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Managing Services and Faults in Oracle Solaris 11.1     Oracle Solaris 11.1 Information Library
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Document Information

Preface

1.  Managing Services (Overview)

About SMF in this Release

Introduction to SMF

Advantages to Using SMF

SMF Concepts

SMF Service

SMF Dependencies

Service Identifiers

Service States

SMF Manifests

SMF Profiles

Service Configuration Repository

SMF Administrative Layers

SMF Repository Backups

SMF Snapshots

SMF Service Error Logging

SMF Administrative and Programming Interfaces

SMF Command-Line Administrative Utilities

Service Management Configuration Library Interfaces

SMF Components

SMF Master Restarter Daemon

SMF Delegated Restarters

SMF Properties and Property Groups

Managing Information in the Service Configuration Repository

Viewing SMF Information

Modifying SMF Information

Deleting SMF Information

SMF and Booting

SMF Compatibility

Run Levels

When to Use Run Levels or Milestones

Determining a System's Run Level

/etc/inittab File

What Happens When the System Is Brought to Run Level 3

2.  Managing Services (Tasks)

3.  Using the Fault Manager

Index

SMF Components

SMF includes a master restarter daemon and delegated restarters. In addition, each service or service instance can store configuration data in properties. These properties are organized into property groups to make administration simpler.

SMF Master Restarter Daemon

The svc.startd daemon is the master process starter and restarter. The daemon is responsible for managing service dependencies for the entire system. The daemon takes on the previous responsibility that init held of starting the appropriate /etc/rc*.d scripts at the appropriate run levels. First, svc.startd retrieves the information in the service configuration repository. Next, the daemon starts services when their dependencies are met. The daemon is also responsible for restarting services that have failed and for shutting down services whose dependencies are no longer satisfied. The daemon uses operating system events, such as process death, to keep track of service states.

SMF Delegated Restarters

Some services have a set of common behaviors on startup. To provide commonality among these services, a delegated restarter might take responsibility for these services. In addition, a delegated restarter can be used to provide more complex or application-specific restarting behavior. The delegated restarter can support a different set of methods, but exports the same service states as the master restarter. The restarter's name is stored with the service. A current example of a delegated restarter is inetd, which can start Internet services on demand, rather than having the services always running. The defined restarter for each service can be displayed using the svcs -l command.

SMF Properties and Property Groups

All information in the service configuration repository is stored as a set of properties, which are grouped by property groups. Property groups are used to group different types of service information. Property groups can be applied to the system as well as to individual services. Some of the common system-defined property groups include:

Another common property group is config. The config property group is not system defined, so it can be used by services developers to hold service data. See the smf(5) man page for more information about properties and property groups.