What is the difference between password and passphrase under OpenSSH with DSA / RAS public key authentication?

" What is the basic and important difference between password and passphrase when implementing SSH with DSA/RAS public key authentication? Which one is recommended for daily usage? "

The main and basic difference is that you can use multi string phrase including spaces and tabs using a passphrase under ssh. Normal /etc/shadow password is a single string password and many application will breaks with spaces and tabs while using authentication. So your account password must be a single word/string.

For example my account password can be iF33%gNCyzDy
I could create a passphrase: Th1s 1s A t3sT and s3cur3 pa$$phra$3

The advantage is simple you can use spaces and tabs to create a more secure and hard to break authentication method. This makes dictionary based attack quite difficult.

Implementing a Temporary File System (TEMPFS) in Solaris

TempFS provides in-memory (RAM), very fast, storage and boosts application performance

Steps:
1. Determine available memory and the amount you can spare for TEMPFS
-prtconf
- allocate 100MB
2. Execute mount command:

mkdir /tempdata && chmod 777 /tempdata && mount -F tmpfs -osize=100m swap /tempdata

Note: TEMPFS data does NOT persist/survive across reboots
Note: TEMPFS data is lost when the following occurs:
1. TEMPFS mount point is unmounted: i.e. umount /tempdata
2. System reboot

Modify /etc/vfstab to include the TEMPFS mount point for reboots

swap - /tempdata tmpfs - yes -

Monitoring performance of ZFS file system using zfs iostat

ZFS is built-in with a lot of monitoring features. We would be covering iostat here specifically.

The command syntax is pretty simple and straight forward and much close to the older iostat command. Here's how it looks like:

root@opensolaris:~# zpool iostat


root@opensolaris:~# zpool iostat zpooldata 1 5

capacity operations bandwidth

pool used avail read write read write

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

zpooldata 222K 7.06G 0 0 2.47K 1.45K

zpooldata 222K 7.06G 0 0 0 0

zpooldata 222K 7.06G 0 0 0 0

zpooldata 222K 7.06G 0 0 0 0

zpooldata 222K 7.06G 0 0 0 0

root@opensolaris:~#

How to Rename a Solaris Zone?

A few days back i had a need to rename my Solaris zones from "orazone" to "oraprodzone". I followed the below steps to successfully rename my zone's name.

STEP 1: Shutdown the zone "orazone"

Issue the following commands from the globalzone to shutdown orazone.

globalzone# zoneadm list -iv
ID NAME STATUS PATH
0 global running /
2 orazone running /zones/orazone
globalzone# zoneadm -z orazone halt
globalzone# zoneadm list -iv
ID NAME STATUS PATH
0 global running /
- orazone installed /zones/orazone
globalzone#

STEP 2: Rename the Zone from "orazone" to "oraprodzone"

Enter zone configuration from the global zone using the below mentioned commands.

globalzone# zonecfg -z orazone
zonecfg:orazone> set zonename=oraprodzone
zonecfg:orazone> commit
zonecfg:orazone> exit

globalzone# zoneadm list -vc
ID NAME STATUS PATH BRAND
0 global running / native
- oraprodzone installed /zones/orazone native

STEP 3: Boot the zone

After you have made the above changes, boot the zone from the global zone using the below commands.

globalzone# zoneadm -z oraprodzone boot
globalzone# zoneadm list -iv
ID NAME STATUS PATH
0 global running /
2 orazone running /zones/orazone

Done!

There is another way to rename a zone (not supported, but it worked for me), but then that's not the right one though. However, i would mention that as well.

Renaming zone orazone to oraprodzone

Perform all of the below as root of global zone.
First shutdown your orazone zone

globalzone# zoneadm -z orazone halt
globalzone# vi /etc/zones/index

change orazone to oraprodzone

globalzone# cd /etc/zones
globalzone# mv orazone.xml oraprodzone.xml
globalzone# vi oraprodzone.xml

change orazone to oraprodzone

globalzone# cd /zones
-/zones is where I have stored all the zones

globalzone# mv orazone oraprodzone

-cd to your new zone (/zones/oraprodzone)and modify /etc/hosts, /etc/nodename, /etc/hostname.xxx

globalzone# cd /zones/oraprodzone/root/etc

-boot new renaming zone
globalzone# zoneadm -z oraprodzone boot