Automated Snapshots

My test systems don't get backed up or snapped via the SAN. So I figured I'd create zfs snapshots on a regular basis just in case.

For Solaris 10 I had a script that did this for me (including sending it to a remote machine if need be) but it was really complex and a bit of a mission for anyone other than me to figure out. For Solaris 11, there is a services that takes care of the snapshotting and scheduling for you (without the option of sending to a remote site).

It's pretty easy to install and configure as well:

1. Install the package:
• pkg install time-slider
2. Start the services
• svcadm restart dbus
• svcadm enable time-slider
3. Choose which filesystems it snaps (properties should be inherited by child filesytems)
• zfs set com.sun:auto-snapshot=true rpool/export
4. Manually exclude certain filesystems
• zfs set com.sun:auto-snapshot=false rpool/swap1
5. Enable the snap schedules you need:
• svcadm enable auto-snapshot:hourly
• svcadm enable auto-snapshot:daily

Source: http://vartmpnotes.blogspot.com/2013/03/automatic-zfs-snapshots-on-solaris-11.html

and it includes the steps for checking and modifying the frequency of the snaps, as well as how many it will keep.

I just wish there was a text only version of time-slider so that I don't have to install all the Gnome packages I'm never going to use.

Hanging Out - Not in a good way

I was configuring a new Solaris 11 zone the other day when I started getting some performance problems. Notably things would just hang. Command like prstat and top and even an ls would hang or take a very long time to complete.

The real worry was that it not only affected the zone, but the global zone too!

I could log in to extra sessions with no problem but as soon as I ran a command it would just hang. And since there was only this zone on this freshly installed global zone, I was really really worried that I had some problem with the hardware.

Luckily I did some checking first before having a well-deserved nervous breakdown (I still had 8 other zones to configure and the server is going live on Saturday!). The template I had used for creating the Solaris 11 zone was a current Solaris 10 zone template that I had modified.

More luck than reasoning made the following two settings on the zone config stand out:
limitpriv: default
scheduling-class: FSS

I cleared both settings and restarted my zone and the intermittent problems went away.


*Note to self: Investigate at a later point to understand fully.