Sun Opens OpenSolaris.Org

An anonymous reader writes "Sun has launched the first version of opensolaris.org, featuring a small initial drop of source code. The idea is to make a display of good faith to the Solaris community while the rest of the source code due diligence is completed. The source code for Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) is available for download under the terms of the newly OSI-approved CDDL license."

Comments

Re:Dynamic Tracing

[nbert]

From the link provided in the article:

DTrace provides a powerful infrastructure to permit administrators, developers, and service personnel to concisely answer arbitrary questions about the behavior of the operating system and user programs.

So the answer to your question is: no, it's not useful for a "normal" user.

Re:Dynamic Tracing

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess not. Most of those weird-named technologies are only useful on multi-processor systems and servers where CPU cycles are really an issue.

False. DTrace can be used to analyze the operation of any system that runs Solaris 10, from 1 CPU to 100+. It can tell you useful information about a single thread's interaction with the system or 1000 threads' interactions with each other. It can even tell you about things that have nothing to do with either the number of CPUs or the number of threads.

One of the stories Bryan likes to tell has to do with fixing a performance bug in a piece of desktop software that has nothing whatever to do with servers at all.

It's useful.

Re:Dynamic Tracing

[illumin8]

The best place to go for this information is the well documented Dtrace FAQs.

From it, I shamelessly lifted the following brief synopsis:

Q. What is DTrace?

A. DTrace is a new facility in the Solaris Operating System that adds dynamic instrumentation and tracing to the kernel and can be used on production systems. It's a power tool that can be used by both the entry-level and experienced system administrators to diagnose and resolve problems in hours or minutes that might have previously taken days.

Q. What are the benefits of DTrace?

A. Faster resolution of performance problems for system administrators
Quicker time to market and higher quality product for developers
Greater utilization of existing system resources for IT managers

Q. What are the key highlights of DTrace?

A. Comprehensive coverage: over 30,000 instrumentation points in even the smallest system; integrated access to both application and kernel data
Always available: built-in with no need to reboot or otherwise reconfigure system, disable or alter applications, or disable user/client access
Safe: cannot panic system and has no impact on the system when not being used
Enable only the trace points you need
Analyzes data in real time on production systems
Extensible as new analysis routines can be built for re-use using the D programming language

Q. What is the performance overhead of DTrace?

A. When not in use, DTrace has no impact on system performance or other behavior. When being used, DTrace overhead is dependent on the number of probe points being observed.

Q. How does Sun's DTrace compare with competitive offerings?

A. DTrace is the only dynamic tracing tool available that eliminates the need for collecting and processing event data. With DTrace a system administrator can query the system experiencing the problem in real time, while in production, and get accurate and precise information regarding the source of the problem. No log files are generated, and there is no data to analyze. This reduces the time it takes to identify and resolve problems by orders of magnitude! Literally from days to minutes.

Containers are based on software. They offer logical separation with the same OS in each Container. Containers offer enormous scalabilty: while there is no hard coded limit, upto 4000 per OS image are available and is beyond normal requirements today.

Q. Can DTrace be used without knowing the D language?

A. You can leverage scripts developed by others (such as those available on the Sun BigAdmin portal). However, it is not difficult to learn D which is very similar to the ANSI C programming language with a special set of functions and variables to make tracing easy.

Re:Thank you to the folks at Sun...

[Wesley Felter]

The real question is whether Sun's license is compatible with the GPL.

That's not a question; it is not compatible.

Re:webpage running on linux?

[dme]

Check the machine itself. It says:

Server: Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1

Blogs on souce code and DTrace

[ChrisRijk]

Bryan Cantrill, one of the DTrace developers wrote this blog entry as a general introduction to the source code layout and also to DTrace. This post by Adam Leventhal goes into some more detail.

82678 lines of C were made public. No registration, no click through license before download. The OpenSolaris FAQ is pretty good btw, and there's also a roadmap page.

According to this blog (the entry dated 15:43), those in the pilot program (more than 100 developers out side of Sun) have today gotten access to the entire Solaris source base, and have already built their own version - screen shot.

Re:Sun Compiler and Tools

[Darren.Moffat]

You can (and infact Sun does) compile Solaris with gcc. Our production AMD64 kernel and a large number of the AMD64 libraries are compiled with gcc . However the makefile assume the Sun C compiler but the build environment has a wrapper around gcc to make it look like the Sun compiler.

Re:Thank you to the folks at Sun...

[illumin8]

I was kind of under the impression that this move was masterminded by Microsoft (via the multi-billion dollar deal they had with Sun) as an attempt to fragment the Open Source community. I could be very wrong, but it seems to make the most sense that way. The real question is whether Sun's license is compatible with the GPL.

Microsoft doesn't have any control over Sun at all. You might have thought this because MS paid Sun $2 billion as part of a settlement agreement, but really, they did this because they had to and because Sun was willing to do them a favor and let them off easy. If Sun had wanted to keep fighting that fight forever, they could have, and probably would have ended up with more cash, although they might have gone out of business before any damages were won.

Believe me, folks at Sun dislike MS business tactics as much as you do.

IBM vs. Sun Patent Pledges

[augustz]

There is a big difference between the IBM and SUN patent pledges.

IBM listed a broad range of software licenses, importantly including the GPL, which means linux is covered.

Sun's license so far is limited to Solaris, or at least it looks that way, where they have contributed code under the CDDL. This means if you take a method (or read about a method) that they use in Solaris and apply it elsewhere you can still get slammed.

Not a black and white issue though, as the discerning reader will note that the GPL has not patent clause at all, so the CDDL is stronger in one sense there. Not sure if Linux is any worse off.

But it will be interesting to see how Solaris comes out as open source, incredibly it has gotten to this point for those who remember the Sun of the past (and even some of the current ranting). Losing market share is an incredible motivator it seems :) Fun stuff though, and I think pragmatism will win the day if there good stuff is delivered.