Monitoring Solaris Ethernet Performance

Netstat -i

This option is used to diagnose the network problems when  the connectivity is there but  it is slow in response .

Values to look at:

    * Collisions (Collis)
    * Output packets (Opkts)
    * Input errors (Ierrs)
    * Input packets (Ipkts)

Network collision rate = Output collision counts / Output packets

Network-wide collision rate greater than 10 percent  will indicate

    *  Overloaded network,
    *  Poorly configured network,
    *  Hardware problems. 

Input Packet Error Rate = Ierrs / Ipkts.

If the input error rate is high (over 0.25 percent), the host is dropping packets. Hub/switch cables etc needs to be checked for potential problems. 

Name  Mtu  Net/Dest   Address    Ipkts     Ierrs Opkts     Oerrs Collis Queue
lo0   8232 loopback   localhost  43523390  0     43523390  0     0      0
hme0  1500 <hostname> <hostname> 561847305 886   483621617 0     0      0
qfe0  1500 <hostname> <hostname> 13480886  1     1521743   0     0      0

You can also use the following to determine the the ethernet interface link status,and speed on your interface. In the example below I am running these on hme0

ndd -set /dev/hme instance 0
ndd -get /dev/hme link_status
ndd -get /dev/hme link_mode
ndd -get /dev/hme link_speed

If you have only one ethernet interface, you can leave out the instance
command. Otherwise, you can specify the hme instance number there. The
results of the next three commands are either 1 or 0. In each case, the
value means:

link_status:  0=down 1=up

link_mode:   0=half duplex  1=full duplex

link_speed:  0=10Mbps  1=100Mbps

You can also use the following netstat command. Replace ce0 with your ethernet adapter

>netstat -k ce0 | egrep ‘link_speed|link_status|link_duplex’
lp_cap_asmpause 1 lp_cap_pause 0 link_T4 0 link_speed 1000
link_duplex 2 link_asmpause 0 link_pause 0 link_up 1 mac_mtu 1522

How to read this junk:
link_up – 0 down, 1 up


link_speed – speed in Mbit/s


link_duplex – 1 half duplex, 2 full duplex, 0 down

I hardly ever have a request to add a printer to a Solaris box, but every one and a while a developer needs me to add one. Not that I have any idea what they are printing…

Below are my notes…

Adding a Printer:
In the example below we are adding a printer with the -p option for the printer name, the -s for the print server, and -D for the description.

# lpadmin -p luna -s saturn 
# lpadmin -p luna -D "Room 1954 ps" 
# lpadmin -d luna 
# lpstat -p luna 


Verify you can print with the following command
$ lp -d printer-name filename

Solaris Volume Manager (formerly known as Online: DiskSuite, and later Solstice DiskSuite is a software package for creating, modifying and controlling RAID disks in Solaris. The process below outlines steps that you need to take to setup basic root disk mirroring.

Adding a new Disk? Create your Partition Table for your Mirror:

Using the format command, select your initial disk. Then select par, then
name to save off you partition table to disk.

Then switch to the other disk and label the other disk with the saved
partition table.

Md.tab — add mirror information:

The file /etc/md.tab is basically a map file where you define your metadevices and the physical devices that they represent. In the example below the metadevice d0 has two submirrors, d10 and d20.

For Example:
 

d0      -m              d10

d10             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0

d20             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0

#swap mirror

d1      -m              d11

d11             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1

d21             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s1

#var mirror

d4      -m              d14

d14             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4

d24             1 1     /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s4

Add Meta Databases:

bash-3.00# metadb -c 3 -f -a /dev/dsk/c5t0d0s3
bash-3.00# metadb -c 3 -f -a /dev/dsk/c5t4d0s3

Make sure that you create them on the correct slice. The normal standard that I follow, has me creating them on slice 3.
In the example above you are creating 3 metadbs on the mirror disk. Not sure if you need the -f option on the second db, but it does not seem to cause any issues.

Initialize
your Mirrors:

In the example below you are initializing your one way mirror. These are the entries from the md.tab. Here I am initializing each side of the mirror. Note that you do not need to specify "d10 1 1 c5t0d0s0" if you have added this information to the md.tab Use the '-f' switch when the filesystem on that slice is currently mounted.

EXAMPLE for Slice 0:

bash-3.00# metainit -f d10 1 1 c5t0d0s0
d10: Concat/Stripe is setup
bash-3.00# metainit d20 1 1 c5t4d0s0
d10: Concat/Stripe is setup

.

Attach your First
Submirror:

The example below shows how attach your one way mirror to your metadevice. Once this step is complete. You will want to reboot, and attach the other side of the mirror. You can then edit the /etc/fstab with the new metadevices.

EXAMPLE:

metainit d0 -m d10

Metaroot to Create root mirror in fstab:

The metaroot command is used to modify the /etc/fstab

metaroot d0

Then modify any other entries.

Attach Secondary Mirror:

metattach d20

Other Helpful Commands:

How to Delete Metadbs:

If you need to start over, you can use the command below to remove metadatabases.

metadb -d -f /dev/dsk/diskname

Inpect your Metadbs:

# metadb -i
        flags           first blk       block count
     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7
     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7
     a        u         16              8192            /dev/dsk/c0t2d0s7

How to Detach Mirrors:

metadetach mirror submirror

metadetach d0 d20

after completing the step above you should clear the concat/stripe

metaclear d20

Metastat:

Metastat gives you the status of your mirrors

# metastat
d7: RAID
    State: Initializing
    Initialization in progress: 12.2% done		<== not done yet
    Interlace: 32 blocks
    Size: 208618176 blocks (99 GB)
Original device:
    Size: 208627648 blocks (99 GB)
        Device     Start Block  Dbase        State Reloc  Hot Spare
        c0t0d0s7      10506       Yes Initializing   Yes
        c0t1d0s7      10506       Yes Initializing   Yes
        c0t2d0s7      10506       Yes Initializing   Yes