Testing Nexenta (GNUSolaris, Elatte) in Parallels
Nexenta is a GNU/Solaris distribution, built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel, licensed by Sun. The distribution is based in Debian, and already worked quite well when I tested it more than a year ago, using the LiveCD. It has improved since, and now has ZFS support, so I decided to give it another try.
The installation does not work using an ISO image in Parallels. It will crash after the Loading Nexenta message, restarting the installation constantly.
I recorded it to a rewritable DVD and voilà!
The installation is similar to a non-graphical Linux one, like Debian. If you don't want any special partition layout, you can pretty much let it install by default.
You can play with the extremely difficult bundled Tetris while the installation finishes. Note the message at the right: Won't give you this one. Damn!
After installation, the X Window System starts but the resolution is somehow wrong, and you can't see a thing. And you can't change to non-graphical interface either.
I solved this by doing a nmap sweep of the network assigned by Parallels. In my case:
$ nmap -v -v 10.211.55.0/24
Discovered 2 hosts. One is the Mac host, and the other is Nexenta.
Luckily Nexenta enabled sshd by default. And a Samba server?
Log in using the user created during the installation.
$ ssh daniel@10.211.55.4
daniel@solaris:~$ uname -a
SunOS solaris 5.11 NexentaOS_20070402 i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris
Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to fix the X Window Server:
Remove wacom drivers (those in InputDevice). And be sure to remove the includes at the bottom (ServerLayout).
For the mouse to work, remove the Protocol line, and the CorePointer option, if present. Leave it this way:
Vesa works nicely in Parallels. Leave Monitor default.
Screen looks like this:
This is what ServerLayout should contain:
Kill gdm to restart:
root@solaris:/etc/X11# ps -Af |grep gdmgreeter
root@solaris:/etc/X11# kill -9 3246
And we are in.
ZFS. Yay!
The installation does not work using an ISO image in Parallels. It will crash after the Loading Nexenta message, restarting the installation constantly.
I recorded it to a rewritable DVD and voilà!
The installation is similar to a non-graphical Linux one, like Debian. If you don't want any special partition layout, you can pretty much let it install by default.
You can play with the extremely difficult bundled Tetris while the installation finishes. Note the message at the right: Won't give you this one. Damn!
After installation, the X Window System starts but the resolution is somehow wrong, and you can't see a thing. And you can't change to non-graphical interface either.
I solved this by doing a nmap sweep of the network assigned by Parallels. In my case:
$ nmap -v -v 10.211.55.0/24
Discovered 2 hosts. One is the Mac host, and the other is Nexenta.
Scanning 2 hosts [1697 ports/host]
Host 10.211.55.2 appears to be up ... good.
Host 10.211.55.4 appears to be up ... good.
Host 10.211.55.2 appears to be up ... good.
Host 10.211.55.4 appears to be up ... good.
Luckily Nexenta enabled sshd by default. And a Samba server?
Interesting ports on 10.211.55.4:
Not shown: 1690 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
111/tcp open rpcbind
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
587/tcp open submission
4045/tcp open lockd
Log in using the user created during the installation.
$ ssh daniel@10.211.55.4
daniel@solaris:~$ uname -a
SunOS solaris 5.11 NexentaOS_20070402 i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris
Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to fix the X Window Server:
Remove wacom drivers (those in InputDevice). And be sure to remove the includes at the bottom (ServerLayout).
For the mouse to work, remove the Protocol line, and the CorePointer option, if present. Leave it this way:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
EndSection
Vesa works nicely in Parallels. Leave Monitor default.
Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection
Screen looks like this:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This is what ServerLayout should contain:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection
Kill gdm to restart:
root@solaris:/etc/X11# ps -Af |grep gdmgreeter
root 3256 673 0 23:32:47 pts/1 0:00 grep gdmgreeter
gdm 3246 3236 2 23:32:00 ? 0:02 /usr/lib/gdm/gdmgreeter
gdm 3246 3236 2 23:32:00 ? 0:02 /usr/lib/gdm/gdmgreeter
root@solaris:/etc/X11# kill -9 3246
And we are in.
ZFS. Yay!
root@solaris:/export/home/daniel# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
home 36.3M 22.4G 36.2M /export/home
root@solaris:/export/home/daniel# df -h
Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0d0s0 7.9G 1.8G 6.0G 24% /
/devices 0K 0K 0K 0% /devices
/dev 0K 0K 0K 0% /dev
ctfs 0K 0K 0K 0% /system/contract
proc 0K 0K 0K 0% /proc
mnttab 0K 0K 0K 0% /etc/mnttab
swap 409M 588K 408M 1% /etc/svc/volatile
objfs 0K 0K 0K 0% /system/object
/usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
7.9G 1.8G 6.0G 24% /lib/libc.so.1
fd 0K 0K 0K 0% /dev/fd
swap 408M 12K 408M 1% /tmp
swap 408M 164K 408M 1% /var/run
home 22G 36M 22G 1% /export/home
