Digging Deeper I: RBAC

So Opensolaris is up and running on my Notebook, now it's Time to "look behind the Scenes". Every Post wich is called "Digging Deeper" will provide Information you our I won't actually need to solve a Problem, but is interesting to know and to understand the System.

First Thing I want to write about is RBAC (Role Based Access Control). This is the Opensolaris Way to handle User-Rights. Instead of having a Root-User who can perform all the Administration-Tasks, with Opensolaris you can give a User the Rights he needs to perform his Tasks. For Example a Web-Developer can administrate a Database, but doesn't have all the Priviliges he would have if he had used "su" or "sudo".

For further Information, there are other Blogs (Ben Rosewoods Blog) and of Course the Documentation by SUN (System Administration Guide [Chapter 17-19]), wich is as detailed as ever.

I have created a simple Java-Exampleproject with Netbeans, just to play around with the RBAC-Stuff. Right now, it only reads the File with the User-Attributes.

Replacing a Bootdisk without re-Install

Jignesh K. Shah describes in this Post of his Blog how you can move the Bootdisk of an Opensolaris-System over to another Disk without reinstalling the OS. It is a really good Step-by-Step-Howto, so I won't repeat any Step here.

Huawei e169 USB UMTS GPRS Modem

I have the Huawei e169 USB UMTS Modem and want to make it work under Opensolaris. In the Opensolaris.org-Forums I found two Threads [1, 2] about this Topic (just with other Hardware).
Problem with this Device is: If you plug it in, it first shows up as a Storage Device (wich contains the Driver-Software for WinXP). But if you connect it before you start your Engine, there's no Problem.
Before you can use the Modem, you have to associate it with the driver "usbsacm":

host:# update_drv -a -i 'usb12d1,1001' usbsacm
//NOTE: This is for the e169 ONLY, you have to
// replace the bold Numbers with those appropiate
// for your device
host:# devfsadm

You can test it easily with:

host:$ tip /dev/term/1
OK // output from tip
ati // input from you
Vendor-and-Product-Stuff // output from tip

Before you can dial-in, you have to create (or copy) several files located under /etc/ppp and /etc/ppp/peers. You can copy the isp-chat and the isp-Script from [1] and change it to your needs (dial-in-number, username, password, accesspoint; replace isp with the name of your Internet Service Provider).
If you have a Multiprocessor-System, then you have to disable all Cores except one. Otherwise the Connection will drop, when you start browsing the Internet with Firefox (BUG: 6719062)!

host:# psrinfo
// returns the cpus
host:# psradm -f
// this disables the cpu with that number
// with psradm -n you can enable the cpu

Now you can dial in:

host:$ pfexec pppd debug call isp

Right now, I am writing this with Opensolaris running.