Solaris vs RHEL - Advanced SysAdmin differences
Published 22 Oct 2003
Read time 7 min(s) 11 sec(s) (2609 views).
Solaris
The purpose of this article is to introduce the system and network administration features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for (RHEL) Solaris Administrators and to describe the differences between the Solaris 9 Operating System and Red Hat Linux with respect to advanced system administration tasks.
Virtual File System Management
Action Solaris RHEL Reference/Comment
View virtual memory statistics
vmstat
vmstat
Default swap device
/dev/dsk/c0t0s0s1
/dev/sda2
Swap file
swap
partition type 82
Create a swap file
mkfile
dd
Prepare a file or partition to be swap
mkswap
Display swap size
swap -l
swap -s
free
Activate swap
swap -a
swapon -a
Remove swap space
swap -d
swapoff
NFS server configuration
/etc/dfs/dfstab
/etc/exports
NFS server daemons
mountd, nfsd, lockd, statd, nfslogd, rquotad (in /usr/lib/nfs)
rpc.mountd, rpc.nfsd, rpc.rquaotad (in /usr/sbin) rpc.statd, rpc.lockd (in /sbin)
NFS client daemons
statd, lockd
rpc.statd, rpc.lockd
NFS server start script
/etc/init.d/nfs.server
/etc/rc.d/init.d/nfs
NFS client start script
/etc/init.d/nfs.client
/etc/rc.d/init.d/netfs
View current shares
/etc/dfs/sharetab
share
List of remote file system types
/etc/dfs/fstypes
Lists file systems currently mounted by NFS clients
/etc/rmtab
/var/lib/nfs/rmtab
NFS server logging configuration
/etc/nfs/nfslog.conf
Configuration information for the nfslogd daemon
/etc/default/nfslogd
Make local directory available by NFS
share
exportfs
Make an NFS share unavailable
unshare
exportfs -u
Make all file systems in dfstab available
shareall
exportfs -a
Make all NFS shares unavailable
unshareall
exportfs -ua
List available resources from NFS server
dfshares
showmount -e
List NFS server directories currently mounted
dfmounts
showmount -d
showmount -a
NFS statistics
nfsstat
nfsstat
Main configuration file for AutoFS
/etc/auto_master
/etc/auto.master
/etc/amd.conf
Command to initiate AutoFS
automount
automount
Automount daemon
automountd
automount, amd
amd is an alternative automount daemon that runs in user space.
autofs runs in the kernel space.
Automount start script
/etc/init.d/autofs
/etc/rc.d/init.d/autofs
/etc/rc.d/init.d/amd
Configuration for home directory automounting
/etc/auto_home
/etc/auto.home
Configuration for automounting removable devices
/etc/vold.conf
/etc/auto.misc
Solaris uses the volume manager daemon vold.
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Storage Volume Management
Action Solaris RHEL Reference/Comment
Display disk label
prtvtoc
fdisk -l
Volume manager
Solaris Volume Manager (SVM), Sun StorEdge Volume Manager
lvm
RHEL 3 uses LVM1 from Sistina (http://www.sistina.com)
Describe volumes
Disk groups, Disksets
Volume groups
File system
vxfs
ext2, ext3, reiserfs
Display volume group
vxprint -l -g rootdg
vgdisplay -v
Make volume groups unknown to the system
vxdg deport
vgexport
Make volume groups known to the system
vxdg import
vgimport
Scan all disks for volume groups
vgscan
Create a volume group
vxdg init
vgcreate
Remove a volume group
vgremove
Change attributes of a volume group
vgchange
Display attributes of volume groups
vgdisplay
Rename a volume group
vgrename
Add physical volumes to a volume group
vgextend
Reduce a volume group
vxdg rmdisk
vgreduce
Back up volume group descriptor area
vgcfgbackup
Restore volume group descriptor area
vgcfgrestore
Split a volume groups
vgsplit
Create volume group directory and special files
vgmknodes
Merge two volume groups
vgmerge
Check volume group descriptor area
vgck
Scan all disks for physical volumes
pvscan
Initialize a disk
vxdiskadd
pvcreate
List physical volume
vxprint -dl
metaset -p
pvdisplay
Modify physical volume
pvchange
Move physical extents
pvmove
lvm system activity data collector
lvmsadc
lvm system activity reporter
lvmsar
Change attributes of a logical volume
vxedit set
lvchange
Rename a logical volume
lvrename
Create a logical volume in an existing volume group
vxassist make
lvcreate
Display attributes of a logical volume
vxprint -vl
lvdisplay
Extend the size of a logical volume
vxassist growto
lvextend
Reduce the size of a logical volume
vxassist shrinkto
lvreduce
e2fsadm
Remove a logical volume
vxedit rm
lvremove
Scan (all disks) for logical volumes
lvscan
Database for all lvm commands
/etc/lvm/md.tab
/etc/lvm/*
/etc/lvmtab
/etc/lvmtab.d/*
Delete active metadevices and hot spare pools
metaclear
Create and delete replicas of the metadevice state database
metaadb
Attach or detach metadevice to or from a mirror or trans device, or attach space (blocks) to a soft partition to grow the soft partition
metattach
metadetach
Update metadevice
metadevadm
Manage hot spares and hot spare pools
metahs
Configure metadevices
metainit
Place submirrors offline and online
metaoffline
metaonline
Modify parameters of metadevices
metaparam
Recover soft partition information
metarecover
Rename metadevice or switch layered metadevice names
metarename
Enable or replace components of submirrors or RAID-5 metadevices
metareplace
Set up system files for root (/) metadevice
metaroot
Configure shared disksets
metaset
Display status for metadevice or hot spare pool
metastat
Handle metadevice resync during reboot
metasync
Volume manager GUI
smc
disk druid
disk druid is only available during installation
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Access Control
Action Solaris RHEL Reference/Comment
Disable remote logins
/etc/nologin
/etc/nologin.txt
The text in these files is presented to the user.
Enable remote access by root user
Comment out line
console=/dev/console in
/etc/default/login
/etc/securetty
Disabled by default for security
Set file access control lists
setfacl
setfacl
Set the ACL of a fire or directory
setfacl -f
setfacl -s
setfacl --set
Modify the ACL of a file or directory
setfacl -m
setfacl -m
Remove ACL entries
setfacl -d
setfacl -x
setfacl -b
setfacl -k
Apply operations to all files and directories recursively
setfacl -r
Get file access control lists
getfacl
getfacl
Allow users to execute privileged commands
RBAC
sudo
sudo
Allow host access by using TCP wrappers
/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/hosts.allow
Deny host access by using TCP wrappers
/etc/hosts.deny
/etc/hosts.deny
Needed for TCP wrappers
/usr/sfw/sbin/tcpd
add line to /etc/default/inetd
ENABLE_TCPWRAPPERS=YES
built-in
Refer to man page tcpd(1m) for the implementation on Solaris
Plugable Authentication Modules (PAM) configuration files
/etc/pam.conf
/etc/pam.d/* (Each PAM-aware application has a separate configuration file.)
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System Messaging and Logging
/var/logSome applications maintain their own log directory
Action Solaris RHEL Reference/Comment
syslog configuration
/etc/syslog.conf
/etc/syslog.conf
/etc/initlog.conf
syslog daemon
/usr/sbin/syslogd
/sbin/syslogd
Locate log files
/var/log
/var/adm
/var/log
Some applications maintain their own log directory.
View boot messages
dmesg
dmesg
Log system initialization messages
/sbin/initlog
logger
initlog configuration
/etc/initlog.conf
Log kernel messages
/sbin/klogd
Send messages to the syslogd daemon
logger
logger
Manage system logs
logadm
logrotate
Configuration file for system log management
/etc/logadm.conf
/etc/logrotate.conf
System activity reporter
sar
sar
sar log files
/var/log/sadd
/var/log/sadd (dd=day of month)
/var/log/sardd
View log files GUI
smc
redhat-logviewer
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Kernel Management
Action Solaris RHEL Reference/Comment
Kernel
/kernel/genunix
/kernel/vmlinuz
Display kernel parameters
sysdef -i
sysctl -a
Kernel tuning GUI
redhat-config-proc
Configure kernel drivers
ndd
Display device drivers
prtconf -D
Device driver configuration files
/kernel/drv/*
/usr/src/linux/configs/*
Device files location
/devices/
/dev
Recognize a newly
boot -r
devfsadm
kudzu
Display a system's configuration
prtconf
kudzu -p
Map physical device names
/etc/path_to_inst
/etc/sysconfig/hwconf
List modules
modinfo
lsmod
Display information about a module
modinfo
modinfo
Load module
modload
insmod
modprobe
Unload module
modunload
rmmod
modprobe -r
CPU statistics
mpstat
mpstat
CPU information
psrinfo
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Physical RAM information
prtconf
free
Display run level
who -r
who -r, runlevel
Trace system calls
truss
strace
Crash dump facility
savecore
netdump
netdump-server
Available with RHEL
Configure kernel crash dumps
dumpadm edit
configuration file
Crash dump configuration file
/etc/dumpadm.conf
/etc/netdump.conf
/etc/sysconfig/netdump
Default crash dump location
/var/crash
/var/crash on the server
Crash dump analysis tool
mdb
gdb
Configure power management
pmconfig
Code profiler
oprofile
Capable of profiling all
kernel/library/application samp
Code profiler control
opcontrol
oprof_start
Code profiler analysis
opvisualize
Power management configuration file
/etc/power.conf
/etc/sysconfig/apmd
Power management daemon
powerd
apmd
System information and analysis script
Explorer
sysreport
You can download Explorer from the SunSolve(SM) Web site (http://sunsolve.sun.com).
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Additional Resources
The following documenation sources provide detailed information for the Solaris 9 and Red Hat operating systems:
Title Online documentation
Solaris 9 documentation
http://docs.sun.com
Red Hat 9 documentation
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/
Red Hat Enterprise documentation
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/
