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:
- file info = file owner, permissions, & size
- 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 with -l option to distinguish different file types
The first character of each line indicates file type
<insert image of ls -l output with dictionary>
| - | regular files |
| d | directories |
| l | symbolic links |
| b | block-special device files |
| c | character-special device files |
Examples on v240:
# cd /etc # ls -l total 650 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 May 3 15:34 TIMEZONE -> ./default/init drwxr-xr-x 6 root other 512 May 3 16:15 X11 drwxr-xr-x 2 adm adm 512 May 3 16:19 acct -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 253 Aug 6 2010 aggregation.conf lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 May 3 16:03 aliases -> ./mail/aliases drwxr-xr-x 7 root bin 512 May 3 16:11 apache drwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 512 May 3 15:54 apache2 *****output truncated*****
# pwd /devices/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2 # ls -l total 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 512 May 3 16:25 sd@0,0 brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 0 Jul 7 13:54 sd@0,0:a crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 0 Jul 14 16:50 sd@0,0:a,raw
directories
directories only store information on file name to inode number relationships
A directory contains data for files that are logically located within directory
Regular files
Most common file types found in Solaris are regular files. Regular files can store different types of data including ASCII text or binary data.
Symbolic links
a symbolic link is a file that points to another file & contain only one type of data
a symbolic link contains the path name of the file to which it points & the file can be located on other file systems
the size of a symbolic link always matches the number of characters in the path name it contains
Example:
after the '->' there are 19 characters & the 19 before May is the file size.
# ls -l /etc/prtvtoc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 May 3 15:34 prtvtoc -> ../usr/sbin/prtvtoc
symbolic links can point to regular files, directories, other symbolic links, & device files.
symbolic links can be absolute or relative path names
ln command
ln command with -s option creates a symbolic link
<insert example of creating symbolic link>
<insert picture of relationship between link & file>