SUMMARY: Solaris 7 Trim for a diskless SS1 client to boot as X Terminal

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Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 23:59:13 +0100
To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org

Thanks to Darren Dunham <ddunham@taos.com> who responded (see below).
I also collect two previous replies, when I nearly 4 years ago posted a
similar subject on this list.

As a comment first, I will mentione that I have experienced various
remote dtlogin problems with Solaris 2.5 - 9 using the suggested,
"normal method" to modify /etc/dt/config/Xservers. Because of that I
have had to put the entry "Xsun -query" in a rc script to be able to do
a remote login on the client.

The tip to simply put this entry in edit /etc/inittab instead, worked
fine immediately now on Solaris 7. This tip is found at:
http://www.unixguide.net/sun/manager/11.2.shtml

I have disabled some daemons in /etc/export/root/client/etc/rc2.d/ by
simply renaming them (adding a underscore as prefix). This works, and I
will try some more later.

Terje J. Hanssen

------------------------------------------

My original post:

After several similar questions about this subject over the years, I
should really wish that Sun had created an official How-to about this,
but sorry no, they didn't as long as know.

Scenario:

On a Sparc Solaris 7 server I have re-installed Solaris 7 Enduser OS
service for a good old SS1 (sun4c) diskless (52 Mb memory) client, using
the Adminsuite 2.3/Solstice Hostmanager tool.

In addition to work in 'pure X terminal mode' with remote dtlogin to the
Solaris/app-server, the SS1 client is only requiered to handle a tablet
(digitizer) input connected to its local serial port.

On the clients filesystem I have already disabled the local CDE startup.
Next I have replaced the 'ttymon' entry in the clients /etc/inittab with
'/usr/openwin/bin/Xsun -query', so that a remote CDE login from a
networked server is displayed directly after the client booting.

Problem:

What I now need is practical guidelines how to further trim the Solaris
setup for the client, to speed up its boot process and dedicate most of
its limited resources for the X terminal work.

That is, which of and how to disable unecessary startup scripts,
services and daemons (fx printer, volum manager, sendmail and more)?

Some years ago I got a reply that most of if not all of the rc scripts,
except that for the network, really were unnecessary, and that booting
to run level 1 (singleuser) could be sufficient for a pure X terminal
mode. But I'm not sure regarding the serial port (tablet) support.

If this is really possible, how to do it?

TIA/Terje

-----------------------------------------------------

Darren Dunham <ddunham@taos.com> replied:

>On the clients filesystem I have already disabled the local CDE startup.
>> Next I have replaced the 'ttymon' entry in the clients /etc/inittab
with
>> '/usr/openwin/bin/Xsun -query', so that a remote CDE login from a
>> networked server is displayed directly after the client booting.

Rather than that, you could just modify /etc/dt/config/Xservers on the
client's root filesystem and modify the final line to include the -query
option. That's the normal place to do that. I don't think the
'dtlogin' binary is very heavyweight...

Modify /etc/dt/config/Xaccess to restrict X service to the local
machine.

>> Problem:
>>
>> What I now need is practical guidelines how to further trim the Solaris
>> setup for the client, to speed up its boot process and dedicate most of
>> its limited resources for the X terminal work.
>>
>> That is, which of and how to disable unecessary startup scripts,
>> services and daemons (fx printer, volum manager, sendmail and more)?
>>
>> Some years ago I got a reply that most of if not all of the rc scripts,
>> except that for the network, really were unnecessary, and that booting
>> to run level 1 (singleuser) could be sufficient for a pure X terminal
>> mode. But I'm not sure regarding the serial port (tablet) support.
>> If this is really possible, how to do it?

I would take one of the security lists and follow those for disabling.
Certainly anything unneeded should be on it. You probably could run
most X stuff in single-user mode unless your network connections had
anything strange, but I don't see that worth most anything.

Much of the stuff in early rc isn't really damons, it's configuration.
Removing them won't necessarily save you any resources later.

Most daemons are started by scripts in /etc/rc2.d, /etc/rc3.d, or very
rarely rcS.d If those scripts are removed, renamed (so that they do not
begin with a capital S), or modified, then the daemon won't start at
boot.

Since the box itself doesn't need to allow logins, you can disable
rpc
inetd
snmpd
automount
nfs client
nscd
syslog (depending on if you're logging or not... might be handy)
cron (depending on your needs)
printing support
volume management
mailers

-- Darren Dunham ddunham@taos.com Unix System Administrator Taos - The
SysAdmin Company Got some Dr Pepper? San Francisco, CA bay area < This
line left intentionally blank to confuse you. >
--------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Diskless SparcStation 1 as X Terminal
From: blymn@baea.com.au (Brett Lymn)
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 08:39:41 +1030 (CST)
To: terje@nordland-teknikk.no (Terje J. Hanssen)

According to Terje J. Hanssen:

>>
>>1. Have someone experiences with and/or suggestions how to strip and set
>>up a smaller/minimum OS software support and faster load for SS1 type
>>"XTerminals"?
>>

Yes, you need to be patient and expect to reboot the SS1 often before
you get it right but it can be done. I recommend removing almost all
the start up scripts. If you are running purely X and nothing else
then you can probably remove just about all of them except for the one
that configures the network - and that can be heavily edited. Another
thing, you do not have to have the machine come up multi-user to make
it an Xterminal - I suggest you edit the inittab and make run level 1
the default level and make the executable for the run level be a shell
script that invokes the X server and xdm. The process does take a
while to get things set up and some binaries can fail mysteriously if
you remove the wrong service but it can be done.

The other alternative, if you can afford to lose display postscript
and the other Solaris2 Xserver extensions is to grab a copy of Xkernel
which is based on SunOS 4.1.x - this will make the SS1 into a basic
Xterminal without the headaches of doing it yourself

 
===============================================================================
Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, BAE SYSTEMS
===============================================================================

--------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Diskless SparcStation 1 as X Terminal
From: Anthony Worrall <anthony.worrall@reading.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 09:59:46 +0000 (GMT)
To: terje@nordland-teknikk.no

Hi

Here are the packages I use to run our diskless SLCs as Xterminals under
Solaris 2.6.

SUNWcsr
SUNWcsd
SUNWcar
SUNWxwmod
SUNWadmr
SUNWcg6
SUNWdfb
SUNWsolnm

You could choose not to install SUNWsolnm and SUNWadmr if you do not
want to
do remote admin.

Anthony Worrall
The University of Reading,
Department of Computer Science,
Whiteknights, PO Box 225
Reading,
Berkshire, UK
RG6 6AY
Tel: +44 (0)1189 318610
Fax: +44 (0)1189 751994
Email: Anthony.Worrall@Reading.ac.uk
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