Episode 17, Solaris
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Solaris Zones
RYOS, Episode 17 - Solaris
Seg: Thank you for joining us here on another
fantastic episode of the 'Run Your Own Server'
Podcast. I'm Seg, over here to my -- well, I don't
know really where he would be in relation, network
wise, but Thud is on the other side.
Thud: Hi, I'm Thud.
Seg: Yup. I'd like to say hello and thank you to
everyone who has joined our forum and posted
messages about stuff. Hello, and thank you for your
support.
As the leader of the group when it comes to
Solaris, I'm going to be doing most of the driving,
I guess. I've been using Solaris for about four or
five hundred years now, and I really only have
experience with Solaris nine and Solaris 10.
If you want to be a Solaris admin, well, you've got
some surprises in store for you. It's nice to be a
Solaris admin in the sense that anyone who can
afford Sun hardware and Sun support is probably
going to be able to afford to pay you very well. At
least, that's the theory because Sun equipment is
very expensive; even second-hand stuff is very
expensive. Just hit up eBay and you can find
systems that equate to 386s in desktop terms are
several hundreds of dollars. They're insanely
over-priced just because they're Sun hardware.
If you're a Solaris Admin now, you're most likely
running Solaris 10 or Solaris 9. Anything older
than 8, though, you should really think about
upgrading as soon as humanly possible.
Solaris 10, I'll talk about most because I know it
the best. Solaris 10 is a 64-bit operating system.
You may have heard the hype about 64-bit taking
over the world, how everything is going to be
64-bit and be so awesome. What you might not know,
even if you are a Solaris admin, is that most of
the applications that run on Solaris 10 in the
64-bit kernel are, in fact, 32-bit apps, and they
run very well, actually. Sun has done a very good
job of making 32-bit applications run under a
64-bit kernel.
Now, I engaged in a project -- not that long ago,
just a couple of months ago -- to compile programs
in 64-bit mode to see if they would run any better
under a Solaris 10 64-bit kernel. Across the board,
every single application performed worse in 64-bit
mode than it did in its native 32-bit mode. The
reason for that is if you were to take, if you
remember the old Nintendo entertainment systems,
like the old ones, the original NES, take one of
those cartridges and somehow get it to work on a
PlayStation 3, it's not going to run very well.
You'll have to clock down the PS3 to make it work
at the level of the 8-bit cartridge that you just
plugged in.
That's pretty much the way everything works in a
64-bit world. You get the same thing with 64-bit
Linux and 64-bit Windows. There's a lot of -- it's
been called "sex appeal" about 64-bit, and a lot of
hype. Well, "everything can be faster, everything
can be better in 64-bit," and it's not. The only
thing you get in 64-bit mode is more memory space.
As long as the application has enough memory space
in 32-bit mode, then there's no reason to worry
about it. The kernel for Solaris runs in 64-bit
mode because all of the hardware is 64-bit, and the
kernel is built to take advantage of that extra
memory space and to maximize its performance under
the hardware conditions.
Talking about cache, like I said, Sun hardware is
extremely expensive. You can get a couple of good
deals right now on Sun x86 hardware; they have
things like the x2200. You can get a pretty good
deal on that stuff, but you'd get a good deal
because it's total crap. [laughter] I don't want to
lie to you guys; it's total crap. Ever since they
started putting out the Cool Thread servers and the
x86 stuff, it's just going downhill. There's been
some really, really dumb mistakes made on Sun's
part in regards to hardware, and don't even get me
started on the T2000 series!
Anyway, it's still extremely expensive across the
board. If you want a really good machine, even the
x86 stuff, which is crap, if you want a good one
you're still going to be paying a pretty hefty
price when compared to the actual Intel hardware or
the Intel-compatible hardware that you can get.
Thud: Now, is it expensive because it's better? Why
is it expensive?
Seg: It's expensive because it's a monopoly!
[laughter] It's only sold by Sun, eBay, and
resellers.
Thud: OK, so it's not necessarily any better than
anything else you could get.
Seg: Yes, it's because you're getting it directly
from Sun, theoretically, because it's Sun hardware.
That's why it's more expensive. Sun hardware is
very expensive because you get it from Sun
Microsystems, a reseller, or eBay. But that's
really the only way you can get it is from Sun or
second-hand from Sun. There are no other companies
out there making Sun SPARC hardware in the sense
that you can buy any kind of processor,
motherboard, or something, and it's
Intel-compatible. You can't go out and build your
own motherboard that will be SPARC-compatible --
well, you could, technically, but that's beside the
point.
Another thing that you need a lot of cash for is
Sun support. You buy hardware directly from Sun;
that's great, you get a little warranty on it. But
if you want real support, if you want software
support, you're going to have to pay through the
nose. Most times, 99 percent of the time, you're
going to pay a lot more for support than you are
for the hardware, and that's saying a lot,
considering how expensive the frigging hardware is.
A lot of people choose not to go with the support.
They just say, "Well, instead of spending 30 to 50
to 60-70 thousand dollars per contract year for
support, I'll just hire me a Sun admin and buy
parts through eBay if needed." That's fine; it
works out for a lot of people, and it certainly
employs a lot of people outside of Sun, which is
fantastic considering I'm one of those types of
people!
Unfortunately, the community support for Sun is
very small. If you're using FreeBSD, for example,
and you can't figure out how to change your
password, well, there's a million different sites
out there that run forums, newsgroups, and mailing
lists, where you can ask questions and get a lot of
support. But there really isn't that kind of an
environment for Solaris. There's OpenSolaris, which
is a lot of things, and one of things that
OpenSolaris is a group for support. There's Sun
Managers and there's a couple of third-party forums
out there, but there's not the type of open source
community support for Solaris as there is for
anything else out there, such as Linux or BSD, or
even Windows.
So, if you're a Solaris admin, 90% of the real
support you're going to get is probably going to be
from Sun Microsystems Incorporated -- Sun directly.
Again, that can cost an arm and a leg.
Sun does have a lot of different levels of support,
though. You can get system support, which is OS
support just for their certain system and it's
hardware support for that system. It's like total
support just for that one system, and you can pay
per system. You can also get software support only,
but you still have to give them serial numbers of
the servers. They have a lot of different tiers and
stuff, and if you talk with their sales department,
which I've had to do over this year or so, in
theory they have a lot of different options. I'm
going back and forth with them right now over
something so I don't have a lot of faith in it, but
I'm sure once it's all resolved, I'll be able to
say yes, they're fantastic.
Now, if you're used to running FreeBSD, OpenBSD,
Linux, anything within those operating branches,
you're used to using a lot of GNU tools, and you
probably don't even know about it. Things just like
tar, patch, top, and tons of stuff, that's
standard. If you install FreeBSD, you get GNU tar;
that's the tar, that's what it is. It's the GNU
version of tar.
When you install Solaris, though, you get the Sun
version of tar, which is extremely different from
the GNU version of tar, and the same thing for
grep. This can cause some headaches for a new
Solaris admin, finding all the little utilities
that are Sun version, and they don't have all the
nice bells and whistles that you're probably used
to that you get with the GNU versions.
There are plenty of times where I had to beat my
head against the wall for a couple of minutes
before I realized, "Oh, that's right. I'm using the
Sun version of this instead of the GNU version of
that." The latest time I ran into that was patch --
the patch utility.
If you're familiar with patch at all, one of the
functions of patch, really the only thing I've ever
used it for, is you have an application that comes
in source code, you're supposed to compile that
source code to install it. Well, before you even
compile it, you need to apply a patch. So, you
download another thing of source code, put the
source code in a certain directory, the application
in a certain directory, and you tell patch apply
this patch to this source code, and then I'll build
the application and the patch will be included in
with it.
We'll there's a difference between Sun's version of
patch and the GNU version of patch. I was patching
PHP, I was adding a hardening patch, and the Sun
version of patch just blew up. It just gave me the
middle finger and wouldn't work at all. It was
like, "Why isn't that working. I've gotten it to
work on FreeBSD a thousand times. I don't
understand." Finally, I remembered there must be a
different patch utility for Solaris than there is
for everything else in the world. There was, and I
had to go download the freeware version of GNU
patch and install that.
So, you always have to look out for those gotchas,
the differences between Sun and the rest of the
entire universe.
Thud: If I can butt in here?
Seg: Sure.
Thud: If it's that difficult, if there are things
that are that different, why would you want to use
Solaris in the first place?
Seg: I don't want to answer that question because
it undermines my job! [laughter]
Thud: Oh, OK. That's a perfectly valid answer.
[laughter]
Seg: I don't want to think about how horribly I
have it in my life. [laughter]
Well honestly, once you get past the initial
gotchas, there are a lot of nice things about
Solaris that you don't get with other operating
systems. The support, when you get it, is
fantastic. Although the SunSolve site doesn't work
as fast and as stable as I'd like it to be, when it
does work, it works great. Sun is regularly
releasing patches for their software, keeping you
up to date.
If you run FreeBSD, you can't really get an
authoritative answer on a really complex issue,
like a kernel issue for production level. You could
query the mailing list that deals with kernels in
FreeBSD, and maybe you'd get a developer and he
might point you in the right direction. But with
Solaris, if there really is a bug in the kernel,
you can actually get the kernel team on the phone
and they can work with you through it. It will cost
you an arm and a leg, but that's a real option.
The worst, I guess, you could probably also say
that well, if you paid the FreeBSD people that kind
of money, they'd probably do it for you, too.
[laughter]
Thud: Yes, but at least with Solaris it does sound
like you're getting a higher level of support that
you can really rely on.
Seg: Absolutely.
Thud: FreeBSD and all the other open source
operating systems have a huge community of support,
but it's really hard to sell that to a boss who
doesn't understand that.
Seg: Yes, yes.
Thud: All right. Well, let's move on to the next
thing. Sun, of course, is standardized on Apache
because it's the most used web server there is, so
of course, they include it in Solaris, right?
Seg: Yes, actually they do. If you do a full
install of Solaris 10, you get Apache and Apache 2.
The version of Apache two is not the 2.22, I think
is the latest for Apache; it's the branch right
below that, like the 2.0. It's pre-compiled; it
installs as a package. It's, in theory, compiled to
be best optimized on a Sun system, which is great.
Of course, I never use it because I always have to
recompile Apache for different options and stuff.
Thud: Yes.
Seg: But the Sun version of Apache is a little bit
different than the version people are usually used
to. I don't know, I think there was one project
that I have ever worked on -- it was extremely
small -- where I used the packaged version of
Apache. Other than that, I just had to host one
page on a website, and it was straight HTML. I
didn't want to bother with compiling Apache, I just
used the native Apache and I ran at that way. But
for every other application I've ever needed it,
I've always had to compile my own.
But prior to releasing Apache standard with their
OS, there was the Sun One Java Web Server, which is
still available and still packaged. The Sun One
Java Web Server is Sun's idea of a web server, and
it's frigging terrible. I would not recommend it
for anybody. [laughter] Yes, it's bad.
Well, Java is bad, really. I don't like Java; I
hate Java; I hate JavaScript; I hate PERL. I'm sure
we just lost half of our audience, but I really
can't stand Java. [laughter] I get it that it's
cross-platform, and I understand its scalability is
fantastic; but no, I just hate Java.
Thud: Yes, I'm kind of with you on that one. I
definitely do not like Java. [laughter]
Seg: Well, they have a Java web server, and they
have a Java application server. Two very separate
things, but again, they are packaged along with
Solaris. But I think that in most cases, people are
going to look at that and say, "That's nice, but
I'm just going to compile my own; I'm just going to
install my own Java." But yes, you've got to look
out for things like that.
An important thing to note if you're going to
compile your own Apache on Solaris. If you do a
default install of Solaris, you'll get both
versions of Apache, and then you'll want to install
your own, so you'll end up with three versions of
Apache. There will not be any conflicts as long as
you install it into a separate directory. Apache
and Apache two on Solaris install directly in the
user directory, so it's /usr/apache, or
/usr/apache2. That's where they install.
Most third-party apps will go in user/local, so if
you install your own build of Apache into
/usr/local/apache/whatever, it will not conflict
with the Sun versions. The same is true for
OpenSSL, which most people will be using on a web
server if you want to use encryption port 443, all
that good stuff. If you install OpenSSL into
usr/local, first off, it will not conflict with the
native SSL that comes with Solaris, it will not
conflict with the OpenSSL version that installs
with Solaris. It will not conflict with any of
those.
Solaris does come prepackaged with some GNU tools,
some freeware tools, and they will install in
different places such as usr/ccs/bin -- you'll get
the executables in there -- usr/sfw, and then
there's a bin and an sbin and stuff off of that.
So, you will get some real-world applications in
those places.
The OpenSSL that comes with Solaris, which is the
free version of SSL, that will install in
usr/sfw/ssl. So, if you install in usr/local, it
will not conflict with that. You won't have any
conflicts, and it will be fine. You'll just have to
reference the libraries when you build stuff, and
when you call the libraries you have to direct them
to the right version of SSL that you need.
One of the cool things that came through with
Solaris 10, which was not available in Solaris nine
and previous, was NFSv4. If you don't know anything
about NFS, then just ignore me for the next five
minutes because you don't need to know anything
about NFS. If you know what NFS is, and there's a
gun held to your head and you need to use it in
order to keep breathing, then think about the
quality of your life, and if you're more than 50
percent sure that you need to live, then keep on
listening.
NFS is network file system -- network file sharing,
and it's a way to mount a partition over a network.
It's like SMB shares with Windows. Well, NFSv4
brings a lot of cool bells and whistles, one of
them is it will now work over TCP. It will also run
on low ports; instead of using 50,000 ports all
across the spectrum, you can now force it to run on
lower ports making it a lot easier to work over
firewalls. Also, you can get encryption and a bunch
of other stuff, although encryption is kind of
stupid. If you're in a situation where you need NFS
encrypted, you don't need to be using NFS.
[laughter] You should be using something else. But
that's not the point.
In practice, and Thud and I have actually seen this
in real practice, if you run NFS and you want to
use TCP, I say go for it because, in practice, TCP
will actually work better than UDP. Now I know what
you're saying, "Seg, but UDP is faster because you
don't have to wait around for a reply." Well, NFS
sucks. So, if you can use TCP, you can guarantee
the package are getting there -- how they need to
get there. You are actually going to run a faster
environment; you're going to run a more stable
environment than UDP. So, if you have to use NFS --
forced to, gun to your head, all that -- go with
version four forced TCP, I think you're going to be
happy with the results.
Thud: Or, you could always take my advice: if NFS
is the answer, you need to change your question.
[laughter]
Seg: Ah, Thud. Always the wisdom from you! I've got
to write that one down. [laughter] Oh, that's
beautiful!
Thud: OK, why don't you tell us about -- I don't
know. What do you want to do next? Sun's SSH,
or...?
Seg: Yes, Sun doesn't really have SSH. Sun has just
incorporated OpenSSH.
Thud: But of course it's a little different.
Seg: Of course it's a little different, yes!
[laughter] If you go out, and you get SSH from the
OpenSSH Group, and you install it, the config file
is completely from that which you get on a Sun
install. So, you will have to read the man page,
and you'll have to figure out instead of using, if
you don't want the IP to be resolved when you
connect, it going to be the user DNS switch, or is
it going to be resolve/client/host name switch.
It's the same thing, but with a different name. So
again, you're going to run into gotchas with that.
There are other SSH servers out there; there's SSH
Server 2, by the Tectia people, I think that's name
of their company. And again, their SSH-D config
format -- file format is completely different from
everything else. So, it's just another gotcha,
really.
Thud: All right. So, I guess Solaris is different
in a lot of other ways. How is it different when it
comes to patching?
Seg: Well, I still run FreeBSD in a lot of servers,
and I don't really patch it that much. This is all
internal stuff. It never sees the light of day; it
doesn't touch the Internet. If you want to patch a
BSD system, it's not really patching, you do a CVS
upgrade on all of your installed programs. And
that's really cool, it's this utility that goes and
looks at what you have installed and then downloads
the new versions of that. If you get it set up
right, it's pretty nifty.
The Solaris equivalent to that doesn't really
exist. Well, [laughs] it does, but I'm not going to
get into it. Patching on Solaris is actually pretty
easy. It's even easier on Solaris than it is on
FreeBSD. About every two weeks, Solaris puts out a
bulletin saying, "We've updated our patch cluster,
you can go download it. Here are the newest fixes."
So, you go to SunSolve with your paid SunSolve
account, and you download a patch cluster. And they
range from 400 to 700 megs each--I think that's
right--no, about maybe 200 to 400 megs, depending
on the OS level. You download it from Sun, and it's
a ZIP file--it's just a single ZIP file--and you
copy it to your system and you unzip it. And then
you CD into the directory that it creates, and you
run a script that's called install--cluster.
What that does is it goes through every patch that
it has there, which is all the patches for that OS
that are security-related and recommended by Sun.
They're not all the patches available for that
release, they're just all the ones that are
critical and that are believed to be non-harmful in
Sun's eyes. And I'll talk a little bit more about
that idea in a second.
Anyway, in theory, it's pretty simple: you download
the file, you unzip it, you boot down into single
user mode, and then you run a script. And it takes
like an hour to two hours, or however long it
takes, whatever kind of system you have. It goes
patch-by-patch and says, "Is this installed? Yes,
patch it. If no, don't. Try to patch this; if it
fails, let us know." Stuff like that. But that's
it. The actual patch process is hands-off once you
install that script.
And then after it's done, you do a reconfigure
reboot, and, in theory, everything comes back, it's
all patched, and you're good to go for another two
weeks.
In practice--well, I'm not going to say across the
board. For me personally, in practice, patch
clusters sometimes blow up servers. And I've become
quite adept at being a disaster recovery tech for
Solaris because of patch clusters.
On a default install that's not been meddled with
too much, the patch clusters will work just fine.
But I've had to work with a lot of customers who
have, for whatever reason, done some really, really
weird stuff to their system, and the changes that
they've made, they didn't seem to be too bad when
they made them, but just one bit in one file
somewhere deep in the architecture got changed, and
it just totally hoses the box after you run a patch
cluster.
Because of this, [laughs] you need full backups
before you run them. If you're using a RAID, if
you're using a mirror for the root disk, I
recommend you break the mirror before you do a
patch cluster: you have a rollback. You really need
to be careful.
When I first got into patching with patch clusters,
I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
I was so gung-ho about it, I'm like, "Yeah, this is
great! It's really easy. We'll patch everybody,
keep them all up to date. It's fantastic!" And then
about four or five customers in, I blew up a box.
[laughs] I was like, "This is not as good as I
thought it was."
[Thud laughs]
And so I backed off a little bit, and I got a
little wiser. But in theory, it's a lot easier than
other operating systems, and I believe, at least in
my situation, that the sleepless nights I've had to
spend rebuilding boxes and reverting problems has
been a learning experience and a very positive
thing. Although the customers were not too happy;
but they're never going to be happy.
All right. Here's one of the neat things I like
about Solaris and Sun systems. Again, I want to do
a comparison. On an Intel box, you've got the BIOS.
During the boot process, you can interrupt the boot
process, and you say, "I want to look at the BIOS,
and I want to change some really arbitrary value on
some switch I have no idea what it does. And then
I'll reboot, and I'll hose my box." [laughs]
On Solaris, you have up to four different BIOSes
you can mess things up on. [laughs] It's fantastic.
The boot process--and this varies slightly between
different models of systems--I'm going to take, for
example, a Sun Fire V240, which is one of the
systems I'm most familiar with. A Sun Fire V240 has
ALOM: ALOM stands for Advanced Lights Out
Management.
If you plug a 240 into a power socket, but you
don't power it on, and you connect something to its
console--you can do a straight CO connection to a
laptop, or you want to run it through a Cyclades
switch, however--if you connect to its console
while it's powered off but has power connected to
it, you can access the ALOM: the Advanced Lights
Out Manager. On older systems, it's called just
LOM: Lights Out Manager.
In there, you can change some system values. You
also have the ability to send a break to the
system. At that time, the power would be off, so it
really wouldn't be useful. But anyway, you can do
things like power off and power on the box from a
little management interface, and it's pretty cool.
You can also set boot values. You can override a
couple of things later on down the boot process.
It's extremely useful, at least in my line of work.
If you are at the management console and you tell
it, "Power on, " then it'll power on and start to
boot. Once the boot process exits ALOM, it goes
into POST--Power-On Self-Test--and all computers
have a Power-On Self-Test. It's a hardware-level
test where it just goes through and says, "OK,
everything that I can find responds to some basic
tests, and I believe it to be good, so let's keep
on going."
After the POST section of boot, you get to the
OBP--the OpenBoot PROM--which, again, is another
thing that you can actually get an interface on and
change values. There are a number of variables set
in OBP that you can change. You can modify things
like what the default boot device is going to be.
You can pass certain command switches: you could
say, "Well, I want to boot from the network or from
the CD-ROM, and I want to do it in single user
mode, " or, "I want to boot from a disk and
reference this file, instead of booting normally."
You can also change things like the banners: you
can put a logo on there. [laughs] And these are all
really kind of interesting and kind of neat--I know
they're not huge system changes--but there is a lot
of fun stuff in the OBP that you can change.
Now, after the boot process, if you're letting it
go, after it exits OBP, it goes into the actual
disk boot or net boot or CD-ROM boot, the actual
device that you want to boot from, and then it
continues the boot process from there.
If you're connected over the serial port, the
serial console, you can do a lot of fun things on a
V240. If the system is up, if it's completely up
and running and applications are going, you can
connect to the serial console and then pass a
command -- which, on a V240, it's "pound period"
and then hit Enter a couple times. You will be
given the ALOM prompt, the same thing that you saw
at the beginning of the boot process before it was
even powered on. You can have access to ALOM while
the system is running. You can only do this over
the serial console; you can't SSH in and do this.
From there, if the system's not responding, if
something at the application level is borking the
system and you can't get a login prompt or
anything, you can still get into the ALOM, and
either you can force the power off, you can force
it to reset, you can also send a Break to the
system. A Break or a Stop-A, as Sun techs are
familiar with, is a way to say, "I don't care
what's going on, you are to stop execution of the
entire kernel right now, drop down to the OBP
prompt." And again, talking about the OBP prompt a
couple seconds ago, that's a fun place where you
can change variables about how you boot.
On a V240, let's say I wrote a Java application,
and as Java applications do, they blow up. It's
just completely hosing the system, so I need to
reboot, but I can't get down to the system to do it
-- but I do have console access over our network. I
will log in to that console access, I'll access the
ALOM, I'll say, "Send a Break to the system." It
will send a Break, I'll be dropped to the OBP
prompt, also called the OK prompt. I can change how
it boots. Let's say, if it was screwing up, I want
to boot from the network and rebuild the box, or if
I want to boot from the CD-ROM, whatever. I can do
that from there and then reboot. And if it screws
up again I can send another Break, and keep doing
the same thing until it works.
Here's a fun question. If you're ever interviewing
somebody for a Solaris position, here's a fun
question to ask: 'Why is the OK prompt mislabeled?'
Thud: Because if you're at it, you're not OK?
Seg: Exactly. That's exactly right.
Thud: Cool!
Seg: The OK prompt is the OBP prompt, where you can
change system values and how it boots. If you're
there, in most cases, something's probably not
going OK. [laughs]
Thud: The kernel's definitely not running at that
stage.
Seg: [laughs] Exactly! There's a whole universe
behind Sun Microsystems, Inc. Solaris is a gigantic
operating system. It's a lot of fun and I believe
it's really interesting, and I have a lot of fun
working on it. My talking about it here isn't
supposed to give you an in-depth view to how to
become a Solaris admin. I just wanted to give you
some tips, know what to expect if you wanted to
head down that road, and give you a heads-up on
some gotchas.
I really recommend going for the SCSA -- the
Solaris Certified Systems Administrator
certification. I've got it myself. I recommend
going for that. Try to use a quality testing
center, though. There were a couple of questions on
the one that I took that were impossible. But go
out, get a book. If you're going for your SCSA, get
a Sun Support account. If you want to go buy a
study book, that's fantastic, but for everything
that you read about in the study book, also look it
up on SunSolve, on docs.sun.com, and read what Sun
Microsystems says about that topic.
If possible, get yourself a Sun system to practice
on. An x86 will work, it'll be enough for the exam,
but I really recommend going for a SPARC system.
That way you can have access to the OBP. I didn't
get tested on ALOM at all -- they didn't touch on
that at all -- but there were OBP questions I did
have to answer. So, I definitely recommend that.
[music]
Thud: OK, so for this episode's Moment of Seg we're
going to go over a cool new feature of Solaris 10
called Solaris Containers or Solaris Zones. Take it
away, Seg.
Seg: Thank you, Thud. Solaris Zones are Sun's
answer to Virtual Machines and Jails in FreeBSD. A
Solaris Zone is an encapsulated instance of the
Solaris 10 operating system, running, in theory,
separate from the global system. You can install a
Solaris Zone kind of easily; it's just a few
commands. The packages needed to run a Zone are
included in the default full install of the Solaris
10 installation.
It wasn't really built for security. I would not
recommend trusting a Solaris Zone to be secure, to
be completely separate from the OS. Even Jails on
BSD systems are not impervious to being broken out
of.
But they're kind of neat, because if you want to
separate applications in their own little Zones or
groups, this is a neat way to do it while wasting a
ton of system resources. A Solaris Zone installs
through a couple of commands. First you set up a
Zone, and then you install the Zone, and then you
boot the Zone. You do actually have access to the
Virtual Console on the Solaris Zone. There is
actually a way to log in to the Zone as though
you're logging in over the Console.
From the global Zone you can log in to a subzone, a
regular Zone, but you can't log out of a Zone -- or
under normal circumstances, you can't log out of a
Zone to go to the global Zone. So it's like you
have one big operating system called the global
Zone, and then you have little tiny operating
systems within that, running as their own Zones.
You can name Zones and stuff like that.
I've used Zones to run different applications,
segregated from the rest of the environment.
They're useful because in theory, you are
segregating processes -- so in theory, if the web
server you're running in a Zone gets hacked, then
it's not the entire system. It's very easy -- you
can down a Zone, you can boot it down very quickly.
You can wipe it and you can reinstall it within a
few minutes. It's very quick to do.
So, if you wanted to set up just another layer of
security, then I recommend going with Zones. But
again, don't rely on them to keep your system
secure. Just use them as another layer of security
in your entire security plan.
[music]
Thud: For show notes or other details, please visit
our website at RunYourOwnServer.org.
If you would like to send us feedback or have
questions you'd like us to answer on the show,
please visit our forums at
forums.RunYourOwnServer.org.
The intro music, "I Like Caffeine," is by Tom Cody.
This song, "Down the Road," is by Rob Costlow.
Please visit our website for links to their
websites.
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