zfs discuss - Jul 2009 - Open Solaris version recommendation? b114, b117?

We have been told we can have support for OpenSolaris finally, so we can 
move the ufs on zvol over to zfs with user-quotas.

Does anyone have any feel for the versions of Solaris that has zfs user 
quotas? We will put it on the x4540 for customers.

I have run b114 for about 5 weeks, and have yet to experience any 
problems. But b117 is what 2010/02 version will be based on, so perhaps 
that is a better choice. Other versions worth considering?

I know it''s a bit vague, but perhaps there is a known panic in a
certain
version that I may not be aware.

Lund

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Jorgen Lundman wrote:
>
> We have been told we can have support for OpenSolaris finally, so we 
> can move the ufs on zvol over to zfs with user-quotas.
>
> Does anyone have any feel for the versions of Solaris that has zfs 
> user quotas? We will put it on the x4540 for customers.
>
> I have run b114 for about 5 weeks, and have yet to experience any 
> problems. But b117 is what 2010/02 version will be based on, so 
> perhaps that is a better choice. Other versions worth considering?
>
> I know it''s a bit vague, but perhaps there is a known panic in a 
> certain version that I may not be aware.
>
> Lund
>
OpenSolaris 2008.05 is based on b86a from mid-March 2008.  Released May 
5, 2008.  Build locked in about 7 weeks before final release.
OpenSolaris 2008.11 is based on b101 from mid-October 2009.  Released 
Dec 1, 2008.  Build locked in about 6 weeks before final release.
OpenSolaris 2009.06 is based on b111 from mid-March 2009.  Released June 
1, 2009.  Build locked in about 10 weeks before final release.  Previews 
based on earlier builds were also made.

Projection, assuming the patterns above hold and the target release date 
is unchanged (I seem to recall a 6 month release schedule akin to 
Ubuntu''s to have been initially planned) :
OpenSolaris 2010.02 final will be based on b128 to b130 from 
November/December 2009.

Release schedule: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/schedule/
Dates: http://genunix.org/ and http://www.phoronix.com

It really depends on what you''re going to be doing with it.  The
project that I feel really benefits from the latest versions right now is CIFS -
there''s so much going into that it''s worth running the latest
and greatest.

We''ve been running various versions of OpenSolaris and sxce for some
time now, and apart from problems with the occasional build, it''s been
incredibly stable.  Enough that our test server running sxce_94 wound up running
quite a lot of live stuff.  We''ve had no real problems now in well over
6 months, so I consider that a pretty good sign :)

What I would say is that you should take a look at the flag days, it''s
a good way to see if there are any major changes that you would benefit from:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/

Personally I would consider any of these builds a long term test, in preparation
for 2010.02, and I would plan to upgrade regularly to keep testing things until
that arrives.  We are aiming at that being the first build we will settle on,
and by testing the latest builds, are doing everything we can to ensure that
it''s going to be stable in our environment when it arrives.

If you''re using ZFS, upgrading is very simple these days (It''s
barely 10 minutes work to do a clean install and re-import our pool), although
I''m still a little paranoid so don''t entirely trust live
update.  Instead I have two boot disks, and alternate between them for upgrades,
physically removing the known working disk before trying a new build.  I rarely
update the ZFS pool, ensuring that it gets left in a form that I know will work
on older builds.  We''ve been doing that for around a year now, and have
run builds 94, 96, 101, 104, 106, 112, 113, 114 and 117.

Despite running so many versions, we''ve had almost zero problems.  The
only real issue we''ve had have been idmap stability problems since 106.
Those have been worked around with a daily restart of that service, and I
believe are being properly fixed now anyway.  Other than that, every single
release has been fine.
>From the advice I''ve had from Sun, these days, rather than use
sxce_114 or sxce_117, I would go for OpenSolaris 2009.06, and upgrade to the
latest from the development repositories: 
http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev/en/index.shtml
These are at 117 right now, and updating is just a case of running:
$ pfexec pkg set-publisher -O http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev opensolaris.org
$ pfexec pkg image-update

That I believe gets you the closest possible environment to 2010.02, with a
simple way of upgrading the system to the latest bits for testing.

Ross
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