Solaris default install (user tools)

Question

Many questions on this forum as well as other places really boils down to somebody coming from Linux environment and then not being able to use the equivalent command on Solaris. Often this is because of different options supported, etc.

This question intends to document (Q&A style) of what a reasonable Solaris install should always include. Never again should a user be frustrated because something isn't available.

We focus on the packages most often asked for by Solaris newbies/visitors in questions.

This is about standard userland tools such as find, grep and what have you. If you are looking for a similar posting about development tools (e.g. compiler, make, etc) then you should look here.

Answer 1

What should be there ?

Here is a list of tools that in my opinion should be available on all Solaris hosts:

• top. Yes, prstat is superior but people coming from Linux world are used to top. End of story.
• GNU tar. This is simply a must. Most packages are made with GNU tar and there's a small (but important) incompatibility between Sun's tar and GNU tar. Make it a habbit always to untar packages you've downloaded using GNU tar rather than Sun tar.
• GNU binutils. Some open source packages will need them during their build phase.
• GNU coreutils. Solely because of date ..and because GNU tail can follow rotated log files.
• GNU findutils. GNU's find support more options than Sun's ditto.
• GNU awk. Subtle differences to Sun's awk/nawk.
• GNU diffutils. Different from their Sun counterparts. In particular patch.
• GNU grep. More advanced than Sun's grep.
• GNU sed. Subtle differences to Sun's sed.
• Vim editor. Because people coming from Linux expect to find it.

These packages should be part of your default install whether you use JumpStart (Solaris 10), IPS (Solaris 11) or something else.

The above tools will take up a few hundred K of disk space. There's really no reason not to install them by default.

The list focuses on the tools that users will need especially if they pick shell scripts off the Internet and expect them to work. If you are a sysadmin then you'll probably say the list is even longer but that is another story. In other words pure sysadmin tools have not been considered (yes, I know the distinction is not easy to make)

If you are creating a host that will be used for building C/C++ binaries then have a look at this posting.

Solaris 11

You're in luck. Almost everything is there already and everything is from official Oracle Solaris repository but take note that even if a package is available in global zone it will not automatically be installed in local zones.

Each of the packages can be installed with this command (as root):

pkg install <pkgname>

for example:

pkg install //solaris/text/gawk

Packages:

Item            Package name                          Path after install     G L
--------------  -----------------------------------   -------------------    - -
top             pkg://solaris/diagnostic/top          /usr/bin               Y N
GNU tar         pkg://solaris/archiver/gnu-tar        /usr/bin               Y N
GNU binutils    pkg://solaris/developer/gnu-binutils  /usr/bin               N N
GNU coreutils   pkg://solaris/file/gnu-coreutils      /usr/bin               Y N
GNU findutils   pkg://solaris/file/gnu-findutils      /usr/bin               Y N
GNU awk         pkg://solaris/text/gawk               /usr/bin               Y N     
GNU diffutils   pkg://solaris/text/gnu-diffutils      /usr/bin               Y N
GNU grep        pkg://solaris/text/gnu-grep           /usr/bin               Y N
GNU sed         pkg://solaris/text/gnu-sed            /usr/bin               Y N
Vim editor      pkg://solaris/editor/vim              /usr/bin               N N

Notes:

• Path: Name of binary is prefixed with g if an equivalent Sun tool exist.

• G : Is installed by default in global zone ? (i.e. server install)

• N : Is installed by default in local zone ?

Solaris 10

You should really upgrade to Solaris 11. Much better.

However if you are still stuck on Solaris 10 then you can obtain the packages from the Solaris Companion Disk. This was previously distributed by Sun itself but is nowadays distributed by SunFreeware. This is a site you can trust. Don't think about downloading the sources and building yourself because it is not required.

Download the individual packages from the table below.

Each of the packages can be installed with this command (as root):

pkgadd -d <pkgname>

for example:

pkgadd -d SFWtop

Packages:

Item            Package name          Path after install
--------------  -------------------   ---------------------------
top             SFWtop                /opt/sfw
GNU tar         (already installed)   /usr/sfw
GNU binutils    (already installed)   /usr/sfw
GNU coreutils   SFWcoreu              /opt/sfw
GNU findutils   SFWgfind              /opt/sfw
GNU awk         SFWgawk               /opt/sfw
GNU diffutils   SFWdiffu              /opt/sfw
GNU grep        (already installed)   /usr/sfw
GNU sed         SFWsed                /opt/sfw
Vim editor      SFWvim                /opt/sfw

Answer 2

I'm not familiar with current Solaris, but back when I used it, GCC (gcc and g++) were an absolute must. Ditto for GNU make. We also installed bash, the default shell was sorely lacking for interactive use (we used the system's shell for scripts, though).

Probably will want vim (all the offshots of the original vi I've seen are charming in some antiquarian way, but everybody in the Linux world has vim installed).

Answer 3

The "what packages" question has been answered by others well.

I think the "from where" question deserves another answer.

OpenCSW is a great resource for installing open-source packages on Solaris. They are far more up to date and comprehensive than others.

In addition, the "pkgutil" tool gives you apt/yum/pkg like functionality on Solaris 10.

Answer 4

Also consider:

• ncurses
• screen
• lsof
• rsync

And not necessarily needed due to a Linux past but pretty much a must-have for me: The Dtrace toolkit: http://www.brendangregg.com/dtrace.html (Because you want to per-process IO stats :)

In Solaris 11, this is pkg:/system/dtrace/dtrace-toolkit.