EON boot chart

Bootchart is a tool for performance analysis and visualization of the boot process. With the help of some boot chart programs and process shared by Alex (1, 2), the creator of Milax I created a boot chart of EON. This shows the 32-bit CIFS version completely booted in under 28 secs. I need investigate why the CPU data on top isn't being plotted.

The original Opensolaris bootchart work was done by Erick Shrock and Dan Price in dtrace but the code was not released.
EON 32-bit CIFS Boot Chart: booted from USB < 28secEON 32-bit Samba: booted with 2 zpools (CPU data fixed)EON 64-bit CIFS: booted with 2 zpools

EON 64-bit 0.58.9 based on SNV_104 is released!

Embedded Operating system/Networking (EON), RAM based live ZFS NAS appliance is released on Genunix! As always lots of thanks to Al and Genunix.org for download hosting.

It is available in a CIFS and Samba flavor
EON 64-bit x86 CIFS ISO image version 0.58.9 based on snv_104

• eon-0.589-b104-64-cifs.iso
• MD5: d6913453ae7bd56e7f32ef0d9c73cd9e
• Size: ~82Mb
• Released: 18-Feb-2009

EON 64-bit x86 Samba ISO image version 0.58.9 based on snv_104

• eon-0.589-b104-64-smb.iso
• MD5: 936317f42e0c133be3298d74f12e8a53
• Size: ~95Mb
• Released: 18-Feb-2009

Another way to add driver(s) to EON

This method uses a booted/running EON NAS to add a new driver to itself. Another simple method I overlooked to add a driver was to first transfer the driver binary(eg rtls, conf (eg rtls.conf) and 64-bit binary if applicable to eon. Place the files appropriately in /kernel/drv or /kernel/drv/amd64.
Test it using add_drv -v, for example I placed the file /kernel/drv/rtls

add_drv -v rtls

Current Method: Then edit /mnt/eon0/.backup entries to include the new driver files

/etc/name_to_major
/etc/driver_aliases
/kernel/drv/rtls
/kernel/drv/rtls.conf
/kernel/drv/amd64/rtls

Deprecated Method: Then edit the FILES section in updimg.sh to include this file

FILE="/etc/hosts
/etc/hostid

change to

FILE="/etc/hosts
/etc/hostid
/etc/name_to_major
/etc/driver_aliases
/kernel/drv/rtls
/kernel/drv/rtls.conf
/kernel/drv/amd64/rtls

End Deprecated Method

If the driver added is not listed in /etc/name_to_major, it (eg rtls, sfe, mega_sys)will need to be added to the last line and the number entry next to the driver incremented to a unique value. If the last line is

rtls 52

edit to be

rtls 52
sfe 53

To preserve this driver beyond reboots, run updimg.sh /mnt/eon0/boot/x86.eon

Adding your own driver(s) to EON

Adding your own drivers to EON is possible in a couple of ways.
Method 1: This method uses another working opensolaris system to un-compress a copy of x86.eon image. Add the driver binary and driver.conf file to /kernel/drv/ and 64-bit binary to /kernel/drv/amd64 path where the image was unpacked. The image will then be repacked and transferred the back to the appliance.

/boot/solaris/bin/root_archive unpack x86.eon [path_to_unpacked_dir]
cp rtls [path_to_unpack_dir]/kernel/drv
cp rtls.conf [path_to_unpack_dir]/kernel/drv

For 64-bit EON you would also add

cp rtls [path_to_unpack_dir]/kernel/drv/amd64
add_drv -b [path_to_unpacked_dir] -n -v [driver_added_kernel_drv]
/boot/solaris/bin/root_archive pack x86-new.eon [path_to_unpacked_dir]

Method 2: On EON, enable virtual consoles and insert a pause in the updimg.sh script. Run the updimg.sh until the pause. Finally, switch consoles (ctrl+alt+FX, where X is the console number) and copy the driver binary and driver.conf to /mnt/upd/kernel/drv.

svccfg import /var/svc/manifest/system/vtdaemon.xml
svcadm enable vtdaemon
svcadm enable console-login:vt2
svcadm enable console-login:vt3

now you can use ctrl-alt-F1/F2/F3 to switch between terminals
edit updimg.sh and change:

backup_repository
undo_mnt_lofs

to:

backup_repository
echo -n "Press enter to continue after adding drivers " ; read x
undo_mnt_lofs

run (if default path_to_img=/mnt/eon0)

/usr/bin/updimg.sh [path_to_img]/x86.eon

When you see the mesg press ctrl-alt-F2, login and add your driver to /mnt/upd/kernel/drv. When done, ctrl-alt-F1 to switch back, login and press enter to complete updimg.sh. You should then have a new image with your added drivers.

Method 3: Get the current EON build kit and opensolaris DVD image and build your own appliance, including the needed drivers. This will require a working opensolaris install (snv_98 or higher, others should work) to run imgsol.sh. I will ask Al at Genunix to host these plus the 64 bit versions. I will add the rtls nic to the 64 bit image.

Using webmin to administer your EON NAS

Using webmin to administer your EON ZFS NAS is fairly simple. You can get and learn more about webmin here. The Solaris package was used in this example setup.

After being downloaded. Note this step has to be run on a system that has a working pkgtrans.

pkgtrans webmin-1.450.pkg /tmp all

This converted the package from a data stream to file system format and produced the directory containing the package in file system format.
/tmp/WSwebmin

I then created the following directories on my zpool:

mkdir pool/webmin
mkdir pool/varwebmin

then I symlinked the following:

cd /etc ; ln -s ../abyss/webmin webmin
cd /var ; ln -s ../abyss/varwebmin webmin
cd /opt ; ln -s ../abyss/WSwebmin/reloc webmin
cd /var/log ; ln -s ../../abyss/bandwidth bandwidth

finally, cd /opt/webmin (this is only needed once)

cd /opt/webmin
./postinstall

and to start

cd /etc/webmin
./start

Here's quick capture of the session:

Screenshot of running processesHere you can see the 500MB ZFS swapService Management Facility

Adding ZFS swap to EON

Adding a ZFS swap, sized to your liking with EON is easy once you have built a zpool. This is very HIGHLY recommended for performance reasons. Doing so will also make it possible to run update image (updimg.sh) on systems that do not have enough memory(systems that freeze in the midst of updimg.sh). A good size for starters are 1.0X, 1.5X and 2.0X RAM. After your zpool is built, simply do

zfs create -V 1G pool/swap

This will build a 1G swap(in this case it's named swap, but could be named to your preference). Then simply add the following to /mnt/eon0/.exec to auto mount at boot

/usr/sbin/swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/pool/swap

Optional: You can also add it to /etc/vfstab but this would require running updimg.sh to preserve the changes.

echo "/dev/zvol/dsk/pool/swap - - swap - no -" >> /etc/vfstab

Please note the flexibility here. Let's say you need 2Gb of swap instead of the previous 1Gb. Simply:

swap -d /dev/zvol/dsk/pool/swap
zfs destroy pool/swap
zfs create -V 2G pool/swap
swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/pool/swap

Your new, improved and resized swap is ready!

Easy EON storage setup

To answer some recent questions:
- Can I set the my own hostname? Yes for USB/CF installs
- Will my changes survive a reboot? Yes for USB/CF installs