New Features in Solaris Express 5/06

This section describes all features that are new or have been enhanced in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

Support for Descriptive Names for Metadevices and Hot-spare Pools

This system performance enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The rules for defining names for metadevices and hot-spare pools have been extended to allow the use of alphanumeric characters. Previously, names for metadevices were restricted to the form “dXXX”, while hot-spare pools had to use the form “hspYYY”.

For more information about the acceptable names for metadevices and hot-spare pools, see the Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.

File System Monitoring Tool (`fsstat`)

A new file system monitoring tool, fsstat, is available to report file system operations. Activity can be reported by mount point or by file system type.

The following fsstat example shows how to display all ZFS file system operations.

$ fsstat zfs
 new  name   name  attr  attr lookup rddir  read read  write write
 file remov  chng   get   set    ops   ops   ops bytes   ops bytes
8.26K  240K 6.34K 4.03M 6.33K  12.6M  482K  204K 1.24G 13.4K  363M zfs

The following fsstat example shows how to display file system operations for the /export/home mount point.

$ fsstat /export/home
 new  name   name  attr  attr lookup rddir  read read  write write
 file remov  chng   get   set    ops   ops   ops bytes   ops bytes
    0     0     0   972     0    224    22     0     0     0     0 /export/home

The following fsstat example illustrates how to display file system operations for all file system types.

$ fsstat -F
 new  name   name  attr  attr lookup rddir  read read  write write
 file remov  chng   get   set    ops   ops   ops bytes   ops bytes
1.71K 1.16K    37  371K   562  1.90M 1.04K  151K  142M 21.9K 55.3M ufs
    0     0     0 1.60K     0  2.93K   344 1.30K  761K     0     0 proc
    0     0     0     0     0      0     0     0     0     0     0 nfs
8.31K  240K 6.37K 4.04M 6.48K  12.6M  482K  204K 1.25G 13.7K  365M zfs
   29    12    12 37.4K     8  22.5K    28 1.04K 2.34M   120 76.1K lofs
10.8K 4.72K 5.43K 54.6K    49  19.8K    28  173K  610M  513K  487M tmpfs
    0     0     0   338     0      0     0    44 12.2K     0     0 mntfs
    1     1     1   429     1  14.3K   115 1.34K 1002K     0     0 nfs3
   12     6     9   150     0    442    30    91 3.32M    12 69.2K nfs4
    1     0     1 20.8K     0  20.5K     0     0     0     0     0 autofs

For more information, see the fsstat(1M) man page.

`useradd` Default Shell

These security enhancements are new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

In this release, the following new options have been added to the useradd -D utility:

-s option. Enables the user to change the default shell.
-k option. Enables the user to change the default skel directory.
-b option. Enables the user to change the base directory.

For more information, see the useradd(1M) man page.

ZFS Pool Import Destroyed Pools

This file system enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

In this release, the zpool command can now reimport previously destroyed pools that still have their data intact.

For more information, see the zpool(1M) man page.

For more information about the ZFS file system, see ZFS Command Improvements and Changes.

Configurable Privileges for Non-Global Zones

These system resources enhancements are new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The zonecfg command can now be used to specify the set of privileges that processes are limited to in a non-global zone.

You can do the following:

Augment the default set of privileges with the understanding that such changes might allow processes in one zone to affect processes in other zones by being able to control a global resource.
Create a zone with fewer privileges than the default, safe set.

Note the following:

Non-global zones are still booted with the standard set of safe privileges by default.
There is a set of privileges that cannot be removed from the zone's privilege set, and another set of privileges that cannot be included in the zone's privilege set.

For more information about configuring privileges for zones and zone privilege restrictions, see:

`SO_TIMESTAMP` Socket Option

This networking enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The SO_TIMESTAMP option enables or disables the reception of a timestamp with datagram. If the SO_TIMESTAMP option is enabled on a SOCK_DGRAM or SOCK_RAW socket, the recvmsg(2) call returns a timestamp in the native data format, corresponding to when the datagram was received.

For more information, see the following man pages:

NFSv4 Domain Name Configurable During Installation

This system administration feature is new the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The NFS version 4 domain can now be defined during the installation of the OS. To facilitate this new functionality, the sysidnfs4 program runs during the installation process to determine whether an NFSv4 domain has been configured for the network. In previous Solaris 10 releases, the NFS domain name was defined during the first system reboot after installation.

The NFSv4 domain can now be defined as follows:

If you are using the Solaris interactive installation program, you can choose the default, which automatically derives the NFSv4 domain name. Or, you can specify a different NFSv4 domain.
If you are using the Solaris JumpStart^TM program, a new keyword is available in the sysidcfg file. You can now assign a value for the NFSv4 domain by using the new keyword, nfs4_domain.

For information about the NFSv4 domain name configuration	System Administration Guide: Network Services
For information about Solaris interactive installations	Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Basic Installations
For information about Solaris network installations	Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations
For information about Custom JumpStart installations	Solaris 10 11/06 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations
For information about the `sysid` command tools	`sysidtool`(1M) and `sysidnfs4`(1M) man pages

Using DTrace in a Non-Global Zone

This system resource enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

DTrace can now be used in a non-global zone when the dtrace_proc and dtrace_user privileges are assigned to the zone. DTrace providers and actions are limited in scope to the zone. With the dtrace_proc privilege, fasttrap and pid providers can be used. With the dtrace_user privilege, 'profile' and 'syscall' providers can be used.

You can add these privileges to the set of privileges available in the non-global zone by using the limitpriv property of the zonecfg command.

Configurable Privileges for Non-Global Zones provides an overview of privileges in a non-global zone.

For more information about zone configuration, specifying zone privileges, and using the DTrace utility, see:

System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System
Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide
zonecfg(1M) man page
dtrace(1M) man page

64-bit SPARC: Extended Message Signaled Interrupt Support for Fire-based Platforms

This system resource enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

Extended Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI-X) are an enhanced version of MSI interrupts. With MSI-X support, device driver writers have a choice between MSI and MSI-X interrupts. MSI-X interrupts are now supported on SPARC PCI-Experss platforms (Ultra 45 and Sun Fire T2000).

The new mdb/kmdb debugger command, ::interrupts, is also provided to retrieve a device's registered interrupt information on supported SPARC and x86 systems.

For more information, see Chapter 8, Interrupt Handlers, in Writing Device Drivers.

IPsec Kernel Module Error Logging

These system administration enhancements are new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

Starting with this release, all IPsec kernel module policy failures and other errors will be logged using the ipsec_rl_strlog() function. The ipsec_rl_strlog() function also has the ability to limit number of error messages sent to the system log. This ability prevents the system log from being overloaded.

The minimum interval between messages can be viewed or configured using the ndd command:

# ndd -get /dev/ip ipsec_policy_log_interval

The value returned is in milliseconds.

The ipsec_policy_log_interval now consolidates all IPsec-related error logging into a single function. This function also enables administrators to completely disable the error logging, as follows:

# ndd -set /dev/ip ipsec_policy_log_interval 0

Note - After rebooting the system, you need to disable the IPsec logging again.

iSCSI Logout Support

This system administration feature is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The iSCSI log out support feature allows a user to logout from an iSCSI target without rebooting the host. When a user tries to remove or disable a discovery method or address and the target is not in use, the target logs out and cleans up all related resources. If the target is in use, the discovery address or method remains enabled and the logical unit in use message is logged. This feature introduces a new behavior to safely log out of unused devices without rebooting the host.

The following commands can be used to apply this feature:

iscsiadm modify discovery -[tsi] disable
iscsiadm remove discovery-address
iscsiadm remove static-config
iscsiadm remove isns-server

A user is no longer required to reboot a host when an attached iSCSI storage is removed from the host.

For more information, see the iscsiadm(1M) man page. See also System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems.

iSCSI MS/T Support

This system administration feature is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The iSCSI Multiple Session per Target (MS/T) support feature enables a user to create more iSCSI session or paths to a target as needed. The additional iSCSI paths provide higher bandwidth aggregation and availability in specific configurations. The iSCSI MS/T support feature should be used in combination with MPxIO or other multipathing software.

The new iscsiadm commands are as follows:

iscsiadm modify initiator-node -c number of sessions
iscsiadm modify target-param -c number of sessions

The iSCSI MS/T support feature enables higher bandwidth aggregation and availability to the administrators with iSCSI arrays that support login redirection.

For more information, see:

iscsiadm(1M) man page
System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems
Solaris iSCSI Multipathing Blueprint
iSCSI RFC 3720 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3720.txt?number=3720

iSNS Client Support for iSCSI

This device management feature is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 release.

The Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) client feature adds a new discovery option to the Solaris OS iSCSI software initiator. This option enables a user to use the iSNS to handle Internet Protocol SAN (IP-SAN) device discovery. This is off by default and is not platform-specific. The iSNS client introduces several iscsiadm command additions, modifications, and driver changes to handle iSNS discovery.

Users who use iSCSI to build block-based IP-SAN need a scalable way to manage device discovery and configuration for their SANs as they grow. The iSNS client feature supports a scalable method for device discovery in a large IP-SAN configuration that uses a minimal configuration.

For more information about the new and modified command-line options, see the iscsiadm(1M) man page. See also System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems.

SNIA Multipath Management API support

This system administration feature is new in the Solaris Express 5/06 Release.

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Multipath Management API (MP API) defines standard interfaces for multipath devices, associated path discovery, and path administration on a host. This feature provides Sun's implementation of the SNIA MP API library for the scsi_vhci driver-based multipathing solution.

The SNIA MA API consists of the following components:

/usr/sbin/mpathadm CLI
/lib/libMPAPI.so common library
/lib/libmpscsi_vhci.so plug-in for the scsi_vhci driver

The following areas have been extended to support the SNIA MP API feature:

MDI
SCSA
libdevinfo
scsi_vhci IOCTL

With this feature, the administrators can use the standards-based path administration for scsi_vhci multipath devices.

For more information see the mpathadm(1M) and libMPAPI(3LIB) man pages. See also the Solaris Fibre Channel Storage Configuration and Multipathing Support Guide.