Solaris 10 System Administration Part I

My Solaris 10 System Administration Part I notes.

Credits

My main source of information came from Oracle System Administration of Solaris 10 Part I from Oracle University (excellent training) & Solaris 10 man pages.

Solaris 10 OS Directory Hierarchy

File systems

Unix File System (UFS) is the default file system

Directory starts with root directory (/)

Solaris 10 OS includes alternate file system called zettabyte file system (ZFS)

Logically all directories fall below root directory (/)

Physically directories can be located on one or spread over multiple file systems

<insert graphics to show this>

Refer to filesystem man page for more information on file system organization.

$ man -s 5 filesystem

Important directories

Directory	Notes
/	root of file system
/bin	symbolic link to /usr/bin & location for binary files of standard system commands
/dev	primary directory for logical device names & contents of directory are symbolic links to device files in /devices directory
/etc	directory holds host-specific config files & databases for system administration
/export	default directory for commonly shared file systems (like user home directories)
/home	default directory or mount point for user home directories
/kernel
/lib
/mnt
/opt
/platform
/sbin
/usr
/var

Important in-memory system directories

/dev/fd
/devices
/etc/mnttab
/etc/svc/volatile
/proc
/system/contract
/system/object
/tmp	directory for temporary files (cleared during boot sequence)
/var/run

Subdirectories of note under /dev

/dev/dsk	block disk devices
/dev/fd	file descriptors
/dev/md	logical volume management metadisk drives
/dev/pts	pseudo terminal devices
/dev/rdsk	raw disk devices
/dev/rmt	raw magnetic devices
/dev/term	serial devices

Important subdirectories under /etc

/etc/acct	config info for accounting system
/etc/cron.d	config info for cron utility
/etc/default	default info for various programs
/etc/inet	config files for network services
/etc/init.d	scripts for starting & stopping services
/etc/lib
/etc/lp	config info for printer subsystem
/etc/mail	config info for mail subsystem
/etc/nfs	config file for NFS server logging
/etc/opt	config info for optional packages
/etc/rc#.d	legacy scripts that are executed when entering or leaving a specific run level
/etc/security	controls files for Role Based Access Control & security privileges
/etc/skel	default shell initialization files for new users
/etc/svc	Service Management Facility database & log files

Important subdirectories of /usr

/usr/bin	standard system commands
/usr/ccs	C-compilation programs & libraries
/usr/demo	demo programs & data
/usr/dt	Java Desktop System (JDS) software directory or mount point
/usr/include	Header files
/usr/jdk	directory contains Java technology programs & libraries
/usr/kernel	loadable kernel modules not generally required during boot process
/usr/lib	architecture-dependent databases, libraries, & binaries that are not invoked directly by user
/usr/opt	config info for optional packages
/usr/sbin	sys admin coomands
/usr/spool	symbolic link to /var/spool directory

Important subdirectories of /var

/var/adm	log files for syslog, system accounting, etc
/var/crash	crash dump storage
/var/spool	spool files storage
/var/svc	Service Management Facility control files and logs
/var/tmp	long term storage of temp files (survives reboot)

File components

Generally a file name is associated with an inode & an inode provides access to data blocks.

<insert figure of relationship>

file names

File names are objects frequently used to manage files. A file must have a name that is associated with an inode.

inodes

Inodes are objects that Solaris OS uses to maintain info about a file. In general an inode contains:

1. file info = file owner, permissions, & size
2. pointers to data blocks associated with file content

inodes are numbered & each file system contains its own inode list

At UFS creation a new inode list is created

data blocks

data blocks are units of disk space that store data

Regular files, directories, & symbolic links make use of data blocks

Device files do not hold data therefore do not use data blocks

ZFS uses the following data structures: dnode data structure: the data structure contains pointers to data blocks znode data structure: this data structure contains info about file (owner, permissions, & size)

Dnode & znode data structures are called metadata & stored dynamically by ZFS. ZFS implements ZFS POSIX layer (ZPL) which is a primary interface for ZFS. ZPL allows commands you use with UFS to work with ZFS. ZFS emulates UFS inode number mechanism

Identifying file types

Solaris has four main file types:

regular or ordinary files	store one or more types of data
directories	store one or more types of data
symbolic links	store one or more types of data
device files	does not store data

Use ls command to distinguish different file types

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