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Home > Archive > Unix administration > October 2004 > Health checks for Solaris
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Health checks for Solaris
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| qazmlp 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| During the Solaris installation/upgrade, the logs will be written into
/var/sadm/system/logs/<install/upgrade>_log
Are there any logs(for Solaris) written during the normal run-time
i.e. after the Solaris installation/upgrade is completed?
Basically, I want to have some health checks(for the complete software
stack) for the system where my application is running. Hence, I am
trying to find such health check steps for checking Solaris OS itself.
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| Mothra 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| qazmlp wrote:
> During the Solaris installation/upgrade, the logs will be written into
> /var/sadm/system/logs/<install/upgrade>_log
>
> Are there any logs(for Solaris) written during the normal run-time
> i.e. after the Solaris installation/upgrade is completed?
>
No, unfortunately Solaris doesn't create any system logs whatsoever. It
makes administration of this operating system a complete nightmare,
because when something goes wrong, there's absolutely no way you can
troubleshoot it. If you encounter any problems while running Solaris,
the only solution is to completely reinstall it.
On the plus side however Solaris Engineers generally get paid a lot more
than those working with other operating systems.
> Basically, I want to have some health checks(for the complete software
> stack) for the system where my application is running. Hence, I am
> trying to find such health check steps for checking Solaris OS itself.
Hmm, I think your best bet is to run:
truss -p 1 -o /tmp/system.log &
And whenever you want to see how your operating system is performing,
just run:
tail -f /tmp/system.log
| |
| Michael Vilain 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| In article <9q5bd.1080316$yk.181980@news.easynews.com>,
Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> wrote:
> qazmlp wrote:
>
> No, unfortunately Solaris doesn't create any system logs whatsoever. It
> makes administration of this operating system a complete nightmare,
> because when something goes wrong, there's absolutely no way you can
> troubleshoot it. If you encounter any problems while running Solaris,
> the only solution is to completely reinstall it.
>
> On the plus side however Solaris Engineers generally get paid a lot more
> than those working with other operating systems.
>
>
> Hmm, I think your best bet is to run:
>
> truss -p 1 -o /tmp/system.log &
>
> And whenever you want to see how your operating system is performing,
> just run:
>
> tail -f /tmp/system.log
"PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN."
I have no idea if Mothra (and her sidekick Rodan) were jerking your
chain or just channeling a deceased M$ support tech.
In truth, Solaris 8 for the Ultra processors (sun4u architecture) have
prtdiag. It depends on what hardware you're running but you can search
for it at http://docs.sun.com/?q=prtdiag to check out your hardware.
Older hardware (e.g. sun4m--Sparc 20 and that era) doesn't have this
diagnostic for temperature, system boards, I/O boards, etc because it
was simpler.
Also, extensive logging occurs from the kernel when there's memory or
other problem on boot. Try
dmsg
or
view /var/adm/messages
--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...
| |
| Mothra 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| "Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net>" wrote:
>
>
> "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN."
>
> I have no idea if Mothra (and her sidekick Rodan) were jerking your
> chain or just channeling a deceased M$ support tech.
>
That must have been the Evil Mothra, my arch nemesis. He/she/it has a
cruel and cynical sense of humour indeed.
Nice Mothra says: "All your Solaris operating system logs are generated
by /usr/sbin/syslogd which reads in the configuration file
/etc/syslog.conf (and stores its PID in /etc/syslog.pid).
I wouldn't recommend editing /etc/syslog.conf unless you really know
what you're doing - the default settings should be fine for novices and
the syntax is extremely tricky to get right.
But if you ignore that warning, BE VERY CAREFUL when editing
/etc/syslog.conf, there must be no space characters - only tab
characters. I've lost count of the number of Solaris Systems I've
encountered where syslogd is running along merrily, but nothing is being
written to /var/adm/messages, only to find that someone's idly cut 'n'
pasted /etc/syslog.conf from another machine and all of the tab
characters have been converted to spaces.
With regard to diagnostic tools on Solaris, there are so many it's
difficult to know where to begin, but here are some commands to get you
started:
vmstat - to check your virtual memory
iostat - to check your I/O activity, e.g. disk drives
netstat - to check your network settings
You could also cheat and download "top" from www.sunfreeware.com, but
don't ever admit this to experienced Solaris Admins, as they will laugh
derisorily at you (especially that Evil Mothra guy).
For monitoring your application, you should check out the so-called
"proc tools" (under /usr/proc/bin). The man pages for these commands
will show you how you can view all the threads of a running program.
And don't forget "truss" - my all-time favourite last resort debugging
tool. Check out this article:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/sho...ntent/content10
Also, you might want to try the wonderful SE Tools for more advanced
diagnostics.
And make sure you browse through http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/ for other
gems of information.
But if you really want ninja skills in this department, send yourself on
SA-400 Solaris System Performance Management (or its equivalent if the
name's changed again). I have yet to attend a better Sun Microsystems
training course.
| |
| Scott Howard 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| In comp.unix.solaris Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> wrote:
> No, unfortunately Solaris doesn't create any system logs whatsoever. It
> makes administration of this operating system a complete nightmare,
Whatever you're smoking, I want some...
Scott
| |
| Mothra 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Scott Howard wrote:
> In comp.unix.solaris Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Whatever you're smoking, I want some...
>
> Scott
/usr/bin/hash ?
(sorry)
| |
| Dragan Cvetkovic 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> writes:
>
>
> Hmm, I think your best bet is to run:
>
> truss -p 1 -o /tmp/system.log &
>
> And whenever you want to see how your operating system is performing, just
> run:
>
> tail -f /tmp/system.log
Nice. Will have to remember that...
Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!
| |
| Dragan Cvetkovic 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Beardy <beardy@beardy.net> writes:
> Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>
> Dragan, unless I am completely bonkers, trussing init will give you no
> information whatsoever about "how your operating system is performing". My
> truss just tells me when init is rereading /etc/inittab for the most
> part. The rest is pause()...
>
You are right. I suppose trussing pid 0 would be more interesting, but in
that case I am getting
bash-2.05b# truss -f -p 0
truss: system process: 0
Ditto for e.g. 2
Shame.
Bye, Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!
| |
| Chris Morgan 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> writes:
> You could also cheat and download "top" from www.sunfreeware.com, but
> don't ever admit this to experienced Solaris Admins, as they will
> laugh derisorily at you (especially that Evil Mothra guy).
I use top myself, but when I come across people who don't know what it
tells them, I do laugh derisorily, I have to admit :-
"I think the machine is busy, look at this top output"
"is that % figure per cpu or total"
"oh, err, I don't know"
"which version of top is this"
"not sure"
"is it the same as on this other window on the other server"
"yes ... oh no, look at that, no it's completely different"
<oh for heaven's sake>"Just use prstat -a, ok?"
Chris
--
Chris Morgan
"Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
real rule revisions that are irreversible"
- anonymous correspondent
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| Dragan Cvetkovic 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Beardy <beardy@beardy.net> writes:
> Dragan, there is rat all that you can do with system processes as they are
> not processes as we know of. In fact, I suspect that there is no real need
> for ps to list them. I s'pose it is just to keep us happy that there is
> *something* using PID 0. Why pageout is not PID 1 I don't know - prob just
> historical.
I guess so too. But then everybody expects init to be pid 1 as much as
everybody expect root to be uid 0.
Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!
| |
| Kevin Collins 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| In article <lmd5zm1prg.fsf@privacy.net>, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
> Beardy <beardy@beardy.net> writes:
>
>
> I guess so too. But then everybody expects init to be pid 1 as much as
> everybody expect root to be uid 0.
Uhhh, root HAS to be UID 0 - its the UID that is special, not the name 'root'...
Kevin
| |
| Dragan Cvetkovic 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| spamtotrash@toomuchfiction.com (Kevin Collins) writes:
> In article <lmd5zm1prg.fsf@privacy.net>, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>
> Uhhh, root HAS to be UID 0 - its the UID that is special, not the name 'root'...
I know. Let me rephrase myself: why root is uid 0 and not e.g. 314159 (or
42) is probably just historical.
The same way that O_RDONLY is defined as 0 in <sys/fcntl.h> confusing the
hell out of (new) programmers who do open(file, O_RDONLY|O_WRONLY) and
wonder why is it different than open(file, O_RDWR) ...
Or why is it creat(2) and not create(2) (see
http://web.umr.edu/~eepe/jon.html#Thompson for the context).
Bye, Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!
| |
| Kevin Collins 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| In article <lm4qky1m9t.fsf@privacy.net>, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
> spamtotrash@toomuchfiction.com (Kevin Collins) writes:
>
>
>
> I know. Let me rephrase myself: why root is uid 0 and not e.g. 314159 (or
> 42) is probably just historical.
>
> The same way that O_RDONLY is defined as 0 in <sys/fcntl.h> confusing the
> hell out of (new) programmers who do open(file, O_RDONLY|O_WRONLY) and
> wonder why is it different than open(file, O_RDWR) ...
Well, everything in UNIX is historical - it wasn't created all at once out of
the ether  It was created, at some time other than right now, and hence is
historical by definition!
> Or why is it creat(2) and not create(2) (see
> http://web.umr.edu/~eepe/jon.html#Thompson for the context).
Nice link - some good quotes there.
Kevin
| |
| Timothy J. Bogart 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Mothra wrote:
> Scott Howard wrote:
>
>
>
> /usr/bin/hash ?
>
> (sorry)
Oh, the pains are coming back .....
| |
| all mail refused 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| In article <MI6bd.1085240$yk.183036@news.easynews.com>, Mothra wrote:
>I wouldn't recommend editing /etc/syslog.conf unless you really know
>what you're doing - the default settings should be fine for novices and
>the syntax is extremely tricky to get right.
I think that's untrue. It's only about as hard as inetd.conf .
ntp.conf, httpd.conf, smb.conf and sudoers are all harder aren't they ?
--
Elvis Notargiacomo master AT barefaced DOT cheek
http://www.notatla.org.uk/goen/
7.031: OnACPower returned value( 0x1 ) which is Equal To 0x1
| |
| Markus Gyger 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
| Dragan Cvetkovic <me@privacy.net> writes:
> Mothra <mothra@mothra.com> writes:
> Nice. Will have to remember that...
Note that less +F /tmp/system.log will do the same.
A nice feature is that you can stop it using ^C and
use pattern highlighting (e.g. -i/error) and continue
again with command F or navigate with < > b f n N etc.
Markus
| |
| Triffid 2004-10-15, 9:29 pm |
|
Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
> spamtotrash@toomuchfiction.com (Kevin Collins) writes:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I know. Let me rephrase myself: why root is uid 0 and not e.g. 314159 (or
> 42) is probably just historical.
314159?
Now I remember... Sharp APL!
Definitely historical :-)
> The same way that O_RDONLY is defined as 0 in <sys/fcntl.h> confusing the
> hell out of (new) programmers who do open(file, O_RDONLY|O_WRONLY) and
> wonder why is it different than open(file, O_RDWR) ...
>
> Or why is it creat(2) and not create(2) (see
> http://web.umr.edu/~eepe/jon.html#Thompson for the context).
>
> Bye, Dragan
>
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