For those of you who've been wondering what happened to the SDcard work...
The technical work finished quite a while ago. However, due to some vague language in the disclaimers associated with the SDcard simplified specifications, Sun has decided it is best if we are a member and have a full license to the SDcard specifications (although only the simplified specs were used in its development.)
Of course, this got the lawyers involved in reviewing license agreements and membership agreements, and purchasing machinery engaged, since there is now a transfer of funds involved. (The funds transfers have already been approved.)
The very last hurdle to having this stuff in OpenSolaris is clearing the hurdles with the legal group (and the latest is some concern about trademark rules associated with the SDcard org.) Once we get those final hurdles cleared, hopefully I'll be able to putback the code.
And yes, its all Open Source -- CDDL. Watch for in build 90 (hopefully).
(The rule that any time you involve lawyers in a project, take your original time estimate, double it, and move to the next largest unit of measurement has just about held true in this particular case.)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Five-seven
This week (Tuesday and Wednesday) my father took my 8-year old daughter to Joshua Tree National Park to do some rock climbing. She'd done some simpler climbing before, briefly, a few years ago, and had enjoyed it. (Of course, she did awesome, and everyone around seemed quite impressed by her awesome instincts. Watching her route-find, and use hand holds and moves with flexibility that I can only dream about being able to do was very, very cool.)
The added bonus here was that I was invited to go along as well -- I had never been rock climbing before, and I was anxious to try it myself. (Dad's been climbing for about two years now, and talking about it pretty much continuously since -- now I think I know why.) It was awesome! First off Joshua Tree National Park is absolutely amazing... and it's only about 90 minutes away by car from where I live -- I can't believe I've been missing out on this. (Even if you don't rock climb, there are some beautiful hikes, world-class rock scrabbling -- which is basically half-way between climbing and hiking -- no rope required -- usually, and the natural beauty of the place is astonishing.)
But what was really cool was the climbing. Over two days, we did a number of different climbs (all top-rope climbs), varying from about 5.4 to 5.7. (This is a scale of difficulty, which is too much to explain here.) Prior to the 5.6 and 5.7 climbs, I recall looking up with butterflies in my stomach thinking, "I'm going to climb what? Surely you jest!" (Looking for a foothold on a vertical face, that might be less than a quarter inch wide... and then actually being able to use it to hold your entire weight... well you've got to try it to believe it. Climbing shoes stick like glue.)
During the climb, the butterflies completely vanished, and I was able to focus on getting the job done. (Probably because I never looked further down than my next foothold...)
The best part, after having done it, was the endorphin high at the top, having actually done the climb without giving up, and without actually falling (though a fall is only a couple of inches with a belayed top-rope). Its a huge sense of achievement. To anyone who's not tried this before, I highly recommend it.
Yeah, I'll be going back. It was cool out-climbing Dad (gee, wonder where I got that competitve gene) on the final 5.7, but I'm disappointed that I didn't try one of the 5.9 routes he did on the first day, and I definitely want to go back and do the multi-pitch climb that we turned back on after Brandy got an understandable case of the jitters and chills. (Hanging out on a windy ledge about nearly 100 vertical feet up, knowing that there were three more pitches to go, I certainly sympathized with her sudden onset of acrophobia.)
The added bonus here was that I was invited to go along as well -- I had never been rock climbing before, and I was anxious to try it myself. (Dad's been climbing for about two years now, and talking about it pretty much continuously since -- now I think I know why.) It was awesome! First off Joshua Tree National Park is absolutely amazing... and it's only about 90 minutes away by car from where I live -- I can't believe I've been missing out on this. (Even if you don't rock climb, there are some beautiful hikes, world-class rock scrabbling -- which is basically half-way between climbing and hiking -- no rope required -- usually, and the natural beauty of the place is astonishing.)
But what was really cool was the climbing. Over two days, we did a number of different climbs (all top-rope climbs), varying from about 5.4 to 5.7. (This is a scale of difficulty, which is too much to explain here.) Prior to the 5.6 and 5.7 climbs, I recall looking up with butterflies in my stomach thinking, "I'm going to climb what? Surely you jest!" (Looking for a foothold on a vertical face, that might be less than a quarter inch wide... and then actually being able to use it to hold your entire weight... well you've got to try it to believe it. Climbing shoes stick like glue.)
During the climb, the butterflies completely vanished, and I was able to focus on getting the job done. (Probably because I never looked further down than my next foothold...)
The best part, after having done it, was the endorphin high at the top, having actually done the climb without giving up, and without actually falling (though a fall is only a couple of inches with a belayed top-rope). Its a huge sense of achievement. To anyone who's not tried this before, I highly recommend it.
Yeah, I'll be going back. It was cool out-climbing Dad (gee, wonder where I got that competitve gene) on the final 5.7, but I'm disappointed that I didn't try one of the 5.9 routes he did on the first day, and I definitely want to go back and do the multi-pitch climb that we turned back on after Brandy got an understandable case of the jitters and chills. (Hanging out on a windy ledge about nearly 100 vertical feet up, knowing that there were three more pitches to go, I certainly sympathized with her sudden onset of acrophobia.)
Congrats to the new OGB
The results of the OpenSolaris 2008 ballot are in -- congratulations to the members-elect. It looks like a solid group of folks, and I am encouraged for the new year! (On a side node, I'd like to have seen a bit more representation from non-Sun employees, but the elected members are all folks I believe have a high level of integrity, and will serve the community's interests well.)
Monday, March 10, 2008
I voted!
I just recorded my vote in OpenSolaris. If you're a Core Contributor, please go to poll.opensolaris.org for instructions to register your vote!
For the curious, I voted FOR the two amendments, and my priority list is for a public bug system, public RTI system, SPARC build farm, x64 build farm, and to clean up inactive CGs.
I am not reporting my OGB selections, other than to say that it included a mix of candidates from Sun and non-Sun candidates, and included some former OGB/CAB members, and some fresh faces.
For the curious, I voted FOR the two amendments, and my priority list is for a public bug system, public RTI system, SPARC build farm, x64 build farm, and to clean up inactive CGs.
I am not reporting my OGB selections, other than to say that it included a mix of candidates from Sun and non-Sun candidates, and included some former OGB/CAB members, and some fresh faces.
Friday, March 7, 2008
return of iwk
Owners of laptops with Intel 4965 802.11n hardware will be glad to know, iwk has returned. Hopefully, all the legal confusion is sorted out properly this time, so it should be here to stay. For very small technical changes, there was a lot of work involved to make this happen, and a big thank-you to everyone who got it done, and to the community who've been patient with us while we made sure we were Doing The Right Thing.
Now I just need to get one of my own.
Now I just need to get one of my own.
Monday, February 4, 2008
What me, impulsive? Nah....
Well at least I'm not the only one in my household. But it can be really fun. The past week has been a great example of this.
For our 4th anniversary last month, my wife and I bought a 56 gallon freshwater setup. At the time we had a 10 gallon setup and 2.5 gallon that we were using to house babies from our livebearers. (Platy/swordtail hybrids, I think.)
That was about 3 weeks ago.
Today, we have a 46 gallon bow front, a 20 gallon, and another 10 gallon. Plus the 56 gallon and original 10 gallon tank. (Now both my of my daughters have their own 10g freshwater setup, the wife has the 46 g for her community ... mostly she wants a home for more more mollies and a peacock eel, but also probably some angels and a few red-eye tetras.)
The pet store had a sale. We uhm, went a little crazy. (A complete 20G freshwater setup was only $40.)
The 56 gallon display tank (24" tall) got converted to saltwater. This is my first marine tank. I only got it filled up last night. (And let me tell you, at about $5/lb, live rock is expensive. Between live rock, live sand, and water -- 89 cents/gallon, I've already spent about $300, and I've not even put any fish in it yet! That doesn't include the tank and equipment of course.) The setup is going to be a FOWLR (fish-only with live rock) tank.
To really get the full picture though, you need to picture me standing out in the cold wind and rain, in wet jeans, barefoot, hosing the 56 gallon out to make sure I've flushed out any freshwater bacteria properly. I must be half nuts. But Debbie came out and helped me, so I'm not the only one.
What is really cool is that my wife has had as much fun with this as I have. I am fortunate indeed to be married to a woman who enjoys so many of the same things I do.
Now we just need to wait.... and wait... and wait.... (New salt water tanks need to "cycle" for about 3-4 weeks before adding fish.)
For our 4th anniversary last month, my wife and I bought a 56 gallon freshwater setup. At the time we had a 10 gallon setup and 2.5 gallon that we were using to house babies from our livebearers. (Platy/swordtail hybrids, I think.)
That was about 3 weeks ago.
Today, we have a 46 gallon bow front, a 20 gallon, and another 10 gallon. Plus the 56 gallon and original 10 gallon tank. (Now both my of my daughters have their own 10g freshwater setup, the wife has the 46 g for her community ... mostly she wants a home for more more mollies and a peacock eel, but also probably some angels and a few red-eye tetras.)
The pet store had a sale. We uhm, went a little crazy. (A complete 20G freshwater setup was only $40.)
The 56 gallon display tank (24" tall) got converted to saltwater. This is my first marine tank. I only got it filled up last night. (And let me tell you, at about $5/lb, live rock is expensive. Between live rock, live sand, and water -- 89 cents/gallon, I've already spent about $300, and I've not even put any fish in it yet! That doesn't include the tank and equipment of course.) The setup is going to be a FOWLR (fish-only with live rock) tank.
To really get the full picture though, you need to picture me standing out in the cold wind and rain, in wet jeans, barefoot, hosing the 56 gallon out to make sure I've flushed out any freshwater bacteria properly. I must be half nuts. But Debbie came out and helped me, so I'm not the only one.
What is really cool is that my wife has had as much fun with this as I have. I am fortunate indeed to be married to a woman who enjoys so many of the same things I do.
Now we just need to wait.... and wait... and wait.... (New salt water tanks need to "cycle" for about 3-4 weeks before adding fish.)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Brussels putback
This post discusses the 2nd flag-day putback yesterday, which is Brussels (phase I). Brussels also changes the way NIC drivers are administered, but it is focused on simplifying and centralizing the administration of network driver tunables -- these are the values used to tune the device itself, or in some cases, the link layer properties. The most common of these tunables are the values associated with duplex and link speed settings.
Historically these values have been configured with ndd(1M) or driver.conf(4). Many people know how I feel about those methods, but let me just reiterate: "ndd must die!" (And driver.conf, as well.)
The Brussels putback represents another opportunity for community members interested in kernel programming though. A lot of these NIC drivers need to be converted to use the property access methods that Brussels offers, and have the ndd support ioctls removed. (And yes, I strongly desire to see the ndd(1M) ioctl support removed from drivers. A follow-on phase for Brussels will offer ndd compatibility at the Brussels layer.)
Brussels provided a conversion of bge(7d), but many other NIC drivers remain. I plan on converting my two drivers, afe(7d) and mxfe(7d), as well as a few drivers that are still closed source (iprb(7d) and rtls(7d)). But there remain many others. And conversion of a driver to support Brussels is just the sort of bite-sized task that is great for learning how to develop in the kernel. Some possible drivers to convert are sfe(7d), rge(7d), and nge(7d). If you're interested in working on one of those, let me know (you need the hardware, though!)
Historically these values have been configured with ndd(1M) or driver.conf(4). Many people know how I feel about those methods, but let me just reiterate: "ndd must die!" (And driver.conf, as well.)
The Brussels putback represents another opportunity for community members interested in kernel programming though. A lot of these NIC drivers need to be converted to use the property access methods that Brussels offers, and have the ndd support ioctls removed. (And yes, I strongly desire to see the ndd(1M) ioctl support removed from drivers. A follow-on phase for Brussels will offer ndd compatibility at the Brussels layer.)
Brussels provided a conversion of bge(7d), but many other NIC drivers remain. I plan on converting my two drivers, afe(7d) and mxfe(7d), as well as a few drivers that are still closed source (iprb(7d) and rtls(7d)). But there remain many others. And conversion of a driver to support Brussels is just the sort of bite-sized task that is great for learning how to develop in the kernel. Some possible drivers to convert are sfe(7d), rge(7d), and nge(7d). If you're interested in working on one of those, let me know (you need the hardware, though!)
Clearview/UV putback
Folks watching Nevada putbacks will have noticed at least 3 flag days in the past 24 hours. I want to take a second to talk about the first of them. (I'll talk about the second in a follow up post.)
The first, Clearview/UV, is about providing GLDv3-like features to legacy NIC drivers, and about providing friendlier names to device drivers. I will confess that I've not had a chance to play with any of these features yet, but I think that they are likely to be one of the more important putbacks to OpenSolaris this year. This putback fundamentally changes network administration by offering the ability to use "logical naming" for network device drivers.
The other important thing here is that some folks may believe that the Nemo Unification offered by Clearview/UV means that those legacy drivers don't need to be converted. This is not true. Conversion to GLDv3 still offers significant and tangible benefits to network device drivers:
Folks that want help with such a conversion should contact me.
The first, Clearview/UV, is about providing GLDv3-like features to legacy NIC drivers, and about providing friendlier names to device drivers. I will confess that I've not had a chance to play with any of these features yet, but I think that they are likely to be one of the more important putbacks to OpenSolaris this year. This putback fundamentally changes network administration by offering the ability to use "logical naming" for network device drivers.
The other important thing here is that some folks may believe that the Nemo Unification offered by Clearview/UV means that those legacy drivers don't need to be converted. This is not true. Conversion to GLDv3 still offers significant and tangible benefits to network device drivers:
- Performance. The translation layer that Clearview provides adds a performance hit for legacy drivers. Its also the case that legacy NIC drivers are unable to benefit from several of the performance benefits that GLDv3 offered (direct function calls, mblk chaining, etc.)
- Full VLAN support. Legacy drivers that don't support the undocumented VLAN features aren't able to offer full size VLAN frames. VLANs still work, but you have to shrink your MTU by 4 bytes.
- Certain upcoming GLDv3/Crossbow features. Legacy drivers won't be able to take advantage of upcoming features in GLDv3 from Crossbow. These include various interrupt mitigation techniques and multiple hardware ring support.
Folks that want help with such a conversion should contact me.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
making good on a promise (Velocity Networks == bad)
My former Internet service provider, OChosting, was recently purchased by a much larger company, Velocity Networks.
As part of that acquisition, they moved my e-mail to some more central server. However, they screwed it up really really badly. The DNS MX records for my domain pointed to an old server, but the CNAME I was using for IMAP was pointing to the old one. The helpdesk was completely useless/powerless to fix the DNS records. (As part of this they were transitioning the old systems to a new management system, ala CPanel, as well. The helpdesk people were only able to deal with accounts that had been transitioned.
Finally I told them they'd not only lose my business, but I'd post my negative experiences here if they didn't get someone to help me quickly. That much they did. But ultimately, the promise that DNS records would clear up when caches flushed never materialized. Two weeks later their servers are still giving out incorrect DNS information. I've been able to access my e-mail by manually editing my /etc/hosts file, supplying a workaround IP address. (I have noticed that their IMAP server has gotten significantly slower since the transition as well. It can take up to 2-3 seconds to delete a message sometimes. Typically it takes about 1 second for the IMAP delete to occur. On my other servers IMAP deletes appear to be "instantaneous".) This doesn't work well for my wife though, and I'm fed up with trying to force feed these guys a clue.
I will point out that I was paying these bozos over $20/month for very modest hosting needs, which is 2-3x the typical market rate. And I'd been doing this for about the last 5 years, with nary a service call in the interim.
Anyway, now I'm making good on my original promise to them.
Anyway, I've been able to recover all my old e-mails (at least the ones that didn't bounce, and who knows how many of those occured!), and I've given my business to Bluehost as of about two days ago. So far, it seems to be going quite well. My e-mail performance seems to be good, and the software they have deployed for CPanel is a bit more sensible as well. (For one, they seem to understand the problem of matching TLS/SSL certificates to hostnames when used for IMAP or SMTP.) I'm also paying $7.95 a month (full year paid in advance) instead of $19.95, and my disk and throughput quotas are much much higher (not that I need them).
I would strongly urge folks considering ISPs to avoid Velocity Networks or any of their affiliates if at all possible. My experience is that they are clueless, and their helpdesk staff are completely hobbled by a combination of restrictions on what they can perform and their own lack of ability.
A big kudos to Bluehost, as well.
As part of that acquisition, they moved my e-mail to some more central server. However, they screwed it up really really badly. The DNS MX records for my domain pointed to an old server, but the CNAME I was using for IMAP was pointing to the old one. The helpdesk was completely useless/powerless to fix the DNS records. (As part of this they were transitioning the old systems to a new management system, ala CPanel, as well. The helpdesk people were only able to deal with accounts that had been transitioned.
Finally I told them they'd not only lose my business, but I'd post my negative experiences here if they didn't get someone to help me quickly. That much they did. But ultimately, the promise that DNS records would clear up when caches flushed never materialized. Two weeks later their servers are still giving out incorrect DNS information. I've been able to access my e-mail by manually editing my /etc/hosts file, supplying a workaround IP address. (I have noticed that their IMAP server has gotten significantly slower since the transition as well. It can take up to 2-3 seconds to delete a message sometimes. Typically it takes about 1 second for the IMAP delete to occur. On my other servers IMAP deletes appear to be "instantaneous".) This doesn't work well for my wife though, and I'm fed up with trying to force feed these guys a clue.
I will point out that I was paying these bozos over $20/month for very modest hosting needs, which is 2-3x the typical market rate. And I'd been doing this for about the last 5 years, with nary a service call in the interim.
Anyway, now I'm making good on my original promise to them.
Anyway, I've been able to recover all my old e-mails (at least the ones that didn't bounce, and who knows how many of those occured!), and I've given my business to Bluehost as of about two days ago. So far, it seems to be going quite well. My e-mail performance seems to be good, and the software they have deployed for CPanel is a bit more sensible as well. (For one, they seem to understand the problem of matching TLS/SSL certificates to hostnames when used for IMAP or SMTP.) I'm also paying $7.95 a month (full year paid in advance) instead of $19.95, and my disk and throughput quotas are much much higher (not that I need them).
I would strongly urge folks considering ISPs to avoid Velocity Networks or any of their affiliates if at all possible. My experience is that they are clueless, and their helpdesk staff are completely hobbled by a combination of restrictions on what they can perform and their own lack of ability.
A big kudos to Bluehost, as well.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
live upgrade rocks
Trying to build the latest tree, I ran into the problem that my build machine is downrev (its b74.) So I had to update to 77 to get the latest tree to build.
For any other OS, or in past days for Solaris, this would be a major crisis, incurring numerous hours of downtime. (Or I could use bfu.) But I decided to finally try out live upgrade.
I had an ISO image of b77 stored on a local zfs filesystem (along with all my critical data). When I had installed this system, I had set it up with a spare empty slice matching the / slice in size, in anticipation of one day trying out live upgrade. Boy am I glad I did.
All I had to do was a few commands:
# lucreate -n b77 -m /:/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3:ufs
(Wait about 20 minutes.)
# lofiadm -a /data/isos/sol-nv-b77-sx86.iso
# mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# luupgrade -u -n b77 -s /mnt
(Wait another 20-30 minutes.)
# luactivate b77
# init 6
(That last step confused me. I tried "reboot" a few times, before I actually read the output from luactivate to realize that you CANNOT USE REBOOT.)
All in all, the total downtime was the cost of a single reboot. (Well, several in my case, but that's because I didn't follow the instructions and used the wrong reboot command. Doh!)
Total time to upgrade took less time than it took to download the iso in the first place. Using lofi and zfs made this even more painless. Yay. And now I'll never be afraid to upgrade Solaris again. Had this been Windows or Linux I was trying to upgrade, I'd probably have had to kiss off the entire weekend dealing with fallout, etc.
A big kudos to the LU team. (And shame on me for not discovering this cool technology in Solaris earlier... its been around since Solaris 10u1, at least.)
For any other OS, or in past days for Solaris, this would be a major crisis, incurring numerous hours of downtime. (Or I could use bfu.) But I decided to finally try out live upgrade.
I had an ISO image of b77 stored on a local zfs filesystem (along with all my critical data). When I had installed this system, I had set it up with a spare empty slice matching the / slice in size, in anticipation of one day trying out live upgrade. Boy am I glad I did.
All I had to do was a few commands:
# lucreate -n b77 -m /:/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s3:ufs
(Wait about 20 minutes.)
# lofiadm -a /data/isos/sol-nv-b77-sx86.iso
# mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
# luupgrade -u -n b77 -s /mnt
(Wait another 20-30 minutes.)
# luactivate b77
# init 6
(That last step confused me. I tried "reboot" a few times, before I actually read the output from luactivate to realize that you CANNOT USE REBOOT.)
All in all, the total downtime was the cost of a single reboot. (Well, several in my case, but that's because I didn't follow the instructions and used the wrong reboot command. Doh!)
Total time to upgrade took less time than it took to download the iso in the first place. Using lofi and zfs made this even more painless. Yay. And now I'll never be afraid to upgrade Solaris again. Had this been Windows or Linux I was trying to upgrade, I'd probably have had to kiss off the entire weekend dealing with fallout, etc.
A big kudos to the LU team. (And shame on me for not discovering this cool technology in Solaris earlier... its been around since Solaris 10u1, at least.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)