Interview Operating System

Solaris.pdf 1. Solaris

1.1 Overview

Solaris operating systems are the building blocks of computer systems, and provide the

interface between user applications and computer hardware. Solaris 10 is a multiuser,

multitasking, multithreading operating environment, developed and sold by Sun Microsystems.

Solaris is one implementation of the UNIX operating system that draws on both the System V

(AT&T) and Berkeley (BSD) traditions. It has risen from little more than a research project to

become the dominant UNIX operating system in the international marketplace today. Solaris 10

is the latest in a long line of operating environment releases based around the SunOS.

Operating system, this is currently in version 5.10. Solaris is commonly found in large

corporations and educational institutions that require concurrent, multiuser access on

individual hosts and between hosts connected via the Internet. However, it is also rapidly being

adopted by small businesses and individual developers.

Some Features in Solaris 10

- Security

- Performance

- Networking

- Data Management

- Interoperability

- Swap Space

- Cluster Overview

1.2 Details:

Security:

The Solaris 10 Operating System, the most secure OS on the planet, provides security features

previously only found in Sun's military-grade Trusted Solaris OS. User and Process Rights

Management work in conjunction with Solaris Containers to let you securely host thousands of

applications and multiple customers on the same system. Security administrators can minimize

and harden Solaris even better than before to implement a secure foundation for deploying

services. Solaris Trusted Extensions is a standard part of Solaris and allows customers who have

specific regulatory or information protection requirements to take advantage of labeling

features previously only available in highly specialized operating systems or appliances.

- Enable the strong mandatory access controls required by governments and financial

institutions using Solaris Trusted Extensions

- Verify the integrity of your system using Solaris Secure Execution and file verification features

- Reduce risk by granting only the privileges needed with User and Process Rights Management

- Simplify administration by using the open standards-based Solaris Cryptographic and Key

Management Frameworks for file and network encryption

- Protect your system against attack using the Secure By Default networking profile, IP Filter

firewall, TCP Wrappers and IPsec/IKE encryption.

Performance:

Solaris 10 delivers indisputable performance advantages for database, Web, and Java

technology-based services, as well as massive scalability, shattering world records by delivering

unbeatable price/performance advantages.

- Achieves world-record benchmark results, setting performance and price/performance

records - Process-level resource usage and profiling

- Delivers near-linear performance gains of 99 percent for database applications and 94 percent

for Java applications

- Increases IPSec performance on DES by 77 percent and on 3DES by 130 percent over the

Solaris 9 Operating System- Network performance

- Speeds Web workload processing by 47 percent on SPARC platforms and by 43 percent on x86

platforms over Solaris 9 and by more than 80 percent over Solaris 8

Networking:

Exponential growth in Web connectivity, services, and applications is generating a critical need

for increased network performance. With the Solaris 10 Operating System, Sun meets future

networking challenges by radically improving your network performance without requiring

changes to your existing applications.

- Supports current IPv6 specifications

- Speeds application performance by about 50 percent via an enhanced TCP/IP stack

- Supports the latest networking technologies, such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, wireless networking,

and hardware offloading

- Accommodates high-availability, streaming, and Voice over IP (VoIP) networking features

through extended routing and protocol support

Data Management:

Solaris 10 has built-in file services to support your applications with faster performance, greater

safety, and simplified data management.

The last few decades of file system research have resulted in a great deal of progress in

performance and recoverability. However, anyone who has ever lost important files, run out of

space on a partition, or struggled with a volume manager understands the need for

improvement in the areas of data integrity, manageability, and scalability. Solaris ZFS, available

in Solaris 10, incorporates advanced data security and protection features, eliminating the need

for fsck or other recovery mechanisms. By redefining file systems as virtualized storage, Solaris

ZFS will enable virtually unlimited scalability.

- UNIX File System (UFS), the primary Solaris file system, is designed to handle small, cacheable

files accessed randomly by individual processes

- Solaris Volume Manager software minimizes downtime by providing continuous data access,

even in the event of a hardware failure

- Network File System, Version 4 (NFS V4), adds enhanced security features, performance, and

cross-platform interoperability

- The upcoming Solaris ZFS technology will deliver dramatic advancements by automating tasks,

protecting data from corruption, and providing virtually unlimited scalability

Interoperability

Solaris 10 provides interoperability from the desktop to the datacenter across a range of

hardware systems, operating platforms, and technologies.

Is an ideal platform for today's heterogeneous compute environments. Solaris 10 interoperates

with many other operating environments, including Linux and Microsoft Windows systems. In

addition, Solaris 10 supports popular open source applications and supports open standards

such as UDDI, SOAP, WSDL, and XML.

- Provides source and binary compatibility for Linux applications

- Interoperability with Microsoft Windows services

- Includes Perl, PHP, Python and other widely used scripting languages

- Includes Apache, Samba, sendmail, IP Filter, BIND, and other popular open source software

- Supports Java application development and deployment with J2EE and J2SE

Swap Space:

Is an area on disk that temporarily holds a process memory image. When physical memory

demand is sufficiently low, process memory images are brought back into physical memory

from the swap area on disk. Having sufficient swap space enables the system to keep some

physical memory free at all times. This type of memory management is often referred to as

virtual memory and allows the total number of processes to exceed physical memory. Virtual

memory enables the execution of a process within physical memory only as needed.

Cluster Overview:

What is cluster?

Cluster is a high-availability product for the Solaris Operating System, created by Sun

Microsystems. It's used to improve the availability of software services such as database, file

sharing on a network, electronic commerce websites, or other application. Cluster operate by

having redundant computer or nodes where one or more computers continue to provide

service if another fails. Nodes may be located in the same data center or on different

continents.

Advantages of cluster:

- Redundant servers

- Redundant data

- Redundant public network access

- Redundant private communications (transport)

- Multi-host storage access

- Allows for the preservation of environmentally sensitive areas

- Can reduce development construction and infrastructure costs and provide for better

utilization of land

- Can reduce impervious surface areas, thereby reducing stormwater runoff and associated

water quality impacts

- Enhances neighborhood security and sense of community through increased density without

compromising privacy

- Allows for more efficient (less expensive) subdivision layout by requiring less paved area and

utility lines per unit

- Increased open space provided usually has a direct relation to increased property values

- May provide for better public or community access to a natural or recreational feature.

1.3 Work:

Cluster Installation on Solaris

1.unzip suncluster-3_2u1-ga-solaris-x86.zip

I.Installing Sun Cluster Software Packages

1. To use the GUI form of the installer program, set the display environment on your

administrative console. In this example, we are using csh:

myconsole# xhost +

myconsole# setenv display myconsole:0.0

Continue using the administrative console for the next steps, and remember to perform them

on both nodes, one at a time..

2. Become super user on the cluster node on which you are installing Sun Cluster software. Use

the telnet command to mynode1, then log in with the root login and password:

myconsole# telnet mynode1

mynode1 login: root

password: *******

3.Install the SUNWccon package.

# pkgadd -d . SUNWccon

4.(Optional) Install the SUNWscman package.

# pkgadd -d . SUNWscman

When you install the SUNWscman package on the administrative console, you can view Sun

Cluster man pages from the administrative console before you install Sun Cluster software on

the cluster nodes.

5.Start the installer program:

mynode1#. /installer

Follow the instructions on the screen to install the Sun Cluster software.

On the welcome opening screen, click Next:

Click Yes, Accept License to accept the license agreement:

Choose extra languages support if desired, then click Next:

From the list of software to install, under Availability Services, select Sun Cluster 3.1u4:

In the J2SE Software Development Kit Upgrade screen, select Automatically Update:

When prompted, choose Configure Later:

When you receive confirmation that the system is ready to install,

Click Next:

Click Next to confirm selections:

For product registration and installation, click Install:

The installer program installs Sun Cluster software packages plus additional software that is

required to run certain Sun Cluster functionality. When finished, the installer program provides

an installation summary.

Now that you have finished the installation on Node1, go back to step 2 and start the

installation process, this time for Node 2.

II. Configuring Sun Cluster Software:

1. Log on to one of the two nodes. Start the scinstall utility in interactive mode as

superuser:

# /usr/cluster/bin/scinstall

This procedure will configure the Sun Cluster software on both nodes.

2. From the Main Menu, type "1" to choose the menu item, Install a cluster or cluster

node:

*** Main Menu ***

Please select from one of the following (*) options:

1) Install a cluster or cluster node

2) Configure a cluster to be JumpStarted from this install server

3) Add support for new data services to this cluster node

4) Upgrade this cluster node

5) Print release information for this cluster node

?) Help with menu options

q) Quit

Option: 1

3. From the Install Menu that appears, type "1" to choose the menu item, Install all nodes

of a new cluster. Then confirm your choice by answering "y" when prompted:

*** Install Menu ***

Please select from any one of the following options:

1) Install all nodes of a new cluster

2) Install just this machine as the first node of a new cluster

3) Add this machine as a node in an existing cluster

?) Help with menu options

q) Return to the Main Menu

Option: 1

*** Installing all Nodes of a New Cluster ***

Do you want to continue (yes/no)? y

4. From the Type of Installation menu, type "1" to choose Typical:

>>> Type of Installation <<<

Please select from one of the following options:

1) Typical

2) Custom

?) Help

q) Return to the Main Menu

Option [1]: 1

5. When prompted, supply the following information:

o Name to give the cluster: mycluster

o Name of the other node (if started from mynode1): mynode2

o Type "yes" if correct and press Return to continue

o The first private adapter name (interface name): eri1

o The second private adapter name (interface name): hme0

o Type "no" to disabling automatic quorum device selection

o Type "yes" and press Return to continue

o Type "no" to interrupting cluster creation for sccheck errors

At this point, the scinstall utility configures all cluster nodes and reboots the cluster. This might

take several minutes. The cluster is established when all nodes have successfully booted into

the cluster. Sun Cluster installation output is logged in a /var/cluster/logs/install/scinstall.log.N

file.

6. Verify on each node that multi-user services for the Service Management Facility

(SMF)are online:

# svcs multi-user-server

STATE STIME FMRI

online 17:52:55 svc:/milestone/multi-user-server:default

If services are not yet online for a node, wait until the state becomes online before you proceed

to the next step.

7. From one of the nodes, verify that both nodes have joined the cluster:

8. Issue the scstat command to move resources from one mynode1 to mynode2

# scstat -n

Output resembles the following:

-- Cluster Nodes --

Node name Status

--------- ------

Cluster node: mynode1 Online

Cluster node: mynode2 Online

At this point, the scinstall utility runs the following tasks:

-Configures the cluster nodes

-Chooses a SCSI device and configures it as a quorum device

-Removes the cluster from installation mode

4.4 Future:

In the future I want to learn more about Security on Solaris

- Basic Audit Reporting Tool (BART) : "Snapshots" filesystems content fingerprints and

metadata so that changes can be detected/reported upon

- Reduced Network Software Group Package SUNWCrnet : Extremely small, supported,

core solaris footprint; use as basis for building minimized systems

- Least Privilege / Process Privilege Mechanism : Fine-grained control of system privileges

(privileged actions/system-calls) assignable piecemeal to specific users, processes, and system

processes

To check performance of the system. If we check the system then we found the percent of RAM

or Hard Disk is 90% or nearly full we need to inform to our leader let him know about the

problem and resolve it.

5. Oracle

5.1 Overview:

An Oracle database is a collection of data treated as a unit. The purpose of a database is to

store and retrieve related information. A database server is the key to solving the problems of

information management. In general, a server reliably manages a large amount of data in a

multiuser environment so that many users can concurrently access the same data. All this is

accomplished while delivering high performance. A database server also prevents unauthorized

access and provides efficient solutions for failure recovery.

Oracle Database is the first database designed for enterprise grid computing, the most flexible

and cost effective way to manage information and applications. Enterprise grid computing

creates large pools of industry-standard, modular storage and servers. With this architecture,

each new system can be rapidly provisioned from the pool of components. There is no need for

peak workloads, because capacity can be easily added or reallocated from the resource pools as

needed.

The database has logical structures and physical structures. Because the physical and logical

structures are separate, the physical storage of data can be managed without affecting the

access to logical storage structures.

The section contains some topics

- Physical Database Structures

- Logical Database Structures

- Schemas and Common Schema Objects

- The Oracle Instance

- Starting up the Database

5.2 Details:

+ Physical Database Structures

The following sections explain the physical database structures of an Oracle database, including

datafiles, redo log files, control files, archive log files, and parameter files.

Datafiles

Every Oracle database has one or more physical datafiles. The datafiles contain all the database

data. The data of logical database structures, such as tables and indexes, is physically stored in

the datafiles allocated for a database.

The characteristics of datafiles are:

? a datafile can be associated with only one database.

? Datafiles can have certain characteristics set to let them automatically extend whenthe

database runs out of space.

? one or more datafiles form a logical unit of database storage called a tablespace.

Data in a datafile is read, as needed, during normal database operation and stored in the

memory cache of Oracle. For example, assume that a user wants to access some data in a table

of a database. If the requested information is not already in the memory cache for the

database, then it is read from the appropriate datafiles and stored in memory.

Control Files

Every Oracle database has a control file. A control file contains entries that specify the physical

structure of the database. For example, it contains the following information:

? Database name

? Names and locations of datafiles and redo log files

? Time stamp of database creation

? Tablespace information

? The log history

? Checkpoint information

Redo Log Files

Every Oracle database has a set of two or more redo log files. The set of redo log files is

collectively known as the redo log for the database. A redo log is made up of redo entries (also

called redo records).

The primary function of the redo log is to record all changes made to data. If a failure prevents

modified data from being permanently written to the datafiles, then the changes can be

obtained from the redo log, so work is never lost.

The information in a redo log file is used only to recover the database from a system or media

failure that prevents database data from being written to the datafiles.

Archive Log Files

Contain an ongoing history of the redo generated by the instance. These files allow for

database recovery; using these files and a backup of the database, you can recover a lost data

file.

Parameter Files

Parameter files contain a list of configuration parameters for that instance and database. Oracle

recommends that you create a server parameter file (SPFILE) as a dynamic means of

maintaining initialization parameters. A server parameter file lets you store and manage your

initialization parameters persistently in a server-side disk file.

+ Logical Database Structures

The logical storage structures, including data blocks, extents, and segments, enable Oracle to

have fine-grained control of disk space use.

Tablespaces

A tablespace is a logical storage unit within an Oracle database. It is logical because a

tablespace is not visible in the file system of the machine on which the database resides. A

tablespace, in turn, consists of at least one datafile which, in turn, are physically located in the

file system of the server. Btw, a datafile belongs to exactly one tablespace.

+ Schemas and Common Schema Objects

A schema is a collection of database objects. A schema is owned by a database user and has the

same name as that user.

Schema objects are the logical structures that directly refer to the database's data. Schema

objects include structures like tables, views, and indexes. (There is no relationship between a

tablespace and a schema. Objects in the same schema can be in different tablespaces, and a

tablespace can hold objects from different schemas.)

+ The Oracle Instance

An Oracle database server consists of an Oracle database and an Oracle instance. Every time a

database is started, a system global area (SGA) is allocated and Oracle background processes

are started. The combination of the background processes and memory buffers is called an

Oracle instance.

Made up of two components

+ Starting up the Database

The three steps to starting an Oracle database and making it available for systemwide used are:

1. Start an instance.

2. Mount the database.

3. Open the database.

A database administrator can perform these steps using the SQL*Plus STARTUP statement or

Enterprise Manager. When Oracle starts an instance, it reads the server parameter file (SPFILE)

or initialization parameter file to determine the values of initialization parameters. Then, it

allocates an SGA and creates background processes.

5.3 Work

All the below points is what I did during my work about logical and physical structures (create,

add, drop, rename, and resize)

Datafile

- Add datafile

Command to add datafile to tablespace:

- Drop datafile

Command to drop datafile from tablespace:

- Resize datafile

Command to resize datafile from tablespace:

- Rename datafile

Step to rename datafile:

i. set tablespace offline

ii rename datafile

iii set tablespace online

Command to rename datafile:

Note: Need to copy from old to new file first (physical) then type the command.

Redo Log

- Create redo log

Command to create redo log group

- Drop redo log

Command to drop redo log group

- Add member to redo log

Command to add member to redo log group

- Drop member in redo log

Command to drop member in redo log group

- Rename redo log

Step to rename redo log file:

1. shutdown database

2. startup database in mount

3. rename file

4. open database

Command to rename redo log file

Tablespace

- Create tablespace

Command to create tablespace

5.4 Future

In the future I want to learn about

- Oracle Grid Architecture

- Application Architecture

- Schemas and Common Schema Objects

- Oracle Data Dictionary

- Oracle Utilities

All the above points I think is very useful for me and the whole system.

Thank for your

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