Archive for the 'Monitoring' Category

Consistent MySQL backups using ZFS snapshots

It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I really like ZFS. Personally I think it is one of the biggest developments in file system design in many many years. One place where I’ve started to use it recently on my own home server is to make instant and consistent backups […]

Use pfiles to peek into your application

Have you ever asked yourself what files a specific application is accessing at the moment? If the answer is yes and you are running Solaris then pfiles(1) is the answer.
First you need to find the PID of the application that you are interested in. In this example will we look at syslog.

# ps -ef […]

How to detect hardware problems in Solaris 10

There was many great new features included in Solaris 10, including SMF that I blogged about earlier on how to utilize it to detect problems. Another wonderful tool is the Solaris Fault Management. It is part of the Self Healing technologies available in Solaris 10. It monitors your system and if it detects errors it […]

7 Basic Solaris Troubleshooting Tips

When a user reports a problem with a server which is your responsibility there are a few checks you should always do. One thing that has complicated this on a Solaris 10 system is zones. It is possible that the zone you are working in is not the cause of the problem but you could […]

How to use SMF to quickly detect problems

SMF (Service Management Facility) was introduced in Solaris 10 and it radically changed how you work with services. Gone are the old SysV scripts but they still work and not all services that are shipped with Solaris 10 is converted yet. If you have been a UNIX admin for a while they will feel foreign […]