LINUX5, LINUX64, OSOL64, SOL10: Generic Servers

	At a Glance
	Catalog	System
	Category	Generic
	User volumes	no
	Min. memory	64 MB
	OS	Linux/Solaris
	Constraints	no
	Questions/Comments	Ask Forum

Functional Overview

LINUX5, LINUX64, OSOL64 and SOL10 are general server appliances. They can be branched to make new server appliances: singletons or server classes.

Each includes a reasonably complete installation of its OS, including the GCC compiler. This allows installing and building software on the branched appliances.

The generic server appliances are designed to be used in two ways:

• As a customized server, by branching the base class to form singleton and modifying its class volume appropriately
• As a template for building other server appliances, by using it as a base to create new application-specific or global catalog classes.

Here 'server' means virtual server. Virtual servers are similar to appliances in all aspects except intent (virtual servers are made to be logged into for the installation of additional software) and volume size (much bigger than appliance's volumes).

If you don't need GCC and the ability to build on the server appliance, consider using the LUX5 generic appliance template instead of LINUX5.

Boundary

Resources

Linux based servers

OpenSolaris server

Solaris 10 server

Terminals

One use of the net output is to connect it to the Subnet Output Gateway in order to download software to be installed on the server. Once you are finish installing, you can disconnect the gateway (or make it standby).

If you branch one of the server appliances in order to create your custom appliances, you may want to remove the unnecessary interfaces.

Properties

(none)

Volumes

Servers have only a boot volume (instantiable class volume). There are no placeholder volumes (although when you branch this class to create a customized server, you can add a placeholder volume).

Notes

The OpenSolaris and Solaris 10 servers have zpool_import installed as a legacy service. On stop, this service executes zpool export poolname on all ZFS pools which do not include a bootable dataset. On start, this service executes zpool import -a.

The zpool_import service leaves ZFS pools in an exported (portable) state when an appliance is stopped. This facilitates moving and copying pools from one application to another as well as modifying pools using the standard 3t shell vol commands, e.g., vol resize, vol copy, etc.

To manage ZFS pools manually, disable this service.

OpenSolaris appliances use zpool version 10 and zfs version 2.

Solaris 10 appliances use zpool version 4 and zfs version 1. To use zfs pools with these appliances, create them from raw volumes rather than through the CLI vol create command. The CLI vol create operation creates the root zfs dataset using zfs version 2 which is not backwards compatible.

Related documents

• LINUX64
  • Test Plan
  • Implementation Design
• OSOL64
  • Test Plan
  • Implementation Design
• SOL10
  • Test Plan
  • Implementation Design

Questions and Comments

To post a question or comment on this appliance, visit our forum.

-- PeterNic - 30 Dec 2005