Installing Sybase Perl Module requires the following preinstalled

1. Sybase Server/Client already installed on your server
2. GNU Make

Install GNU Make

Assuming you have already installed Sybase Server/Client on your system, lets download and install GNU Make.

GNU Make package can be downloaded from sunfreeware.com website. At the time of writing, the version available for download is Make 3.81

Download GNU Make for Solaris 10 (SPARC)

Download Make for Solaris 10 (x86)

Unzip and Install GNU Make

From the directory where the file is downloaded

# gunzip make-3.81-sol10-x86-local.gz
# pkgadd -d make-3.81-sol10-x86-local

This should install “make” under /usr/local/bin

# which make
/usr/local/bin/make

Download Perl Modules from www.cpan.org. The modules we are interested in are

1. DBI (Database Independent Interface for Perl)

2. DBD::Sybase (Sybase database Driver for the DBI module)

NOTE: I find in Solaris 10 Update 6, DBI module is already installed which means we only need to install DBD::Sybase module.

To verify either of the modules is already installed on the system,

For DBI, file DBI.pm should exist under

x86

/usr/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.4/i86pc-solaris-64int/DBI.pm

SPARC

/usr/perl5/site_perl/5.8.4/sun4-solaris-64int/DBI.pm

For DBD::Sybase

x86

/usr/perl5/site_perl/5.8.4/i86pc-solaris-64int/DBD/Sybase.pm

SPARC

/usr/perl5/site_perl/5.8.4/sun4-solaris-64int/DBD/Sybase.pm

Now, assuming both these modules are not installed

Install Perl DBI Module

Download the DBI Module from here

From the download directory,

# gunzip DBI-1.609.tar.gz
# tar -xvf DBI-1.609.tar
# cd DBI-1.609

The above steps should (g)unzip, untar the downloaded source files.

Export $SYBASE & $LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables. We have the Sybase client installed under

/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0

which means the libraries exist under

/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0/lib

# export SYBASE=/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If this step is skipped, the following error comes up in the next step:

Can’t find the lib directory under /export/home/sybase! at Makefile.PL line 118, <IN> line 44.

Now comes the tricky bit, use /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc instead of default perl as follows:

# /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc Makefile.PL

Let’s now compile and install using GNU Make from source directory

# /usr/local/bin/make
# /usr/local/bin/make test
# /usr/local/bin/make install

To make sure the install compelted successfully. Check if the DBI.pm file exists as shown earlier.

Install Perl DBD::Sybase module

Download DBD::Sybase perl module from here.

From the downloaded directory:

# gunzip DBD-Sybase-1.09.tar.gz
# tar -xvf DBD-Sybase-1.09.tar
# cd DBD-Sybase-1.09

The above should (g)unzip, untar the downloaded file and change into the source directory.

Export the $SYBASE & $LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables if you have already not done so.

# export SYBASE=/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084/OCS-15_0/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Run perlgcc against the Makefile.PL as follows:

# /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc Makefile.PL

Select the default CHAIN mode or modify as required, then enter the Sybase Server, a Sybase Username and password and a Database as and when promted. This will allow the installation test connection. Make sure this DB connection is updated in the Sybase “interfaces” file.

NOTE: Once the installation is completed. Either the PWD file created by this procedure or the entire Source directory should be deleted as the PWD file will contain these DB access details. Also, it is advisable to provide a test DB access detail rather than a live environment.

Let’s now compile and install using GNU Make from source directory

# /usr/local/bin/make

Now, re-export $SYBASE as follows:

# export SYBASE=/opt/sybase/oc15.0-EBF16084

[NOTE: This may vary in your environment]

# /usr/local/bin/make test
# /usr/local/bin/make install

This should install the Sybase Perl module. To confirm the installation was successful, look for Sybase.pm as explained earlier.

dladm is the admin utility for Data-Link Interface which helps to display informarthe like Link Status (UP/DOWN), Speed, Duplex, MTU, VLAN Tagged and crucially statistics of network traffic on each of the interfaces historically as well as in real time. dladm can also configure and admin Link Aggregation on multiple NICs which we will not focus here.

Show Link Status/Speed/Duplex

# dladm show-dev
nxge0           link: down      speed: 0     Mbps       duplex: unknown
nxge1           link: down      speed: 0     Mbps       duplex: unknown
nxge2           link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full
nxge3           link: up        speed: 1000  Mbps       duplex: full

As you can see above the “show-dev” option lists all the network interfaces with Link Status (UP/DOWN), current speed in Mbps and Duplex (Half/Full)

Show Link Status

# dladm show-link
nxge0           type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: nxge0
nxge1           type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: nxge1
nxge2           type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: nxge2
nxge3           type: non-vlan  mtu: 1500       device: nxge3

Here “show-link” option reveals the MTU and the VLAN tagging detail on each of the interfaces on the system.

Show Stats of all Interfaces for all time

# dladm show-dev -s
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge0           0         0           0       0         0           0
nxge1           0         0           0       0         0           0
nxge2           179625752557169463759657      581104982 3964684165410
nxge3           22240891  1834257868  0       5198483   395084708   0

The “-s” option along with “show-dev” or “show-link” displays network traffic statistics including Input/Output packets, input/output errors.

Stats in real-time

To show the stats of a particular interface in real-time use the “-i” option which is the interval in seconds. The first line shows again historic stats and later on the real-time information for every “n” seconds (5 seconds in our example)

# dladm show-link -s -i 5 nxge2
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge2           179637824757173944575957      581119516 3964706801670
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge2           961       319105             0       150       17874       0
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge2           887       263850             0       117       16505       0

If we fail to mention the interface then it takes the default interface (1st in the list). As you can see from the example below, we see stats for nxge0 which is not connected.

# dladm show-link -s -i 5
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge0           0         0           0       0         0           0
ipackets  rbytes         ierrors opackets        obytes      oerrors
nxge0           0         0           0       0         0           0

The PCP script works on Solaris 10/9/8 and can be downloaded from here. Simply save the pcp.txt file to your Solaris Server as a Shell scripts (say pcp.sh) and change permissions to execute.

# chmod 755 pcp.sh

PIDs for TCP Port

Run PCP with “-p” option to show the PIDs of processes having a TCP port (say Port 22)

For instance, to find PIDs opening TCP port 22.

TCP Ports open by PIDs

Run PCP with “-P” option to show the TCP ports open by specific PID

For instance, here I try to find the TCP ports open by PID 18805

All PIDs for all open TCP Ports

Use the “-a” option to list all TCP ports open with all the PIDs

In Solaris 10, IP Forwarding can be enabled or disabled using the routeadm & ifconfig commands as against the ndd commands in Solaris 9 and earlier. The advantage is the change dynamic and real-time and the change persist across reboot unlike the ndd command.

Enable/Disable IP Forwarding globally 

To globally enable IP Forwarding in Solaris 10 use the routeadm command as follows:

In IPv4

solaris10# routeadm -e ipv4-forwarding

In IPv6

solaris10# routeadm -e ipv6-forwarding

The switches “-e” enables IP Forwarding.

To disable IP Forwarding

In IPv4

solaris10# routeadm -d ipv4-forwarding

In IPv6

solaris10# routeadm -d ipv6-forwarding

The switches “-d” enables IP Forwarding.

After the change run the following command for the changes to take effect.

solaris10# routeadm -u

Enable/Disable IP Forwarding per interface 

To enable IP Forwarding on a specific interface (say ce0) using the ifconfig command

In IPv4

solaris10# ifconfig ce0 router

In IPv6

solaris10# ifconfig ce0 inet6 router

To disable IP Forwarding for an interface (say ce0)

In IPv4

solaris10# ifconfig ce0 -router

In IPv6

solaris10# ifconfig ce0 inet6 -router

The DHCP Agent by default requests for the

Subnet Mask

Default Router

Hostname

DNS Domain

Broadcast Address

Encapsulated Vendor Option (vendor specific information as described in RFC 2132)

The DHCP Agent config file is

/etc/default/dhcpagent

In the file look for the line

PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,12,15,28,43

This is the line that defines what is being requested for from the DHCP Server. Here, each number stands for one of the above mentioned parameters where

1 = subnet mask

3 = Default Router

6 = DNS Server

12 = hostname

15 = DNS Domain Name

28 = broadcast address

43 = Encapsulated Vendor options

If you decide to not request for any of the above parameters then all you need to do is to remove the corresponding number from the PARAM_REQUEST_LIST. Let’s say you do not want to request for the hostname then simply remove the number “3″ and the “,” that follows so it looks as follows

PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,6,12,15,28,43

Once done,save the file. The next time the system restarts the hostname is not requested for from the DHCP Server.

# hostname
unknown

or the /etc/hosts file has an entry as follows:

# cat /etc/hosts
#
# Internet host table
#
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.0.3 unknown # Added by DHCP

This happens when the DHCP server doesn’t provide a hostname for your server. Most of the DHCP Servers or routers acting as a DHCP Server doesn’t provide a hostname and Solaris DHCP agent relies on the DHCP server for its hostname.

To fix this problem, edit the dhcpagent config and set it not to request a Hostname from the DHCP server and then add a hostname to the /etc/hosts & /etc/nodename file.

Edit DHCPAGENT config

[For Solaris 10, this is not required as setting the hostname in /etc/nodename overrides the hostname provided by the DHCP Server. Move onto the next step]

Edit the dhcpagent config file /etc/default/dhcpagent with your favorite editor

# vi /etc/default/dhcpagent

and look for

PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,12,15,28,43

and remove the Parameter “12″ from the above to look as follows:

PARAM_REQUEST_LIST=1,3,6,15,28,43

and save the file.

Now, add the hostname to the /etc/nodename & /etc/hosts as follows

# vi /etc/nodename

and add the hostname you want it to have (solarisserver for me)

# cat /etc/nodename
solarisserver

and edit the /etc/hosts file

# vi /etc/hosts

and add the line similar to the following

192.168.0.3 solarisserver loghost

Now,reboot the server and you should be all fine with hostname set for the system.

# init 6

Adding or editing the IP address on a Solaris 10 server is different from the previous versions of the OS (Solaris 9, Solaris 8 etc).

In the previous versions of the Solaris Operating System, you need to edit the /etc/hosts file and add/edit the entry for the IP address and the hostname.

Example:

192.168.1.1   sun1

However, in Solaris 10, you should edit the /etc/hosts file (a symlink to /etc/inet/hosts file) and the  /etc/inet/ipnodes file and add an entry for IP address and hostname.

Once done, restart the Network service using

# svcadm restart network/physical

or reboot the server for the changes to take effect.

Although, the /etc/inet/ipnodes files is primarily for IPv6 only, without adding an entry to the file, the IP address (IPv4) doesn’t become active. This seems to be a known problem but the good news is this is now fixed in the Solaris 10 U4 (08/07 build).

Also, ensure that the /etc/netmasks file with the network ID and the netmask.

To add a Static Route in Sun Solaris operating system, you can use the route command. This will dynamically update the Kernel IP Routing table. However, when a server is restarted, these routes will be lost. To prevent this from happening, add a startup script S76static-routes with all the route commands for the static route that needs to persist. This will ensure that the route gets added at boot time.

To use the route command,

Syntax:

# route add [net|host] <Addr> netmask <Mask> [GatewayAddr|-interface ] <metric>

Example:

Add a network

# route add net 10.10.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 1

same as

# route add 10.10.10.0/24 192.168.1.1 1

Add a host

# route add host 1.1.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 1

same as

# route add 1.1.1.1/24 192.168.1.1 1

To route the traffic through an interface instead of an IP Gateway

# route add 1.1.1.1/24 -interface hme0

To check that the roots are added to Kernel IP Routing table,

# netstat -rn

Routing Table: IPv4
Destination           Gateway           Flags  Ref   Use   Interface
——————– ——————– —– —– —— ———
192.168.1.0          192.168.1.1        U         1    273  hme0
224.0.0.0            192.168.1.1         U         1      0   hme0
default              192.168.1.1          UG        1    196

Static Routes at boot time

To make the routes available at boot time so the next time when the server reboots, the routes are still available. Add a startup script named as

/etc/rc2.d/S76static-routes

and add the required route commands as above.

Change the permissions for the file so that the file is executable by root.

# chmod 744 /etc/rc2.d/S76static-routes

This should help.

IP packet forwarding is the process of routing packets between network interfaces on one system. A packet arriving on one network interface and addressed to a host on a different network is forwarded to the appropriate interface. While this is a job for the network router, Servers with multiple interfaces connected to different network can perform this action as well. This behaviour as a router is a default in Sun Solaris Operating Systems.

If your Sun Solaris server has multiple interfaces and is not intended to route packets between the networks it is connected to, then it is advisable to disable this option. This can be a potential target for a malicious hacker as this can potentially allow the hacker access to the network at the other side.

To disable this packet forwarding in Solaris, simply create the file

/etc/notrouter

and reboot the server. However, if reboot is not an option at this time, then usee the NDD command to disble the option:

To display the current status

# ndd /dev/ip ip_forwarding
1

0 is Disabled
1 is Enabled

To disable,

# ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0

For IPv6

# ndd -set /dev/ip6 ip6_forwarding 0

This should disable. To confirm change,

# ndd /dev/ip ip_forwarding
0

# ndd /dev/ip6 ip6_forwarding
0

In Solaris 8 and later, IP forwarding can be enabled or disabled on a per interface basis. For example, if there are 3 hme NIC cards namely hme0,hme1,hme2 then assume, we allow IP Forwarding only from hme0 and disable on hme1 and hme2 then the following will help:

# ndd -set /dev/ip hme0:ip_forwarding 1
# ndd -set /dev/ip hme1:ip_forwarding 0
# ndd -set /dev/ip hme2:ip_forwarding 0

This should help

In my previous write up here, I wrote a brief description of the Sun VTS (Validation and Test Suite) which can help one to run tests on any Sun Supported hardware and hardware components and report the health status and identify faulty devices. Now, lets get installing and run Sun VTS in Solaris 10.

Download the most recent stable version of SUNWvts (SUNWvts6.4ps2 at the time of writing this article) for SPARC/x86 platforms from here

NOTE: Requires Sunsolve login to download.

Sun VTS requires the following packages installed to run properly.

Core SunVTS Framework

SUNWvts_VTS6.4ps2_sparc.tar.Z (SPARC)

SUNWvts_VTS6.4ps2_x86.tar.Z (x86)

Sun VTS Tests

SUNWvtsts_VTS6.4ps2_sparc.tar.Z (SPARC)

SUNWvtsts_VTS6.4ps2_x86.tar.Z (x86)

SunVTS Framework Configuration Files in Root partition (Optional/Recommended)

SUNWvtsr_VTS6.4ps2_sparc.tar.Z

SUNWvtsr_VTS6.4ps2_x86.tar.Z
 
Sun VTS Man Pages (Optional)
SUNWvtsmn_VTS6.4ps1_sparc.tar.Z (SPARC)

SUNWvtsmn_VTS6.4ps1_x86.tar.Z (x86)

Prior to installation, it is important that any previous version of the above mentioned Sun VTS packages are removed.

To check if previous versions are installed

solaris10# pkginfo -l | grep -i vts

If found uninstall them before proceeding with the procedure

solaris10# pkgrm SUNWvts SUNWvtsr SUNWvtsts SUNWvtsmn

Download and install the latest revision of Microtasking libraries (libmtsk) patch for Solaris 10 from the following Sun Solve website:

http://sunsolve.sun.com/show.do?target=patchpage

Solaris 10 SPARC – 120753 (120753-05)

Solaris 10 x86 – 120754 (120754-05)

Download unzip and install the patch:

SPARC

solaris10# unzip 120753-05.zip

solaris10# patchadd 120753-05

x86

solaris10# unzip 120754-05.zip

solaris10# patchadd 120754-05

Now, lets get installing the Sun VTS packages.

Install SunVTS Core Framework (SPARC & x86)

solaris10#pkgadd -d . SUNWvts

That installs the required Sun VTS Core Framework package.

Install the rest of the SunVTS packages
(SunVTS Tests,config files in root & Man pages)

solaris10# pkgadd -d . SUNWvtsts SUNWvtsr SUNWvtsmn

That completes the Sun VTS package installation.

Enable the rstatd daemon

rstatd daemon is disabled by default in Solaris 10.

solaris10# svcadm enable rstatd

Export Display to your PC (GUI only)

solaris10# export DISPLAY 192.168.0.2:0

Start Sun VTS

solaris10# /opt/SUNWvts/bin/sunvts &

This should start the Sun VTS software and export GUI to your PC (if display not exported then runs tty user interface on the terminal). Sun VTS will discover devices and list available tests for your server with dezcriptive information on the server.