Self-healing services are delivered and managed on Solaris with the Service Management Facility (smf(5)). smf(5) augments the existing init.d(4) and inetd(1M) startup mechanisms, promoting the service to a first-class operating system object.
Administrators can now:
- view system-wide service status,
- manage services, not just their individual processes,
- access information about misconfigured/misbehaving services,
- enable and disable services persistently across upgrades and patches,
- delegate tasks to non-root users securely, and
- more reliably access the console in repair scenarios.
smf(5) gives developers:
- automated restart of services in dependency order due to administrative errors, software bugs, or uncorrectable hardware errors,
- a single API for service management, configuration, and observation,
- access to service-based resource management, and
- simplified boot-process debugging.
This is the home base for the SMF community: users, system administrators, service authors, application developers, and SMF infrastructure contributors.
FAQ!
- Check out the SMF FAQ (updated: 4/23/07)
Documents
- Dive in and get started with the Solaris Service Management Facility - Quickstart Guide.
- Learn to create your own smf(5) services in the Solaris Service Management Facility - Service Developer Introduction.
- http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/selfheal/
- Review the smf(5) ARC policy when delivering services for OpenSolaris.
- Peruse {smf(5) Design Documents.
Forums:
Articles and Papers:
- Solaris Service Management Facility: Modern System Startup and Administration. from The USENIX 19th Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA '05).
- Peter Baer Galvin's smf(5) Sys Admin article
- Glenn Brunette's Restricting Service Administration blueprint
Bugs:
- Bugs with the keyword smf
Test Suite:
- Sparc package
- i386 package
- SMF Test Suite source tarball
- SMF Test Suite source browsable
on 2009/10/29 20:36