A new update of Solaris 10 has been made available today. There are a lot of ZFS enhancements and the next-gen file system is now supported as an installable root file system. You can download it for x86 and SPARC here. Other than that there are new drivers, security enhacements, etc. Fore more information, check the what’s new page.
now boots from a ZFS boot partition, very nice. I love how Solaris is shaping up. now if only sun would push a more agressive marketing campain for their OS outside of the server world that would be great for further adoption.
Does Solaris(ZFS) support root filesystem encryption?
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/zfs-crypto/
Seems not to be in the mainline opensolaris codebase yet, so, for “production” solaris, the answer is no for now, maybe yes later.
not in this release. it is scheduled for the next solaris refresh (and i do mean Solaris not OpenSolaris)
Hi the lead developer for the ZFS Crypto project and only I can speak with authority on which releases it will be in. It is not now and never was planned for an update release of Solaris 10. It will be (baring any major disasters) in the OpenSolaris 2009.04 release. Our current integratation target is build 105 of OpenSolaris however given that I recently had to redesign how the encryption support for the ZFS Intent Log (ZIL) works I believe I won’t make that (insufficient time to complete test execution) and it is more likley we will integrate a few builds after that (but still in time for 2009.04).
The next update release of Solaris 10 is update 7 (update 6 aka 10/08 having just been released) and all code for that release needs to already have been in OpenSolaris at this time (actually about two weeks or so ago). So even if “management and marketing” wanted ZFS Crypto in S10u7 it isn’t technically possible.
To backport ZFS crypto into a Solaris 10 update would require also backporting a large number of bug fixes and projects that were integrated into the Crypto Framework that haven’t been yet been backported to Solaris 10.
Well very informative I personally don’t think it is really worth back porting just for a slew of patches and just aim to bring it into the next release which would be about 05/09 or maybe in a year or so. Baptism by fire in the open solaris release just like the ZFS advancements that I have been waiting for awhile.
Most people that chose the GA cycle are about pure stability and well proven features. Just like fedora is the testing ground for RHEL.
ZFS Booting is the killer feature of the New Solaris 10 OS and is a wall breaker for organisations that have wanted it since ZFS came out.
The only thing keeping me from using it as a desktop OS is ATI Driver support (Not suns fault, but a major key for desktop usages).
I AM currently use OpenSolaris for my homemade NAS/Media Server (using MediaTomb). 4x750GB Array. ZFS is a dream to work with. Growing a storage pool with a single command is pretty nice. It supports block level compression (which makes it fast, and efficient). I use the Nexenta Distribution.
+1 as that’s a near identical set up to mine
I also has a similar ZFS setup. 4 Samsung 500GB drives + Intel Q9450 + ATI4850. Before I got a quad core, I ran the same setup on a Intel Pentium 4 and 1GB RAM for over a year. Everything worked fine. It is FUD that ZFS requires more than 1GB RAM (SEGEDUNUM, anyone?)
The ATI4850 has a new solaris driver, that I posted on the opensolaris.org forum, “X-windows” part. You can download it from there. It works well in 2D (supporting up to 2560×1600 resolution I think), but no 3D functionality is included yet. Later when ATI releases the spec 3D will be included.
But, under Solaris I dont play 3D games, I just do work. When I want to use 3D functionality, i.e. games, I reboot into Windows XP. My work doesnt require 3D functionality, so I dont need 3D. I just need a good 2D driver, which is available now for the 4800 family.
Edited 2008-11-01 05:23 UTC
The change I really need is in this release: when you migrate a zone from one host to another and there are patchlevel differences, Solaris will make an attempt to upgrade the zone to match the global host.
I can’t wait to try it.
Suck!
Opensolaris only updates packages with their offerings
Solaris 10 used to use sunsolve for free patch coverage, Now you need a support acct to access even the patch clusters!!!
Oh the sun site at the moment seems so sluggish. Ill have to wait in till I go into work to download this release for the ZFS upgrades. Copies = 2 YAY ill have to remember to open up a console and change values when installing on my notebook again.
I wonder how long in till there are a few reviews out. Shame there are no real mention of any improvements to JDS.
MCP55 SATA drivers have had Improvements YAY..
I’m somewhat out of the loop – but what’s the current status of the Linux brandz?
Last time I checked it was still being developed.
– Gilboa
As far as I know, Linux v2.6 is still being developed. Or, I dont think there is any active development going on. It was a student that did the majority of the v2.6 work during one summer, I think. Now the basic funtionality is there, people have run CentOS v5 and Ubuntu v7 in BrandZ with various success:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/brandz/todo/linux_2_6/
… Umm. I was hoping to hear that this feature will be heavily developed and fully supported
– Gilboa