Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Contents

General
Features: Existing and Upcoming
Install, Upgrade & Boot
Problems & Troubleshooting

General

Legal stuff is confusing... Is it actually legal to distribute GPL software along with the CDDL-licensed Solaris core, and in particular, with SUN libc?

It is perfectly okay, Nexenta follows in the long tradition of integrating the GNU user land with your favorite OS of choice. Common uses are Fink (MacOSX), Cygwin (Windows), and various Solaris distributions, including Solaris 10 itself. Some of the projects have been doing this with approval for some time:

Fink (opendarwin/MacOSX .debs using apt-get, based on BSD libc)
DarwinPorts binaries (similar to the above)
BlastWave (based on Sun libc)
Sun community software (sunfreeware) CD w/ Solaris
IRIX freeware collection

And more.

We are on stable legal grounds. This also became extremely clear during the recent GPLv3 discussions. Eben Moglen, General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation, noted that he always believed that GPLv2 should be interpreted in the way GPLv3 now makes explicit. Quoting http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/gpl_v3_released:

Eben made it very clear indeed that he does not regard the
issues that are being raised over Nexenta to be any
kind of a problem even under GPL v2...

For links and references see for instance:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/04/msg00085.html

Have no fear!

How do I create an account to participate in forums, enter bugs, etc.?

Goto UserPreferences page
Click on Create Profile

At this point follow the instructions and fill in your profile/account information. Note that email must be real. This single unified NexentaOS user account will cover 5 web portal functionalities, namely:

For instance, using this account you will be able to login at Bugs, and then review existing open bugs, browse patches for the fixed ones, enter new bugs. In other words, you'll have the entire NBTS (Nexenta Bug Tracking System) functionality at your disposal.

Note: creating your account the way it is described above does not mean that you will start immediately receiving emails. Mailing subscriptions are done via Community page, on a per mailing list basis.

How do I enter a new bug or request a feature?

See the previous item.

Posted on a mailing list at gnusolaris.org. Not getting any response on my post...

Postings by non-members are manually approved, which causes some delay. Thanks!

Can you please summarize what is the HackZone?

HackZone is the way to contribute to NexentaOS. i.e., the way to upload new packages and fix the existing ones. The HackZone's backend is - Subversion. At this early stage developers need to know how Subversion works. We are working to eliminate the low-level details and make the HackZone interface as user-friendly as possible.

As the first step, make sure to read through Getting Started for Developers. That document presents the "nuts and bolts" of developing NexentaOS.

Can I fix an existing package or add a new one?

Yes, you definitely can. Here is how it works:

Create your web-portal profile.
Follow link below to initiate your HackZone Request.
Follow up the link for instructions on how to upload your first package.
Keep in mind that NexentaOS userland is Ubuntu/Dapper based and it is extremely likely that all needed packages are already present in our Subversion repository. So, in most cases all you need is to branch current main branch (gnusolaris1) code into your hackzone, hack it, build it, test it and notify AutoBuilder. More details are available here.
Finally, once your package is working in your environment, there is an automated way to upload it into the public APT repository. Follow the HackZoneNotify link to send a notification to our AutoBuilder Network. This will trigger automatic re-building of the package, minimal testing, and - if everything passes - re-uploading into elatte-unstable.

Hope it is not that complicated after all. Btw, feel free to create your own Wiki page under http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki/Wiki. This would be the right place to put wanted packages and share your screenshots.

And the last note: it is OK to use one of the gnusol mailing lists for any questions and/or clarifications.

I subscribed to one of the gnusol-beginners list. I would like to know if it's possible to receive daily digests?

Yes, it's possible. There are two ways to toggle Digest mode (and this applies to all mailing lists):

Go to http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/gnusol-beginners and login using your email and password, then select Digest delivery method in one of the options to On (or Off).
Send a mail to gnusol-beginners-request@gnusolaris.org with one of the following commands, either on the body or subject of the message:
- set digest plain
- set digest mime
- set digest off

For more info, see http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html

I would like to unsubscribe from the gnusol-beginners mailing list...

The gnusolaris mailing list is based on GNU Mailman, so the regular instructions apply. We are as much users of this functionality as yourself. There's a good documentation here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html

In general, the list is: http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/<list name>

For instance:

http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/gnusol-beginners

The GNU Mailman will execute your request to unsubscribe. This is all done automatically, as it should.

I'm looking for some how-to's, guides, etc. on Solaris

Generally, a good starting point would be Sun's documents at: http://docs.sun.com.

Here are a few more specific links:

How do I find out the list of running services (networking, time, etc.), and whether any of them failed to start?

Run:

   % svcs -v

In general, it is a good idea to take a crash course on Solaris Service Management Facility. This guide explains those mysterious svcs and svcadm commands.

Will OpenSolaris ever contain Trusted Extensions to satisfy Common Criteria certification?

Security-conscious customers, such as the US Federal Government, are requiring Common Criteria certification. In that sense the following news report is promising:

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to phase out its Trusted Solaris secure 
operating system and replace it with security extension software that 
can be used with its Open Solaris operating system, 
said Mark Thacker, product line manager of Solaris security.

See the complete report here.

I am posting this message in the forum and it will likely show up in my email box. Shouldn't the forums and the mailing lists be different? Otherwise they end up being redundant...

They are redundant. The forum serves as the place where the postings (either from the forum itself or via email) are archived.

Is there an IRC channel?

Yes, there is. See Community.

How do I find out the most recently added packages?

See Packages added in the last 7 days.

How can I contribute to NexentaOS development?

See Hacking_Nexenta.

How do I find out whether my hardware is supported by NexentaOS?

One indirect way to start researching this is to browse/search Solaris Hardware Compatibility List (Solaris HCL).

And there are other considerations as well:

OpenSolaris HCL does not exist yet. Some Solaris 10 drivers are not part of OpenSolaris.
Some Nexenta drivers are not part of OpenSolaris. As of today there are very few - see Ticket #53 and Ticket #54, but going forward the number of Nexenta-only drivers will continue to grow.
Solaris (and OpenSolaris) DDI (that is, Device Driver Interface) is stable. While it is not uncommon for Linux drivers to break even between builds, both Solaris 10 and NexentaOS will run drivers circa '98 or even older without problems. The stable DDI is one important factor to consider when weighing the long-term pros and cons.

Obviously, in addition to indirect there is a direct way to find out whether your hardwares are supported: boot from LiveCD.

Are you going to support SPARC?

We would love to - but at this point we don't have enough resources for this. Note that SPARC peripheral hardware is much different from the one typically used with x86 systems, which means - problems with missing drivers could (and should!) be anticipated.

#Yes, we actually do - see Bounties.

How do I mount: DOS partition, Zip drive, CD-ROM, Floppy

Here's a couple links, and let us know if they are broken:

I'm running NexentaOS in VMware. Wonder how to increase screen resolution?..

See one of the posts to this VMware image etc. thread.

In general, it is often a good idea to look for answers on gnusol mailing lists.

Features: Existing and Upcoming

Are Zones present in the distribution? If so, does it extend as far as package management inside the 'zone'/'container' from the host?

For the most part, the functionalities are there. The missing parts are those related to creating the Zones. But it will not be too difficult to create a script similar to lucreatezone, and that is something that we plan in future release.

Are you planning things so that when the host OS is upgraded, the 'containers' will also be updated? Any idea when this might be completed?

We're hoping that the GNU/Solaris and OpenSolaris community can help us with this effort, which certainly is a major one.

We can't give any time estimates due to the number of urgent issues/bugs we have with our current bits, but we hope to get this effort started sooner rather than later. In any case we will give some updates via the mailing list if there's anything.

In the interim, we could come up with some script that does somewhat similar tasks as lucreatezone, though upgrading the Zones (via apt-get or dpkg) is something for future.

I've heard a lot of good reports about ZFS. Are you going to support it?

Done. ZFS (the Zettabyte 128-bit File System) is available starting from NexentaOS (elatte) Alpha 1. Here's the first user impression on ZFS:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jwadams?entry=an_initial_encounter_with_zfs

And more on ZFS in the media: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3565221

And more in-depth:

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/source/

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-5166/6mbb1kqll?a=view

I tried to set my system's default locale by putting LANG=ko (or ko_KR.UTF-8)in /etc/default/init file as documented elsewhere, but it does not work and I always get the default locale 'C' when I echoed $LANG after the login. I've also tried /etc/profile or /etc/default/gdm without much success.

As of today we have only two locales: C and POSIX. The rest of the locales will be available during next two months (according to OpenSolaris Roadmap: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/roadmap/;jsessionid=D7F2BA9BB28205A45731F5E558A22BEB)

You could also follow up on this via the corresponding OpenSolaris i18n discussion forum: http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/category.jspa?categoryID=17

Install, Upgrade & Boot

I accidentally HW power-cycled my system. Now it does not want to boot anymore!

This is a generic OpenSolaris issue related to the fact that your boot-archive was not properly saved prior to reboot. However, the condition is recoverable. For exact instructions and tips please refer to:

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/grub_boot_faq.html

When I try to boot from LiveCD it stops with "power0 is /pseudo/power@0". I also get the message "DMA buffer allocation fail". I am running a 450mhz P3 with 192MB RAM.

You ran out of memory. The minimum required RAM: for LiveCD - 512MB, for InstallCD - 256MB.

I have Gentoo/Linux on first hard disk and I'd like to install Nexenta on second hard disk; is it possible?

Dual boot Gentoo/Nexenta using Grub as a boot manager

Configuration:

Primary hard drive (hd1) = Gentoo
Secondary hard drive (hd2) = Nexenta

Boot into gentoo and signon as root:

cd /boot/grub,
edit file menu.lst,
add following lines at the end of the file

title=Nexenta
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Then save and exit menu.lst; turn off PC. Physically change hd2 to primary and hd1 to secondary via BIOS. Install Nexenta. Make sure to answer yes (y) for the meessage:

"Install new boot manager [Y/n]"

Once installation is finished: reboot and signon as root

cd /boot/grub and edit file menu.lst
Change every "root (hd0,0,a)" for "root (hd1,0,a)"
save and exit
turn off PC

Physically change back the two hard drives: hd2 (Nexenta) put it back to secondary; hd1 (Gentoo) put it back as primary

Boot PC and now you will see Gentoo grub showing Nexenta option. Select Nexenta and that should take you to Nexenta grub.

For more details and tips please see:

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/grub_boot_faq.html

Installed NexentaOS, after the first reboot got the following error message: diskread: "reading beyond end of ramdisk, start = ..."

This is a generic OpenSolaris older build bug:

http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=14941

Note that this bug is not present in NexentaOS. One solution is to boot using InstallCD again and do the following:

Mount your hard disk under some directory (e.g. /a):

   % mkdir /a; mount /dev/dsk/c0d0s0 /a

(The above assumes your root slice is in /dev/dsk/c0d0s0.)

Re-create the ramdisk:

   % /boot/solaris/bin/create_ramdisk -R /a

Tried to install NexentaOS. In verbose mode I can see detection of keyboard and mouse but than booting hangs.

One way to narrow it down is to do boot the OS under kmdb and tell it to drop to the debugger before the kernel starts, and modify 'moddebug' flag to 0x80000000 such that you get the debug output for each kernel module that loads.

To do this, you will need to append -kd flag to the multiboot line in the GRUB entry, such that it says:

 kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot -kd
 module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive

Once you boot using that entry, you'll drop into the debugger right away. You can then do the following at the [0]> prompt:

 [0]> moddebug/W 80000000
 [0]> :c

(Note that [0] above represents the CPU which kmdb is currently running on. In a multi-CPU machine this may be [1] and so on.)

Note that you'll see tons of output on the console after this. When the machine hangs, you should be able to see the module that could potentially causes the hang.

In addition to debugging the problem, another (and maybe even the first) thing to try is to boot Solaris Express Community Release (a.k.a. SXCR), with the same kernel build. And see if that works.

I've installed NexentaOS on a second disk in my computer (the 1st disk runs WinXP). It installed fine but doesn't boot. All I get is "GRUB read error", and it dies.

Nexenta installation currently assumes the 1st drive at all times. This is something that we'll fix soon. Essentially, we need to run /sbin/biosdev and cross-match the drive where our root slice lives in against the actual BIOS ordering. Then we need to modify menu.lst dynamically and set the correct root (hdN, ...) entry, and run installgrub.

In the meantime one thing you can try is the following:

Boot using CD and mount the 2nd drive, then run format(1M). Find out the drive paths for your Windows and Solaris, i.e. c0d0, etc.

Modify GRUB's menu.lst in the 2nd drive such that instances of root (hd0,0,a) are changed to root (hd1,0,a), and save.

Assuming BIOS boot ordering has your Windows drive as first drive, and assuming that your Solaris drive is c0d0, try:

 % installgrub stage1 stage2 /dev/rdsk/c0d0s0

For more details and tips please see:

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/grub_boot_faq.html

Where's Xorg, Gnome, ...?

Xorg and packages that depend on it are currently not included in NexentaOS, but at least Xorg will be in the next release.

The packages from Alpha7 still work. To get them add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://www.nexenta.org/apt-gnusolaris elatte-unstable main contrib non-free

Then run apt-get update and apt-get install nexenta-gnome .

Problems & Troubleshooting

I have an nVidia graphics card and the display seems to be corrupted (adjacent pixels being swapped)

This is a known bug in the Xorg "nv" driver. A workaround is to enable the following option in the Device section:

 Option    "FPTweak"   "1"

Followed by restarting Xorg. This problem is known to happen on a certain combination of nVidia chip and monitor.

Is it possible to install on SCSI drives with Adaptec AIC 7899 controller?

No, not yet.

The problem is due to missing driver for AIC-78xx adapter, which would be naturally provided by the SUNWcadp package in Solaris. However, we realize that we cannot redistribute such a package because it is not currently part of OpenSolaris. A solution to this is currently under review.

I do not have DHCP server, so I want to set IP address and route manually. How is that done?

First, remove /etc/.UNCONFIGURED. Then create an entry in /etc/hosts containing info for your static host. You may also want to add your router's IP address in /etc/defaultrouter, or you can rely on in.routed to discover it via RIPv1/RIPv2 if your network provides it. In certain cases you may also want to add your network entry in /etc/netmasks.

Finally, find out what your network interface is, e.g. iprb0, bge0, etc. and create a file called /etc/hostname.<ifname> and fill it with the hostname for your machine that you just added in /etc/hosts.

Cannot find /etc/X11/xorg.conf after installation...

Similar to Solaris Express, xorg.conf is not present. If you want to customize the file, the best way is to boot in single-user mode, run:

% Xorg -configure

Then copy /root/xorg.conf.new over to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and begin your customizations. Once you exit the console, the system will resume to multi-user level and GDM will start.

Failing to boot InstallCD. Warnings on screen seem to hint that the failure is ATA driver related.

If you see something like:

WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1,1/ide@1 (ata1)
        timeout: reset target, target=0 lun=0

and then:

CD-ROM: discovery failed

there is a workaround: When booting, pass this parameter:

-B ata-dma-enabled=0

Setting this parameter to '0' disables DMA for ATA/ATAPI devices.

More googling on this brings, for instance:

For Solaris 8, DMA is disabled for ATAPI devices, as it caused installs to fail for several BIOSes. It can be enabled with the "ata-dma-enabled" property from the Device Configuration Assistant. See the question on "How can I improve disk and graphic performance?" for details.

from http://thc.org/root/docs/solaris_security/s86faq.html

Trying to install Sun JDK, I get the error "The download file appears to be corrupted" and/or "ld.so.1: unpack200: fatal: libCrun.so.1: open failed: No such file or directory"

Read and follow the following instructions carefully:

http://timezra.blogspot.com/2007/10/installing-jdk-6-in-nexenta-zone.html

Note: this works just as well for old jdk 5 self-extracting binaries too.