Archive Repository - Content Server or Root File System?

Hi All,
We are in the process of evaluating a storage solution for archiving and I would like to hear your experiences and recommendations. I've ruled out 3rd-party solutions such as IXOS as over kill for our requirement. That leaves us with the i5/OS root file system or the SAP Content Server in either a Linux partition or on a Windows server. Has anyone done archiving with a similar setup? What issues did you face? I don't plan to replicate archive objects via MIMIX.
Is anyone running the SAP Content Server in a Linux partition? I'd like to know your experience with this even if you don't use the Content Server for archiving. We use the Content Server (currently on Windows) for attaching files to SAP documents (e.g., Sales Documents) via Generic Object Services (GOS). While I lean towards running separate instances of the Content Server for Archiving and GOS, I would like to run them both in the same Linux LPAR.
TIA,
Stan

Hi Stanley,
If you choose to store your data archive files at the file system level, is that a secure enough environment? A third party certified storage solution provides a secure system where the archive files cannot be altered and also provides a way to manage the files over the years until they have met their retention limit.
Another thing to consider, just because the end users may not need access to the archived data, your company might need to be able to access the data easily due to an audit or law suit situation.
I am a SAP customer whose job function is the technical lead for my company's SAP data archiving projects, not a 3rd party storage solution provider , and I highly recommend a certified storage solution for compliance reasons.
Also, here is some information from the SAP Data Archiving web pages concerning using SAP Content Server for data archive files:
10. Is the SAP Content Server suitable for data archiving?
Up to and including SAP Content Server 6.20 the SAP CS is not designed to handle large files, which are common in data archiving. The new SAP CS 6.30 is designed to also handle large files and can therefore technically be used to store archive files. SAP CS does not support optical media. It is especially important to regularly run backups on the existing data!
Recommendation for using SAP CS for data archiving:
      Store the files on SAP CS in a decompressed format (make settings at the repository)
       Install SAP CS and SAP DB on one server
       Use SAP CS for Unix (runtime tests to see how SAP CS for Windows behaves with large files still have to be carried out)
Best Regards,
Karin Tillotson

Similar Messages

Content Server config for production system - oac0

Hi all
We are setting up content server for our ERP 2005 system, and I am wondering what best practice is for our scenario.
We have one content server (CST) for development and test systems on host A, and one content server (CSP) for production system on host B. The Archive link configuration in dev and test points to CST. When this is transported to production, it will point to the wrong content server and I will have to reconfigure the archivelink in production to point to the correct content server (CSP).
What is the best way to set up the production system to point to the content server CSP on host B? Should I define a new content repository in t-code oac0 in dev, and transport this to production? Should I define the new repository directly in production system??
Please advise.
Best Regards,
Thomas

Hello,
I had the same problem a few years ago with R/3 4.7.
I don't think there is a perfect solution but here is what I did :
In the DEV system, in OAC0, I created 2 content repositories, one for the test sytem and one for the production. I transported these 2 content repositories in the production system.
In the DEV system, in OAC3, I created temporary links from my business objects to my production content repository. I released the request order.
Then I deleted these links which are wrong in the DEV system. I transported the order in the R/3 production system where these links are right.
In the DEV system, in OAC3, I then created the links from my business objects to my TEST content repository. I released the second request order.
So my config is now OK in my test and my production system.
When we refresh the DEV system by a database copy from the production system. We just have to reimport the test request order to switch the links to be OK on the DEV system. We don't have to recreate the test content repository as it was defined als oi nthe production system.
I am not sure that this is clear but this works for us with no problems since 2002.
I hope this helps.
Olivier

Mounting the Root File System into RAM

Hi,
I had been wondering, recently, how can one copy the entire root hierarchy, or wanted parts of it, into RAM, mount it at startup, and use it as the root itself. At shutdown, the modified files and directories would be synchronized back to the non-volatile storage. This synchronization could also be performed manually, before shutting down.
I have now succeeded, at least it seems, in performing such a task. There are still some issues.
For anyone interested, I will be describing how I have done it, and I will provide the files that I have worked with.
A custom kernel hook is used to (overall):
Mount the non-volatile root in a mountpoint in the initramfs. I used /root_source
Mount the volatile ramdisk in a mountpoint in the initramfs. I used /root_ram
Copy the non-volatile content into the ramdisk.
Remount by binding each of these two mountpoints in the new root, so that we can have access to both volumes in the new ramdisk root itself once the root is changed, to synchronize back any modified RAM content to the non-volatile storage medium: /rootfs/rootfs_{source,ram}
A mount handler is set (mount_handler) to a custom function, which mounts, by binding, the new ramdisk root into a root that will be switched to by the kernel.
To integrate this hook into a initramfs, a preset is needed.
I added this hook (named "ram") as the last one in mkinitcpio.conf. -- Adding it before some other hooks did not seem to work; and even now, it sometimes does not detect the physical disk.
The kernel needs to be passed some custom arguments; at a minimum, these are required: ram=1
When shutting down, the ramdisk contents is synchronized back with the source root, by the means of a bash script. This script can be run manually to save one's work before/without shutting down. For this (shutdown) event, I made a custom systemd service file.
I chose to use unison to synchronize between the volatile and the non-volatile mediums. When synchronizing, nothing in the directory structure should be modified, because unison will not synchronize those changes in the end; it will complain, and exit with an error, although it will still synchronize the rest. Thus, I recommend that if you synch manually (by running /root/Documents/rootfs/unmount-root-fs.sh, for example), do not execute any other command before synchronization has completed, because ~/.bash_history, for example, would be updated, and unison would not update this file.
Some prerequisites exist (by default):
Packages: unison(, cp), find, cpio, rsync and, of course, any any other packages which you can mount your root file system (type) with. I have included these: mount.{,cifs,fuse,ntfs,ntfs-3g,lowntfs-3g,nfs,nfs4}, so you may need to install ntfs-3g the nfs-related packages (nfs-utils?), or remove the unwanted "mount.+" entires from /etc/initcpio/install/ram.
Referencing paths:
The variables:
source=
temporary=
...should have the same value in all of these files:
"/etc/initcpio/hooks/ram"
"/root/Documents/rootfs/unmount-root-fs.sh"
"/root/.rsync/exclude.txt" -- Should correspond.
This is needed to sync the RAM disk back to the hard disk.
I think that it is required to have the old root and the new root mountpoints directly residing at the root / of the initramfs, from what I have noticed. For example, "/new_root" and "/old_root".
Here are all the accepted and used parameters:
Parameter Allowed Values Default Value Considered Values Description
root Default (UUID=+,/dev/disk/by-*/*) None Any string The source root
rootfstype Default of "-t <types>" of "mount" "auto" Any string The FS type of the source root.
rootflags Default of "-o <options>" of "mount" None Any string Options when mounting the source root.
ram Any string None "1" If this hook sould be run.
ramfstype Default of "-t <types>" of "mount" "auto" Any string The FS type of the RAM disk.
ramflags Default of "-o <options>" of "mount" "size=50%" Any string Options when mounting the RAM disk.
ramcleanup Any string None "0" If any left-overs should be cleaned.
ramcleanup_source Any string None "1" If the source root should be unmounted.
ram_transfer_tool cp,find,cpio,rsync,unison unison cp,find,cpio,rsync What tool to use to transfer the root into RAM.
ram_unison_fastcheck true,false,default,yes,no,auto "default" true,false,default,yes,no,auto Argument to unison's "fastcheck" parameter. Relevant if ram_transfer_tool=unison.
ramdisk_cache_use 0,1 None 0 If unison should use any available cache. Relevant if ram_transfer_tool=unison.
ramdisk_cache_update 0,1 None 0 If unison should copy the cache to the RAM disk. Relevant if ram_transfer_tool=unison.
This is the basic setup.
Optionally:
I disabled /tmp as a tmpfs mountpoint: "systemctl mask tmp.mount" which executes "ln -s '/dev/null' '/etc/systemd/system/tmp.mount' ". I have included "/etc/systemd/system/tmp.mount" amongst the files.
I unmount /dev/shm at each startup, using ExecStart from "/etc/systemd/system/ram.service".
Here are the updated (version 3) files, archived: Root_RAM_FS.tar (I did not find a way to attach files -- does Arch forums allow attachments?)
I decided to separate the functionalities "mounting from various sources", and "mounting the root into RAM". Currently, I am working only on mounting the root into RAM. This is why the names of some files changed.
Of course, use what you need from the provided files.
Here are the values for the time spend copying during startup for each transfer tool. The size of the entire root FS was 1.2 GB:
find+cpio: 2:10s (2:12s on slower hardware)
unison: 3:10s - 4:00s
cp: 4 minutes (31 minutes on slower hardware)
rsync: 4:40s (55 minutes on slower hardware)
Beware that the find/cpio option is currently broken; it is available to be selected, but it will not work when being used.
These are the remaining issues:
find+cpio option does not create any destination files.
(On some older hardware) When booting up, the source disk is not always detected.
When booting up, the custom initramfs is not detected, after it has been updated from the RAM disk. I think this represents an issue with synchronizing back to the source root.
Inconveniences:
Unison needs to perform an update detection at each startup.
initramfs' ash does not parse wild characters to use "cp".
That's about what I can think of for now.
I will gladly try to answer any questions.
I don't consider myself a UNIX expert, so I would like to know your suggestions for improvement, especially from who consider themselves so.
Last edited by AGT (2014-05-20 23:21:45)

How did you use/test unison? In my case, unison, of course, is used in the cpio image, where there are no cache files, because unison has not been run yet in the initcpio image, before it had a chance to be used during boot time, to generate them; and during start up is when it is used; when it creates the archives. ...a circular dependency. Yet, files changed by the user would still need to be traversed to detect changes. So, I think that even providing pre-made cache files would not guarantee that they would be valid at start up, for all configurations of installation. -- I think, though, that these cache files could be copied/saved from the initcpio image to the root (disk and RAM), after they have been created, and used next time by copying them in the initcpio image during each start up. I think $HOME would need to be set.
Unison was not using any cache previously anyway. I was aware of that, but I wanted to prove it by deleting any cache files remaining.
Unison, actually, was slower (4 minutes) the first time it ran in the VM, compared to the physical hardware (3:10s). I have not measured the time for its subsequent runs, but It seemed that it was faster after the first run. The VM was hosted on a newer machine than what I have used so far: the VM host has an i3-3227U at 1.9 GHz CPU with 2 cores/4 threads and 8 GB of RAM (4 GB ware dedicated to the VM); my hardware has a Pentium B940 at 2 GHz CPU with 2 cores/2 threads and 4 GB of RAM.
I could see that, in the VM, rsync and cp were copying faster than on my hardware; they were scrolling quicker.
Grub, initially complains that there is no image, and shows a "Press any key to continue" message; if you continue, the kernel panics.
I'll try using "poll_device()". What arguments does it need? More than just the device; also the number of seconds to wait?
Last edited by AGT (2014-05-20 16:49:35)

Solaris 10:unable to mount a solaris root file system

Hi All,
I am trying to install Solaris 10 X86 on a Proliant DL385 Server it has a Smart array 6i, I have download the driver from the HP web site, on booting up the installation CD 1, adding the device driver, it sees the device but now says it can��t mount the device. Any clues what I need to do?
Screen Output:
Unable to mount a Solaris root file system from the device
DISK: Target 0, Bios primary drive - device 0x80
on Smart Array 6i Controller on Board PCI bus 2, at Dev 4
Error message from mount::
/pci@0,0/pci1022,7450@7/pcie11,4091@4/cmdk@0,0:a: can't open - no vtoc
any assistence would be appreciated.

Hi,
I read the Message 591 (Agu 2003) and the problem is quite the same. A brief description: I have aLaptop ASUS with HDD1 60GB and a USB storage HDD (in next HDD2) 100GB. I installed Solaris 10 x86 on HDD2 (partition c2t0d0s0). At the end of installation I removed the DVD and using BIOS features I switched the boot to HDD2. All ok; I received the SUN Blue Screen and I choose the active Solaris option; but at the beginning of the boot I received the following error message
Screen Output:
Unable to mount a Solaris root file system from the device
DISK: Target 0: IC25N060 ATMR04-0 on Board ....
Error message from mount::
/pci@0,0/pci-ide2,5/ide@1/cmdk@0,0:a: can't open
any assistence would be appreciated.
Regards

Zerofree: Shrinking ARCH guest VMDK--'remount the root file-system'?

Hi!
[using ZEROFREE]
Getting great results with and extra ARCH install running as a VMDK in Workstation.
REALLY need tips on shrinking the VMDK. obviously have deleted unneeded files
and now rather urgently need to learn what's eluding me so far.
1) zerofree is install IN the virtual machine (VMDK)workstation running on windows 8.
2) Here's the instructions for zerofree:
filesystem has to be unmounted or mounted read-only for zerofree to
work. It will exit with an error message if the filesystem is mounted
writable.
To remount the root file-system readonly, you can first
switch to single user runlevel (telinit 1) then use mount -o remount,ro
filesystem.
As it a VMDK and it's running would the only/best option be to: "remount the root file-system readonly" ??
OR, could i add the VMDK to another running arch system that I do have and NOT mount the VMachine thereby
allowing zero free to run even better on that?
Are both method JUST as efficive at shrinking? My guess would be the remount root file-system as read only
would NOT be as efficient at shrinking.
I could really use a brief walk-through on this as all attempts have failed so far.
I boot the ARCH virtual machine and do what may I ask?
Last edited by tweed (2012-06-05 07:43:41)

How did you use/test unison? In my case, unison, of course, is used in the cpio image, where there are no cache files, because unison has not been run yet in the initcpio image, before it had a chance to be used during boot time, to generate them; and during start up is when it is used; when it creates the archives. ...a circular dependency. Yet, files changed by the user would still need to be traversed to detect changes. So, I think that even providing pre-made cache files would not guarantee that they would be valid at start up, for all configurations of installation. -- I think, though, that these cache files could be copied/saved from the initcpio image to the root (disk and RAM), after they have been created, and used next time by copying them in the initcpio image during each start up. I think $HOME would need to be set.
Unison was not using any cache previously anyway. I was aware of that, but I wanted to prove it by deleting any cache files remaining.
Unison, actually, was slower (4 minutes) the first time it ran in the VM, compared to the physical hardware (3:10s). I have not measured the time for its subsequent runs, but It seemed that it was faster after the first run. The VM was hosted on a newer machine than what I have used so far: the VM host has an i3-3227U at 1.9 GHz CPU with 2 cores/4 threads and 8 GB of RAM (4 GB ware dedicated to the VM); my hardware has a Pentium B940 at 2 GHz CPU with 2 cores/2 threads and 4 GB of RAM.
I could see that, in the VM, rsync and cp were copying faster than on my hardware; they were scrolling quicker.
Grub, initially complains that there is no image, and shows a "Press any key to continue" message; if you continue, the kernel panics.
I'll try using "poll_device()". What arguments does it need? More than just the device; also the number of seconds to wait?
Last edited by AGT (2014-05-20 16:49:35)

How to add more disk space into /   root file system

Hi All,
Linux 2.6.18-128
can anyone please let us know how to add more disk space into "/" root file system.
i have added new hard disk with space of 20GB,
[root@rac2 shm]# df -h
Filesystem            Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1             965M 767M 149M 84% /
/dev/hda7             1.9G 234M 1.6G 13% /var
/dev/hda6             2.9G   69M 2.7G   3% /tmp
/dev/hda3             7.6G 4.2G 3.0G 59% /usr
/dev/hda2              18G   12G 4.8G 71% /u01
LABLE=/               2.0G     0 2.0G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb2             8.9G 149M 8.3G   2% /vm
[root@rac2 shm]#

Dude! wrote:
I would actually question whether or not more disks increase the risk of a disk failure. One disk can break as likely as one of two of more disks.
Simple stats. Buying 2 lottery tickets instead of one, gives you 2 chances to win the lottery prize. Not 1. Even though the odds of winning per ticket remains unchanged.
2 disks buy you 2 tickets in The-Drive-Failure lottery.
Back in the 90's, BT (British Telecom) had a 80+ node OPS cluster build with Pyramid MPP hardware. They had a dedicated store of scsi disks for replacing failed disks - as there were disk failure fairly often due to the number of disks. (a Pryamid MPP chassis looked like a Xmas tree with all the scsi drive LEDs, and BT had several)
In my experience - one should rather expect a drive failure sooner, than later. And have some kind of contingency plan in place to recover from the failure.
The use of symbolic links instead of striping the filesystem protects from the complete loss of the enchilada if a volume member fails, but it does not reduce the risk of loosing data.
I would rather buy a single ticket for the drive failure lottery for a root drive, than 2 tickets in this case. And using symbolic links to "offload" non-critical files to the 2nd drive means that its lottery ticket prize is not a non-bootable server due to a toasted root drive.

Convert ZFS root file system to UFS with data.

Hi, I would need to covert my ZFS root file systems to UFS and boot from the other disk as a slice (/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0)
I am ok to split the hard disk from root pool mirror. any ideas on how this can be acheived?
Please sugget. Thanks,

from the same document that was quoted above in the Limitations section:
Limitations
Version 2.0 of the Oracle VM Server for SPARC P2V Tool has the following limitations:
Only UFS file systems are supported.
Only plain disks (/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0), Solaris Volume Manager metadevices (/dev/md/dsk/dNNN), and VxVM encapsulated boot disks are supported on the source system.
During the P2V process, each guest domain can have only a single virtual switch and virtual disk server. You can add more virtual switches and virtual disk servers to the domain after the P2V conversion.
Support for VxVM volumes is limited to the following volumes on an encapsulated boot disk: rootvol, swapvol, usr, var, opt, and home. The original slices for these volumes must still be present on the boot disk. The P2V tool supports Veritas Volume Manager 5.x on the Solaris 10 OS. However, you can also use the P2V tool to convert Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 operating systems that use VxVM.
You cannot convert Solaris 10 systems that are configured with zones.

/dev/root file system full

Hello.
We can't to login to system by telnet, ftp,rlogin, console, because recieved:
<b> messages msgcnt 142 vxfs: mesg 001: vx_nospace - /dev/root file system full (1 block extent) </b>
Instance's of Oracle and SAP are working and we are afraid to reboot server.
We working on HP-UX
is there any solution for this problem?
regards
Denis

Hey Denis
why dont you try to extend your /dev/root File system?
if your files system is already 1005 full and 0 bits space left, then try to move some files to other location where space available and try to extend your files system, that will resolve your space issue.
But one thing I can tell you is there is no harm in deleting core file from /usr/sap/<SID>/<DEVMBG00>/work.
-- Murali.

Extracting contents from Content Db to a file system

Hi,
What would be the best approach to extract the contents in Content Db to a file system and the metadata associated with them to a temporary database table
so that we can use them to migrate documents to another content management system ?
Thanks
Edited by: user10343552 on Oct 9, 2008 10:12 PM

Restore the database to the SQL Server that the test farm is using. Use Mount-SPContentDatabase on the test SharePoint server (farm) to mount the content database to the test Web Application.
Trevor Seward
Follow or contact me at...
&nbsp&nbsp
This post is my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or view of Microsoft, its employees, or other MVPs.

SOLVED: kernel loads, but doesn't have a root file system

Hi,
The system is an Asus X202E. It does UEFI and has a GPT partition system. I've gotten through that part. And it is clear to me that the kernel loads.
It's the next step that's giving me grief. I've tried this with two bootloaders: gummiboot and rEFInd.
With gummiboot, the kernel panics because it can't mount the root file system. With rEFInd, it gets to the intial ramdisk and then drops me to a shell, apparently because the root file system is set to null, and it obviously can't mount that as "real root".
Here is what I posted on the Arch mailing list, documenting that I have indeed specified the correct root (I'm copying this from the email, eliding the unfortunate line wraps):
bridge-live# cat /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
Title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrc /initramfs-linux.img
options root=PARTUUID=d5bb2ad1-9e7d-4c75-b9b6-04865dd77782
bridge-live# ls -l /dev/disk/by-partuuid
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 0ab4d458-cd09-4bfb-a447-5f5fa66332e2 -> ../../sda6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 3e12caeb-1424-451c-898e-a4ff05eab48d -> ../../sda7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 432a977b-f26d-4e75-b9ee-bf610ee6f4a4 -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 95a1d2c2-393a-4150-bbd2-d8e7179e7f8a -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 a4b797d9-0868-4bd1-a92d-f244639039f5 -> ../../sda4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 d5bb2ad1-9e7d-4c75-b9b6-04865dd77782 -> ../../sda8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 ed04135b-bd79-4c7c-b3b5-b0f9c2fe6826 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 f64f82a7-8f2b-4748-88b1-7b0c61e71c70 -> ../../sda5
The root partition is supposed to be /dev/sda8, that is:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 15 19:26 d5bb2ad1-9e7d-4c75-b9b6-04865dd77782 -> ../../sda8
So the correct PARTUUID followed by the one I have specified in
arch.conf is:
d5bb2ad1-9e7d-4c75-b9b6-04865dd77782
d5bb2ad1-9e7d-4c75-b9b6-04865dd77782
I'm guessing that this is really the same problem with both gummiboot and with rEFInd, but don't really know. It's clear to me that the initrd is not being correctly constructed. So I removed /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and did, as per the Arch wiki,
pacman -Syyu mkinitcpio linux udev
No joy.
I don't even know which way to go at this point. If I even knew how to tell it where the real disk is in the initial ram disk shell, that would help. Better of course, would be actually solving the problem.
Thanks!
Last edited by n4rky (2013-04-17 21:41:36)

I have made extremely limited progress on this issue.
My previous attempt to specify the root partition in mkinitcpio.conf was insufficient. Furthermore, this is no place--despite the documentation--for the orthodoxy about using UUIDs rather than the straight /dev/sdx. In my case:
root=/dev/sda8
and run
mkinitcpio -p linux
It still drops me into the shell at boot. I can do
mount /dev/sda8 /new_root/
and exit the shell. It still won't believe it has the root device and drops me back in. I just exit.
At this point, for a very brief moment, things look promising. It appears to be starting normally. Then, gdm.service, NetworkManager.service, and dbus.service all fail to start. There may be others but the screen goes by too quickly. At this point, it hangs trying to initialize the pacman keyring and all I can do is CTRL-ALT-DEL.
It occurred to me that this might extend to the rEFInd configuration and so I modified it to also use /dev/sda8 rather than the UUID, but this made no difference. Trying to boot via gummiboot still yields the previously specified kernel panic.

Change ZFS root dataset name for root file system

Hi all
A quick one.
I accepted the default ZFS root dataset name for the root file system during Solaris 10 installation.
Can I change it to another name afterward without reinstalling the OS? For example,
zfs rename rpool/ROOT/s10s_u6wos_07b rpool/ROOT/`hostname`
zfs rename rpool/ROOT/s10s_u6wos_07b/var rpool/ROOT/`hostname`/var
Thank you.

Renaming the root pool is not recommended.

Unbootable Solaris 10 x86 installed on ZFS root file system

Hi all,
I have unbootable Solaris 10 x86 installed on ZFS root file system. on an IDE HDD
The bios keep showing the msg
DISK BOOT FAILURE , PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM BOOT DISK
please note :
1- the HDD is connected properly and recognized by the system
2- GRUB don't show any messages
is there any guide to recover the system , or detail procedure to boot system again
Thanks,,,

It's not clear if this is a recently installed system that is refusing to boot OR if the system was working fine and crashed.
If it's the former, I would suggest you check the BIOS settings to make sure it's booting from the right hard disk. In any case, the Solaris 10 installation should have writting the GRUB stage1 and stage2 blocks to the beginning of the disk.
If the system crashed and is refusing to boot, you can try to boot from a Solaris 10 installation DVD. Choose the single user shell option and see if it can find your system. You should be able to use format/devfsadm/etc to do the actual troubleshooting. If your disk is still responding, try a `zpool import` to see if there is any data that ZFS can recognize (it usually has many backup uberblocks and disk labels scattered around the disk).

Programmatic interface to get zone's root file system

Hi,
I am a newcomer to solaris zones. Is there any programmatic (C API) way to know the path to root file system of a zone given its name, from the global zone?
Thanks!

A truss of zoneadm list -cv shows a bunch of zone related calls like:
zone_lookup()
zone_list()
zone_getattr()
Using the truss output as an example and including /usr/include/sys/zones.h and linking to libzonecfg
(and maybe libzoneinfo) seems like a fairly straight-forward path to getting the info you are looking for.
You could also parse /etc/zones/index
which is (on my s10_63 machine) a colon seperated flat file containing [zone:install state:root path] that looks like:
global:installed:/
demo1:installed:/zones/demo1
demo2:installed:/zones/demo2
demo3:installed:/zones/demo3
foo:installed:/zones/foo
ldap1:installed:/zones/ldap1
Neither of these methods are documented, so they are certainly subject to change or removal.
Good luck!
-William Hathaway

Sol10 u8 installed on a ZFS Root File System have different swap needs?

Does Sol10 u8 installed on a ZFS Root File System have different swap needs/processes?
Information:
I've installed Solaris 10 (10/09 s10s_u8wos_08a SPARC, Assembled 16 September 2009) on a half dozen servers and every one of them no longer mount swap at boot.
The install program commented out the old swap entry and created this one:
# grep swap /etc/vfstab
swap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -
Everything works like a champ. I didn't discover the issue until I tried to install some patches and the install failed. It didn't fail because of lack of swap - it refused to run because it found "No swap devices configured".
Here are the symptoms:
# swap -s
total: 183216k bytes allocated + 23832k reserved = 207048k used, 13600032k available
# swap -l
No swap devices configured
# mount | grep swap
/etc/svc/volatile on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=5ac0001 on Mon Apr 19 08:06:45 2010
/tmp on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=5ac0002 on Mon Apr 19 08:07:40 2010
/var/run on swap read/write/setuid/devices/xattr/dev=5ac0003 on Mon Apr 19 08:07:40 2010
#

Hi Nitabills,
I assume that you create a zfs entry for swap with the commande zfs create -V $size
did you launch the command :
swap -a /dev/zvol/dsdk/$ZPOOL/swap
Try this entry below in the vfstab :
/dev/zvol/dsdk/$ZPOOL/swap - - swap - no -

Device id of the root file system changes

I have noticed that sometimes the device id of the root file system changes (it typically get incremented by one). This seems to happen after an abnormal shutdown. After a normal shutdown and reboot the device id reverts back to what it was previously.
/ is on a local disk (not NFS or anything like that) and I'm talking about the device id you can obtain via the following command:
stat / | cut -d' ' -f1
Any idea why this is happening?

boot up a (any) live CD, cp -a, generate a new grub.cfg/adjust menu.lst and don't forget to update your fstab - done.
Just done it myself.

Archive Repository - Content Server or Root File System?

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