Google Plus

Google+, a social network operated by Google, Inc., launched on June 28th, 2011 with integrations across a number of Google products, including Buzz and Profiles.

One key element of Google+ is a focus on targeted sharing within subsets of your social group, which are what Google calls Circles. Circles are simply small groups of people that you can share to, each with names like friends, family, classmates and co-workers.

Also within Google+, Google has created a section specifically for viewing, managing and editing multimedia. The photo tab takes a user to all of the photos he or she has shared, as well as the ones he or she is tagged in. It’s not just photo tagging, though: Google+ includes an image editor (complete with Instagram-like photo effects), privacy options and sharing features.

Another feature that's widely discussed is “Hangouts,” Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click “start a hangout” and they’re instantly in a video chatroom alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is “hanging out.” Friends can then join the hangout as long as they have been placed in a circle that was invited by the person who created the Hangout.

All private Google Profiles to be deleted on 1 August

Google has decided to delete all Google Profiles that are set to private on 1 August.
The search giant describes Google Profiles, which are used as your Google+ profiles too, should be public, as 'what the world sees when it searches for you' – so it stands to reason that they be public.
The move comes in preparation for the Google+ public roll-out, and will make each profile easily findable via the search engine.
However, the only elements of your profile that have to be made public are your name and your gender (yeah, we're not sure why either), everything else can be kept private.
Google me
Google explains: 'The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don't allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.
'Keep in mind that your full name and gender are the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you'll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don't want to share.
'If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.'

Dell Xps

Dell Sets Stage to Take On Apple's iCloud

With a new release of its Stage software, Dell has quietly created a cloud-based service offering that could offer consumers a compelling reason to keep investing in Dell devices.
The new release, which began shipping last week, allows users who snap a picture with a Dell Streak or other Dell mobile device to automatically upload it to a pool of free, shared cloud storage. The new software also allows devices to remotely control and play back shared audio and video, plus other services.
For consumers, Dell's Stage release is probably more important than the new "More You" ads that began playing this week. One of the results that emerged as Dell began the market research behind the "More You" campaign is that customers, unsurprisingly, have begun to use PCs and mobile devices to store their digital memories.
"We asked them, what is so important about that computer... and whether [the respondent] was Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, ultimately it was because 'my life is on that thing,'" said Paul-Henri Ferrand, the chief marketing officer of Dell's global consumer business and SMB, and also president of Dell's Asia-Pacific/Japan business.
Stage is an attempt to take that digital content and allow users to control and manage it effortlessly, said Tim Peters, a vice president responsible for platform strategy within Dell. Within the PC, it cuts across Dell's XPS, Inspiron, and Alienware brands, and can be controlled from Dell's mobile devices. "It's a critical part of the Dell experience," Peters said.
What's new: remote cloud storage, photo uploads, and more
The Stage software, which Dell began shipping last year, appears as a set of square tiles on a user's PC, with various categories like "Books," "Photos," and "Apps". The new release makes each tile 3D, versus the two-dimensional images that appeared in the older version of Stage.
Any time a user snaps a digital photo with a Stage-enabled device, the new Stage software automatically uploads it to a free 2-Gbyte pool of storage. (Any content can be stored there, according to a Dell spokesman, including movies, pictures, and music.) Users can purchase additional capacity, including 5 Gbytes for $19.99/year, 25 Gbytes for $49.99/yr, and 100 Gbytes for $149.99/yr.
Automatic photo uploads is a feature reserved for just a few services at this point, among them Google's Google's latest Google+. Storing music in the cloud has also been the domain of other services, most notably Apple's iCloud.
Audio and video can be remotely controlled via Stage devices, Dell executives said. Dell has also added support for podcasts; an integrated Noisey application, which showcases music from all over the world; and an enhanced Napster home page.
Dell began life as a hyper-efficient box builder, known for its "just in time" strategy of managing inventory efficiently than anything else. If buyers wanted the latest Intel microprocessor, they bought it from Dell. Years later, however, leadership in the PC space has evolved into a competition whose products are differentiated using design, services, and price as metrics. Ferrand described his business as a "brand war," where Dell is aspiring to become something like an Audi of the PC world, where the quality of its fit and finish is complemented by a faith in its superior engineering.
"With Stage, we're building to the experiences of people, rather than building to specs," Ferrand said.

Green Data Center

Cisco 7500 Series Routers

The rapid expansion of the Internet has fundamentally changed the way organizations conduct business. With this growth, enterprise customers are seeking higher bandwidth aggregation of WAN links to the Internet. Likewise the service provider community is faced with meeting the continued demand from consumers for Internet access. These factors are driving service provider and enterprise customers to solutions that optimize network density, bandwidth aggregation, availability, serviceability, and operational costs.

The high-performance Cisco 7500 Series Router remains the market leader due to its breadth of advanced support for LAN/WAN services, redundancy, reliability, and performance.

To learn more about the Cisco 7500 Series Router,

A distributed architecture using Versatile Interface Processors (VIPs) is the key to the Cisco 7500's scalability. Each VIP has its own processor, which is capable of switching IP data packets and providing network services. This scenario allows the overall system performance of Cisco 7500 routers to scale up when they need to handle more high-speed network connections and more data packets. The RSP is still the master of the system. It runs routing protocols with other routers in the network to gather switching intelligence, which is then downloaded to the VIPs so that each can switch IP packets on its own.

In addition to performing packet switching, the VIPs can also provide a set of distributed IP network services, including access control, QoS, and traffic accounting (NetFlow). With the VIPs off-loading these IP switching and service functions from the RSP, the RSP can devote all its CPU cycles to handle other essential tasks. VIP distributed switching is the way to scale up system performance, and should be enabled where possible, to significantly reduce CPU utilization on the RSP.

Since its launch, the Cisco 7500 Series router has seen huge improvements in performance and its ability to scale. Alongside a widened number of interfaces (port adapters) for both LAN and WAN connectivity, the latest high end RSP8 CPU, and VIP4 module mean that the platform continues to deliver market leading performance.

Booting Issues in Solaris

Booting Problems in Solaris 

1.Booting in single user mode and mounting root hard disk.

Most important step in  diagnosing the booting problems is booting the system in single user mode and examining the hard disk for possible errors & work out the corrective measure. Single user mode can be achieved by any of the following methods :-

ok> boot -s           ;from root disk

ok> boot net -s       ;from network

ok>boot cdrom -s      ;from cdrom

Rebooting with command: cdrom -s 

Configuring the /devices directory

Configuring the /dev directory |

INIT: SINGLE USER MODE

#

# fsck /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0

# mount /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 /mnt

Perform the required operation on mounted disk , now accessible through /mnt ,& unmount the hard disk after you are done ;

# umount /mnt

# reboot

2.Making boot device alias

In case system can not boot from primary disk  and it is needed to make another boot disk to access the data , nvalias command is used .

nvalias command makes the device alias  and assigns an alternate name to a physical disk. Physical address of target disk is required  which can be had by show-disk command on ok>.

ok> nvalias disk7 /iommu@f,e0000000/sbus@f,e0001000/dma@3,81000/esp@3,80000/sd2,0

The new aliased disk can be named as boot disk or can be used for booting by refering its name .

ok> setenv boot-device disk7

ok>reset

or

ok> boot disk7

Booting Issues in Solaris

3."Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet"?

At ok> type printenv and look for these parameters .
  boot-device           disk
  mfg-switch?           false
  diag-switch?          false

if you see "boot-device net " or true value for the other two parameter change it to the values above.

In case you wants to boot from network make sure your client is properly configured in boot server and network connections & configuration are proper.

4."The file just loaded does not appear to be executable."

Boot block on the hard disk is corrupted .Boot the system in single user mode with cdrom and reinstall boot block .

#installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0

5."bootblk: can't find the boot program"

boot block can not find the boot programe - ufsboot in Solaris .Either ufsboot is missing or corrupted . In such cases it can be restored from the cdrom after booting from cdrom & mounting the hard disk 

# cp /platform/`uname -i`/ufsboot /mnt/platform/`uname -i`

6."boot: cannot open kernel/unix"

Kernel directory or unix kernel file in this directory is not found .Probably deleted during fsck or deleted by mistake .Copy it from the cdrom or restore from the backup tape.

# cp /platform/`uname -i`/kernel/unix /mnt/platform/`uname -i`/kernel

7."Error reading ELF header."?

Kernel directory or unix kernel file in this directory is corrupted.Copy it from the cdrom or restore from the backup tape.

# cp /platform/`uname -i`/kernel/unix /mnt/platform/`uname -i`/kernel

8."Cannot open '/etc/path_to_inst'"

System can not find the /etc/path_to_install file .It might be missing or corrupted and needs to be rebuild.

To rebuild this file  boot the system with  -ar option :

ok>boot -ar

Press enter to select default values for the questions  asked during booting and select yes to rebuild /etc/path_to_install

The /etc/path_to_inst on your system does not exist or is empty. Do you want to rebuild this file [n]? y

system will continue booting after rebuilding the file.

9."Can't stat /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0"

When booted from cdrom  and done fsck the root partition comes out to be fine but on booting from root disk this error occurs. The device name for / is missing from /dev/dsk directory and to resolve the issue /dev & /devices directories has to be restored from root backup tapes .

Solaris Interview Questions

Explain rc script and run level

Rc script : check and mount the file system, start and stop the various process.

Run level: Base on the init phases 8 run level

m

Which file will take place while booting.

# /etc/inittab

How many file to modify the host name to be changed without rebooting the system.

There are 6 files.

#vi /etc/hosts

#vi /etc/nodename

#vi /etc/hostname.hme

#vi /etc/net/ticlts/hosts

#vi /etc/net/ticosts/hosts

#vi /etc/net/ticotsord/hostst

Where the ip address will be stored

# /etc/hosts

# /etc/hosts.equi

# /etc/hosts.hme

How to configure the network card

# ifconfig hme0 plumb

# ifconfig hme0 192.9.200.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

# vi /etc/hosts ( update the ip address )

# vi /etc/hosts.hme0 ( update the ip address ) --> to bring the interface along with the ipaddress during boot time.

How to configure the virtual ip address

Infinity virtual ip address can be created.

# ifconfig hme0:1 plumb

# ifconfig hme0:1 192.9.200.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

# vi /etc/hosts ( update the ip address )

# vi /etc/hosts.hme0:1 ( update the ip address ) --> to bring the interface along with the ipaddress during boot time.

How to find the network card speed

# ndd –get /dev/hme link_speed            

1 = 100mbps

0 = 10mbps

How to modify network card speed

# ndd –set /dev/hme instance 0

# ndd –get /dev/hme link_status

# ndd –get /dev/hme link_mode

             To modify

# ndd –set /dev/eri instance 0

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_100T4_cap0

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_100fdx_cap1

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_100hdx_cap0

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_10fdx_cap0

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_10hdx_cap0

# ndd –set /dev/eri adv_autoneg_cap0

Netstat

netstat displays the  contents  of  various  network-related  data structures in  depending on the options selected.
Syntax :
netstat  <option/s>
multiple options can be given at one time.
Options
 -a - displays the state of all sockets.
 -r - shows the system routing tables
 -i - gives statistics on a per-interface basis.
-m - displays information from the network memory buffers. On Solaris, this shows statistics
         forSTREAMS
 -p [proto] - retrieves statistics for the specified protocol
  -s - shows per-protocol statistics. (some implementations allow -ss to remove fileds with a value of 0 (zero) from the display.)
 -D - display the status of DHCP configured interfaces.
-n do not lookup hostnames, display only IP addresses.
-d (with -i) displays dropped packets per interface.
-I [interface] retrieve information about only the specified interface.
-v be verbose
interval  -   number for continuous display of statictics.
Example :
$netstat -rn
Routing Table: IPv4
  Destination           Gateway               Flags  Ref   Use   Interface
-------------------- -------------------- ----- ----- ------ ---------
192.168.1.0         192.168.1.11           U        1   1444      le0
224.0.0.0             192.168.1.11           U        1   0            le0
default                  192.168.1.1           UG       1   68276 
127.0.0.1             127.0.0.1               UH       1  10497     lo0
This shows the output on a Solaris machine who's IP address is 192.168.1.11 with a default router at 192.168.1.1

Veritas Volume Manager

Why would you NOT want to do root-disk encapsulation with Veritas?

This is not nessacarily the case anymore with versions of VxFS greater than 4.5. root disk encapsulation requires kernel-level drivers in most cases. Because of this, encapsulating the root partition can make it unreadable in a bare-metal recovery situation.

Solaris Boot Disk Failure

Recovering from primary boot disk failure:

If the primary root disk fails, the system will continue to run from the
secondary boot disk. There will be SCSI errors on the console, about the disk
failure.

"Primary root disk can be replaced online without bringing down the system"


Note: It is not necessary to remove the failed disk using the cfgadm or devfsadm
commands. If a new disk is installed in place of the failed disk, just
execute the devfsadm command, so that the OS can recognize the new disk.
Then the "format" command will show the new disk. If the new installed
disk installed has no fdisk partition, then create the fdisk partition
from the format program, so that the new disk can be used for mirroring.

Replacing a Failed Disk(SVM)

Step-by-Step Procedure for replacing a failed disk:

1. Insert the new disk in place of the failed disk. Create the whole disk for
Solaris partition.

2. copy the VTOC of the secondary disk to the primary disk.
Example: prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2

3. Then re-attach the failed mirrors using the metareplace command.
Example: metareplace -e d0 < new disk >

Once the resynchronisation has completed, the primary disk is successfully
mirrored back online.

NOTE: The above procedure can be followed for replacing a secondary disk
failure.

Solaris VMSTAT

A.   CPU issues:

Following columns has to be watched to determine if there is any cpu issue

1. Processes in the run queue (procs r)
2. User time (cpu us)
3. System time (cpu sy)
4. Idle time (cpu id)

5.     Problem symptoms:

6.    

1.)   If the number of processes in run queue (procs r) are consistently greater than the number of CPUs on the system it will slow down system as there are more processes then available CPUs .

2.)    if  this number is more than four times the number of available CPUs in the system then system is facing shortage of cpu power and will greatly slow down the processess on the system.

3.)    If  the idle time (cpu id) is consistently 0 and if the system time (cpu sy) is double the user time (cpu us)  system is facing shortage of CPU resources.

 

Resolution :

         Resolution to these kind of issues involves tuning of application procedures  to make efficient use of cpu  and as a last resort increasing the cpu power or adding more cpu to the system.

B.   Memory Issues:

Memory bottlenecks are determined by the scan rate (sr) . The scan rate is the pages scanned by the clock algorithm per second. If the scan rate (sr) is continuously over 200 pages per second then there is a memory shortage.

Resolution :

1. Tune the applications & servers to make  efficient use of memory and cache.

2. Increase system memory .

3. Implement priority paging in s in pre solaris 8 versions by adding line "set priority paging=1" in /etc/system. Remove this line if upgrading from Solaris 7 to 8 & retaining old /etc/system file

iostat

Solaris 
1)IOSTAT:

The values to look from the iostat output  are:

• Reads/writes  per second (r/s , w/s)
• Percentage busy (%b)
• Service time (svc_t)

If a disk shows consistently high reads/writes along with , the percentage busy (%b) of the disks is greater than 5 percent, and the average service time  (svc_t) is greater than 30 milliseconds, then  one of the following action needs to be taken

1.)Tune the application to use disk i/o more efficiently  by modifying the disk queries and using available cache facilities of application servers .

2.) Spread the file system of the disk on to two or more disk  using disk striping feature of volume manager /disksuite  etc.

3.) Increase the system parameter values for  inode cache  , ufs_ninode ,  which is  Number of inodes to be held in memory. Inodes are cached globally (for UFS), not on a per-file system basis 

4.) Move the file system to another faster disk /controller  or replace existing disk/controller to a faster  one.

Performance Monitoring

iostat , vmstat and netstat are three most commonly used tools for performance monitoring . These comes built in with the operating system and are easy to use .iostat stands for input output statistics and reports statistics for i/o devices such as disk drives . vmstat gives the statistics for virtual Memory and netstat gives the network statstics


Iostat

Vmstat

Netstat

Making a bootable ZFS Root Mirror

Making a bootable ZFS Root Mirror

1.     Installed ZFS OS to Disk A (c0t0d0s0)

2.     Format Disk B (c0t1d0s0) properly.

3.     Overwrite the Disk format properly:

Testserver# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 | fmthard –s - /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2

4.     Attach Disk B to the ZFS Root Pool:        

          Testserver#zpool attach –f rpool c0t0d0s0 c0t1d0s0

5.     Install installboot on Disk B

# installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s0

6.     Test the worst Case: Disk A fails, you can still boot into Disk B

-        Remove Disk A

-        Replace it with an emtpy Disk C

-        Start the System: Choose to boot from Disk B in the Bios

-        Repeat Steps 2. till 5. for Disk C (swap c0t0d0s0 and c0t1d0s0)

-        Start the System like before (from Disk C)

Patch Add Steps

Patch add steps

1) Need to take the backup filesystem through ufsdump or , 

need to remove one of the root mirror from the server .

2) Need to check the current patch version on the server .

# uname -a ( For kernel patch )

# showrev -p ( For other patches )

3) Check the latest patch in http://sunsolve.sun.com 

4) Gothrough the Read me file 

5) Boot the server in to the single user mode 

#shutdown -g0 -y -i1 ( or #init 0 & ok boot -s )

6) Install the patch 

#Patchadd < Ptach >

7) Down the machine in to the OBP using #init 0

8) Do the reconfiguration boot 

#boot -r 

9) Check the patch is updated pr not

Solaris 11 Login Screen

Java Image1

Java Image1

Google Apps marketplace

Google Apps marketplace




Google Apps (http://www.google.com/apps/) is a significant component of Google ecosystem. For those of you who are not familiar with Google Apps, it is a Google service that provides various Google products (such as gmail and google docs) on a custom domain. Anyone with a domain name can avail of this service, which is free for up to 50 uses.



Google Apps allows a domain owner to leverage Google's infrastructure and deploy Google's popular applications on his domain without incurring any additional hardware/software overhead. Google also offers ‘Google Apps Marketplace', a web-based platform meant for finding/installing third-party on-line applications that work with Google Apps' built-in application mix.



The latest development in the ‘Apps Marketplace' front is the launch of a new channel exclusively meant for the education segment (http://goo.gl/pdGZJ). In this category one can find several applications useful for both teachers and students.



Brainpop, a popular on-line service that creates educational content for kids is a good example.



The service offers animated educational movies on a range of topics within Science, Technology, Social studies, English and so on. Although Brainpop is not a free service, for ‘Google Apps' users it is available for free till March 11, 2011.

Solaris Console

Solaris Image