New Features in Solaris Express 9/06

This section describes all features that are new or have been enhanced in the Solaris Express 9/06 release.

MPSS Extension to Non-ISM/DISM Anonymous Shared Memory

This system performance enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 9/06 release.

Starting with this release, Solaris large-page support has been enhanced by extending multiple page size support (MPSS) to the following:

• Non-ISM/DISM SysV shared memory

• MAP_SHARED mappings created by mmap() of /dev/zero or with the MAP_ANON flag

In releases prior to Solaris Express 9/06, user applications could only map ISM/DISM SysV segments with large pages and there was no support for the use of large pages for segments created by MAP_SHARED mmap() of /dev/zero or mmap(). The new feature extends large-page support in the following two ways:

• On SPARC based systems, large pages are automatically assigned by the Solaris kernel to large enough shared memory mappings of either non-ISM/DISM SysV or /dev/zero or MAP_ANON.

• On SPARC and x86 based systems, the memcntl(MC_HAT_ADVISE) interface has been enhanced to enable users to explicitly request the use of large pages for MAP_SHARED anonymous memory (created by mmap() of /dev/zero or with the MAP_ANON flag) and non-ISM/DISM SysV memory.

In prior releases, however, memcntl(MC_HAT_ADVISE) against MAP_SHARED mappings worked only against memory created by mapping regular files. The significant advantage of the MPSS extension feature is potential performance improvement for applications that create large non-ISM/DISM shared memory segments or have big MAP_SHARED /dev/zero or MAP_ANON mappings. This performance improvement is due to the reduction of TLB misses due to the use of larger pages.

GNOME-VFS and Nautilus ACL Support

This desktop tools enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 9/06 release.

Starting with this release, ACL support has been added to GNOME-VFS and Nautilus. The GNOME file manager now enables the file system access control lists to be accessed and modified. The GNOME-VFS and Nautilus ACL support feature brings an existing file system functionality to the desktop.

ZFS Option to Sort List Output

This file system enhancement is new in the Solaris Express 9/06 release.

Starting with this release, the zfs list command has two new options, -s and -S. These options are used to select the columns that are to be displayed and sorted.

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

Improved Device in Use Error Checking

The following utilities have been enhanced to detect when a specified device is in use:

• dumpadm

• format

• mkfs and newfs

• swap

These enhancements mean that these utilities might detect some of the following usage scenarios:

• Device is part of a ZFS storage pool

• Device is a dump or swap device

• Mounted file system or an entry for the device exists in the /etc/vfstab file

• Device is part of a live upgrade configuration

• Device is part of a Solaris Volume Manager configuration or Veritas Volume Manager configuration

For example, if you attempt to use the format utility to access an active device, you will see a message similar to the following:

# format
.
.
.
Specify disk (enter its number): 1
selecting c0t1d0
[disk formatted]
Warning: Current Disk has mounted partitions.
/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 is currently mounted on /. Please see umount(1M).
/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s1 is currently used by swap. Please see swap(1M).

However, these utilities do not detect all scenarios in the same way. For example, you can use the newfs command to create a new file system on a device in a live upgrade configuration. You cannot use the newfs command to create a new file system on a device that is part of a live upgrade configuration if it also has a mounted file system.

Non-Global Zones Now Installed With Limited Networking Configuration

A non-global zone is now installed with limited networking configuration (generic_limited_net.xml). This means, for example, that only the ssh login is enabled by default, and logins through rlogin and telnet must be added if needed.

The administrator can switch the zone to the open, traditional networking configuration (generic_open.xml) by using the netservices command, or enable and disable specific services by using the Service Management Facility (SMF) commands.

For more information about network configuration types, see Chapter 15, “Managing Services (Tasks)” in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

For more information about the procedure to switch a non-global zone to a different network service configuration see, Chapter 22, “Logging In to Non-Global Zones (Tasks)” in System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System

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