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Source: Issues Running Java Programs Remotely via X
Recently I started using SmartSVN running remotely on a Solaris 10 server and displaying on my Windows XP machine via Xming (the free Xserver). I quickly ran into some performance and usability issues which I hope to have solved.
Caveats on Using Snapshots for Server-less Backups
Whether you are dealing with disk I/O in reading the data from the disks, or CPU for compressing or encrypting the data (or both- remember to compress and then encrypt!), or network for transferring the data to a backup server, the added load of a backup on your production servers is unwelcome. For this reason, the period of time during which backups can be made, aka. backup window, may be limited- even severely.
You may say, "It only takes me X hours to do a full backup of everything", but over time backup windows are notorious for becoming too small. Backups are split over multiple days, technologies upgraded, etc. When planning a backup strategy, my approach is to eliminate the backup window altogether- that is do whatever you can to take the backup off the production hardware altogether.
Storage Snapshots are one method for taking the production servers out of the backup equation. By creating a consistent, point in time snapshot on your storage, and mounting it on your backup server, you can backup your data using your backup server's resources while your production servers continue as usual.
Caveats of this method in general are:
EMC Replication Manager in Solaris
UPDATE: No ZFS Support for Replication Manager in the near future
Using storage level snapshots can be used to run backups without directly requiring resources from the original host.
EMC Replication Manager coordinates the creation of application consistent snapshots across all the hosts in your network. It handles scheduling creation/expiration of snapshots, mounting and unmounting from backup servers, etc. from a single console.
Although it is not tightly integrated into EMC Networker like the similar Networker PowerSnap module, it can be used to start a backup process after taking a new snapshot and it has the capability to manage snapshots unrelated to backups from a GUI.
While the data sheet claims support for Solaris, there are several caveats which I have run into.
Webservd Default Home Directory
Someone currently building an internal development environment required some integration between servers using SSH and the webservd user.
He came to me when he saw that the default home directory for the webservd user is /. He didn't want to create a /.ssh/authorized_keys file and I didn't blame him. My first reaction was to change the home directory but I didn't want to break something so I opened up Google and found something incredible.
DISCLAIMER: The following is quoted from documentation at docs.sun.com (emphasis is mine). I do not recommend you actually listen to it's instructions: