Hi,

.... first of all, I'm not a Solaris guru, so please forgive my popssibly
dumb questions. :-)

Lacking a system administrator in our company, I have the honor to install a
V210. The requirement is as follows:

- Solaris 10 with Companion CD
- /export/home all available remaining space
- Oracle 10g installed on /export/home

This V210 has 1GB of RAM.

I thought the following might be a possible candidate for disk layout:

Slice Name         Size
----- ------------ -----
  0   /             8 GB
  1   swap          4 GB
  2   (whole disk) 73 GB
  5   /opt          4 GB
  6   /tmp          4 GB
  7   /export/home 53 GB

I heard I need /var with 2 times physical memory. I heard other people say I
don't need this. So I'm not sure. What is your opinion on this?

Can one of you experts advise me on a reasonable disk layout with a single
73 GB disk? I'd very much appreciate that. Thanks very much in advance.

Also, I'm currently downloading Solaris 10. Is there a difference between
the CD and the DVD version other than that the DVD version obviously only
needs one plastic platter instead of 6 or 7 of course? ;-)
-- 
cul8er

Paul
paul.foerster@gmx.net

Paul Foerster wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> ... first of all, I'm not a Solaris guru, so please forgive my popssibly
> dumb questions. :-)
> 
> Lacking a system administrator in our company, I have the honor to install a
> V210. The requirement is as follows:
> 
> - Solaris 10 with Companion CD
> - /export/home all available remaining space
> - Oracle 10g installed on /export/home
> 
> This V210 has 1GB of RAM.
> 
> I thought the following might be a possible candidate for disk layout:
> 
> Slice Name         Size
> ----- ------------ -----
>   0   /             8 GB
>   1   swap          4 GB
>   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
>   5   /opt          4 GB
>   6   /tmp          4 GB
>   7   /export/home 53 GB
> 
> I heard I need /var with 2 times physical memory. I heard other people say I
> don't need this. So I'm not sure. What is your opinion on this?

If you want to be able to save crash dumps in /var/crash (I think that's 
where they go but I'm sure they go in /var somewhere) you need /var to 
be large enough to hold a crash dump or two plus whatever else you will 
keep there.

FWIW, the Oracle executables should live in /opt somewhere but not the 
database files themselves.

Note that repartitioning a disk after you have installed Solaris can be 
a real pain in the a**.  You want to allocate enough space in /, /opt, 
etc. to last a long time.  /tmp is usually mounted on swap but, other 
than that, your layout looks reasonable to me.

> 
> Can one of you experts advise me on a reasonable disk layout with a single
> 73 GB disk? I'd very much appreciate that. Thanks very much in advance.
> 
> Also, I'm currently downloading Solaris 10. Is there a difference between
> the CD and the DVD version other than that the DVD version obviously only
> needs one plastic platter instead of 6 or 7 of course? ;-)

/tmp which is temp filesystem will use memory as its space.
The swap size is supposed to be twice of memory, but your memory is
small, so 4GB is good.
Your hard disk is small, it is not good idea to have unnecessary
slices, such as /opt.
Your Oracle software could be installed in /oracle/product/10g. The
database data should be in seperate slice. When you install Oracle, it
will ask you where for Oracle software, where for its data.
/export/home is usually for user's default home directory.

 Slice Name         Size
 ----- ------------ -----
   0   /             20 GB
   1   swap          4 GB
   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
   7   /u01 44 GB

The total usable space for a disk of 73 GB is probably 68 GB.  Your
/var is covered by /.

Your /etc/vfstab in terms of /tmp and swap should be similar to:
#device         device          mount           FS      fsck    mount
mount
#to mount       to fsck         point           type    pass    at boot
options
#
/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1  -          -       swap    -       no      -
swap               -          /tmp    tmpfs   -       yes     -

Good luck!
Victor

On Oct 19, 8:11 am, Paul Foerster <paul.foers...@gmx.net> wrote:
> Slice Name         Size
> ----- ------------ -----
>   0   /             8 GB
>   1   swap          4 GB
>   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
>   5   /opt          4 GB
>   6   /tmp          4 GB
>   7   /export/home 53 GB

Overly complex, really.

Our standard here is just:

slice 3 - /var - 4GB
slice 1 - swap - twice the amount of ram or 4GB, whichever is smaller
slice 6 - unassigned - 25MB  (for the metadb)
slice 7 - unassigned - 25MB  (future use, in case we switch to veritas
volumes)
slice 0 - / - all remaining space


Regardless which suggestion you decide to use, I'd strongly recommend
leaving yourself 25MB on the last slice for metadb.  Even if you don't
set up mirroring now, you may want to in the future.

-- 
Andy

 Almost matched my thoughts... =)

Slice Name         Size
 ----- ------------ -----
   0   /             20 GB
   1   swap          4 GB
   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
   6   /u01 44 GB
   7          256 MB  <---- Solaris Volume Manager Metadbs.

Regards,
Daniel

victorfeng1973@yahoo.com wrote:
> /tmp which is temp filesystem will use memory as its space.
> The swap size is supposed to be twice of memory, but your memory is
> small, so 4GB is good.
> Your hard disk is small, it is not good idea to have unnecessary
> slices, such as /opt.
> Your Oracle software could be installed in /oracle/product/10g. The
> database data should be in seperate slice. When you install Oracle, it
> will ask you where for Oracle software, where for its data.
> /export/home is usually for user's default home directory.
>
>  Slice Name         Size
>  ----- ------------ -----
>    0   /             20 GB
>    1   swap          4 GB
>    2   (whole disk) 73 GB
>    7   /u01 44 GB
>
> The total usable space for a disk of 73 GB is probably 68 GB.  Your
> /var is covered by /.
>
> Your /etc/vfstab in terms of /tmp and swap should be similar to:
> #device         device          mount           FS      fsck    mount
> mount
> #to mount       to fsck         point           type    pass    at boot
> options
> #
> /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1  -          -       swap    -       no      -
> swap               -          /tmp    tmpfs   -       yes     -
> 
> Good luck!
> Victor

Hi Richard,

> If you want to be able to save crash dumps in /var/crash (I think that's
> where they go but I'm sure they go in /var somewhere) you need /var to
> be large enough to hold a crash dump or two plus whatever else you will
> keep there.
> 
> FWIW, the Oracle executables should live in /opt somewhere but not the
> database files themselves.
> 
> Note that repartitioning a disk after you have installed Solaris can be
> a real pain in the a**.  You want to allocate enough space in /, /opt,
> etc. to last a long time.  /tmp is usually mounted on swap but, other
> than that, your layout looks reasonable to me.

.... hmmm, saving crash dumps is not really necessary as this is a text
machine that will be moved away (and probably be reinstalled by another
sysadmin) anyway. But we have it for a few months so I want to do my best
here.

As for Oracle: I'm the DBA here. I know what consequences which disk layout
for Oracle has. But since it's not destined to be a production machine nor
a high performance machine, I don't care much. /opt/oracle would be a place
to install but I usually install to /export/home/oracle, i.e. the Oracle
home directory. Hence, ORACLE_HOME is
usually /export/home/oracle/product/10.2.
Be it as it may, /u01, /u02 and so on are definitely not the way to go.
People doing that have read but not understood OFA. But who am I to argue
with the rest of the world? ;-)

Daniel, Andy, I think I don't need space for a metadb. I don't even know
what it so so why allocate space for it. ;-)

Anyway, thanks very much for the info. That helped a lot. The installation
is currently running and seems to be going smoothly so far.
-- 
cul8er

Paul
paul.foerster@gmx.net

AHinMaine wrote:
> On Oct 19, 8:11 am, Paul Foerster <paul.foers...@gmx.net> wrote:
> > Slice Name         Size
> > ----- ------------ -----
> >   0   /             8 GB
> >   1   swap          4 GB
> >   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
> >   5   /opt          4 GB
> >   6   /tmp          4 GB
> >   7   /export/home 53 GB
>
> Overly complex, really.
>
> Our standard here is just:
>
> slice 3 - /var - 4GB
> slice 1 - swap - twice the amount of ram or 4GB, whichever is smaller
> slice 6 - unassigned - 25MB  (for the metadb)
> slice 7 - unassigned - 25MB  (future use, in case we switch to veritas
> volumes)
> slice 0 - / - all remaining space
>
>
> Regardless which suggestion you decide to use, I'd strongly recommend
> leaving yourself 25MB on the last slice for metadb.  Even if you don't
> set up mirroring now, you may want to in the future.
>
> --
> Andy

I agree to your point. For metadbs, there must be a minimum of three
replicas. Solaris 9's DiskSuite requires at least half of the replicas
to be present to operate smoothly. That means, in a two disks
configuration, there must be at least two replicas per disk, if he
wants to setup mirroring in the future.

In addition, we might also setup "slice 5" as unassigned for metadb. I
guess using a separate slice for /opt is a good choice. I run oracle
9iAS from /opt.

What do you think?

--
Raqueeb Hassan
Bangladesh

Paul Foerster wrote:
> this is a text
> machine that will be moved away (and probably be reinstalled by another
> sysadmin) anyway. But we have it for a few months

If those are the requirements I would install / on slice 2 and be done
with it.

In a few months when the real sizes get sorted and the machine moved
you can then worry about sizing.

OFA is a straighjacket for those afraid of movement.

..

In article <4pp8anFjhnk2U1@individual.net>,
	Paul Foerster <paul.foerster@gmx.net> writes:
> Hi,
> 
> ... first of all, I'm not a Solaris guru, so please forgive my popssibly
> dumb questions. :-)
> 
> Lacking a system administrator in our company, I have the honor to install a
> V210. The requirement is as follows:
> 
> - Solaris 10 with Companion CD
> - /export/home all available remaining space
> - Oracle 10g installed on /export/home
> 
> This V210 has 1GB of RAM.
> 
> I thought the following might be a possible candidate for disk layout:
> 
> Slice Name         Size
> ----- ------------ -----
>   0   /             8 GB
>   1   swap          4 GB
>   2   (whole disk) 73 GB
>   5   /opt          4 GB
>   6   /tmp          4 GB
>   7   /export/home 53 GB

Commenting on this...
Keep the OS separate from everything else, and create a second spare
slice for the OS which is the same as the main one. This allows you
to use live upgrade to upgrade the system. You don't need /tmp -- it's
a virtual memory filesystem which lives in memory and spills into the
swap slice as needed. (If you know some reason you want a large
dedicated temporary file area which is disk based and preserved over
reboots, that would be /var/tmp.)

So, this would give...

Slice Name         Size
----- ------------ -----
  0   /            12 GB
  1   swap          4 GB
  2   (whole disk) 73 GB
  5   (spare /)    12 GB
  7   /export/home 45 GB

If system is primarily an Oracle server, you might want to move
/export/home to the outer edge, which is the fastest part of the
disk, or even create a dedicated Oracle slice at the outer edge
if you know how big it needs to be and it isn't most of /export/home.
Conversely, swap should be rarely used (buy more memory if it is),
so you could move this to the inner slowest part. e.g.

Slice Name         Size
----- ------------ -----
  0   /db          20 GB
  1   /            12 GB
  2   (whole disk) 73 GB
  3   (spare /)    12 GB
  4   /export/home 25 GB
  5   swap          4 GB

> I heard I need /var with 2 times physical memory. I heard other people say I
> don't need this. So I'm not sure. What is your opinion on this?

Sounds like a SunOS 4 recommendation for size of swap, which does not
apply to SunOS 5 (Solaris). The things in /var which potentially use
significant space are /var/sadm (installation and patch management)
and /var/tmp.

> Also, I'm currently downloading Solaris 10. Is there a difference between
> the CD and the DVD version other than that the DVD version obviously only
> needs one plastic platter instead of 6 or 7 of course? ;-)

No difference.

-- 
Andrew Gabriel

victorfeng1973@yahoo.com wrote:
> /tmp which is temp filesystem will use memory as its space.
> The swap size is supposed to be twice of memory

Not on modern systems.

-- 
Ian Collins.

> OFA is a straighjacket for those afraid of movement.

.... OFA is Open and Flexible. The name says it all. /u01 is a 
suggestion. /opt/oracle for example is just as valid a prefix as is 
/u01. But few people know that /u01 is only a suggestion.
-- 
cul8er

Paul
paul.foerster@gmx.net

On 2006-10-21, Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> wrote:
> victorfeng1973@yahoo.com wrote:
>> /tmp which is temp filesystem will use memory as its space.
>> The swap size is supposed to be twice of memory
>
> Not on modern systems.

Let the religious wars commence!


-- 
            "Other people are not your property."
        [email me at huge [at] huge [dot] org [dot] uk]