPARC T4-1
  • Oracle SPARC T4-2
  • Oracle SPARC T4-4
  • Oracle SPARC T5-2
  • Oracle SPARC T5-4
  • Oracle SPARC T5-8
  • Oracle SPARC T7-1
  • Oracle SPARC T7-2
  • Oracle SPARC T7-4
  • Netra AX1105
  • Netra AX2200
  • Netra X1
  • Netra 20/T4
  • Netra 120
  • Netra 210/240/440
  • Netra 1280
  • Netra 1290
  • Netra T1 100/105
  • Netra T1 AC200/DC200
  • Netra T 1100
  • Netra T 1120/1125
  • Netra T 1400/1405
  • Netra CP3060
  • Netra CP3260
  • Netra T2000
  • Netra T5220
  • Netra T5440
  • Netra SPARC T3-1
  • Netra SPARC T4-1
  • Netra SPARC T4-2
  • Momentum Leopard-V
  • Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 1
  • Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 250/450
  • Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 650/850
  • Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000
  • Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise T1000/T2000
  • Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise T5120/T5220
  • Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise T5140/T5240
  • Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise T5440
  • Fujitsu SPARC M10-1
  • Fujitsu SPARC M10-4
  • Fujitsu SPARC M10-4S
  • Fujitsu SPARC M12-1
  • Fujitsu SPARC M12-2
  • Fujitsu SPARC M12-2S
  • RDI/Tadpole Ultrabook 170/200
  • Tadpole SPARCLE 550SX/650SX
  • Tadpole Viper
  • Tadpole/Sun Voyager IIi
  • Naturetech GENIALstation 777S
  • Naturetech PowerBook 777S
  • Naturetech PowerBook 888P

Debian on Sparc?

it seems sparc support was dropped after 7.11.0.

yes they did: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/07/27/1558238/debian-drops-sparc-platform-support

Debian community says “stability problems and lack of support by hardware manufacturer”.

Oracle says they want to improve on that and release their own Linux. (src)

but hang on what is this? https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/10.0/sparc64/iso-cd/

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/9.0/sparc64/iso-cd/debian-9.0-sparc64-NETINST-1.iso

https://wiki.debian.org/Sparc64#Installing_the_Debian_SPARC64_Port

https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/faq/system_port.html

The best place to ask Debian-specific questions about the SPARC port is on the mailing list, <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>. Mailing list archives are browsable on the web.

so the last “official” Debian is/was: https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/7.11.0/sparc/iso-cd/

https://www.debian.org/ports/sparc/

“Debian SPARC is officially released and known to be stable. Supported are sun4u and sun4v machines (with a 32-bit userland).

See the Install Manual for information on supported systems, hardware, and how to install Debian.”

Linux for SPARC by Oracle

“Linux for SPARC release 1.0 is a reference platform incorporating Oracle’s work to improve Linux on modern SPARC hardware. The kernel is based on the mainline 4.1 kernel, while user-space packages are consistent with Oracle Linux 6 for x86_64 with a few exceptions. Both the kernel and some user space packages include SPARC-specific optimizations.

Linux for SPARC is a 64-bit operating system that requires a 64-bit SPARC CPU. You can install Linux for SPARC on both bare metal servers and Oracle VM Server for SPARC (formerly known as Logical Domains). Any SPARC CPU model that supports the sun4v architecture (that is, all UltraSPARC T, SPARC T4, SPARC T5, SPARC M5 and Fujitsu SPARC64-X) should be capable of running Linux for SPARC. Refer to the release notes to see what has been tested. However, if you have questions or encounter issues please log a bug at https://bugzilla.oracle.com.

Linux for SPARC is a reference platform for the Linux community. This is not for use in production environment and there is no support offered for this download. If you are interested in a production solution, please visit this page to learn more about Oracle Exadata SL6 features with the SPARC M7 processor and Oracle Linux.

download: oracle linux 4.1 kernel for SPARC: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/linux/downloads/oracle-linux-sparc-3665558.html

Oracle Stock price: https://www.finanzen.net/aktien/Oracle-Aktie

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