Hello, Im fairly new to the UNIX world. Although I have taken Linux admin classes, it's not enough compared on what you do at your job. I just got a new job and they want me to learn Solaris, I got some good books and I started to read, I run the commands and try to follow some basics examples. Problem is that I feel that's not enough to learn, I need to be able to break things down and put them back to work (I have Solaris on a VB and a real server at work to play with).
I'd like to ask what projects or learning paths should I take to start learning Solaris, Someone recommended to do a file server, but I'd like to know what else it's involved with the creation of it (to make it functional). Does anybody have any special projects for me to work on, that will help me to learn Solaris? ALl the books and the documentation doesn't really suggest any projects for learning.
Not sure what server(s) you currently have in production (in use for real work), but maybe try to configure the new server to be an emergency backup server?
Study a current production server to learn about it file structure, volume sizes, printers, etc... Then, layout and build the new Solaris server to be the 'same' as the original server.
Not only will this teach you the actual process and commands of Solaris, but you will learn more about one of your existing servers in the process.
Keep in mind, there are lots of things to consider beyond the basics I stated above - users, groups, privileges, disk size and configuration, printers, and so on.
Anyway, just a thought for a project that will allow you to learn while also providing a good project for the company that is paying you.
That sounds great, any suggestions in order to do that? I'll try it first on a virtualbox (so I can continually keep playing at home with). I guess there, I could add more hard drives and have a dedicated hard drive as a backup? anything that I need to know to do this?
1) determine what things you need to learn - disks and size, user list, printers
2) now determine those things
3) explore the unix commands and admin tools to determine how to recreate
4) begin experimenting with the commands on you unix box
Now, programs may not run, but you still be able to see if your logic and execution were correct.
creating a "backup" server is a great idea ... some of the things to add to joeyg's list ...
1) look at all the processes running on the "production" server and understand how they are started as well as what they are associated with and how they are configured (i.e., in solaris 8, nfs is associated with nfsd and started by /etc/rc3.d/nfs.server and some configuration could be set in /etc/inetd.conf )
2) look at the running cron jobs and understand what they do
3) think about or research how you would go about making your backup server the production server if the need arises (i.e., if the operating system is on a separate disk drive by itself with the user home directories on a different drive, a failure of the operating system drive on the production server might just require you simply take the operating system drive from the backup server and use that to replace the failed disk on the production server. you would still probably need to restore the other settings or do a full sys-unconfig on the "rebuilt" server but it would be much quicker than rebuilding the server from scratch) . think about the scenarios that your server could fail and how you are going to act in those cases or how you could minimize or alleviate the risks.
4) figure out how you could make the production server as redundant as possible while you are building your backup server. goes with item 3 above.
5) identify all the settings, necessary configuration files and directories that make your server the way it is (i.e., nis+ servers would need /var/nis/*, /etc/nsswitch.conf, /etc/passwd, /etc/group, etc. ; nfs servers need the shared directories as well as /etc/dfs/sharetab, /etc/inetd.conf, /etc/rc3.d/nfs.server, etc. ) and think about how you can quickly replicate/restore them in case of emergency
Thank you good sir, your comment it's really appreciated!!! I found a good tutorial someone posted about zfs and I have been messing around with them these past few days and it makes so much sense now. Reading without doing anything it's pretty pointless, I just want to learn everything about Solaris as much as I can because sooner or later I'm also going to have to take the certification exams.
Get a notebook and start writing things down. You're going to learn things faster than you can remember them. I spent some time last week going through my notebook and transferring the "pearls" within there to a freeform knowledgebase tool called Alex. Now I can search for things like "fiber channel ports" or "how to find the number of seconds since epoch" and it gives me that info instantly without having to leaf through my notebook. As soon as I find something new or with future possibilities, I enter in the KB.
I've only been working with Solaris for seven months so I'm certainly not a maven. I've built machines from scratch as well as from FLARs, etc., and while that teaches a lot, the best education tool has been troubleshooting and solving problems.
The second thing is to learn how to search. There's so much information out that that is so, so old and doesn't apply. On top of that, Oracle killed a lot of Sun links, so something that looks exactly like what you're looking for will lead you to the generic Oracle support home page. Do a lot of research and really pay close attention to dates of forums and docs you read. They can send you on a lot of wild goose chases.
Purchase BIll Calkins two excellent books on Solaris 10 SCSA examination and work you way through the extensive examples. This will give you a structured introduction to most of the topics you will need to administrator a Solaris system.