The latest version of the Solaris 10 operating system (10/09, also referred to as Update 8 ) is now available for download as an importable VirtualBox OVF appliance image. We are making this available as a way to quickly download and get started working with Solaris 10 in your VirtualBox 3.x environment on your x86/X64 machine.

The image is smaller than downloading the complete DVD Media Kit iso image. This appliance image is just under 1.5Gb. It also starts up and imports much quicker than doing a normal DVD install.

The image is taken from a default installation of Solaris 10 10/09. Before the image was exported to OVF format, the sys-unconfig command was ran on the image. When you import this image and start it up for the first time, you will be prompted to select several parameters for your installation (keyboard layout, networking, root password, time zone, etc.).

This is the first time that Sun has made a Solaris 10 appliance images available, and hopefully this will benefit our customers. Let me know if you have any feedback on this effort for future improvements. One option we had considered was to provide a minimum installed version of Solaris 10 (no windowing and GUI). This was much smaller at just over 300Mb in size, but it may not be very useful to the average user.

Another updated version of the XCP Firmware for SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 Servers is now available for download on the Sun Download Center. We have changed the downloads a bit to make them more specific to the various entry level, form-facter and enterprise server families. The Firmware Release History and Download table on BigAdmin has been updated with the new download links.

XCP 1091 provides many enhancements and additional functionality. Please refer to the Sun SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 Servers XSCF User’s Guide for instructions on how to Install and Upgrade your system to a newer release of XCP.

This firmware update is recommended for all customers.

Every Sun server system has a “Stack” of software components that comprise the Operating System, Firmware, Drivers, Diagnostics, System Management, Middleware, Compilers, and so on. There are generally two types of Stack components; platform specific and common. The platform specific components are either unique to the server system, like firmware or system configuration reader add-ons, or it might be a set of required OS patches. Common software can be installed on any type of server system, like Sun Studio Compilers, Java, MySQL, StarOffice, etc.

Information about what platform specific software stack components are available for a particular Sun server is out there, but it is not easy to find. Product Notes might indicate specific OS update levels and required patches, but might not connect these to the latest firmware or virtualization technologies. A change to one software or firmware component might require changes to others in order to get the best performance and stability on your Sun server system.

To help identify the software stack components for each Sun server system, I have put together a set of Wiki pages on BigAdmin with the help of Rick Ramsey and Robert Weeks. Rick’s BigAdmin blog entry last week broke the story. Currently the Sun System Stack Pages only have the SPARC systems covered, but we hope to expand this to all Sun server systems in the future.

Forty years ago today the crew of Apollo 11 took off for the first lunar landing. You can follow along on the mission at this web site wechoosethemoon.org put together by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. They are reliving the entire mission in real time.

I remember the first moon landing. I was fresh out of first grade and we were traveling from Southern California to Wyoming for a family reunion. We arrived in time to watch the moon landing on black & white TV at my great aunt’s home.

The latest version of Logical Domains (LDoms) software has been released.

LDoms 1.2 adds the following new features:

• Support for CPU power management
• Support for jumbo frames
• Restriction of delayed reconfiguration operations to the control domain
• Support for configuring domain dependencies
• Support for autorecovery of configurations
• Support for physical-to-virtual migration tool
• Support for configuration assistant tools

The LDoms 1.2 download page is here. Need help getting LDoms set up? Download the Beginner’s Guide to LDoms.

LDoms 1.2 requires running Solaris 10 05/09 or OpenSolaris 2009.06 as the control domain and is supported on the following systems:

• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Servers
• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 Servers
• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 Servers
• Sun Blade T6300, T6320 and T6340 Server Modules
• Netra CP3060 and CP3260 Blades
• Netra T2000,T5220 and T5440 Servers
• Sun Fire or SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 Servers

The latest System Firmware for these systems is also recommended. You can pick up the latest versions of the System Firmware from the BigAdmin Firmware Download and Release History page. System Firmware 6.7.4 for UltraSPARC T1 systems and 7.2.2 for UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2 Plus systems are the latest versions available for the above systems.

An updated version of the XCP Firmware for SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 Servers is now available for download on the Sun Download Center.

XCP 1082 is the most recent version of a sustaining and maintenance release to XCP 1080 & 1081. It provides many enhancements and additional functionality. You can upgrade to XCP 1082 from XCP version 1080 or 1081. Please refer to the Sun SPARC Enterprise M3000/M4000/M5000/M8000/M9000 Servers XSCF User’s Guide for instructions on how to Install and Upgrade your system to a newer release of XCP. This XCP 1082 version contains fixes for the following Change Requests:

• 6714850 setupplatform should not request a platform power cycle after setting the altitude
• 6614835 Standby always shows “execute S99tmp_login — exited(1,0)”
• 6608959 frudump utility does not recognize XSCFU_B#1 in DC system
• 6652700 prtfru -x -M xxxx’ cause Segmentation fault (core dumped)
• 6749184 copynvram shall not attempt to write to top 128 byte of DIMM SPD.
• 6698356 ‘shownvram’ shows non-existant CPUM and MEMB info on FF2 having only one system board present.
• 6772115 SNMP trap enhancement
• 6745304 inconsistency in the length of ldap bind name field in the BUI
• 6789113 Trace enhancement on Sun’s module for DSCP and SCDB.
• 6623945 Community String Username on SNMP Properties BUI page can be specified only up
• 6626187 USM/VACM/VACM view/VACM view access on SNMP Security BUI page can be set the different max characters
• 6623949 User Manager BUI page stores the 9999999999 input as 2147483647 or -1 for
• 6667077 Sun brand masthead on standby XSCF does not fill out the background image
• 6589414 Audit Properties: Narrowed the Event Class at Audit Event Settings
• 6742502 Non-audit log size limit value in BUI displays only last two digits of the value.
• 6790005 Add SNMP Trap host does not give user chance to re-enter the missed required (*) field
• 6584843 Email Reporting: Some text strings are out of position in IE vs Firefox
• 6742395 SNMP trap is not issued when power failure or power recovery happens.
• 6713810 setsmtp asks for mail server name but accepts only IP addresses if a name service is not running.
• 6582835 fmadm faulty output missing uuid after powercycle chassis.
• 6801476 snapshot needs to use “showdomainmode -v” to collect showdomainmode output
• 6799922 clearfault does not work for MBU_A
• 6633118 fmtopo which is called by snapshot does not balance scdb_open and scdb_close.
• 6775857 BUI: Implement comprehensive fix for browser caches external javascript/css files
• 6793901 power management enhancements: Air Flow
• 6797557 DBS downs during domain poweron poweroff running test
• 6786707 Loss of a single PSU on a M4000 resulted in domain shutdown & system powerof
• 6812005 trap enhancement correction
• 6816465 Script error occurred on User Manager BUI page
• 6735711 setemailreport 255 input length restriction handling is inconsistent
• 6814728 fmd initialization takes longer. It result in losing error log.
• 6744013 Date indicated by email report is incorrect when DST is enabled.
• 6786770 NTP prefer setting should be configurable by customer.
• 6745289 panel_seeprom_restore always returns the return code from panel_seeprom_close
• 6734322 flashupdate -c check’ needs improvement
• 6778132 DB sync time out may still happen (in XCP1072 and above) during replacefru XSCF
• 6756052 Panic Log BUI page cannot be displayed the panic message portion.
• 6765466 LSB cannot be displayed on “Domain Configuration”BUI page w/ single domain priv. account larger than DID15.
• 6767612 error log taken by PCI access error cannot be taken on the monitor log.
• 6763349 BUI inline alert message improvement.
• 6717438 showdomainmode CLI needs to be enhanced to display domain ethernet (mac) address.
• 6635040 SSH to XSCFU via DSCP
• 6801356 /scf/init/scf_initrc/10cmemready/S21daemons generates a corruptedroot crontab file
• 6805455 arp_announce should be set to 2 in sysctl.conf
• 6821960 MIB.mib has inverted order in scfModeSwitchEvent
• 6772115 SNMP enhancements to support new traps

This firmware update is recommended for all customers.

Saturday I drove up to Chino to meet other Van’s RV builders at the annual Planes of Fame Air Show. The RV gathering was hosted by Dave Klages. This was the most RV’s in one place that I had ever seen. There were at least 60 planes parked around his hangar. A formation flight of 15 RV’s came in just as I arrived. I spent most of my time at the show looking over all of the different RV’s.

The Chino Air Show is very big on WWII warbirds. Some of the airplanes flying are extremely rare and some are the only examples flying in the world. The hangar we were at was at the end of the runway and we had front row seats for the planes taxiing out to take off. There was a continuous stream of warbirds flying around the airport and making low passes. Some did aerobatic routines. A couple of vintage jet fighters also performed.

The weather was nice. A bit hot in the sun, but there was plenty of shaded seating available. I slathered myself in sunscreen, but still felt baked by the end of the day. After the airshow I headed over to my Dad’s house and visited with him. He donated a bunch of tools to my RV-9A project.

Full gallery of photos here.

This Sunday I went down to San Diego Bay for the third time to see the Red Bull Air Races. We got there and parked in the Convention Center parking structure ($15 – ouch!), then walked over to the South Embarcadero spectator area. We were there about 20 minutes before the gates opened and surprisingly were about 10th in line. Last year the line waiting for the gates to open went half way around the marina. Once we were let in we got a prime viewing spot on the edge of the water. It was heavy overcast and cold in the morning, but by noon the clouds were gone and sun came out. Perfect weather for the races. The pre-race activities this year were much less than in previous years. A couple of Navy helicopters did some hovering, a Hellcat WWII warbird did a couple of passes, and an F-16 did two passes. The Coast Guard also did a rescue demonstration between rounds.

This year the format of the races changed. They qualify all 15 of the pilots on Saturday, then starting on Sunday they do a Wildcard round to fill out the top 12. All pilots run the course (twice around through the pylons) and race against the clock. The top 12 then becomes the top 8 and they do another run to set the final four. Before the final round, we got to see Chuck Aaron do his amazing helicopter aerobatic routine (see my blog from last year). The final round gives any of the top 4 pilots a chance to win. In previous years it was a bracket elimination format. The nice thing about the new format is that there were more races to watch. The winner was Nicholas Ivanoff of France.

Ivanoff rocketing past the chicane.

The American’s didn’t do very well this year. Mike Goulian didn’t make it out of the wild card round and into the top 12, then Mike Mangold was eliminated out of the top 4. Kirby Chambliss was DQ’ed when he pulled over 12 G’s in the first chicane.

This year’s attendance was really down from the previous 2 years. I don’t know if it was because of the economy, or the fact that it was Mother’s Day, but there was only half as many people there as there were last year. Last year it was sold out several days in advance. This season the number of events was also scaled back to just 6. San Diego is the only round in the USA. Last year’s Detroit round officially moved across the river to Windsor, Canada.

The racing was amazing as always and I took a bunch of photos and 2 videos.

Saturday I drove up to Yucca Valley to purchase a mostly complete tail kit for a Van’s RV-9. This builder had bought the kit several years earlier, worked on it, then moved back east for work. He put the tail into a storage locker. He and his wife were out here to clean out the storage locker and get rid of everything.

When I got there he had pulled most of the pieces and parts out of the storage locker. The assemblies were well protected and were wrapped up in blue polystyrene foam. Everything in the storage locker was covered in accumulated dust and sand from the desert. It had been untouched for almost 5 years. I opened up the various parts – elevators, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer, rudder, and dusted everything off as best as I could. This took quite a while. I looked everything over and they were as advertised. A couple of minor dings to repair, and some work still required on some of the parts, but nothing too bad. I’ll need to re-rivet an elevator, put the trailing edge wedges in the elevator and rudder, and get the fiberglass tips installed before the tail is complete.

He also threw in a bunch of tools and parts. I ended up with a brand new band saw, bench grinder, drill press, air compressor, hundreds of clecos, a C-frame dimpler and some storage containers and other miscellaneous consumables (paints/primers/lubes). The power tools alone were worth much more than the total price I paid of $500. The tail kit alone is $1620. The tail kit also included the electric trim option which is $300. What a deal!

I left there with our old minivan piled to the ceiling with stuff. When I got home I started unpacking and trying to find places in the garage for everything. I got the bench grinder and band saw put back together. I will need to get a 3M cut and polish wheel for the grinder, and a metal cutting blade for the band saw. I got the compressor reassembled and moved out my old one (it is probably over 30 years old). I still need to inventory everything and sort out all of the various rivets and hardware. Next step is to get the rest of the necessary tools needed to build the airplane.

Here is a picture of the tail pieces.

Here is a video of the Martin Jetpack in action. The jetpack is classified as an ultralight aircraft, so no need for a pilot’s license. It can travel 31 miles at a maximum speed of 63 mph, go as high as 8000 feet in hover, and has a ballistic parachute for emergencies. It is powered by a 2.0 liter two-stroke engine. Looks like the cost is over $60,000!