Migrate sun4u to sun4v using FLAR

FLAR stands for FLash ARchive. If we need to install a few Solaris servers and customize them in a similar way.
Instead of installing and configuring one by one, we can install and configure one server first, then create FLAR on this server, and install the other servers using this FLAR.
FLAR can also be used for server migration.

The steps of creating FLAR and installing from FLAR is very straight forward. However if we are migrating from servers with older CPU to servers with different CPU architecture, we have to do some extras steps.
Recently I migrated a few servers from sun4u to sun4v using FLAR, Here are my migration steps:
create FLAR image on sun4u server

1. By default FLAR created on sun4u cannot be used on sun4v servers, we have to add sun4v as a supported architecture for FLAR.
   # echo "PLATFORM_GROUP=sun4v" >> /var/sadm/system/admin/.platform
   # flarcreate -n "migration flar" -c -S -x /flar -x /export/home /flar/migration.flar
   Alternatively we can add -U flag to create FLAR with sun4v support
   # flarcreate -n "migration flar" -U "content_architectures=sun4u,sun4v" -c -S -x /flar -x /export/home /flar/migration.flar
   
2. Verify our FLAR can be used on sun4v machines:
   # flar -i /flar/migration.flar | grep content_architectures
   
3.  Now move the FLAR to a storage accessible from sun4v machines, this can either be NFS, HTTP, or a local hard drive.
   
4. Boot sun4v machine, choose Flash Install, and select the migration.flar we created in step 1.
   
5. After installation completes, reboot server, we will get this error:
   cannot open boot_archive
   
6. To boot the server properly, we need to upgrade the sun4v machine:
   boot sun4v machine from DVD or Jumpstart, select Upgrade, after upgrade finishes, reboot server.

We have successfully migrated sun4u to sun4v machine!

Reference:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/821-0436/samekernel/index.html

How to check NIC speed in Unix

Fast Ethernet connection is essential for some operations to work properly.
backup, oracle RAC all require fast Ethernet connection.

Different OS provides different commands to check the network speed currently running.

In Linux, we can run mii-tool or ethtool to check the network speed. Both commands require root access

[root@localhost eth0]# mii-tool eth0
eth0: no autonegotiation, 100baseTx-FD, link ok

[root@localhost eth0]# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ TP ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 1000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: Twisted Pair
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: on
        MDI-X: Unknown
        Supports Wake-on: umbg
        Wake-on: d
        Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
        Link detected: yes

In Solaris, we can run kstat or dladm to check the network speed

$ kstat -m igb -i 0 | egrep 'link_autoneg|link_speed|link_duplex'
        link_autoneg                    1
        link_duplex                     2
        link_speed                      100

The output shows that, igb0 is running autonegotiation, 100 Mbps full-duplex

if we have root access, we can run dladm or ndd to check the network speed.

In AIX, we can run entstat to check network speed.
if we want to check the speed of en0

$ entstat -d en0 | egrep '^Device|^Media'
Device Type: 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter (14108902)
Media Speed Selected: Auto negotiation
Media Speed Running: 100 Mbps Full Duplex

We can see that en0 supports upto 1000 Mbps, but it's running 100 Mbps Full Duplex.

In HP-UX, we can run lanadmin or nwmgr to check the network speed.
lanadmin output is shorter

$ /usr/sbin/lanadmin -x 0
Speed = 1000 Full-Duplex.
Autonegotiation = On.

we can also use nwmgr to get detailed information

$ /usr/sbin/nwmgr --get --stats -C lan -I 0

***          lan0 64 bit MIB statistics:
Interface Name               = lan0
PPA Number                   = 0
Description                  = lan0 HP PCI 1000Base-T Release B.11.31.0809.01
Interface Type               = 1000Base-T
MTU Size                     = 1500
Speed                        = 1 Gbps
Station Address              = 0x0A527E583C90
Administration Status        = UP
Operation Status             = UP
Last Change                  = Wed Mar 20 05:58:50 2013
Inbound Octets               = 166627219743
Inbound Unicast Packets      = 975967141
Inbound Multicast Packets    = 1124454
Inbound Broadcast Packets    = 6566058
Inbound Discards             = 1821280
Inbound Errors               = 0
Inbound Unknown Protocols    = 1124769
Outbound Octets              = 185484791114
Outbound Unicast Packets     = 968101273
Outbound Multicast Packets   = 0
Outbound Broadcast Packets   = 1618
Outbound Discards            = 0
Outbound Errors              = 0
Counter Discontinuity Time   = Wed Mar 20 05:58:50 2013
Physical Promiscuous Mode    = FALSE
Physical Connector Present   = TRUE
Interface Alias              =
Link Up/Down Trap Enable     = Enabled

How to setup NFS in RedHat and Solaris

NFS stands for Network File System, we can use it to share files between different computers.

In Redhat Linux, to share NFS, we need to configure /etc/exports, the format of exports is:

<directory to share>   <host>(<option>)

For example, if we want to share directory /data/forhost1 to host1, we can configure my /etc/exports like this:

/data/forhost1      host1

if we only want to grant read permission to /data/forhost1, we can add the ro option, ro stands for read-only

/data/forhost1     host1(ro)

Solaris uses a different configuration file /etc/dfs/dfstab for NFS.
If we want to share directory /data/forhost1 to host1, we can configure my /etc/dfs/dfstab like this:

share -F nfs -o ro=host1 -d "Readonly" /data/forhost1

For both RedHat Linux and Solaris, we need to restart the nfs service to make our configuration take effect, this can be done by using service or svcadm.

After we share /data/forhost1, we can mount it on host1:
if host1 is Redhat Linux

mount -t nfs server:/data/forhost1 /mnt/mynfs

if host1 is Solaris:

mount -F nfs server:/data/forhost1 /mnt/mynfs

To make the nfs mount permanent, we can configure /etc/fstab or /etc/vfstab to mount nfs on system start.

Copy files from one server to another

In my work, I often need to copy files or whole directories between different servers. These are the ways I used often:

1. scp

scp -r directory remote:/path/to/directory

2. tar + ssh

tar -zcpf - directory | ssh remote tar -zxpf \
-C /path/to/directory

in Solaris, there is no -C -z flag, so I use:

tar -cpf - directory | ssh remote \
"(cd /path/to/directory; tar -xpf -)"

3. rsync over ssh
I have a central server, everyday there are some new files generated in one directory. I need to push this directory to remote servers everyday.
It's possible to schedule some cronjob to scp or tar + ssh this directory, But it will copy the whole directory everyday. To use rsync, we only need to copy the changes to this directory.

rync -e ssh -az --delete directory \
remote:/path/to/directory

4. nc + tar
A few years ago, I need to copy huge amount of data to a remote data center in another country, while exploring ways to copy the data, I found this utility nc.
But nc doesn't encrypt the data, I only tested it within the same data center.

on remote server:

cd /path/to/directory

nc -l -p 8888 | tar -zxvf -

on source server:

tar -czf - directory | nc remote 8888

on the remote server, I used -v flag, so I could monitor the copying progress.