Recently I received an email from Caroline Middlebrook promoting her free guide on creating mini sites with WordPress, I’m not looking at creating mini sites here but there is some good tips there none the less, especially for people that are new to WP. Any way onto my check list:

• Install CMS Software, in my case this is WordPress so some of these points will be specific to that platform though other CMSs will likely have an equivilent.
• Choose and set your permalink structure, this is the format of the URL for each post. I like to use: /%year%%monthnum%/%postname%.htm as this means posts are grouped (artificially) in a folder per month and are only one directory level away from your sites root.
• Enable Askimet antispam and make sure that you have a valid key.
• Install tracking software, be it Google Analytics or something else. You can generally either use a plugin to add it to your site or add a bit of Javascript to your themes footer.php. I need to find (or write) a plugin that works with the latest code version of Analytics as maintaining multiple themes will become a pain
• Create a new FeedBurner account to track your subscribers and follow the instructions (installing another plugin) to make your feed URL point at the burnt one.
• Install and automate a backup system. A good method is to use the plugin WP-DB-Backup and get the files emailed to you on a daily basis. This is where having a free email account with large storage space can come in very handy.
  • General Options -> Weblog Title - Set to whatever the title of your blog is
  • General Options -> Tagline: A short (sentence) description of the site
  • Reading Options -> Show at most: 8 posts, I find 8 is enough for my blogs (the default is 10)
  • Reading Options -> Syndicate the most recent 20 posts - This is double the default but gives new subscribers plenty to read
  • Reading Options -> For each article, show: Full text - I find showing the full text is the best way to keep subscribers, it does mean you get less visitors to your site but is worth it in other ways. If you use the more tag you’ll need to install a plugin like this for full feed syndication to work.
  • Discussion Options -> Hold a comment in the queue if it contains 1 or more moderation, I go for all other default options but do manually approve ALL comments with links in

Next up is to through the other options and change any accordingly, these are the ones I find are worth changing:

Once your blog is set-up it’s a good idea to keep it running (doh), Vladimir has some great tips on insuring your blog.

I will be adding to this list as I remember, learn and discover new things that I should be doing. If you have any suggestions for the list please let us know via comment.

This post is just about setting up new blogs, I will go into promotion and launching in a future post.

Tags: adding, age factors, Bank-of-America, CMS, disk cylinder, Free, PDF Generator, QuickTime, solaris 8, Tutorial, WordPress

 

When adding or removing hardware in a Solaris system, it may be necessary to perform a reconfiguration boot. During this boot, the system discovers new hardware and recreates the file /etc/path_to_inst which contains mappings of physical devices to logical instance numbers.

To perform a reconfiguration boot from a Solaris prompt, create a file called reconfigure in the root filesystem. As root, run:

If you are at the OpenBoot Prompt (ok), you can issue the following command to perform a reconfiguration boot:

Warning: Reconfiguration boots can cause problems under certain circumstances, particularly regarding the order of disk devices. Hosts running Solstice DiskSuite should be particularly cautious of reconfiguratio boots that may change the order of disk mappings

Tags: boot, cp, disksuite, filesystem, Hardware, mapping, openboot, Solaris, Solaris, solaris 8, touch

Any installation of Solaris loads many packages that are not needed for a server to function. However, even if you remove unneeded packages, there are several startup services which can be disabled. As part of your minimalization process, you want to reduce number of processes and services running on your server. Some of these unneeded services can pose a potential security risk. There are two main places to configure which services are active: the /etc/inetd.conf file and the /etc/rc.X/ directories.

inetd.conf
This file specifies which ports the inetd daemon will listen for. You eliminate uneccessary services by commenting them out. There are many web tutorials on configuring the inetd.conf file.

rcX.d services
/etc/rcX.d contains startup and shutdown scripts. (The startup scripts start with “S”, the shutdown with “K”. The standard recommendation is to rename the uppercase S to a lowercase one

The following table displays each of the Solaris Startup files, where they are placed, and which distribution and package they are part of. (I left out the “K” files for brevity. A list of resources which recommend which scripts can be disabled follows):

rc directory	filename	installed with package	package description	MetaCluster	comments
rcS.d	S10cvc	SUNWcvcr	Network Console daemon and rc script	SUNWCXall	For E10000?
	S10initpcmcia	SUNWpcmci	PCMCIA Card Services, (Root)	SUNWCreq	Initialize pcmcia cards
	S15initpcihpc	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	??
	S30network.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start up networking; plumb each interface
	S30rootusr.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	does configuration needed to mount /usr via nfs
	S33keymap.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	loads keyboard mappings and initializes keyboard defaults
	S35cacheos.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	configure devices before setting up cache disk
	S40standardmounts.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	mount /usr, /usr/platform, etc
	S41cachefs.root	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	if root is cachefs file system, startup cachefsd
	S42coreadm	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	Restore the core file configuration that was in effect before reboot.
	S42ncakmod	SUNWncar	Solaris Network and Cache Accelerator(Root)	SUNWCall	??
	S50devfsadm	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	configure /dev directory
	S70buildmnttab.sh	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	mount file systems in mnttab
	S01MOUNTFSYS	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	Mount all local filesystems
Â
rc0.d?	S01MOUNTFSYS	Â	Â	Â	Â
rc1.d?	S01MOUNTFSYS	Â	Â	Â	Â
Â
rc2.d	S01MOUNTFSYS	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	Mount all local filesystems
	S05RMTMPFILES	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	remove files in /tmp and /var/tmp
	S20sysetup	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	print the system configuration upon startup
	S21perf	SUNWaccr	System Accounting, (Root)	SUNWCall	enable system activity data gathering
	S30sysid.net	SUNWadmr	System & Network Administration Root	SUNWCreq	configures basic network functions
	S40llc2	SUNWllcr	LLC2 driver and its initialization programs	SUNWCuser	??
	S47asppp	SUNWapppr	PPP/IP Asynchronous PPP daemon configuration files	SUNWCall	start the PPP daemon
	S69inet	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	configure ip routing, the default route;domain name
	S70uucp	SUNWbnur	Networking UUCP Utilities	SUNWCall	clean up uucp lock files
	S71ldap.client	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	starts ldap_cachemgr
	S71rpc	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start rpc
	S71sysid.sys	SUNWadmr	System & Network Administration Root	SUNWCreq	if /.UNCONFIGURED exists reconfigure the system
	S72autoinstall	SUNWadmr	System & Network Administration Root	SUNWCreq	if /.UNCONFIGURED exists reconfigure the system
	S72inetsvc	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start inetd
	S72slpd	SUNWslpr	SLP, (Root)	SUNWCuser	??
	S73cachefs.daemon	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	starts up cachefs file systems
	S73nfs.client	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start lockd and statd;mount remote file systems
	S74autofs	SUNWatfsr	System & Network Administration Root	SUNWCreq	start the automounter daemon
	S74syslog	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start the system logger daemon
	S74xntpd	SUNWntpr	NTP, (Root)	SUNWCuser	startup network time protocol
	S75cron	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start cron daemon
	S75flashprom	SUNWuxflr	Sun4u System FLASH PROM Update (?)	SUNWCXall	Install FLASH PROM Update for Sun4u Systems (?)
	S75savecore	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	save core
	S76nscd	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start up the name service cache daemon
	S80lp	SUNWpsr	SunSoft Print - LP Server, (root)	SUNWCreq	start the line printer scheduler
	S80PRESERVE	SUNWcsr	save edit files in /usr/preserve	SUNWCuser	recovers data from unsaved vi sessions
	S80spc	SUNWpcr	SunSoft Print - Client, (root)	SUNWCuser	something to do with printing
	S85power	SUNWpmr	Power Management config file and rc script	SUNWCuser	power management
	S88sendmail	SUNWsndmr	Sendmail root	SUNWCreq	start sendmail
	S88utmpd	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	start up utmpd to clean up utmp entries
	S89bdconfig	SUNWdial	Buttons/Dials Streams Module	SUNWCall	Â
	S90wbem	SUNWwbcor	WBEM Services (root)	SUNWCuser	??
	S91afbinit	SUNWafbr	Elite3D Device Drivers and Pipelines	SUNWCXall	For systems with Elite3D Graphics(?)
	S91ifbinit	SUNWifbr	Sun Expert3D (IFB) Graphics System Software (Root)	SUNWCXall	For systems with Elite3D Graphics(?)
	S92volmgt	SUNWvolr	Â	SUNWCuser	start the volume management daemon
	S93cacheos.finish	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	??
	S94ncalogd	SUNWncar	Solaris Network and Cache Accelerator(Root)?	SUNWCall	??
	S95ncad	SUNWncar	Solaris Network and Cache Accelerator(Root)?	SUNWCall	??
	S99audit	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	starts up auditd
	S99dtlogin	SUNWdtlog	Â	SUNWCuser	automatically start the CDE login window on the console
Â
rc3.d	S15nfs.server	SUNWcsr	Core Solaris, (Root)	SUNWCreq	startup remote file sharing daemons
	S50apache	SUNWapchr	Apache Web Server (root)	SUNWCall	startup http daemon
	S76snmpdx	SUNWsacom	Solstice Enterprise Agents 1.0.3 files for root file system	SUNWCuser	startup snmp
	S77dmi	SUNWsacom	Solstice Enterprise Agents 1.0.3 files for root file system	SUNWCuser	startup snmp
	S80mipagent	“SUNWmipmr(?) or SUNWmipa”	Mobile IP mobility agent	SUNWCall?	x86 only?
Â
rc?.d	S10init1394	SUNW1394h	IEEE 1394 Video Conferencing Support	SUNWCxall?	x86 Only?
rc?.d	S95picld	SUNWpiclr	sunfire and sunblade	SUNWCXall	Needed for thermal diagnostics?

Notes:

• The above table assumes that you’ve performed a standard SUNCWreq, SUNWCuser, SUNWCprog or SUNWCall install.
• Therefore, any scripts belonging to the SUNWCXall metacluster installed on your system (such as S75flashprom) may be necessary for your system’s functioning and should not be deleted without careful consideration.
• Therefore,carefull examine your system before following checklists or scripts which “delete all files except the following”…
• The packages listed are representative; some of the startup files may be created from more than one package. (Perhaps I should have listed the cluster the package belongs to…)
• The vast majority of startup files belong in the SUNWcsr (Core Solaris) package which is installed as part of every Solaris installation. Others may not be created depending on which OS group and packages installed on the system.
• Third party software may install additional startup files.
• Files in /etc/init.d are links to these files and usually are named the same but without the “Sxx” prefix.

 

Many of these scripts need to be disabled, some need to be modified, and a few need to be created.

Which ones can be disabled?
Unless you are absolutely sure, don’t delete a startup file, just disable it. There is a difference between deleting a file and preventing them from starting up…

If sure are sure you don’t need a file, then change its name or move it to a subdirectory called “disabled”:

mkdir /etc/rc1.d/disabled/ mkdir /etc/rc2.d/disabled/ mkdir /etc/rc3.d/disabled/ mv -f /etc/rc2.d/S*asppp /etc/rc2.d/disabled/

Tags: age, apache, boot, cd, disk, filesystem, Module, mount, NTFS, process, server, Software, Solaris, Solaris, solaris 8, solstice

Solaris (Intel and Sparc) is a rock solid Unix, unlike other proprietary Unix it is available free of charge to download $49.95 for the CD set or $9.95 for the DVD containing SPARC and x86 versions. Sun also make some very affordable hardware these days so why not get the very best out of Solaris with a workstation or laptop.

Solaris 10 is now available and has some great improvements in speed and particularly the desktop, see the Window Managers and Screenshots pages for more details.

To make a worthwhile installation you need to download the Companion CD as well as the 3 installation ISO’s, this is also a free download. The downloaded files are zipped iso’s, just unzip and burn with Roxio, Nero or similar if you are using Windows or cdrecord from Linux. Sun uses bz2 to compress the disk images, WinRAR will uncompress this format, some of the images may have the extension rr (Rockridge) just change this to iso and (in Roxio) select “Record CD from CD image” from the file menu.

I have the Intel version installed on my old Compaq 166MMX with 80M RAM and the performance was surprisingly decent. The sparc version is installed on my Ultra 60 600MHz 512M and this compares favourably to a much faster Intel box running XP.

The installation is a breeze, providing;

a)You don’t want to share the drive with another OS and

b)your hardware is fairly standard and preferably a few years old

Before booting with the Solaris CD it is a good idea to run DOS fdisk to remove any existing partitions and rewrite the mbr with;
fdisk /mbr
Solaris uses the same partition type number as Linux (but not the same filesystem)and leaving old Linux partitions can confuse the installer. Equally if you remove Solaris and want to reinstall Linux use DOS fdisk again to clean up. Solaris makes extremely broken partition tables (at least they appear broken to other OS)and you may find your PC unbootable unless you use a DOS boot disk to wipe the mbr and partition table. There is a HOWTO on dual-booting, but it is not for the faint-hearted. For sparc machines boot, wait for the memory test then hit stop+a to get to the ok prompt

ok boot cdrom

Sparc only- if you are using a HDD which has not had Solaris previously installed, you may get messages about a “bad magic number”, to cure this, during the installation right-click open a new terminal window,

#format

Then choose the “Label” option, yes to continue, and close the terminal, the install will proceed normally and you will not get the error message on reboot.

Once installed you will be presented with the CDE desktop which is stable and has a number of good applications, the first thing you will notice is the high quality fonts. Whilst you will hear a lot of people berate the CDE desktop I am not one of them, Cut/Paste and Drag/Drop works consistantly across applications, and it does not look that bad. Star Office integrates well and is worth installing, I found it performed slightly better than the Linux version, although this is purely subjective, a port of OpenOffice is also available.

Installing the extras on the Companion CD is easy, just put in the CD, it will automount and run the installer where you can choose the required packages. The main problem I had was with my old S3 (765) video chip, the installation defaulted to 8 bit colour and I had to hack /etc/openwin/server/etc/OWconfig to make it work with 16 bit. Solaris only supports 8 or 24 bit, if you force it to use 16 bit some applications(including the software installer) will fail to run and produce lots of Java exceptions. The Intel version uses the command

#kdmconfig

to set up the video card, keyboard, mouse and monitor, this can be run (as superuser) anytime to reconfigure the resolution and colour depth, logout to a console first for best results.

Sun have now produced a port of XF86 for Solaris so a lot more video cards are now supported, the 16 bit restrictions still apply however.

For sparc machines the commands for video settings depend on the type of card or chip, for onboard video chips use

#m64config -depth -res
or
#fbconfig -depth -res

the option
#m64config -prconf
after either of the 2 commands will list the resolutions and refresh rates supported by your card, and if you use a Sun Monitor, its’ supported options.

Creator cards use
#ffbconfig -res

for 24 bit colour depth use the following depending on the card you have;
Sun Creator 3D(old) #ffbconfig -deflinear true
Sun Creator 3D(new) #ffbconfig -deflinear true -g 1.1
Sun Elite 3D #afbconfig -deflinear true -g 1.1
Sun Expert 3D #fbconfig -deflinear true -g 1.1
PGX32 #pgxconfig -res 1280×1024 -depth 24
Mach_64 #m64config -res 1152×900 -depth 24

To test if you have an old or new Creator 3D card
#/usr/sbin/ffbconfig -propt
If the output of this command contains the phrase “gamma correction” then you have the new card.

Note: When ever you see the # sign used on this site, this denotes a root shell command prompt

There is an excellent FAQ here for Intel and if you want to use Solaris to learn Unix then download the documentation from Sun

Tags: age, boot, cd, disk, download, filesystem, Free, howto, image, iso, Linux, mount, partition, server, Software, Solaris, Solaris, solaris 8

If you’ve ever gone to mirror a system drive with Solstice Disk suite, you know how frustrating it can be when you either don’t have any more slices to use for your meta database partitions, or all the space on the disk has already been allocated to existing partitions. While Disk Suite only requires one partition be reserved for its meta database information on boot drives, two are really suggested for redundancy purposes, and in the example below, I found myself needing to mirror a system disk that had only one remaining partition, and no space left that could be used for the meta database.

While I could have taken a small amount of space from the swap partition and re-allocated it to a new meta database partition on slice 7, this solution would not have been elegant, and I would have still only had one meta database partition. As it stood, the system had the following filesystems on the following disk slices:

c1t0d0

Part	Tag
0	root
1	swap
2	backup
3	usr
4	usr/local
5	opt
6	var
7	unused

In order to bring the system into line with my standards and prepare it for proper mirroring, I would have to carve up another disk, and migrate the data to it.

Here is what the partition table on the new disk looked like:

c1t2d0
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 24620 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part	Tag	Flag	Cylinders	Â	Â	Size	Blocks	Â
0	root	wm	0	-	1088	1.50GB	(1089/0/0)	3146121
1	swap	wu	1089	-	6896	8.00GB	(5808/0/0)	16779312
2	backup	wu	0	-	24619	33.92GB	(24620/0/0)	71127180
3	-	wm	6897	-	6967	100.16MB	(71/0/0)	205119
4	-	wm	6968	-	7038	100.16MB	(71/0/0)	205119
5	opt	wm	7039	-	8853	2.50GB	(1815/0/0)	5243535
6	usr	wm	8854	-	12483	5.00GB	(3630/0/0)	10487070
7	var	wm	12484	-	24619	16.72GB	(12136/0/0)	35060904

Now that everything is all laid out, we can start moving all the data from c1t0d0 to c1t2d0, keeping in mind that we will be merging /usr/local onto /usr on the new system disk… Here we go

Make a new filesystem for /:

# newfs /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0
newfs: /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0 last mounted as /
newfs: construct a new file system /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0: (y/n)? Y

Mount the new / filesystem as /mnt:
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 /mnt
Move the data from c1t0d0s0 to c1t2d0s0:
# ufsdump 0f - / | ( cd /mnt ;ufsrestore xvf - )
Add links
Set directory mode, owner, and times.
set owner/mode for ‘.’? [yn] y
Directories already exist, set modes anyway? [yn] y
DUMP: 405886 blocks (198.19MB) on 1 volume at 406 KB/sec
DUMP: DUMP IS DONE

Unmount /mnt
# umount /mnt

That’s the general idea… Now we just have to do the same thing for the other partitions, leaving out swap, backup, and our two meta database partitions of course. These partitions (1,2,3 and 4) should be left alone for the time being, as they are never mounted as filesystems.

# newfs /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s5
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s5 /mnt
# ufsdump 0f - /opt | ( cd /mnt ;ufsrestore xvf - )
# umount /mnt
# newfs /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s6
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s5 /mnt
# ufsdump 0f - /usr | ( cd /mnt ;ufsrestore xvf - )
# umount /mnt
# newfs /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s7
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s5 /mnt
# ufsdump 0f - /var | ( cd /mnt ;ufsrestore xvf - )
# umount /mnt
Finally, the /usr/local partition
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s5 /mnt
# ufsdump 0f - /usr/local | ( cd /mnt/local ;ufsrestore xvf - )
# umount /mnt

Now that we have all the data moved, we still don’t have a disk that is bootable. Since the whole idea here is for us to end up with a new bootable system disk, we have to install bootblocks onto the new system disk. This is done with the installboot command:

# installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0

Now that we have the bootblocks needed to boot the solaris kernel, the last thing we have to do is make sure our new vfstab file points to all the right partitions.

Mount the new / partition:
# mount -F ufs -o rw /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 /mnt
Edit the new vfstab file:
# vi /mnt/etc/vfstab
For the information given in this example, this file will contain the following entries:

#device	device	mount	FS	fsck	mount	mount
#to mount	to fsck	point	type	pass	at boot	options
#	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
fd	-	/dev/fd	fd	-	no	-
/proc	-	/proc	proc	-	no	-
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s1	-	-	swap	-	no	-
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0	/dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0	/	ufs	1	no	-
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s5	/dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s5	/usr	ufs	1	no	-
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s6	/dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s6	/var	ufs	1	no	-
/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s7	/dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s7	/opt	ufs	2	yes	-
swap	-	/tmp	tmpfs	-	yes	-

Notice that the target number will remain 2, not move to 0 when we swap the disks and boot from the new one. To resolve this, it is strongly suggested that you rebuild the solaris device tree and change the vfstab file to reflect the new disk position.

That is everything! We now shutdown the system, swap the positions of c1t0d0 and c1t2d0 and reboot off our new system disk. We are now ready to move onto the mirroring process.

Source of article:http://spiralbound.net/

Link:http://spiralbound.net/2005/05/10/how-to-copy-a-solaris-boot-drive-to-a-disk-with-a-different-partition-layout

Tags: boot, computer, disk, disk cylinder, disk label, disk suite, disksuite, howto, metadb, mirroring, mirroring scripts, partition, partition layout, process, risky, server, Solaris, Solaris, solaris 8, Storage, sun microsystems, swap