Symptom:
System cannot play any kind of audio files. All attempts to play audio files
fail with can't find audio device dev/audioctl does not exist error message.

Resolution:

1. With mixerctl command:
   
   
   • check if a driver has been installed for the sound card, and
     
   • if a driver has already been installed, check the default or primary audio device.
   
   eg., % mixerctl
   mixerctl: device /dev/audioctl does not exist
   
   That means, the primary audio device is not configured properly.
   
   /dev/audio is a symbolic link, points to the sound card device on the machine. It exists only if there is a supported sound device on the machine. When the audio device(s) are installed on the system, they appear under /dev/sound directory.
   
   % ls -l /dev/audio*
   No match
   
   
2. The driver might have installed already, but not loaded. Try to load it with devfsadm command. By default, devfsadm tries to load every driver in the system and attach to all possible device instances. Also it creates logical links to device nodes in /dev and /devices and loads the device policy, if the driver load succeeds.
   
   eg., # devfsadm -v
   devfsadm[1739]: verbose: removing link /dev/syscon -> ../../devices/pseudo/pts@0:4
   invalid contents
   devfsadm[1739]: verbose: symlink /dev/syscon -> ../devices/pseudo/cn@0:syscon
   
   % mixerctl
   mixerctl: device /dev/audioctl does not exist
   
   In this example, the driver for the sound card is not loaded even with devfsadm. The relevant driver might not have installed on the machine. So, the next step is to install the driver for the audio device.
   
   
3. Get the audio driver for your OS version and chipset from: http://www.tools.de/solaris/audio/ and install.
   
   If you are not sure about the audio device information and the driver to download
   for your device, the steps are as follows to get that information:
   
   To get the information like device-id and vendor-id, check the output of prtconf -pv for "Audio device".
   
   eg., % prtconf -pv
   ...
   Node 0x1d80f8
   assigned-addresses: 8100fd10.00000000.00001c00.00000000.00000100.8100fd14.00000000.00001880.
   00000000.00000040
   class-code: 00040100
   compatible: 'pci8086,2485.1028.f3.2' + 'pci8086,2485.1028.f3' + 'pci1028,f3' + 'pci8086,2485.2' + 'pci8086,2485' + 'pciclass,040100' + 'pciclass,0401'
   device-id: 00002485
   devsel-speed: 00000001
   fast-back-to-back:
   interrupts: 00000002
   max-latency: 00000000
   min-grant: 00000000
   model: 'PCI: 8086,2485.1028.f3.2 - Audio device'
   name: 'pci1028,f3'
   power-consumption: 00000001.00000001
   reg: 0000fd00.00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000.0100fd10.00000000.00000000.
   00000000.00000100.0100fd14.00000000.00000000.00000000.00000040
   revision-id: 00000002
   slot: 00000000
   subsystem-id: 000000f3
   subsystem-vendor-id: 00001028
   unit-address: '1f,5'
   vendor-id: 00008086
   ...
   
   In this example, device-id = 2485 and the vendor-id = 8086.
   
   Searching for device "2485" at http://www.pcidatabase.com/index.php, showed the following result:
   
   
   
   

   Device Id	Chip Description	Vendor Id	Vendor Name
   0x2485	AC97 Audio Controller	0x8086	Intel Corporation

   
   So, audioi810 driver from http://www.tools.de/solaris/audio/, has to be installed since it supports AC97 Audio Controller on Intel.
   
   
4. After installing the audio driver, reboot the machine once to let the
   system configure everything properly for you during the system startup.
   
   
5. Once the machine is up, check the status of the primary audio device again
   with mixerctl.
   
   % mixerctl
   Device /dev/audioctl:
   Name = SUNW,CS4231
   Version = 02,ICH3:82801CA
   Config = i810
   
   /dev/audioctl doesn't support the audio mixer function
   
   % ls -l /dev/audio*
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Apr 24 00:23 /dev/audio -> sound/0
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 24 00:23 /dev/audioctl -> sound/0ctl
   
   % ls -l /dev/sound/*
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 49 Apr 24 00:23 /dev/sound/0 -> ../../devices/pci@0,0/pci1028,f3@1f,5:sound,audio
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 52 Apr 24 00:23 /dev/sound/0ctl -> ../../devices/pci@0,0/pci1028,f3@1f,5:sound,audioctl
   
   
6. To quickly check if the newly installed driver is functioning properly,
   play any of the audio clips that we can find under /usr/demo/SOUND/sounds/
   with audioplay utility.
   
   eg., % audioplay /usr/demo/SOUND/sounds/train.au
   
   If you cannot hear any audio from the system, check /var/adm/message
   for error messages from the audio device driver. Also check prtconf -D output, to make sure the audio driver (audioi810 from above examples) has attached to your hardware.
   
   
7. If the audio files play too fast with any media player, read the following for the workaround (straight lift from: http://www.riddleware.com/solx86/solarisonintel/msg37434.html; thanks to "gnu noob" for posting the problem/solution at LinuxQuestions.org):
   
   The AC'97 standard defines that the AC'97 codec has to run with an internal sample rate of 48kHz, but some mainboard manufacturers seem to overclock their chipsets / AC'97 codec. On such an overclocked AC'97 codec the internal sample rate is significantly higher than 48kHz, and audio plays back too fast.
   
   If you install the latest version of the audio drivers, you'll find a driver property "ac97_codec_clockrate" for the audioi810 driver in /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/audioi810.conf, to workaround the problem with such an overclocked AC'97 codec.
   
   You'll find some instructions in the audioi810.conf file how to measure the exact internal clock rate used in your system's AC'97 codec.
   
   It appears that the latest version of the linux audio drivers are having a timing loop at i810 audio driver initialization time, to measure the AC'97 internal clock rate, so that the user doesn't have to configure a device specific clockrate.

Note:

1. With more than one audio devices installed on the system, make sure the primary audio device (ie., the symbolic links /dev/audio and
   /dev/audioctl) is pointing to the right audio device ie., /dev/sound/x (where x = any integer).
   
   
2. The primary audio device can be changed by modifying the /dev/audio
   and /dev/audioctl symbolic links. For more information, please read Solaris
   documentation at http://docs.sun.com
   
   
3. For a lot of applications you can select which one of multiple audio devices
   should to be used by setting the environment variable AUDIODEV: e.g.
   
   eg., % env AUDIODEV=/dev/sound/0 audioplay /usr/demo/SOUND/sounds/train.au

Acknowledgements:
J.Keil (http://www.tools.de/solaris/audio/)
___________________
Technorati tag: Solaris

Recovering from a Solaris Runtime Linker failure shows some steps to bring back the system to normal state as soon as the runtime linker starts malfunctioning.

The following steps show how to recover the system after the damage has been done ie., after the losing access to the system completely.

The recovery process starts with booting Solaris from bootable CD-ROM. The steps are as follows:

1. Put the CD-ROM into CD drive and reboot the system.
   
2. From the boot solaris menu, select CD-ROM drive and then type b -s at the prompt.
   
   The other way is the type boot cdrom -s at ok prompt.
   
3. The above step takes you to single user mode with a functional but limited Solaris access from CD-ROM.
   
   
4. To access your file system(s), you need to mount them. So, atleast mount the root file system (/).
   
   eg.,
   If your root file system is c0t0d0s0, mount it as follows:
   mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /mnt
   
   Note:
   If you don't know the partition name where / is installed, have a look at /mnt/etc/vfstab file.
   
   
5. Then copy back the original run-time linker (ld.so.1). For example, if you have the original ld.so.1 copied to ld.so.1.orig, copy it to ld.so.1 as shown below:
   
   cp /mnt/usr/lib/ld.so.1.orig /mnt/usr/lib/ld.so.1
   
   
6. Finally reboot the system.

The C++ compiler has two kinds of inlining: front-end (parser) and back-end (code generator). The C and Fortran compilers have only back-end inlining. The same code generator is used for all compilers on a platform.

Function inlining improves performance by replacing a call to a function with the body of the function itself. This eliminates the overhead of jumping to and returning from a subroutine. An additional advantage is that placing the function code "inline" exposes it to further optimization, enhancing performance even more.

The C++ compiler front end will attempt to expand inline a function declared implicitly or explicitly as inline. If the function is too large, the front end emits a warning when the +w or +w2 ("more warnings") option is used. The +d option prevents the front end from attempting to inline any function. The -g option also turns off front-end inlining. The -O options do not affect front-end inlining. For C++, with -g and -O options, you lose function inlining in the front end of the compiler. This can result is serious loss of performance. To avoid this problem, use -g0 instead of -g. C does not have -g0, use -g instead.

The C++ compiler performs front-end inlining because it can use its knowledge of C++ semantics to eliminate extra copies of objects, among other things that the code generator would not be able to do.

The back-end inlining does not depend on the programming language. With an optimization level of -O4 or higher, the code generator will examine all functions, independent of how they were declared in source code, and replace function calls with inline code where it thinks the replacement will be beneficial. No messages are emitted about back-end inlining (or failure to inline). The +d option does not affect back-end inlining.

Notes:

1. Don't use "if(0)" in an inline function. Use "#if 0" instead.
   
2. Also, don't put a return statement in the "then" part of an if-statement.
   Rearrange the code to put the return in the "else" part, or outside
   the if-else entirely.

Example #1:

% more inline.c
#include <stdio.h>

inline void printmespam() {
        printf("print me"); printf("print me"); 
        printf("print me"); printf("print me");
        printf("print me"); printf("print me"); 
        printf("print me"); printf("print me");
        printf("print me"); printf("print me"); 
        printf("print me"); printf("print me");
        printf("print me"); printf("print me"); 
        printf("print me"); printf("print me");
        printf("print me");
}

inline void printme() {
        printf("print me");
}

int main() {
        printme();
        printmespam();
        return (0);
}

% CC +w2 inline.c
"inline.c", line 17: Warning: "printmespam()" is too large and will not be expanded inline.
1 Warning(s) detected.

In this example, printmespam() was not inlined by the compiler though we requested it to "inline" it. The keyword "inline" is a request, not a guarantee.

How to check if the routine is inlined:
Check the symbol table of the executable. If the routine doesn't showup in the symbol table, it is an indication that the missing routine is inlined. This is because the compiler might have replaced the function call with the body of the function.

% elfdump -CsN.symtab a.out | grep printme
      [85]  0x00010e68 0x000000a4  FUNC GLOB  D    0 .text       void printmespam()

printme is inlined, where as printmespam is not.

The other way is to check the assembly code being generated. To generate the assembly code, compile the code with -S option of Sun Studio compilers.

% more swap.c
void swap (int *a, int *b) {
        int t = *a;
        *a = *b;
        *b = t;
}

int main() {
        int x = 5, y = 2;
        swap(&x,&y);
        return (0);
}

% CC +w2 -S swap.c

% grep call swap.s
        call    __1cEswap6Fpi0_v_

% dem __1cEswap6Fpi0_v_
__1cEswap6Fpi0_v_ == void swap(int*,int*)

From the above output(s), it is clear that the function is not inlined since an assembly instruction has been generated with a call to routine swap.

% more swap.c
inline void swap (int *a, int *b) {
        int t = *a;
        *a = *b;
        *b = t;
}

int main() {
        int x = 5, y = 2;
        swap(&x,&y);
        return (0);
}
% CC +w2 -S swap.c
% grep call swap.s

Now after instructing the compiler to inline the routine swap, the compiler was able to inline the function in main(), since it was not too big. That's why no assembly instruction has been generated with a call to swap.

Example #2:

%more inline2.c
#include <stdio.h>

int globvar = 0;

inline void setglob () {
        globvar= 25;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        globvar= 5;
        setglob();
        printf("Now global variable holds %d\n", globvar);
        return (0);
}

%cc -o test inline2.c
Undefined                       first referenced
 symbol                             in file
setglob                             inline2.o
ld: fatal: Symbol referencing errors. No output written to test

The above code violates a C rule. An inline definition without an "extern" directive does not create an instance of the function. Calling the function has undefined results.

The fix is to declare setglob with external linkage.

C++ has a different rule for inline functions. The compiler is required to figure out how to generate a defining instance if one is needed, without any special action by the programmer. So, the above example (#2) is valid C++ code, but not valid C code.

Modified code:

% more inline2.c
#include <stdio.h>

int globvar = 0;

extern inline void setglob () {
        globvar= 25;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        globvar= 5;
        setglob();
        printf("Now global variable holds %d\n", globvar);
        return (0);
}

% cc inline2.c
% ./a.out
Now global variable holds 25

Acknowledgements:
Steve Clamage

By default, unless we explicitly specify by using a linker flag such as -Bstatic, the linker on Solaris will search a given directory for a shared object and link against the shared library if it is available. This means that the external reference will not be resolved until the code starts running and even then the linking will not take effect until an actual call is made to the routine requiring that library.

If the linker couldn't find the relevant shared object in the search path, it will search for an archive (static) library. In the case of static libraries the actual code to execute the external routine will be physically copied into the executable.

-Bdynamic & -Bstatic options of Solaris linker provides finer control of which library, shared or static should searched for each library specified on the link line. One advantage of the method of explicitly specifying which librariess we want static and which we want dynamic is that we don't have to hardcode full paths to any libraries (more portable and easier to maintain).

The library search option can be toggled between shared objects and archives by specifying -Bdynamic and -Bstatic on the command line as many times as required.

eg.,
CC -Bstatic -lstatic -Bdynamic -ldyn -o driver driver.o

This command tells the linker to search for only static library of libstatic, and search for libdyn.so until the search exhausts, before the next search for libdyn.a archive begins. In other words, the link-editor (ld aka linker) first searches for libstatic.a, and then for libdyn.so, and if that fails, then for libdyn.a.

With -Bstatic option, the linker does not accept shared objects as input until the next occurrence of -Bdynamic. However, with -Bdynamic option, the linker first looks for shared objects and then archives in any given directory.

Reference:
Solaris Linker and Libraries Guide

pargs
___________________________

Prints process arguments, environment variables; pargs can examine both processes and their core files

eg.,

% ps -eaf | grep mozilla-bin
  techno 11723 11704   0 22:05:35 ?           2:51 
                            /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin -UILocale en-US -contentLocale US
  
% pargs 11723
11723:  /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin -UILocale en-US -contentLocale US
argv[0]: /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin
argv[1]: -UILocale
argv[2]: en-US
argv[3]: -contentLocale
argv[4]: US

% pargs -e 11723
11723:  /usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla/mozilla-bin -UILocale en-US -contentLocale US
envp[0]: AB_CARDCATALOG=/usr/dt/share/answerbooks/C/ab_cardcatalog
envp[1]: ADDON_PATH=/usr/sfw/bin/../lib/mozilla
envp[2]: DISPLAY=:0.0
envp[3]: DTAPPSEARCHPATH=/export/home/techno/.dt/appmanager:/etc/dt/appconfig/appmanager/%L:
/etc/dt/appconfig/appmanager/C:/usr/dt/appconfig/appmanager/%L:/usr/dt/appconfig/appmanager/C
envp[4]: DTDATABASESEARCHPATH=/export/home/techno/.dt/types,/etc/dt/appconfig/types/
%L,/etc/dt/appconfig/types/C,/usr/dt/appconfig/types/%L,/usr/dt/appconfig/types/C
envp[5]: DTDEVROOT=
envp[6]: DTSOURCEPROFILE=true
envp[7]: DTUSERSESSION=techno-unknown-0
envp[8]: DTXSERVERLOCATION=local
...

svcs
___________________________

Reports status of service(s); useful for debugging service issues

svcs with -x option, displays the states of services which:

• are enabled, but not running
  
• are preventing another enabled service from running

-v option along with -x, displays verbose information

eg.,

% svcs -x
svc:/application/print/server:default (LP print server)
 State: disabled since Tue Mar 22 01:51:18 2005
Reason: Disabled by an administrator.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-05
   See: lpsched(1M)
Impact: 2 dependent services are not running.  (Use -v for list.)

% svcs -xv
svc:/application/print/server:default (LP print server)
 State: disabled since Tue Mar 22 01:51:18 2005
Reason: Disabled by an administrator.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-05
   See: man -M /usr/share/man -s 1M lpsched
Impact: 2 dependent services are not running:
        svc:/application/print/rfc1179:default
        svc:/application/print/ipp-listener:default

-a option, displays all services including the offline/disabled ones

eg.,

% svcs -a
STATE          STIME    FMRI
legacy_run     Mar_22   lrc:/etc/rcS_d/S50sk98sol
legacy_run     Mar_22   lrc:/etc/rc2_d/S20sysetup
legacy_run     Mar_22   lrc:/etc/rc2_d/S40llc2
disabled       Mar_22   svc:/network/dhcp-server:default
disabled       Mar_22   svc:/network/ipfilter:default
disabled       Mar_22   svc:/network/security/kadmin:default
online         Mar_22   svc:/system/filesystem/minimal:default
online         Mar_22   svc:/system/rmtmpfiles:default
online         Mar_22   svc:/system/keymap:default
online         Mar_22   svc:/system/name-service-cache:default
offline        Mar_22   svc:/application/print/ipp-listener:default
offline        Mar_22   svc:/application/print/rfc1179:default

-p option lists processes associated with each service instance

eg.,

% svcs -p network/telnet:default
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Mar_22   svc:/network/telnet:default

svcadm
___________________________

Services can be enabled/disabled with svcadm

Lets check the state of ftp server, and enable/disable it depending on its current state

% svcs -p network/ftp:default
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Mar_22   svc:/network/ftp:default

% ftp localhost
Connected to localhost.
220 unknown FTP server ready.
Name (localhost:techno): techno
331 Password required for techno.
Password:
^C

Since FTP server is up, let's disable the service using svcadm command

eg.,

% svcadm disable /network/ftp

% svcs -p network/ftp:default
STATE          STIME    FMRI
disabled        2:12:04 svc:/network/ftp:default

% ftp localhost
ftp: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused
Trying ::1...
ftp: connect: Network is unreachable
ftp> bye

It is very easy to enable the service again with svcadm

% svcadm enable /network/ftp

% svcs -p network/ftp:default
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online          2:14:08 svc:/network/ftp:default

At this point, though the ftp service is available, no processes are associated with the service instance. If we "ftp localhost" from another window, we can then see the ftp daemon:

% svcs -p network/ftp:default
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online          2:14:08 svc:/network/ftp:default
                2:16:27    11976 in.ftpd

smc
___________________________

Solaris Management Console, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that provides access to Solaris system administration tools.
This tool is comparable to YaST2 of SuSE Linux Or X-Configs of RedHat

pfiles
___________________________

Reports fstat() & fcntl() information for all open files in a process, including their paths

eg.,

% ps -eaf | grep xchat
  techno  7958  7945  12   Mar 28 pts/4     361:05 xchat
    root 12022 11958   0 02:31:05 pts/4       0:00 grep xchat
    
% pfiles 7958
7958:   xchat
  Current rlimit: 256 file descriptors
   0: S_IFCHR mode:0620 dev:270,0 ino:12582924 uid:100 gid:7 rdev:24,4
      O_RDWR|O_LARGEFILE
      /devices/pseudo/pts@0:4
   1: S_IFCHR mode:0620 dev:270,0 ino:12582924 uid:100 gid:7 rdev:24,4
      O_RDWR|O_LARGEFILE
      /devices/pseudo/pts@0:4
   2: S_IFCHR mode:0620 dev:270,0 ino:12582924 uid:100 gid:7 rdev:24,4
      O_RDWR|O_LARGEFILE
      /devices/pseudo/pts@0:4
   3: S_IFDOOR mode:0444 dev:279,0 ino:59 uid:0 gid:0 size:0
      O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE FD_CLOEXEC  door to nscd[104]
      /var/run/name_service_door
   4: S_IFSOCK mode:0666 dev:276,0 ino:37799 uid:0 gid:0 size:0
      O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK FD_CLOEXEC
        SOCK_STREAM
        SO_SNDBUF(16384),SO_RCVBUF(5120)
        sockname: AF_UNIX 
        peername: AF_UNIX /tmp/.X11-unix/X0
   5: S_IFSOCK mode:0666 dev:276,0 ino:45917 uid:0 gid:0 size:0
      O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK
        SOCK_STREAM
        SO_SNDBUF(49152),SO_RCVBUF(49152)
   6: S_IFSOCK mode:0666 dev:276,0 ino:27017 uid:0 gid:0 size:0
      O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK
        SOCK_STREAM
        SO_REUSEADDR,SO_SNDBUF(49152),SO_RCVBUF(49152)
        sockname: AF_INET 0.0.0.0  port: 4000
   7: S_IFREG mode:0600 dev:102,7 ino:1237 uid:100 gid:1 size:8435712
      O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE
      /export/home/techno/Siebel77_on_Solaris10.sxw

isainfo
___________________________

Describes the underlying instruction set architecture

isainfo prints the name(s) of the native instruction sets for applications supported by the current version of the operating system.

With -v option, we can find out whether 64-bit applications are supported, or whether the running kernel uses 32-bit or 64-bit device drivers

eg.,

% isainfo
i386

% isainfo -v
32-bit i386 applications
        sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu

who
___________________________

-b option, shows the time and date of the last reboot

eg.,

% who -b
   .       system boot  Mar 22 01:51

-r can be used to get the current run level of the init process

% who -r
   .       run-level 3  Mar 22 01:51     3      0  S

with -d option, who displays all processes that have expired and not been respawned by init. The exit field appears for dead processes and contains the termination and exit values of the dead process. This can be useful in determining why a process terminated.

# who -dH
NAME       LINE         TIME
techno     pts/5        Mar 25 00:58
techno     pts/7        Mar 28 00:05
techno     pts/8        Mar 27 19:19
techno     pts/6        Apr  2 02:08    (localhost)

uptime
___________________________

Shows how long the system has been up

uptime command prints the current time, the length of time the system has been up, and the average number of jobs in the run queue over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes

eg.,

% uptime
  2:47am  up 11 day(s), 57 min(s),  1 user,  load average: 0.14, 0.15, 0.17