Upgrade to Solaris 2.6 from 2.5 : Response Summary
1.1 it is well received
1.2 it is stable
1.3 improvements in reliabilty, security, and stability are reported
1.4 "from a programmer's perspective 2.6 was painless"
1.5 the 2.6 release notes do identify what should be done to move
applications
1.6 whether moving binaries or recompiling test the results!
1.7 the Solaris Porting Guide assists with how to write portable /
standard code
2. Moving binaries across
2.1 generally works well with no problems
2.2 static links against libsocket require relinking dynamically to
work
2.3 system-dependent utilities (lsof, top, gcc) must be recompiled
2.4 compilers must be recompiled (or 2.6 precompiled versions
obtained)
2.5 there were some problems dragging binaries from 2.5.1 to 2.6. The
problem was resolved by compiling all multi-thread code with a "cc -mt"
after that the code was fine on either machine
2.6 possibly software that is device driver oriented (like X.25)
will not port smoothly
2.7 for debugging, the same version of gdb works on 2.6, ups is reported
not to work on 2.6
2.8 only programs which access the kernal need recompiling
3. Recompiling under 2.6
3.1 in general, it was possible to recompile and run
3.2 no need to rework any/much code (eg file handling, memory related,
semaphores)
3.3 no code rework required unless want to make use new features (eg large
file handling)
3.4 no problems if only the documented API (including SYSV and POSIX
semaphore ops) has been used
3.5 DDI/DKI semaphores and other non-standard drivers may pose a bit of a
problem
4. Upgrade tasks/issues list
1) u have to install licenses for all the compilers
2) setup subnet masks and the ip addresses
3) setup printers. plotters
4) install drivers like FDDI unlike ethernet drivers that is part of
the OS install
5) install all patches
6) make sure u have all the new entries in the vfstab. if u are
running veritas filesystem u got be extremely cautious.
5) change
vfstab
aliases
passwd
shadow
group
hostname
auto_home
auto_app
services
inetd.conf
cron
dfs/dfstab
hostname.le0 be0 nf0
host.lpd
lp/*
skel/*
syslog.conf
system
all the binaries...
/kernel/drv/st.conf if u have tape hookups etc jetadmin etc.
Thanks to all who responded who's advice and comments form the above.
Dave Pelham
