semanticnoise.com

Two different approaches to a vet visit.

Despite what you might read at docs.sun.com, Solaris 10 update 6 doesn’t have a “-u” option for `zfs receive`.

jmcmurry@lemon $ cat /etc/release
Solaris 10 10/08 s10s_u6wos_07b SPARC
Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Assembled 27 October 2008
jmcmurry@lemon $ zfs receive -u
invalid option 'u'


This could’ve been brought to my attention before I decide to create my ZFS export streams recursively.  One at a time, I’d have been fine.  What seemed to be an awesome way to retrofit a metadata slice for an SVM volume into a whole disk ZFS root install turned out to be a miserable trail of heartache and pain.

But I can take it; I am a Unix guy.

UPDATE: “-u” seems to be in Solaris 10 update 7, but even there, it’s not in the man page for zfs(1M). Thanks so much for updating the docs without indicating that the “recover your root storage” function only works on the OS release that you made available for download today.

/grrr

Today I wanted to move a Solaris 9 zone running on a Solaris 10 test server to a new ZFS dataset within the same ZFS pool with compression enabled. This container is an archive of an environment we don’t use very much, normally leave shut down, and intend to delete fairly soon, but since it’s a flash archive of a Solaris 9 machine, it takes up a lot of space on the test system’s local disks.

First I created the new dataset:

# zfs create rpool/zones
# zfs set mountpoint=/zones rpool/zones
# zfs create rpool/zones/foo
# zfs set compression=on rpool/zones/foo

I thought I should halt the zone, update the zonepath property for the zone, move the files to the new place, and start up the zone.  Nope:

zonecfg:foo> set zonepath=/zones/foo
Zone foo already installed; set zonepath not allowed.


Great, now I’m going to have to search through a bunch of docs and maybe remove the zone and redo it all and why can’t they make this easy for me, argh.

Well, they did:

# zoneadm -z foo move /zones/foo


I like a lot of the changes in Solaris 10, especially the usage and man pages for things like zfs(1M). These commands tend to do the annoying things for you and the man pages have lots of examples. Nice.

And hey:

# zfs get compressratio rpool/zones/foo
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
rpool/zones/foo compressratio 1.44x -


All the hipsters showed up in Austin and their iPhone 3G onslaught made the AT&T 3G network kinda sorry.  They’re going to add capacity so you can TwitterBookSpaceFlickr some more.

Fact is, I was in Austin not long ago, a solo pseudo-hipster with only one iPhone 3G, and the AT&T 3G network was already kinda sorry.  I’ll be back in a few days for the real music experience, and I hope AT&T leaves all the trailers and duct tape and hamsters running on exercise wheels in place so I can reap the benefits.

It’s a shame that Steve has been in Austin for two SXSW happenings and I haven’t insisted that we go.  I definitely think it would be a lot of fun.  It’s obviously an educational experience.

I have my own not-yet-catalogued list of “Words it is NOT ok to ever say.”

The first one that springs to mind immediately: “proggie” (meaning “software program”.)

I’m lucky enough to be old and cranky enough not to hang out with them young whippersnappers who no doubt use this word all the time, but I swear it makes me want to spit nails.

[via Daring Fireball]

Since moving to WordPress, it looks like I have totally new thing going here, and boy howdy, the world sure does need another barely used WordPress install sitting around.

I’ve had a blog or something like it running here since the end of 2000.  I wrote 285 entries between then and November 2008.  That was a previous life, as far as I’m concerned, so I’m not very interested in scraping together anything to bulk import those stories into WordPress.

However, it’s possible that there are a few news items from days of yore which I’d like to rise from the ashes.  If and when that happens, I’ll use that shiny Category feature to mark them accordingly.

I used to really enjoy writing here.

Well, that was easy.  Even the manual process is a breeze if you’re a user with whom Unix is friends.

I guess I should think about writing things here.

All that partying got the best of her…

This is WordPress, and say what you will about sprawling out of control PHP, it’s worlds better than the homespun sprawling out of control PHP that I started this site with in 2001. I like it.

I’m still trying to decide what to do with styling and how to integrate other non-WordPress bits that I want to keep and grow, but this is a start.

Update: and I can write things from muh iPhone!