Workshop

Session Title: OpenSolaris Workshop (2 hours)

Problem Statement: Why switch? What's better? Why another open source operating system?
Audience(s): All
Author: Brian Leonard

Key Messages

OpenSolaris offers some powerful features that you don't find in Linux
These advantages will cause you to consider switching to OpenSolaris.

Abstract

At first glance, you may mistake OpenSolaris for any other Linux distro. It uses GNOME for its desktop and GNU utilities such as sudo and top work as expected. However, as you dig deeper you'll find some nice surprises - a truly granular security framework, a service management facility that replaces antiquated rc*.d scripts, a dynamic tracing utility with incredible insight and a a new file system that is utterly refreshing. In this hands-on-workshop we'll cover the following:

The OpenSolaris you already know
- GNOME
- GNU Utilities
The OpenSolaris you want to know
- RBAC
- SMF
- DTrace
- ZFS w/ TimeSlider
The OpenSolaris you need to know
- IPS
- Networking
- The Innovation Continues

Slides

Exercises

These are the exercises for this workshop.

Outline

#	Topic	Minutes	Exercise	Speaker Notes	Comments
1	The OpenSolaris You Already Know	10	GNOME Destop, GNU Utilities sudo and top.	Because OpenSolaris uses the GNOME Desktop and the GNU utilities are first on the path, the transition to OpenSolaris is a smooth one.
2	The OpenSolaris You Want Know	5	None	You're here in this workshop for a reason - you've heard lots of cool things about the technologies in OpenSolaris. Over the next 75 minutes will look at some of these key technologies.
3	RBAC (users & roles)	20	To be created	In Linux you have sudo, in Windows you have Administrator privileges, in OpenSolaris things are controlled via Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). RBAC has Authorizaions, Rights profiles, Roles, and Users. By default there is no root userid created when OpenSolaris is installed, but you can become root using su. And there is pfexec.	Also explain the user_attr file and the root role. Explain why /export/home is used instead of /home.
4	SMF (system services)	15	To be created	Describe SMF and compare to rc*.d approach.
5	DTrace (observability)	20	To be created	Introduce the D language, Chime.
6	ZFS w/ Time Slider	20	To be created	Introduce pools, file systems, properties, etc. Timeslider
7	The OpenSolaris You Should Know	5	None	OpenSolaris also has some features, such as package management, that are comparible to what you'll find in Linux. Understanding the OpenSolaris approach to these features will make your transition more enjoyable.
8	IPS (Install software)	15	To be created
9	NWAM (networking)	10	To be created	Setting up a static IP address, wrangling with NWAM, ifconfig, browsing the network, NFS	http://blogs.sun.com/observatory/entry/having_nwam_under_control Also explain Solaris interfaces and working with ifconfig. Discuss future of NWAM. Service Discovery?
10	Innovation (futures)	5	None	What to expect in 2009.06 (Crossbow)