Main author: Sergio Gutierrez <saguti (at) gmail.com>
This document describes some installation tips which where taken present at compiling and installation time of OpenSER on a Solaris SPARC System; these steps are focused in operating System setup and using some free tools provided by Sun Microsystems which can improve the performance of OpenSER. These whole steps have been proven on a real life system, which offers carrier class services to 100K users of a Telco Company.
A first step to be performed is the system preparation at installation time. A first choose to be performed is the Operating System Cluster to be installed. From the various options that can be performed, a good starting point would be SUNWCreq, which will offer a relatively minimized system, but keeping basic functionalities at installation time.
In case that installation be performed from DVD or CD, is easier to avoid the adding of packages listed below at installation time, and install them after installation. If an advanced installation technique as Solaris JumpStart™, the installation profile can be defined to add the listed packages at installation time.
The next step to be taken is the disk partitioning. In the event that, besides OpenSER, the SIP Server has also a database installed, it is important to use a reliable File System to store datafiles. Since Solaris 10 11/06, the ZettaByte File System (ZFS) is included. ZFS has native support for features as Striping, Mirroring and Dynamic Resizing, among other. ZFS has unpreceded scalability and it is easier to use than other volume management utilities, as Solaris Volume Manager. Currently, there is a restriction with filesystems as /, /usr, /var, which can not be created at installation time as ZFS.
A recommended disk partitioning, asuming OpenSER and MySQL for example, could be the following one, for a system with at least two 72 GB disks (similar to the one used for us)
| File System | Recommended Type | Recommended Size | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| / | UFS | 8096 MB | Assuming you have /usr as a different File System. |
| /usr | UFS | 8096 MB | For additional packages to be installed. |
| /var | UFS | 20240 MB | For system logging, and assuming that error logs are to be kept through syslogd(1M). |
| /opt | ZFS | 10240 MB | For system local base, where openser and MySQL related files are going to be installed. |
| /data | ZFS | 20240 MB | For datafiles store. It could be sized according to traffic and information preservation policies. |
An implicit advantage of using ZFS is that, by its architecture, it is possible to take an fdisk partition on disk and to create on it the entity called zpool; on this zpool the filesystems are created, and these can be dynamically resized according to particular requirements; The detailed documentation of ZFS is located at Solaris ZFS Administration Guide
Solaris, Jumpstart are Trademarks of Sun Microsystems. SPARC is trademark of SPARC International Inc.
NOTE: This document is still under construction.