ZFS Fileserver: Lost in Hardware
stefan.t...@gmail.com
I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
disks of 500 GB each. THis will be my Peace-Of_mind_Server, so
Reliability is first!
After days of research I am now completely confused on which hardware
to choose (YES; I know http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl )
So far I only ordered a case, HDDs and a 8-Port SATAII PCI-X
controller (Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8)
What´s missing is a decision on CPU (Intel / AMD, Dual/QuadCore),
which will significantly narrow down the choice of mainboards. So I
came here to get some recommendations for a start.
First: what are the key requirements for ZFS performance?
After reading THIS http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/home-fileserver-zfs-hardware
I think it is lots of RAM and a 64 bit CPU (any objections?)
Second: The server will be idle most of the time, so power consumption
is also an issue.
Third: Does ECC help in data integrity, is it worth the deal?
Opinions, please .
AMD:
- PowerNow not supported on 64 X2 CPUs (family <16), Phenom supports
this, but is already QuadCore and has higher TDP
- Motherboard: pick a AM2+ (I am thinking of 1066 Memory, is this
worth it ?)
Intel:
- I think in general better supported (for "serious" usage ;) just my
2 cents
- Better chance of finding a Mobo that has a supported Ethernet chip
on board
- Working Powermanagement in OpenSolaris
Let´s quickly sum up:
(1) Power consumption: AMD vs Intel: Does throtteling make up for the
higher TDP of intel ?
(2) When I go for QuadCore: is the Phenom design better (4 seperate
core on a die vs Intel: 2 2-core dies)
(3) Memory: is there a bandwith advantage for AM2+-Boards (vs. Intel),
does this matter for ZFS
(4) Memory: What about ECC - You think it´s worth it ?
You see, lots of confusion here, any input is welcome to narrow down
my options!
Andrew Gabriel
stefan.t...@gmail.com writes:
> Hi,
> I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
> OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
> disks of 500 GB each. THis will be my Peace-Of_mind_Server, so
> Reliability is first!
Yes, my home fileserver is a pair of ZFS mirrored 500GB drives.
A third drive is the system disk (currently UFS and not mirrored,
but I will change this one day) and a fouth SATA connector brought
to a caddyless portable disk housing http://pclab.pl/news31025.html
for archiving.
> After days of research I am now completely confused on which hardware
> to choose (YES; I know http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl )
> So far I only ordered a case, HDDs and a 8-Port SATAII PCI-X
> controller (Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8)
> What´s missing is a decision on CPU (Intel / AMD, Dual/QuadCore),
> which will significantly narrow down the choice of mainboards. So I
For very many disks, AMD is generally regarded as currently having
the edge on i/o throughput (systems like Thumper with 48 disk drives),
but your system is far too small for this to matter. Power saving is
probably more important to you at home. I had a quad-core Intel Ultra
24 at home for a few weeks some months back, and I was very impressed
by it's lack of hot air (and how quiet it was - quieter than my laptop).
> came here to get some recommendations for a start.
> First: what are the key requirements for ZFS performance?
> After reading THIS http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/home-fileserver-zfs-hardware
> I think it is lots of RAM and a 64 bit CPU (any objections?)
Yes. Disk speed will make a difference too.
I would imagine RAID1 would be faster than RAIDZ2, but I
haven't measured this and it might not be significant.
My server started with 2GB ram and 7200RPM SATA II disks.
The disks are rated at 72MB/sec sustained throughput.
In accessing them across a Gb network, I get full 72MB/second.
In accessing cached data across the network, I get to the
network limit of something over 100MB/sec. The amount cached
will depend on on the server RAM. I don't tend to run things
benfitting from any more than 1GB of cache. If you use 10,000
RPM disks, then the disks are going to be about the same speed
as Gb ethernet anyway, so the ZFS cache will be of relatively
less value. Don't drop below 2GB memory though. System now has
8GB memory, but that's because I had some spare on the shelf
and it won't fit in anything else, not because I really needed
it. Having put it in, I'm now also using it as a workstation.
Something else which makes a difference to the disk performance
is if the chipset has a sata driver available in Solaris rather
than just driving them in ATA compatibility mode. Before the
nv_sata(7D) driver was available, disk throughput was about 20%
lower on my system (probably due to no command queueing). Also,
the nv_sata(7D) driver driver supports hot-swap which makes
using the portable disk housing safer (although I did use it
with the ata(7D) driver too).
Some motherboards only have SATA I chipsets on them (VIA, last
time I looked). I don't think SATA I supports command queueing
anyway, and I'm not sure there's a Solaris driver for them.
If your motherboard has an IDE connector, put the DVD drive
on that. (Optical drives are not supported yet in some SATA-
specific drivers.)
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
AZ Nomad
>I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
>OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
>disks of 500 GB each. THis will be my Peace-Of_mind_Server, so
>Reliability is first!
>After days of research I am now completely confused on which hardware
>to choose (YES; I know http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl )
>So far I only ordered a case, HDDs and a 8-Port SATAII PCI-X
>controller (Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8)
>What´s missing is a decision on CPU (Intel / AMD, Dual/QuadCore),
>which will significantly narrow down the choice of mainboards. So I
>came here to get some recommendations for a start.
>First: what are the key requirements for ZFS performance?
>After reading THIS http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/home-fileserver-zfs-hardware
>I think it is lots of RAM and a 64 bit CPU (any objections?)
>Second: The server will be idle most of the time, so power consumption
>is also an issue.
>Third: Does ECC help in data integrity, is it worth the deal?
>Opinions, please .
I built a zfs file server w/ 7 500G drives, an amd64 single core
processor @ 2.2ghz and 1g of ram. It works like a champ. I used a
used tyan server motherboard and a pair of pci express SIL 3132 sata
cards.
The main limiting factor for performance is the gigabit LAN. I still
routinely get 70MB/s over it and that is at least 5 times more than my
requirements. I run vmware w/ the virtual disk files on the ZFS file
servers and find its access times quicker than using a local 750GB
drive.
Cydrome Leader
> Hi,
>
> I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
> OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
> disks of 500 GB each. THis will be my Peace-Of_mind_Server, so
> Reliability is first!
If reliability is actually important, running beta software is probably
not a good idea.
Andrew Gabriel
and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) writes:
> My server started with 2GB ram and 7200RPM SATA II disks.
Forgot to say CPU is a dual core Athlon64 2.4GHz, and
motherboard is an ASUS M2N4-SLI with nVidia chipset
and 4 built in SATA II ports and built-in nVidia gigabit
ethernet.
(I'm not using the SLI, and with the system being 18
months old, the motherboard will be obsolete now.)
Solaris supports it well though (same nVidia chipset
Sun uses in some of its systems).
stefan.t...@gmail.com
Is ZFS really still Beta ? I chose OpenSolaris, because I didn't want
to go for FUSE on Linux (which was my OS-choice till now) or FreeBSD...
stefan.t...@gmail.com
> In article <48d00496$0$507$5a6ae...@news.aaisp.net.uk>,
The MotherBoard is still around for ~ 70 EUR, so why not consider
that, especially if if is well-supported by OpenSolaris.
Is the onboard Ethernet working ?
Andrew Gabriel
stefan.t...@gmail.com writes:
> The MotherBoard is still around for ~ 70 EUR, so why not consider
> that, especially if if is well-supported by OpenSolaris.
> Is the onboard Ethernet working ?
Yes. It uses the nge (nVidia Gigabit ethernet) driver.
(It didn't have the problem some nVidia chipset motherboards
had with the ethernet address reading backwards, preventing
the port from being usable, although I think a workaround
for that issue has, or is just about to go back into Nevada
anyway.)
I'm running Nevada (currently snv_96) rather than opensolaris,
but I don't see that should make any difference.
I also have a dual port Intel 10/100 (iprb) card plugged
in as the system is a router between 3 networks.
Just recently started using the sound output - fed into
my HiFi amp. All my music CD's are now stored on ZFS, so
it's effectively my sound server. (Used to have another
system next to the HiFi which accessed them over NFS, but
with current electricity price rises here, I've been having
a server consolidation drive, and found a 15m audio lead
hasn't impacted the audio quality in any way I can detect.)
Gary R. Schmidt
> Hi,
>
> I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
> OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
There's an ISO on the Sun site (no doubt mentioned else-thread) that
boots a cut down Solaris and checks all the devices, when I was getting
my S10 server I burned a disk and took it to my local computer shop and
said, "Find me a 64-bit motherboard, any sort of 64-bit CPU and
dual-channel RAM, that has all devices listed as supported, and I'll buy
it from you."
Ended up with an ASUS P5P800-MX, Pentium 4, on-board everything that
just works. Put an ADDONICS ADSA4R5 4-port SATAII PCI HBA in it,
running 4 disks in a RAIDZ, been running since, um, February 2007 - only
18 months, I know, but it's on 24/7.
ZFS seems happier with 2Gig or more of RAM.
The latest power management stuff doesn't work for it, it won't turn off
until you press the power switch, but a newer MB should be fine.
If I was doing it now I'd go with a dual-core CPU, and perhaps a
different HBA, there's a bug in the Sil3124 driver that loses an
interrupt under heavy load, and I'd put 4Gig RAM in.
Cheers,
Gary B-)
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know
whether you were up them with or not
- Barry Humphries
"Thommy M. Malmström"
ZFS is production, but _OpenSolaris_ is Beta. If you want fully
supported production, go for Solaris 10 and ZFS. But for "mission
critical" home servers, OpenSolaris is quite adequate.
Oscar del Rio
> ZFS is production, but _OpenSolaris_ is Beta. If you want fully
> supported production, go for Solaris 10 and ZFS. But for "mission
> critical" home servers, OpenSolaris is quite adequate.
I thought OpenSolaris 2008.05 is a supported release.
Solaris Express Community Edition ("nevada") is unsupported.
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/downloads/
"Thommy M. Malmström"
I might stand corrected here and that's good.
http://www.sun.com/service/opensolaris/index.jsp
Thad Floryan
> stefan.talkenb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
> > OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
>
> Solaris 10 has ZFS, for the last couple of updates.
>
> There's an ISO on the Sun site (no doubt mentioned else-thread) that
> boots a cut down Solaris and checks all the devices, when I was getting
> my S10 server I burned a disk and took it to my local computer shop and
> said, "Find me a 64-bit motherboard, any sort of 64-bit CPU and
> dual-channel RAM, that has all devices listed as supported, and I'll buy
> it from you."
'Sfunny, same thing I did (and bought a system with an Asus MB and an
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core).
Here's the ISO URL:
<http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/install_check.jsp>
The similar Java device detection tool is here:
Cydrome Leader
"mission critical" is instantly cancelled out when somebody is running
beta software on a machine at home.
If you think about it, there's no good reason to even use opensolaris in
the first place.
Ian Collins
There are probably others, but the above are the features I use daily.
All my "mission critical" company machines run SXCE.
--
Ian Collins.
"Thommy M. Malmström"
Well, if Sun can give support on it, the status must be considered a
little higher than beta.
> If you think about it, there's no good reason to even use opensolaris in
> the first place.
That's your opinion which I absolutely don't share. OpenSolaris is one
of the best operating systems available with features not seen anywhere
else. I wouldn't run it in a mission critical business environment, but
for a "mission critical" home server is more than adequate.
Cydrome Leader
> Cydrome Leader wrote:
>> "Thommy M. Malmstr?m" <tho...@at-hardeberga.com> wrote:
>>> stefan.t...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> On 16 Sep., 22:15, Cydrome Leader <prese...@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>>>>> stefan.talkenb...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>> I am in the process of replacing my old fileservver and decided to go
>>>>>> OpenSolaris because of ZFS. I am thinking of RAID_Z2 with of 6-8 SATA-
>>>>>> disks of 500 GB each. THis will be my Peace-Of_mind_Server, so
>>>>>> Reliability is first!
>>>>> If reliability is actually important, running beta software is probably
>>>>> not a good idea.
>>>> Is ZFS really still Beta ? I chose OpenSolaris, because I didn't want
>>>> to go for FUSE on Linux (which was my OS-choice till now) or FreeBSD...
>>> ZFS is production, but _OpenSolaris_ is Beta. If you want fully
>>> supported production, go for Solaris 10 and ZFS. But for "mission
>>> critical" home servers, OpenSolaris is quite adequate.
>>
>> "mission critical" is instantly cancelled out when somebody is running
>> beta software on a machine at home.
>
> Well, if Sun can give support on it, the status must be considered a
> little higher than beta.
sure. they'll pass your tickets straight to the devlopers/ kernel team and
write patches for you if you run into a hitch with opensolaris.
>> If you think about it, there's no good reason to even use opensolaris in
>> the first place.
>
> That's your opinion which I absolutely don't share. OpenSolaris is one
> of the best operating systems available with features not seen anywhere
> else. I wouldn't run it in a mission critical business environment, but
> for a "mission critical" home server is more than adequate.
There's no such thing as "mission critical" once you start to add lame
qualifiers like "home server".
if you want to screw around and play with gnome and the latest drivers for
junk hardware, great. Just don't confuse it with anything that needs to be
stable, fully supported or needs to support a workload that's actually
important.
Benjamin Gawert
> For very many disks, AMD is generally regarded as currently having
> the edge on i/o throughput
No, it isn't. The disk performance is completely unrelated to the CPU
and depends more on what disks can deliver, how good the host adapter is
what bus system is used (especially standard PCI is a bottleneck).
The only advantage of AMD is when it comes to systems with more than for
processors (not cores!) which is where AMDs NUMA architecture begins to
excel over intels FSB concept. On systems with less than 4 cpus you
rarely find any advantage over intel.
Benjamin
stefan.t...@gmail.com
I finally settled for the ASUS M2N with a AMD 64 X2 CPU and 4 Gigs of
DDR2-800, only to discover that 8-Port SATAII is a PCI-X Card, and
the "X" doesn´t stand for Express :(
So, now I got my system but am again looking for a SATA-Controller,
prefereably cheap (in the sense that I don´t need RAID features, just
JBOD).
Stay tuned :)
Andrew Gabriel
stefan.t...@gmail.com writes:
> Update:
> I finally settled for the ASUS M2N with a AMD 64 X2 CPU and 4 Gigs of
Which ASUS M2N? There are several of them, some with up to 6
SATA ports on board.
> DDR2-800, only to discover that 8-Port SATAII is a PCI-X Card, and
> the "X" doesn´t stand for Express :(
> So, now I got my system but am again looking for a SATA-Controller,
> prefereably cheap (in the sense that I don´t need RAID features, just
> JBOD).
> Stay tuned :)
--
Cydrome Leader
> Update:
>
> I finally settled for the ASUS M2N with a AMD 64 X2 CPU and 4 Gigs of
> DDR2-800, only to discover that 8-Port SATAII is a PCI-X Card, and
>
> So, now I got my system but am again looking for a SATA-Controller,
> JBOD).
>
> Stay tuned :)
It's probably cheaper to buy supported hardware once, the first time, than
the rebuy replacement parts to fill in for the stuff that doesn't work.
In the end, you're going to have like 57,000 sata ports only 2 of
which solaris can even use.
I can't wait to see the thread on "my network card isn't seen by solaris"
next.
stefan.t...@gmail.com
proejct.
> > I finally settled for the ASUS M2N with a AMD 64 X2 CPU and 4 Gigs of
> > DDR2-800, only to discover that 8-Port SATAII is a PCI-X Card, and
> > the "X" doesn?t stand for Express :(
I figured out, that you can put a PCI-X Card into a regular PCI-Slot.
> It's probably cheaper to buy supported hardware once, the first time, than
> the rebuy replacement parts to fill in for the stuff that doesn't work.
I would love to do so, but there is so much hardware out there, thats
why i opened this thread :(
> I can't wait to see the thread on "my network card isn't seen by solaris"
> next.
Yeah, but the accurate title would be: "Looking Network driver for
Asus - M2N onboard Ehternet (Nvidia MCP 430)"
Dave Uhring
> Yeah, but the accurate title would be: "Looking Network driver for
> Asus - M2N onboard Ehternet (Nvidia MCP 430)"
It's the nge driver already in Solaris Express and OpenSolaris. For
Solaris 10 it's the nfo driver:
Andrew Gabriel
On some M2N motherboards, neither driver works.
nge reads the ethernet address backwards (CR 6658667
nge - ethernet address reversed on nForce 430 chipset
on ASUS M2N motherboard), and whilst nfo correctly reads
the ethernet address, it can't send or receive anything.
A fix for nge is in the works.
For the moment, you would have to add an ethernet card
if your M2N hits this. OP hasn't said which M2N M/B he
has (there are several).
Dave Uhring
> In article <pan.2008.10.11....@yahoo.com>,
> Dave Uhring <daveu...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:30:37 -0700, stefan.talkenberg wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, but the accurate title would be: "Looking Network driver for
>>> Asus - M2N onboard Ehternet (Nvidia MCP 430)"
>>
>> It's the nge driver already in Solaris Express and OpenSolaris. For
>> Solaris 10 it's the nfo driver:
> On some M2N motherboards, neither driver works.
> nge reads the ethernet address backwards (CR 6658667
> nge - ethernet address reversed on nForce 430 chipset
> on ASUS M2N motherboard), and whilst nfo correctly reads
> the ethernet address, it can't send or receive anything.
The nfo driver does work properly in Solaris 10 u5 x86. That is one
of the other OSs installed on a second SATAII drive.
The system from which I'm posting has an ASUS M2N-MX-SE mainboard
with the nVidia nForce 430 MCP chipset - aka MCP61.
duhring@maxwell:~$ ifconfig nge0
nge0: flags=201000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,CoS> mtu 1500 index 2
inet 192.168.0.5 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
duhring@maxwell:~$ cat /etc/hostname.nge0
192.168.0.5 ether 0:1d:60:88:d7:8f
duhring@maxwell:~$ head -1 /etc/release
Solaris Express Community Edition snv_99 X86
OpenSolaris snv_98 is installed on partition 1 of the first SATAII
HDD and it has the same configuration as Solaris Express.
> For the moment, you would have to add an ethernet card
> if your M2N hits this. OP hasn't said which M2N M/B he
> has (there are several).
Not really. All that is required is to force the correct Ethernet
address.
stefan.t...@gmail.com
> has (there are several).
Actually, mine is JUST M2N, without any extension like "SLI" or "VM"
or "E"..
ProbabIy only sold in Europe, as i found it on the German, but not on
the US-Asus page (http://www.asus.de/products.aspx?
l1=3&l2=101&l3=340&l4=0&model=1340&modelmenu=2)
Anyway, the important clue i think is MCP430 which means MCP61..
stefan.t...@gmail.com
> The nfo driver does work properly in Solaris 10 u5 x86. That is one
> of the other OSs installed on a second SATAII drive.
>
> The system from which I'm posting has an ASUS M2N-MX-SE mainboard
> with the nVidia nForce 430 MCP chipset - aka MCP61.
>
> duhring@maxwell:~$ ifconfig nge0
> nge0: flags=201000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,CoS> mtu 1500 index 2
> inet 192.168.0.5 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
> duhring@maxwell:~$ cat /etc/hostname.nge0
> 192.168.0.5 ether 0:1d:60:88:d7:8f
> duhring@maxwell:~$ head -1 /etc/release
> Solaris Express Community Edition snv_99 X86
>
> OpenSolaris snv_98 is installed on partition 1 of the first SATAII
> HDD and it has the same configuration as Solaris Express.
OK, I am getting confused over what problems exist on the different
solaris versions:
Solaris 10_5 does not detect the network interface at all. (But from
what you said it should, right )? Tried to install the nfo-driver,
but got stuck as make and gcc are not installed, and after i sintalled
the SUNWgcc and SUNWmake ackages , they still dont work, assume wrong
path settings.
Just running adddrv.sh did not do very much, and after execution still
no ethernet-device. Perhaps i need to plumb, or ifconfg or insmod or
whatever ?! Bummer! (new to solaris, lots of debain experience,
though).
Gave OpenSolaris a shot, it detects the interface, but ran into
reverse MAC bug.. Didn´t figure out yet how to manually force the MAC
addresse (which command / config file / cookbook to use)...
Dave Uhring
> Solaris 10_5 does not detect the network interface at all. (But from
> what you said it should, right )? Tried to install the nfo-driver,
> but got stuck as make and gcc are not installed, and after i sintalled
> the SUNWgcc and SUNWmake ackages , they still dont work, assume wrong
> path settings.
Solaris 10 u5 does not detect the NIC until nfo is installed.
If you performed a complete installation of Solaris make is
/usr/ccs/bin/make. You need to adjust your PATH. For Solaris 10 your
PATH should be similar to this - at a minimum:
/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/dt/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/X11/bin: \
/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin:/usr/sfw/sbin
You also need to set your MANPATH. find / -type d -name man
There is no need to compile new drivers but if you have a 64-bit
machine you do need to alter your Makefile and obj symlinks to point
to the 64-bit Makefile and amd64 object directory. Generally follow
the directions in the README file and do not attempt to compile new
drivers. Good drivers are already in the tarball.
> Gave OpenSolaris a shot, it detects the interface, but ran into
> reverse MAC bug.. Didn´t figure out yet how to manually force the MAC
> addresse (which command / config file / cookbook to use)...
I posted the fix. Did you not read the content of /etc/hostname.nge0?
As root execute ifconfig -a and you will see the Ethernet address as
determined by the nge driver. Just reverse it byte by byte and set
that new address in /etc/hostname.nge0. The driver originally saw this
Ethernet address - 8f:d7:88:60:1d:0
There are several other things which need to be done to OpenSolaris to
set static addressing, however. Files affected are
/etc/inet/hosts man hosts
/etc/defaultrouter man defaultrouter
/etc/nodename man nodename
/etc/hostname.nge0
Then you need to disable nwam and enable network/physical:default.
Be sure that you unmount any NFS mounts before doing this.
Here is the list of what I did back in May and posted to this NG but
note that at that time I was using an Intel NIC and the file
/etc/hostname.iprb0 is not used in this case but rather
/etc/hostname.nge0 with the content I posted earlier. This was also
done using the LiveCD of OpenSolaris.
jack@opensolaris:~# svcadm disable nwam
jack@opensolaris:~# cd /etc
jack@opensolaris:/etc# echo maxwell > nodename
jack@opensolaris:/etc# echo maxwell > hostname.iprb0
jack@opensolaris:/etc# echo "192.168.0.1" > defaultrouter
jack@opensolaris:/etc# chmod u+w inet/hosts
jack@opensolaris:/etc# echo "192.168.0.5 maxwell" >> inet/hosts
jack@opensolaris:/etc# svcadm enable network/physical:default
jack@maxwell:/etc# ping yahoo.com
yahoo.com is alive
jack@maxwell:/etc#
Thad Floryan
> [...]
> Solaris 10_5 does not detect the network interface at all. (But from
> what you said it should, right )? Tried to install the nfo-driver,
> but got stuck as make and gcc are not installed, and after i sintalled
> the SUNWgcc and SUNWmake ackages , they still dont work, assume wrong
You do not *need* those components to install and use the nfo driver;
I used the 64-bit distribution from the tar file and it works great.
Your system is similar to mine: AMD64 dual core, Asus M2N mobo,
etc. You can see its config here:
<http://thadlabs.com/FILES/sysconfig.txt>
I wanted to experiment with DHCP; works fine and I posted the
following to comp.unix.solaris a month or so ago:
1. remove token "12" from /etc/default/dhcpagent so the
line looks like this:
PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,15,28,43
2. create an empty file per:
# >/etc/dhcp.INTF (OR) # echo > /etc/dhcp.INTF
where "INTF" = le0, hme0, whatever. For me it's nfo0 due to
an Asus M2N68-LA motherboard with NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce
430 chipset
3. create a file named /etc/nodename containing the name you
want for your system
4. copy /etc/nodename to /etc/hostname
5. copy /etc/nodename to /etc/hostname.INTF where "INTF" is
the same as in (2) above
Reboot to verify it's now working to your satisfaction. The
system name YOU chose will have been added to /etc/inet/hosts
and you should be set.
Another solution is running sys-unconfig and going through
the hassle of entering a lot more information than just the
hostname you want assigned for a DHCP request.
Here are the files and the ifconfig on my system:
# uname -a
SunOS antares 5.10 Generic_137112-06 i86pc i386 i86pc
# ls -l /etc/hostname* /etc/nodename*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8 Jul 28 22:18 /etc/hostname
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8 Jul 28 22:18 /etc/
hostname.nfo0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8 Jul 28 22:18 /etc/nodename
# cat /etc/nodename
antares
# ls -l /etc/dhcp*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1 Jul 28 22:52 /etc/dhcp.nfo0
# diff /etc/default/dhcpagent /etc/default/dhcpagent-ORIG
90c90
< PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,15,28,43
---
> PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,12,15,28,43
# cat /etc/inet/hosts
#
# Internet host table
#
127.0.0.1 localhost loghost
::1 localhost loghost
192.168.22.90 TL2015
192.168.22.99 TL4050
192.168.22.100 antares # Added by DHCP
# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
nfo0: flags=1004843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4> mtu 1500
index 2
inet 192.168.22.100 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.22.255
ether 0:1f:c6:e8:89:9
stefan.t...@gmail.com
Looks like i got the driver installed, at least there were no
complains and I now have a device "nfo0".
Still, network is not running. Seems to me like the device is not
working physically. I checked the DHCP-Howto, but there was no adress
assigned.
So right now I am trying a static setup first, but somehow i cannot
ping my gateway. The "transmit" LEDs don´t flash, and there is just a
timeout. Pinging the interface`s static adress itself works.
# cat /etc/defaultrouter
192.168.0.1
# cat /etc/hostname
blackhole
# cat /etc/hostname.nfo0
blackhole
# cat /etc/nodename
blackhole
# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
nfo0: flags=1000803<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
inet 192.168.0.110 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
ether 0:1f:c6:bc:64:41
# ping 192.168.0.1
no answer from 192.168.0.1
# ping 192.168.0.110
192.168.0.110 is alive
# dladm show-link
nfo0 Typ: legacy mtu: 1500 Gerät: nfo0
There is a hint at startup:
- >ip_arp_done init failed
-> /lib/svc/method/net-physical failed with exist status: 96
When I check svcs -xv, it looks like there is a file missing:
-> Reason: $SMF_EXIT_ERR_CONFIG
Wehc i check the suggested /etc/svc/volatile/network-
physical:default.log, it complains about a missing file
"Could not bring aggregations up: file or directory not found
(configuration repository open failed )"
Maybe you can point me at what file is missing ?? Man,I thought after
I know debain that would be a piece of cake... Wrong. Good n8t guys ;)
Thad Floryan
> Thanks for the input guys...
>
> Looks like i got the driver installed, at least there were no
> complains and I now have a device "nfo0".
Good. I hope you followed all the instructions in nfo's
distribution to the letter without exception.
> [...]
> Still, network is not running. Seems to me like the device is not
> working physically. I checked the DHCP-Howto, but there was no adress
> assigned.
I have no idea what you mean by "the DHCP-Howto"; did you follow
what I posted here October 12? Mine works; nost of what I found on
the 'Net is simply wrong.
> [...]
> # ifconfig -a
> lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
> 8232 index 1
> inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
> nfo0: flags=1000803<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
> inet 192.168.0.110 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
> ether 0:1f:c6:bc:64:41
And here's mine from a moment ago (almost identical motherboard):
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
nfo0: flags=1004843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4> mtu 1500
index 2
inet 192.168.22.101 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.22.255
ether 0:1f:c6:e8:89:9
Notice the difference? Mine is "RUNNING" and it used "DHCP".
> Maybe you can point me at what file is missing ??
Look back in this thread to October 12 for my article.