One of the really cool features of QEMU (Quick Emulator) is that it can emulate CPU architectures other than x86-64, such as PowerPC, AArch64, and SPARC. In my experimentation with Solaris, I’ve really wanted to try the SPARC and SPARC64 emulators with Solaris, and do something similar to this article: Build your own SPARC workstation with QEMU and Solaris. However, I really wanted to do this with Solaris 8/9/10, as 2.6 is more limited in what you can do with it. In particular, I wanted to run Solaris 8 in this, as installing 8 in VirtualBox is a hassle, with barely-functional graphics. In the end, I was only able to run Solaris in the 32-bit emulator, which emulates a SPARCstation 5 by default. The SPARC64 emulator can only run BSD and Linux variants, and not Solaris. In the future, I intend on writing another post on the SPARC64 emulator.
Monthly Archives: March 2025
Installing Sudo and using Ansible to manage Solaris 9
Since I’ve started experimenting with Solaris in my home lab, I’ve really wanted to try managing systems with some sort of configuration management software. I originally thought about trying Rex, a Perl configuration management tool, but I’ve yet to take the time to learn it. I do, however, know Ansible, and it came as a welcome surprise to me that I can install Python, which is needed by Ansible, on Solaris without having to go through the hassle of compiling it from source. This is because Python can be installed using the pkgutil tool from OpenCSW. In addition, the community.general collection in Ansible includes a pkgutil module that allows Yum/Apt-like package management. One day I decided to see if Ansible would work on Solaris.
Note: your results may vary in following these directions; I can’t guarantee that they will work for you.
Prepare Solaris 9 for Ansible
Installing AlmaLinux 9 on a DL360 G7 and other stuff
Recently I borrowed a pair of HP DL360 G7 servers from the office that had been decommissioned and are eventually destined for the e-waste bin. The servers are from 2011 and have little practical use in 2025, either in production or as lab systems, as they are slow and power-hungry. Still, I thought they would be fun to tinker with at home for at least a little while.
The top server has two CPUs and 72GB of RAM, while the bottom one has one CPU and only 4GB of RAM. The top one has a bunch of old laptop SATA drives in it (two of which are dead), while the bottom one has HP Enterprise SAS drives, all of which still function, in a RAID 1+0 array. I started with the bottom one.