Solaris 11 active process discovery without /usr/ucb

[Paul Ciarfella]

The Solaris probe "Solaris - Active Processes" requires /usr/ucb/ps.   But our server architect is against installing /usr/ucb and polluting the beauty of the Solaris installation with outside packages.

Has anyone successfully modified active process discovery to support Solaris 11 without /usr/ucb installed?       Discovery documentation says its required for Solaris 10 and below, and /usr/bin/ps for Solaris 11, but the probes definitely do not work on Solaris 11 if /usr/ucb is not installed.

I'm thinking we're going to need to write a custom probe assuming that the output from /usr/bin/ps can be output in a compatible digestible format.

[jimfreeman]

Paul,

Do you know of any documentation of this "no dash" mode for /usr/bin/ps, and if it is supported in all versions of Solaris 11?   Below is all I could find, none of it "official" such as an Oracle man page:

- Solaris 11 man page for /usr/bin/ps Synopsis - man pages section 1: User Commands   doesn't show a "no dash" syntax.

- Oracle blog SRU 5.6: updates in ps(1) and /proc/<pid>/{cmdline,environ,execname} | Oracle Casper Dik's Blo... talks about /usr/bin/ps removing the 80 column limit starting with Solaris 11.3, but no mention about "no dash" mode.

- unix - PS Command in Solaris - Super User   says "On Solaris 11, if you use options without a dash (like /usr/bin/ps auxwww) they will be treated as UCB style options, and the output will show extra long lines, even when you are NOT running as root."   but does he mean all versions of Solaris 11?   His comment contains 3 more links, but they didn't help much.

thanks, Jim

[Paul Ciarfella]

Hi Jim -

Here is where I learned about the BSD compatibility option:

Solaris 11 Changes: Where is the BSD style ps command? | Scaling Bits

I've not yet been able to try this on a Solaris 11 system, only 5.11.

Paul

[jimfreeman]

Paul, thanks for that Scaling Bits blog link.   Wish we could find some official Oracle documentation supporting this.

[Abhishek Raj To]

Paul, I am facing the same issue here wherein the "Active Processes" are not being picked by the solaris probe for V11.

Since, i am not familiar with solaris commands, can you help me out in modifying the existing probe. Following is the code:

#!/bin/sh

#

# Only get our processes, not our child zone processes

#

ZONENAME=$1

IFS="

"

ZONECMD=/usr/bin/zonename

PSCMD="/usr/bin/ps"

UCBPSCMD="/usr/ucb/ps"

PSARGS="-o pid,ppid"

AWKCMD="awk"

# First output just the heading for ps's output, tacking on a COMMAND column

echo PID PPID COMMAND

# Check for existence of zonename command

if [ ! -z "$ZONENAME" ]; then

              ZONEPARAM="-z ${ZONENAME}"

elif [ -f $ZONECMD ]; then

# exists: limit ps to display processes for this zone

              ZONEPARAM="-z `$ZONECMD`"

else

# doesn't exist: ps to display all processes

              ZONEPARAM="-e"

fi

# Replace awk command with nawk if it is available

# awk has a byte limit of 2559 bytes on older solaris machines

if hash nawk 2>/dev/null; then

  AWKCMD="nawk"

fi

# Iterate through each line of ps output...

for LINE in `$PSCMD $ZONEPARAM $PSARGS`; do

PID=`echo $LINE | $AWKCMD '{print $1}'`

# Check that this line isn't the header, and it's valid in /proc

if [ "$PID" != "PID" -a -f "/proc/$PID/status" ]; then

# use ucb/ps to get full, non-truncated command+args

CMD=`$UCBPSCMD -awwx $PID | tail +2 | $AWKCMD '{$1="";$2="";$3="";$4="";print $0}'`

# tack on the command+args to the output

echo $LINE $CMD

              fi

done

------------------

Also, would this command work: ps -aux

What changes do i need to make to the sensor script?

Thanks

[Paul Ciarfella]

Abhishek,

Here's the revised ps.sh script:

Paul

#!/bin/sh -x

#

# Only get our processes, not our child zone processes

#

ZONENAME=$1

IFS="

"

ZONECMD=/usr/bin/zonename

PSCMD="/usr/bin/ps"

UCBPSCMD="/usr/ucb/ps -awwx"

PSARGS="-o pid,ppid"

AWKCMD="awk"

#

# PWC Solaris 10 and older have ucb/ps installed.   Solaris 11 does not.

#         But Solaris 11 generates /usr/bin/ps compatible output for   when -

#         is not at the front of the first command argument.

#

SOLVERSION=`uname -r`

# First output just the heading for ps's output, tacking on a COMMAND column

echo PID PPID COMMAND

# Check for existence of zonename command

if [ ! -z "$ZONENAME" ]; then

              ZONEPARAM="-z ${ZONENAME}"

elif [ -f $ZONECMD ]; then

# exists: limit ps to display processes for this zone

              ZONEPARAM="-z `$ZONECMD`"

else

# doesn't exist: ps to display all processes

              ZONEPARAM="-e"

fi

# Replace awk command with nawk if it is available

# awk has a byte limit of 2559 bytes on older solaris machines

if hash nawk 2>/dev/null; then

  AWKCMD="nawk"

fi

# Iterate through each line of ps output...

for LINE in `$PSCMD $ZONEPARAM $PSARGS`; do

        PID=`echo $LINE | $AWKCMD '{print $1}'`

        # Check that this line isn't the header, and it's valid in /proc

        if [ "$PID" != "PID" -a -f "/proc/$PID/status" ]; then

                  # use ucb/ps to get full, non-truncated command+args

                  #

                if [[ "$SOLVERSION" == *"11"* ]]; then

                          CMD=`/usr/bin/ps awwx $PID | tail +2 | $AWKCMD '{$1="";$2="";$3="";$4="";print $0}'`

              else

                          CMD=`/usr/ucb/ps -awwx $PID | tail +2 | $AWKCMD '{$1="";$2="";$3="";$4="";print $0}'`

              fi

            # tack on the command+args to the output

            echo $LINE $CMD

fi

done