Sunday, December 18, 2016

How to reset Solaris 11 root password in a minute using kmdb

Following a bit outdated, ufs-based method from "Using kmdb to reset lost Solaris root password" article, we still use uiomove break point. Apply kmdb and single-mode options to the grub kernel line and boot the machine. Wait for the SINGLE USER MODE message,  type "root" for the user name. Now wait a minute until smf services run and then switch to kmdb prompt (F1-a) right after "Enter root password (control-d to bypass):" message.



































Set break point at uiomove+0xc and type :c to continue. You will need to step forward by pressing :u and :c two or three times and look for the state where zfs`dmu_read_uio_dnode calls zfs`dmu_read_uio_dbuf and finally uiomove:



































On the screenshot below we found "/etc/shadow" data in ffff810042207c00. Now all what we need is to change the first character of the root password to ":" and, after removing break point and continue, we get the root shell prompt:

































Now you can reset the password and reboot.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Meet v9os, a minimalist illumos-based SPARC distro

This summer I decided то build something compact and modern for my two SunFire servers using IPS. Meet v9os - minimalist illumos-based SPARC distro.
On this stage, actually it's an OmniOS SPARC version, because the iso was mostly created using omnios-build, so I would like to express my deepest gratitude to OmniOS developers.

The iso was tested on SunFire v240. I would be grateful for any feedback on what works, and how it boots on other SPARC servers. I'm looking for the hosting for the IPS repository, for now you need to download packed IPS repo from the sourceforge and put it somewhere on installed system. I forgot to fix timezone installer issue in this iso, so please just type “Continue” on timezone screen while installing. Root password is solaris. This is a beta release and it lacks yet some packages like java, gcc 5. 

Special thanks to Martin (I used OpenSXCE on the first step) and Igor for the SPARC support in illumos.

Friday, April 29, 2016

Firefly failsafe image was updated

The following changes have been made:

  1. smf removed completely
  2. freebsd bootloader from the illumos loader project
  3. busybox provides init and many others commands
  4. network configuration script (/etc/init.d/netconfig) is included
  5. it's a possible to copy files over network using scp
  6. console has white background color
  7.  image size now is 58 MB


How to determine PXE mac address when booting illumos via PXELinux/iPXE

In illumos, if you need to determine the interface which was used for booting via PXE then it's possible to use "boot-mac" pro...