What's New in OpenSolaris 2009.06

Introduction

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is the latest release of the OpenSolaris Operating System, a powerful and complete operating environment for users. developers and deployers. OpenSolaris prides itself on being a secure, stable, and highly scalable system. The OpenSolaris OS is open source software, and freely re-distributable and provides all the tools users expect from a modern computing environment both installed by default and available on our online network package repositories.

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is also the first official release to come to the SPARC platform. Enjoy OpenSolaris on all Sun4v based platforms (UltraSPARC T1 and T2) and Sun4u based platforms (UltraSPARC II, III and IV) with an OBP level of 4.17 or greater. OpenSolaris for SPARC is only available as an Automated Install based image at this time.

Download OpenSolaris 2009.06 today.

What's new for administrators

Virtualize your Network with Crossbow

Project Crossbow brings network virtualization and resource management to OpenSolaris 2009.06 for the first time. Crossbow network virtualization promotes more effective sharing of network resources and enhances the ability to consolidate server workloads. Using the basic building block of Virtual Network Interface Controllers (VNICs), virtual switches and interconnects, Virtual LANs (VLANs), plus OpenSolaris routing and firewall functionality, it is possible to consolidate an entire distributed computing environment on a single system for prototyping, testing and even deployment scenarios.

Crossbow network resource management allows organizations to meet quality of service goals for networking. These management capabilities allow setting bandwidth limits on NICs/VNICs, setting traffic priorities, and assigning CPU resource limits for servicing the NICs/VNICs. This enables organizations to create OS-enforced network sharing policies.

The new architecture has many features to allow it to work more effectively with the latest generation of intelligent NICs while still maintaining compatibility with older NICs. Highlights include the ability to shift from interrupt-driven to polling mode in high volume traffic means more efficient handling of network traffic, the ability to offer Quality of Service capabilities without adding a layer of overhead and the ability to mitigate the effects of a denial of service attack by dealing with packets at the NIC level - not by paying the performance cost of bringing the packets into the OS for inspection.

For more information about the new Crossbow architecture and usage, check out opensolaris.com/networking.

Virtualization

Support for setting VLAN ID for virtual network interfaces attached to a guest domain running on a Xen hypervisor has been added. Associating a VLAN ID to an interface serving as a back end device for a guest domain can separate the guest traffic from each other, and from the dom0's traffic. virt-install can now support specifying VLAN IDs, along with setting bandwidth limits, so that traffic can be managed more precisely and with more protection.

IP Observability

OpenSolaris 2009.06 improves the area of IP observability, allowing the developer or administrator to use common packet sniffing tools such as ethereal and snoop to view all IP traffic sent on real and virtual paths. Now all traffic can be observed at the IP layer, including to and from a Solaris Container.

IP Multipathing

IPMP (IP Multipathing) attempts to insulate IP-based networking applications from changes to the underlying networking hardware on the system and the system's connectivity to the network as a whole. The re-architecture of IPMP for OpenSolaris 2009.06 provides improved network administration and observability allowing it to work transparently with all IP-based applications (including core technology such as DHCP to work seamlessly with IPMP).

iSCSI Port Provider for COMSTAR

COMSTAR is the software framework that enables the ability to turn any Solaris host into a SCSI target. The COMSTAR framework makes it possible for all SCSI device types (tape, disk, and the like) to connect to a transport (such as Fibre Channel) with concurrent access to all logical unit numbers (LUN) and a single point of management. DTrace probes have also been added to COMSTAR in the SCSI Target Mode Framework (STMF) and SCSI Block Device (SBD).

Greater Windows interoperability with OpenSolaris CIFS

OpenSolaris CIFS service now includes many new features such as host-based access control which allows a CIFS server to restrict access to specific clients by IP address, ACLs (access control lists) on shares, and client-side caching of offline files and synchronization when reconnected.

Socket Enhancements

The socket implementation on OpenSolaris has been written for OpenSolaris 2009.06 to a non-stream architecture. Historically OpenSolaris has supported streams-based sockets, and with the move to the new architecture there are significant performance improvements along with a new, simplified developer interface for adding new socket types.

HA Clusters

Open HA Cluster brings simple, thoroughly tested, and production-ready high availability features to OpenSolaris, gearing up your environment to run mission-critical application services in full confidence. Cluster your OpenSolaris 2009.06 machines and raise the bar in High Availability today. Open High Availability Cluster packages are available at https://pkg.sun.com/.

What's new for users

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3

The latest release from the Mozilla community contains some great new features like Private Browsing allowing you to browse the internet without Firefox retaining any of the data about which sites and pages you have visited. The Flash 10 Player plug-in for Firefox is available from the extra/ repository.

Time Slider Snapshot Management

Quickly back up your user home directories with a new snapshot management feature in Time Slider. Take a manual snapshot with a click of a mouse, and revert to it at a later time. Time Slider is now easier than ever to use, with improved file manager integration with the ability of viewing your snapshots for particular files and folders. See Erwann Chénedé's Blog for more details.

Multimedia With Codeina And Elisa

Codeina is a utility to allow users to install additional media plugins. GStreamer-based media applications will autodetect when users try to play a media file for which there is a plugin available from the on-line Fluendo store, and will step the user through the process of downloading and installing the plugin. Some plugins are free and some are available for a fee. Note that Fluendo plugins only work with GStreamer-based application such as Rhythmbox, Totem, Songbird, and Elisa. Note that some media players (such as RealPlayer) do not support GStreamer-based plugins or codeina.

For the first time on OpenSolaris, Elisa, the free and open source media center is now available, connecting the internet to an all-in-one media player. Watch your photos with previews and nicely animated slide shows. Browse the internet, with everything from Flickr to YouTube and other popular internet services.

To run Elisa, you will need to install the SUNWgnome-media-centerClick on this link to automatically install Elisa with Package Manager package from the repository.

Track Your Time

A new time tracking panel application has been added to help users track their time better for those involved in project work with a client. Easily create activities and start the clock. Time tracker allows you to stop the clock and walk away, change activities and view activity logs with weekly and monthly graphs to see where you've spent most of your time.

To run the time tracking panel application, you will need to install the SUNWhamsterClick on this link to automatically install time tracker panel application with Package Manager package from the repository.

Image Packaging System

IPS has had a number of improvements with this release, including a significant reduction in memory use. The introduction of multi-platform packages, also known as 'fat packages', leads to a significantly smaller footprint for those managing package repositories - why have multiple packages for different platforms when you can have just one! IPS will detect what your platform is and download what it needs!

The web front-end to package publishers (renamed from authorities in this release - for details see Shawn Walker's blog) has been refreshed with a new interface allowing you to easily browse and search through packages in a repository. Those wanting to set up their own publishers can easily theme this interface to their needs.

Package Manager

The Package Manager has received a number of improvements particularly around start-up performance and the user experience of the application. Users wishing to connect to a repository that requires an active certificate, like the extra/ repository, can now manage new publisher additions using package manager and associate their newly created certificate.

Package Manager now has a new start-up page, along with improvements to the search functionality that allows search across multiple repositories. Additionally, OpenSolaris 2009.06 brings a new MIME association (.p5i) to allow single click installs while browsing the web.

As an example, the following would be the association to install SUNWnethackClick on this link to automatically install Nethack with Package Manager -

{
  "publishers": [

    {
      "name": "opensolaris.org",
      "packages": [
        "SUNWnethack"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "version": 1
} 

Improved Hardware Support

SPARC

OpenSolaris 2009.06 comes to the SPARC platform! Now you can enjoy the benefits of OpenSolaris on all Sun4v based platforms (UltraSPARC T1 and T2) and Sun4u based platforms (UltraSPARC I, II, III and IV) with an OBP level of 4.17 or greater. Coupled with the addition of the Logical Domains (LDoms) ManagerClick on this link to automatically install Logical Domains Manager with Package Manager, enjoy virtualization of CMT platforms out of the box!

Nehalem

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is one of the first platforms to fully support Intel's new Xeon 5500 processor, codenamed 'Nehalem', with substantially increased performance, better power efficiency, improved reliability and cost effective virtualization for x64. This release brings power awareness to the thread dispatcher, allowing threads to be scheduled according to the power state of the CPU. With Nehalem's support for deep idle CPU power management, known as deep C-state, OpenSolaris can dynamically place uninitialized CPUs into a state where they consume a fraction of the power that the CPU would use in normal operation.

Laptop Support

OpenSolaris 2009.06 continues to be an excellent choice for laptops, and is even available pre-installed on the recently announced Tecra® M10 and Portégé® R600 laptops, offering you the best mobile laptop experience.

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is also a great platform on many other brands of laptop, including the growing list of netbooks, with new drivers being written for each release. Check out the HCL for OpenSolaris Laptops for 2000+ entries, and join the OpenSolaris Laptop community.

Drivers

Support for a number of new drivers has been added with this release, including the ZyDAS ZD1211/ZD1211B and Ralink RT2501/RT2601/RT73 USB wireless chip sets, and NetXen 10GigE NIC. OpenSolaris continues to expand its hardware compatibility list.

A number of new graphics cards are now supported out of the box

Graphical Boot

Starting with the OpenSolaris 2009.06 release, you can switch from the graphical boot screen to the text boot screen by pressing any key when the system boots a few seconds after the graphical boot screen appears. The ability to switch to the text boot screen can be used if you suspect that the system startup is not proceeding normally. The text screen might contain informational messages or a request for user input.

Contributing Software to OpenSolaris

Don't see your favorite open source application? Have you always wanted to do a little programming that helps others? Well, now's your chance! The OpenSolaris SourceJuicer enables you to submit spec file build recipes that make it easy to port open source software to the contrib/Click on this link to automatically add the contrib/ repository with Package Manager package repository that everyone can access. Check out the SourceJuicer contribution process, join the Software Porters Community and become a fellow Juicer!

Highlights from the contrib/Click on this link to automatically add the contrib/ repository with Package Manager repository are operaClick on this link to automatically install Opera with Package Manager the web browser, wineClick on this link to automatically install Wine with Package Manager allowing you to run Windows applications on OpenSolaris and nexuizClick on this link to automatically install Nexuiz with Package Manager the fun first person shooter game.

What's new for Developers

PHP and MySQL DTrace Probes

Along with many new updates to the OpenSolaris web stack, including MySQL 5.1, the introduction of PHP 5.2.9 also includes the addition of several DTrace probes out of the box wrapping around the Zend scripting engine, thanks to the work of Wez Furlong and David Soria Parra.

CPC DTrace Provider

The CPU Performance Counter (CPC) subsystem gives general purpose access to hardware performance counters of a microprocessor. The 'cpc' provider leverages the infrastructure provided by the CPC sybsystem to allow users to easily connect CPU events (e.g. TLB misses, L2 cache misses) to the cause of the event on a system-wide basis.

JavaFX SDK

JavaFX, a platform for creating and delivering rich internet applications, comes to OpenSolaris for the first time! The latest Java Runtime Environment (JRE) has also been included, 1.6.13. Install the JavaFX SDK 1.2 from the extra/ repository and get developing!

libc Linux/BSD Compatibility

Two new functions to the C library have been added for familiarity with Linux and BSD operating systems - asprintf() and vasprintf(). They behave as sprintf(), except that they allocate a string large enough to hold the result, and return a pointer to that string.

Git Version Control System

Git, the distributed version control system is now available in the repository. Git is a popular tool in many free and open source communities (Linux kernel development, GNOME and XOrg) to aid with distributed development with efficient handling of large software projects.

To run Git, you will need to install the SUNWgitClick on this link to automatically install Git with Package Manager package from the repository.

Internationalization

With the release of OpenSolaris 2009.06 there is now only one LiveCD ISO image to download. Performance improvements to LZMA (de)compression support in lofi, thanks to Juergen Keil, have resulted in the merge of the primary languages and global languages ISO images. Now users can enjoy support for a wide range of languages with a single download.

New Packages

The following list of packages have been newly added to the repository with this release that you can now enjoy with OpenSolaris 2009.06. This list does not include existing packages that have been updated, so make sure to check if the latest version of your favourite software is available!

Coming up in the next release

We're already looking forward to the next release due in 2010. Look out for great new features like an interactive installation for SPARC, the ability to install packages directly from the repository during the install, offline IPS support, a new version of the GNOME desktop, ZFS deduplication and user quotas, cloud integration and plenty more! As always, you can follow active development by adding the dev/Click on this link to automatically add the dev/ repository with Package Manager repository.

Thanks are due, in no small part, to the many free and open source communities that helped make this release successful and the latest versions of their software that are included in OpenSolaris 2009.06.