[rescue] Potential SVM issue in Solaris 10; anybody got a spud?

[velociraptor]

On 6/4/06, Bryan Gurney <arb_npx42 at comcast.net> wrote:
> The patch is out, but the date on the file is February 06,
> so I don't think it's in the latest release of Solaris 10 (1/06).
> I guess that will be among the first things I seek after getting
> a stable system.

Guess I need to install that patch on my new x86 boxes that I am
running Sol 10 on.  I always mirror root and turn on logging.

> What are the best practice rules on logging with UFS, for root
> and other partitions?  I booted up the U60 on the 18 GB disk
> install of the initial Solaris 10 release, and it only has logging
> on the slice I used for /export/home.  One of my other Solaris-
> savvy friends says that ideally, logging should be enabled on
> all partitions, because otherwise the filesystems aren't
> journaled in case of a power outage or spontaneous reboot.

Journaling is not a requirement, it just speeds recovery after an
inadvertent shutdown--e.g. crash, power failure, or hardware failure.
It doesn't help as much on smaller volumes, but on larger volumes, the
partition will be brought online while the journals are replayed if
needed.  I would imagine in certain heavy write situations on large
volumes that journaling could cause performance issues, though.

There's probably some blueprints at Sun with the pros and cons.

> Even worse, he gave me a 9 GB Compaq firmware Seagate
> Cheetah that sounded like it had old bearings, and wouldn't
> work with the U60 (on detecting it, the Solaris 10 setup CD
> made the 40 MBps SCSI bus fall back all the way down to
> async, something that I've never seen before).  Since I don't
> trust the drive's age, and I don't happen to have a ProLiant
> DL360 lying around, I'm going to just take off the drive's cover
> and make it another fancy paperweight along with the other
> 9 GB Cheetah that I voluntarily retired.

Speaking of which, does anyone know of a reliable way to install Sun
firmware onto a non-Sun disk?  We had similar trouble at last $ork
when we tried to put some of the cast-off 18G Compaq disks into our
Suns.  They'd work for a while, then crap out.  Fortunately we
mirrored them against Sun disks, as we thought we might have trouble.

I've read that trying to do this kind of firmware hackery is
difficult, but figured that some of the rescuers may have tried, given
our predilections for repurposing hardware.

=Nadine=