UNIX Sysadmin Resources – FAQs Sun Microsystems (Part 3)
This content was originally created, collected, and maintained by Stokely Consulting.
As of May 2005, it is being hosted and maintained by Bill Bradford.
Performance Tuning, Security & Process Management:
New Approaches to Making Solaris More Secure by Rich Teer shows how to harden your Solaris machine. Scripts included to help modify the kernel and other important files. From SysAdmin magazine.
SE Toolkit by Adrian Cockroft and Rich Pettit. It’s an extensive toolkit of performance tools and utilities and you can easily build in more. It’s great for finding bottlenecks in Solaris 2.x performance.
Sun Security Bulletin Archive contains all the Sun security bulletins, cookbooks and distributed by Sun Microsystems. Each bulletin lists the Sun patches needed or actions the system manager should take to deal with the problem. They provide Sun Public Patch Access for those without support contracts.
Solaris JASS Security Toolkit, informally known as the JumpStart Architecture and Security Scripts (JASS) toolkit, provides a flexible and extensible mechanism to minimize, harden, and secure Solaris Operating Environment systems. The primary goal behind the development of this toolkit is to simplify and automate the process of securing Solaris systems. Free from Sun.
Secure LDAP for Solaris (via TLS/SSL): OpenLDAP, in conjunction with OpenSSL, can let you use LDAP for your information, including passwords, and have that information fully encrypted. Describes how to use 3rd-party modules to use Secure LDAP on Solaris 8.
Securing SNMP on Solaris discusses how to harden the default Solaris SNMP services to make them substantially more secure.
Solaris 2.x – tuning your TCP/IP stack and more by Jenns-S.Vockler.
Sun Blueprints Online is an online magazine with extremely good “best practices” white papers covering Resource Management, Data Management, Performance, PC Interoperability, High Availibility, Data Center Practices, Rapid Recovery Techniques, Security, Operating Environment, and Service Provider.
Sun MD5 Signatures: The Solaris Fingerprint Database Tool and Fingerprint Query from Sun help ensure that you’re running unmodified, unhacked Solaris binaries.
Sun Performance Information includes benchmarks, performance papers and articles.
Unix Security Handbook provides good information on building a secure computing platform for Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, and 7.
YASSP – Yet Another Solaris Security Package freely available scripts and tool set for Solaris 2.6 – 8. The default behavior of yassp is to turn off most of the services, which is suitable for an external (exposed) server like a firewall, a web server or a ftp server. A single configuration file enables you to control most of yassp options. The OS security tuning is performed at various levels: turning off (networked) services, changing file owner/mode, enabling logging, tuning the network stack, changing the system parameters and also providing a coherent default environment so that people knows what they can expect and where.
Fastpatch, do-patch and fix-modes from Casper Dik. fastpatch.pl is a perl script which installs Solaris patches around 5-6x faster than installpatch (or 2.6 patchadd). Fix-modes will now also change the ownership of most files to root, and, perhaps most importantly, it has an "undo" switch.
Patch Comparison Utility (PCMP), freely available from Sun, is an executable script that identifies patch level differences between two different systems running Solaris. Output from patch reports is used as input to the PCMP. The PCMP compares the patch report data, identifies the uncommon patches between the two files, and produces an output report. The PCMP works on all releases of the SPARC and Intel platform editions.
patchdiag.xref and all the publicly-available Sun patches are directly available from ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/. patchdiag.xref is the patchdiag tool cross-reference file.br>
PatchReport, a freely available Perl tool, uses the Recommended patch list to compare your installed patches with the recommended set, retrieving what you need. It contains support for Casper Dik’s Fastpatch, and has the ability to exclude certain patches based on patch ids. If you have a Sun contract, it will report using more patch lists on sunsolve.sun.com and install the ones you need.
Patchdiag to HTML takes patch reports from stdin and converts them to HTML, using Perl 5. Written by Kjetil T. Homme
PatchDiag Tool, (login, go to Patches, then Diagnostic Tools) available only to Sun support customers, determines the patch levels of your system when compared against Sun’s recommended and security patchlists. Can operate from input files and list all patches that pertain to packages installed on your system.
Sun Patch Check is free software from Sun. Run Sun Patch Check to get a report of which patches are installed, which are installed but not at a the current revision and which are needed. The report categorizes patches as recommended, security, software related, and obsolete and also identifies conflicts and dependencies. Sun Contract customers can then download a tar file of selected patches.
Keyboard, Monitor and Mouse Pinouts covers Sun, SGI, Macs, and PC. From Network Technologies Inc.
Health Care Keyboard Company (414 536-2160) sells a Sun-compatible split keyboard. PN is BPA9902SPK. Retail price is $815. This keyboard can be split into three pieces and has multiple angular adjustability because of its large gears. It won various awards and was featured on national TV media. THIS DOES NOT NEED A SUN INTERFACE BOX.
A Sun Interface Compatible mechanical mouse (CP-1) is available as an x-option (X494 A) on SMCC price list.
SunExpress sells ITAC trackballs.
Typing Injuries Online has excellent information on Repetitive Strain Injuries.
You don’t have to use a Sun monitor on a Sun SPARC workstation. You can use a high-quality VGA monitor which is capable of a high scan rate. (Warning, there are many low-end VGA monitors which can’t handle the high rates of many Sun video systems.) Sun Frame Buffers’ scan rates vary, but many go from 1024×768 @ 60 Hz to 1600×1280 @ 76Hz.
Here are a few companies which sell inexpensive cable adapters (13W3 male to VGA HD15 female, about $15-$30) which will let you connect a non-Sun monitor to your Sun video port. But, these parts are getting common enough that you may be able to find them at any well-stocked computer and electronics store.
CNET Shopper.com specific entries for Sun Adapter 13W3 Male to HD15 Female. Many companies listed.
MonitorWorld.com (See their Adapterspage.)
Ultra Spec Cables, Inc.
How to connect a Sun Premium (Sony) GDM-20D10 monitor to a PC with Windows 95/98/NT tells you how to use that fine monitor under Windoze.
Other Sun info, sites, tools, & more…
Search the Sun/Solaris Newsgroups at Google: Google newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris, comp.sys.sun.hardware, comp.sys.sun.admin, comp.sys.sun.apps, comp.sys.sun.misc, comp.sys.sun.wanted
Search the Sun Managers archives: Current searchable archive, FAQ and List Policies (sunmanagers.org), Current searchable archive (theaimsgroup.com), Current searchable archive (cjb.net)
Sun’s docs.sun.com lets you browse or search product documentation. Site includes manuals, guides, answerbooks and man pages in HTML format. Also includes Solaris 2.6 documentation.
Sun Blogs, written by Sun employees. Prowl through it and you may find an “aha!” about a problem you’re experiencing.
Sun spare parts includes fact sheets, spare parts search tools, and the FE handbook for sale, along with some FE handbook info available free.
Sun System Handbooks provide specific information about a particular system, including part numbers, hardware specifications, pictures, knowledge articles, and much more. Part of the great resources at sunsolve.sun.com.
Solbourne Computer information by Stephen Dowdy.
SolarisGuide.com, the unofficial guide to Solaris, has news, online man pages, FAQs, answerbooks, software, hardware, articles, and more. Great resource!
Sparc Product Directory.com is filled with Sparc VARS and OEMs for new and used equipment.
Sun Guru for Sun Sysadms, programmers and developers contains a bulletin board, classifieds, FAQs, job links, library, software, and a fun sysadm test.
sunhelp.org is filled with mailing lists, hardware and software reviews, news, FAQs, pictures, vendors, alternate SPARC OSes and lots more. Very useful site for Sun sysadms.
Sun Pictures & Illustrations:
Sun Product Photos includes systems, chips, boards, ASICs, peripherals, storage and more. From Sun Microsystems.
Sun Marketing Resource Center Illustrations contains drawings of Sun products, diagram elements other electronics and 3rd party hardware. No Visio shapes. From Sun Microsystems.
3rd Party Hardware Maintenance and Support for Suns lists all the known service providers.
Alternate booting methods:
Building a Bootable JumpStart Installation CD-ROM helps when you don’t have a networked JumpStart server but need an automated hands-free method of installing Solaris. From Sun’s Blueprints Online.
Burning a bootable CDRom for Solaris explains how the Sun boots off the CDROM and how to customize a new boot CDROM to your needs. Written by Lukas Karrer.
Carl’s Australian IPv6 Pages covers Solaris IPv6 FAQs, opverview, resources, and IANA documents. Maintained by Carl Brewer.
Dave Hamilton’s Unofficial Sun Information Page is full of extremely useful links to all sorts of information a Sun sysadm needs.
Equipment Racks:
H & H Industrial Corporation makes great standard and custom racks for all sorts of computing gear.
Shark Rack makes excellent rack mounting equipment for Sun systems.
Everything Solaris is a portal which aims to provide the Solaris community with unique articles and reviews and to aid in the sharing and dissemination of knowledge with both a discussion forum and chat room, as well as an extensive database of links.
JumpStart HOW-To explains how to set up a boot server and clients, and how to customize the installation process.
Solaris and Cable Modems:
How to Setup your Solaris 2.5, 2.6, or Solaris 7 system for use with Austin’s RoadRunner service by Time Warner is a good cookbook approach using rrlogin, Perl, DHCP, MD5.
Setting up a Solaris DHCP Client and Setting up NAT on Solaris using IP Filter are very useful when connecting your Solaris system up to a Cable Modem. Written by Rich Teer.
Solaris Central is full of news, software, and articles on Solaris and Java.
Solaris 9 for Dummies is a book that teaches you how to be efficient and productive in Solaris 9, and covers some system administration basics, too. Written by Dave Taylor.
Sun Help Desk Information Portal for Sun Professionals is filled with news, articles, administration info, FAQs and HowTos, Security info, tools, and a neat Quiz Central.
Monitoring an APC SMartUPS v/s. Powerchute v/s does not support Solaris. Here’s how to make it work. From Doug Hughes of Auburn University.
An inexpensive console server. Clever, inexpensive multi-machine console server how-to based on one in use at Auburn University.
FlashBack: Search the electronic newsletter for Sun users to find products and services for the Sun market. They also produce the System News for Sun Users electronic newsletter.