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Solaris Operating System
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Solaris is a Unix-based operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS.
Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, as well for being the origin for many innovative features such as DTrace and ZFS. Solaris supports SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Sun and other vendors, with efforts underway to port to additional platforms.
Solaris is certified against the Single Unix Specification. Although it was historically developed as proprietary software, it is supported on systems manufactured by all major server vendors, and a majority of its codebase is now open source software via the OpenSolaris project.
HistoryIn 1987, AT&T and Sun announced that they were collaborating on a project to merge the most popular Unix variants on the market at that time: BSD, System V, and Xenix. This would become Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4).
On September 4 1991, Sun announced that it would replace its existing BSD-derived Unix, SunOS 4, with one based on SVR4. This was identified internally as SunOS 5, but a new marketing name was introduced at the same time: Solaris 2. While SunOS 4.1.x micro releases were retroactively named Solaris 1 by Sun, the Solaris name is almost exclusively used to refer to the SVR4-derived SunOS 5.0 and later.
The justification for this new "overbrand" was that it encompassed not only SunOS, but also the OpenWindows graphical user interface and Open Network Computing (ONC) functionality. The SunOS minor version is included in the Solaris release number; for example, Solaris 2.4 incorporated SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the number, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.10 forms the core of Solaris 10.
Supported architecturesSolaris uses a common code base for the platforms it supports: SPARC and i86pc (which includes both x86 and x64).
Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to symmetric multiprocessing, supporting a large number of CPUs. It has historically been tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware (including support for 64-bit SPARC applications since Solaris 7), with which it is marketed as a combined package. This has often led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over commodity PC hardware. However, it has also supported x86 systems since Solaris 2.1 and the latest version, Solaris 10, includes support for 64-bit x86 applications, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity 64-bit CPUs based on the x86-64 architecture. Sun has heavily marketed Solaris for use with both its own "x64" workstations and servers based on AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors, as well as x86 systems manufactured by companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. As of 2007, the following vendors support Solaris for their x86 server systems:
- Dell - will "test, certify, and optimize Solaris and OpenSolaris on its rack and blade servers and offer them as one of several choices in the overall Dell software menu"
- IBM - also distributes Solaris and Solaris Subscriptions for select x86-based IBM System x servers and BladeCenter servers
- Intel
- Hewlett-Packard
- Fujitsu Siemens
Other platforms Solaris 2.5.1 included support for the PowerPC platform, but the port was canceled almost as soon as it was released. In October 2006, an OpenSolaris community project was started to create a port to PowerPC.
A port of Solaris to the Intel Itanium architecture was announced in 1997 but never brought to market.
On November 28, 2007, IBM, Sun, and Sine Nomine Associates demonstrated an OpenSolaris-based port of Solaris running on an IBM System z mainframe under z/VM.
Solaris also supports the Linux platform ABI, allowing Solaris to run native Linux binaries on x86 systems. This feature is called "Solaris Containers for Linux Applications" or SCLA, based on the branded zones functionality introduced in Solaris 10 8/07.
Desktop environmentsEarly releases of Solaris used OpenWindows as their desktop environment. In Solaris 2.0 to 2.2, OpenWindows supported both NeWS and X applications, and provided some backward compatibility for SunView applications from Sun's older desktop environment. Sun later dropped support for NeWS and SunView applications: OpenWindows 3.3 (which shipped with Solaris 2.3) was a port of X11 release 5.
As a member of COSE, the Common Open Software Environment initiative, Sun helped develop the Common Desktop Environment. CDE was an initiative to create a standard Unix desktop environment. Each vendor contributed different components: Hewlett-Packard did the window manager, IBM did the file manager, and Sun did the e-mail and calendar facilities, and the drag-and-drop support. Solaris 2.5 onwards supported CDE, and OpenWindows was dropped from Solaris 9. Solaris 9 8/03 also introduced GNOME 2.0 as an alternative to CDE.
Solaris 10 supports Sun's Java Desktop System, which is based on GNOME and comes with a large set of applications, including StarOffice, Sun's office suite. Sun describes JDS as a "major component" of Solaris 10.
The Open Source desktop environments KDE and XFCE, along with numerous other window managers, also compile and run on recent versions of Solaris.
LicenseSolaris' source code (with a few exceptions) has been released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) via the OpenSolaris project. The CDDL is an OSI-approved license. It is considered by the Free Software Foundation to be free but incompatible with the GPL.
OpenSolaris was seeded on June 14 2005 from the then-current Solaris development code base; both binary and source versions are currently downloadable and licensed without cost. Source for upcoming features such as Xen support is now added to the OpenSolaris project as a matter of course, and Sun has said that future releases of Solaris proper will henceforth be derived from OpenSolaris.
VersionsNotable features of Solaris currently include DTrace, Doors, Service Management Facility, Solaris Containers, Solaris Multiplexed I/O, Solaris Volume Manager, ZFS, and Solaris Trusted Extensions.
In descending order, the following versions of Solaris have been released as of April 2008:
| Solaris version | SunOS version | Release date | Major New Features |
|---|
| Solaris 10 | SunOS 5.10 | January 31 2005 | Includes x64 (AMD64/EM64T) support, DTrace (Dynamic Tracing), Solaris Containers, Service Management Facility (SMF) which replaces init.d scripts, NFSv4. Least privilege security model. Support for sun4m and UltraSPARC I processors removed. Support for EISA-based PCs removed. Adds Java Desktop System (based on GNOME) as default desktop.
- Solaris 10 1/06 added the GRUB bootloader for x86 systems and iSCSI Initiator support.
- Solaris 10 6/06 added the ZFS filesystem.
- Solaris 10 11/06 added Solaris Trusted Extensions and Logical Domains.
- Solaris 10 8/07 added Samba Active Directory support, IP Instances (part of the OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource Control project), iSCSI Target support and Solaris Containers for Linux Applications (based on branded zones), enhanced version of the Resource Capping Daemon (rcapd).
- Solaris 10 5/08 added CPU capping for Solaris Containers, performance improvements, SpeedStep support for Intel processors and PowerNow! support for AMD processors
| | Solaris 9 | SunOS 5.9 | May 28 2002 (SPARC)
January 10 2003 (x86) | iPlanet Directory Server, Resource Manager, Solaris Volume Manager, extended file attributes, IKE IPsec keying, and Linux compatibility added; OpenWindows dropped, sun4d support removed. Most current update is Solaris 9 9/05. | | Solaris 8 | SunOS 5.8 | February 2000 | Includes Multipath I/O, IPMP, first support for IPv6 and IPsec (manual keying only), mdb modular debugger. Introduced Role-Based Access Control (RBAC); sun4c support removed. Last update is Solaris 8 2/04. | | Solaris 7 | SunOS 5.7 | November 1998 | The first 64-bit UltraSPARC release. Added native support for file system meta-data logging. Dropped MCA support on x86 platform. Last update was Solaris 7 11/99. | | Solaris 2.6 | SunOS 5.6 | July 1997 | Includes Kerberos 5, PAM, TrueType fonts, WebNFS, large file support, enhanced procfs. SPARCserver 600MP series support dropped. | | Solaris 2.5.1 | SunOS 5.5.1 | May 1996 | Only release to support PowerPC platform; Ultra Enterprise support added; user and group IDs (uid_t, gid_t) expanded to 32 bits, also included processor sets and early resource management technologies. | | Solaris 2.5 | SunOS 5.5 | November 1995 | First to support UltraSPARC and include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP. Dropped sun4 support. POSIX.1c-1995 pthreads added. Doors added but undocumented. | | Solaris 2.4 | SunOS 5.4 | November 1994 | First unified SPARC/x86 release. Includes OSF/Motif runtime support. | | Solaris 2.3 | SunOS 5.3 | November 1993 | SPARC-only release. OpenWindows 3.3 switches from NeWS to Display PostScript and drops SunView support. Support added for autofs and cachefs filesystems. | | Solaris 2.2 | SunOS 5.2 | May 1993 | SPARC-only release. First to support sun4d architecture. First to support multithreading libraries. | | Solaris 2.1 | SunOS 5.1 | December 1992 (SPARC)
May 1993 (x86) | Support for sun4 and sun4m architectures added; first Solaris x86 release. First Solaris 2 release to support SMP. | | Solaris 2.0 | SunOS 5.0 | June 1992 | Preliminary release (primarily available to developers only), support for only the sun4c architecture. First appearance of NIS+. | | Solaris 1.x | SunOS 4.1.x | 1991-1994 | SunOS 4 rebranded as Solaris 1 for marketing purposes. See SunOS article for more information. | |
Solaris 7 is no longer shipped but will be supported until August 2008; Solaris 8 stopped shipping in February 2007 but will be supported until April 2012. Earlier versions are unsupported.
A more comprehensive summary of some Solaris versions is also available. Solaris releases are also described in the Solaris 2 FAQ.
Development releaseThe underlying Solaris codebase has been under continuous development since work began in the late 1980s on what was eventually released as Solaris 2.0. Each version such as Solaris 10 is based on a snapshot of this development codebase, taken near the time of its release, which is then maintained as a derived project. Updates to that project are built and delivered several times a year until the next official release comes out.
The Solaris version currently under development by Sun is codenamed Nevada, and is derived from what is now the OpenSolaris codebase.
In 2003, an addition to the Solaris development process was initiated. Under the program name Solaris Express Developer Edition (SXDE), a snapshot of the development train is now made available for download on a quarterly basis, allowing anyone to try out new features and test the quality and stability of the OS as it progresses to the release of the next official Solaris version.
In 2007, Sun announced Project Indiana with several goals, including providing an open source binary distribution of OpenSolaris. It is also intended to make significant improvements to the Solaris installation, packaging, and distribution model and technologies. This distribution is slated to replace SXDE as of its first official release, currently planned for Spring 2008.
Since Solaris Express predates the release of the Solaris codebase as an open source project, it began as a binary-only program, but there is also the Solaris Express: Community Release intended specifically for OpenSolaris developers. It is updated weekly, and is for evaluation and personal purposes only. Although when downloading the image files the download license indicates the use is limited to personal, educational and evaluation purposes, when the user actually installs from these images the license acceptance form provides additional uses including commercial and production environment uses.
See also
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