Solaris

Hi Folks,

I've been presented with an unexpected problem and I'm not sure if I can resolve it without some input from people.

I have on this site 3 license servers running Solaris, one at;

Code:

SunOS xxxxxx 5.8 Generic_117350-08 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-5_10

One at;

Code:

SunOS yyyyyy 5.7 Generic_106541-05 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-5_10

And one at;

Code:

SunOS zzzzzz 5.6 Generic_105181-21 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-250

As any of you will see they have been around a while, in reality these machines only run

Code:

lmgrd

and Netscape Server 4.0 - I can hear you all laughing now. But I'm going to continue, it is Easter Sunday after all.

My original thoughts were that I'd create a Solaris 10 or 11 virtual machine on VMWare and then run the three licence servers as zones, as I could have explicitly set the hostid within the zone. However my trusted leaders have expressly prohibited "virtuals within virtuals", I have done some prliminary testing and that seems to work OK - the setting the hostid bit.

These licenses were "Perpetual Licences", costing $100K per seat - however it would seem that the perpetual refered the life of the original company granting them not the user! So it is not possible to have the licence files regenerated for some of the applications hence the issue. Add to that that this cheapskate outfit doesn't have support with any of our vendors, some of you I'm sure will understand.

I have tried the instructions here but to no avail, although it does change the hostid - the hostid command sees an invalid id as it would appear that the code in the example only works for a hostid starting with zero.

So these are hopefully going to be moved to virtual machines like this, I think that I have all the x86 binaries required.

Code:

SunOS aaaaaa 5.11 11.1 i86pc i386 i86pc

I've not really had a problem like this before, especially with the intransigent management refusing to take the advice offered.

Anyone have any ideas - other than find an other employer

MTIA Gull04

I've read your post a few times but still don't quite understand what you are trying to achieve. You have 3 SPARCs but also mention x86 platforms???

You want to change the hostid on a Solaris base (global) zone on what?

If you're moving from SPARC to x86, do you have the 'lmgrd' x86 binary?

Did you try specifying hostid in the zonecfg prompt?

Code:

set hostid=<your host id>

Hi Folks,

Sorry for any confusion on this one, just to clarify a bit here is some more information.

@hicksd8

The current systems are Sparc systems, they are being virtualised on an x86 platform. So yes I need to change the hostid in the Global to be what it was on the original server.

I do have the x86 binaries, however many of the licences require a specific hostid.

The original intention was to virtualise these systems in zones, which would work just fine - however as the global will be a virtual running under VMWare this approach has been expressly forbiden.

@bartus11,

That is the approach I had originally intended, just use the "set hostid=XXXXXXXX" in zonecfg. But I'm not being allowed to do that, as the use of "virtualisation within virtualisation" is out!

Regards

Gull04

Right, I understand the situation. I have had many a confrontation with lmgrd, etc.

I published the code for changing the hostid on Solaris 10 x86 on this forum sometime ago:

Change hostID of Solaris 10 virtual/guest machine installed by Virtual Box 4.1.12 on Windows-XP host

The problem is that (1) I have never tested this code on Solaris 11, and (2) I have never been able to get a licence file from SPARC platform to work on a x86 platform; I've always assumed that they must be cut differently.

Therefore no stock answer I'm afraid but perhaps some information to allow you to research further. It would help us if you determine answers to (1) or (2) above so please do post back your progress.

Hi Folks,

Just a quick update - here is the code that I ended up with - it does work on Solaris 11.1 I have hard coded the hostid I wanted "80b6400d" into the script - I'll post the whole script when I complete it.

Code:

ascii=`echo $((0x80b6400d)) | od -t x1 | head -1 | cut -f2-100 -d" "`
echo "hw_serial/v "${ascii:0:$((${#ascii}-2))}"00 0" | mdb -kw
echo "hostid is now set to: "`hostid`;echo " "

Excellent pointer @hicksd8 - Thank you very much.

gull04

@gull04............this is fantastic thanks.......
I would normally check out the forum profile of the OP but being Easter I couldn't be bothered. I didn't realise you were a major community contributor!!!

It's great when we pro's answer novice's questions and learn from each other, but just giving a pointer to a pro and have him create really useful new knowledge (ie, it works on Solaris 11) is fantastic. Thanks again.

This is why this forum is just the best!