Getting used memory slots in AIX

Today a customer wanted to know if he could expand his memory in one of his IBM PPC machines. Of course the customer didn't know anything (machine type, memory size etc.) so I took a look. The first thing I needed to know was the machine type:

# prtconf | head -1
System Model: IBM,9131-52A

Splitting a ZFS pool

Splitting a ZFS mirror is very useful when you need to create a quick copy during runtime without copying the entire file system. My current pool configuration looks like this:

# zpool status orapool
  pool: orapool
 state: ONLINE
 scrub: none requested
config:

        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        orapool     ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c1t0d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c1t1d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-1  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c1t2d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            c1t3d0  ONLINE       0     0     0
# zpool list
NAME      SIZE  ALLOC   FREE    CAP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
orapool  1.97G   130K  1.97G     0%  ONLINE  -

Bonding with Linux

Before you begin with bonding you need the command ifenslave. Depending on your distribution you have to compile it by yourself. I am using Slackware as usual where ifenslave is shipped as source only. You can find the source of ifenslave in the kernel sources. To install the kernel sources run installpkg with the package for the kernel source (if not done already):

# installpkg kernel-source-2.6.37.6_smp-noarch-2.txz
...

Solaris disks: ssdX vs cXtXdX

When you work with disks in Solaris then you normally have to deal with disk names like cXtXdX and so on. But sometimes you will see something like ssdX, eg:

# dmesg
...
Sep 08 12:15:56 sol01 scsi: [ID 112529 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@2/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100001862806e43,0 (ssd1):
Sep 08 12:15:56 sol01        offline
...

Bringing a Compaq StorageWorks San Switch 8 back to life

I hope I don't promise to much with this heading...
Here is the situation: I got an old unused Compaq StorageWorks San Switch 8 without any information (IP, username, password cable etc). As usual I wanted to use it, so here is a short description of what I  did to bring the machine back to life. A default serial cable does not work, when the switch was released Compaq had is own pin layout. The only chance to communicate with the switch is via network. When you open the SAN switch you should see a couple of LED's near the ethernet connector like this:

Replacing your SWAP with the memory of your graphics adapter

If you have a server with a more or less big graphics adapter (big in case that the graphics adapter has a lot of memory) than you can replace your SWAP area with it. This might be something real useful for a graphics adapter in a Linux server with no monitor attached to it.