Solaris 11 Interview Questions

Always Solaris administrators work will be harder than any other Unix and Linux flavors  administrators.Because Solaris administrator have to learn,third party products like veritas volume manager,veritas cluster and rapidly changing Solaris technologies.For an example Solaris 10 is somewhat different from earlier versions of Solaris since sun have introduced new technologies like ZFS,Zones and different networking commands in Solaris 10. Now oracle re-architectured the  kernel for Solaris 11.So its completely different  from Solaris 10 in package administration,networking and installation methods.This article will help  administrators in Solaris 11 interviews. 

1.What is the difference between Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 ?
Ans:The main differences are  package administration,OS Installation methods,Zones Enhancement and network virtualization .

2.What kind of package system is used in Solaris 11 ? 
Ans:Solaris 11 uses Image packaging system(IPS) to manage packages and patches.In both packages and patches will be treated as same elements. You need to configure IPS repository  locally or remotely to manage packages and patches.

3.What type of installation methods used in Solaris 11 ? is it possible to use jumpstart ?
Ans: No.You can’t use jumpstart or flar(flash method) to install Solaris 11.If you want to install OS from network like jumpstart method,you need to configure AI server(Automated Installer server).You can also use DVD to install Solaris 11 operating system.

4.Is it possible to install Solaris 10 using AI server (Automated Installer) ? 
Ans:No.You can’t use AI for Solaris 10 installation.

5.What is default root filesystem ?
Ans:The default root filesystem is ZFS. There is no option to select UFS as root filesystem.

6.What kind of OS patching mechanism used for back-out ?
Ans:Since the root filesystem is ZFS,you can’t use mirror breaking method like UFS.
You need to create alternative boot environment of OS patching using beadm command.

7.What is beadm ?
Ans: beadm is used for Managing Boot Environments which is similar to lu commands in Solaris 10.

8.Can we use zones as NFS servers in Solaris 11 ?
Ans:In Solaris 10,you can’t use zones as NFS servers but in Solaris 11 ,it is possible.

9.is possible to use Solaris 10 as zone in Solaris 11 global zone ?
Ans:Yes.Its possible.Solaris 10 can be a zone in solaris 11 global zones.But you can use solaris 9 and 8 versions as zones .

10.What is process to assign a IP address to Physical interfaces and virtual interfaces ?
Ans:Please go through this article.

11.How to upgrade OS from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11 ? Is is possible ?
Ans:No. You can’t upgrade existing Solaris 10 to Solaris 11 due to new kernel architecture in Solaris 11. 

12.How to install Solaris 11 on the live system ? Is it possible to install ?
Ans:Yes.You can install Solaris 11 on live Solaris 10 machine.Here is a high level plan to perform this operation.

Many more to come……

Thank you for reading this article.Please add any Solaris 11 interview questions if you would like to update  here.