Solaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems.

It
superseded their earlier SunOS in 1993. Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has
been owned by Oracle Corporation since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 20
10.[2]
Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, and for origi
nating many innovative features such as DTrace, ZFS and Time Slider.[3][4] Solar
is supports SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Oracle and o
ther vendors, with efforts underway to port to additional platforms. Solaris is
registered as compliant with the Single Unix Specification.[5]
Historically, Solaris was developed as proprietary software. In June 2005, Sun M
icrosystems released most of the codebase under the CDDL license, and founded th
e OpenSolaris open source project.[6] With OpenSolaris, Sun wanted to build a de
veloper and user community around the software. After the acquisition of Sun Mic
rosystems in January 2010, Oracle decided to discontinue the OpenSolaris distrib
ution and the development model.[7][8] Just ten days before the internal Oracle
memo announcing this decision to employees was "leaked", Garrett D'Amore had ann
ounced[9] the illumos project, creating a fork of the Solaris kernel and launchi
ng what has since become a thriving alternative to Oracle Solaris.
In August 2010, Oracle discontinued providing public updates to the source code
of the Solaris Kernel, effectively turning Solaris 11 into a closed source propr
ietary operating system. However, through the Oracle Technology Network (OTN), i
ndustry partners can still gain access to the in-development Solaris source code
.[8] Source code for the open source components of Solaris 11 is available for d
ownload from Oracle.[10]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Supported architectures
2.1 Other platforms
3 Installation and usage options
4 Desktop environments
5 License
6 Version history
7 Development release
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
History[edit]
In 1987, AT&T Corporation and Sun announced that they were collaborating on a pr
oject to merge the most popular Unix variants on the market at that time: BSD, S
ystem V, and Xenix. This became Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4).[11]
On September 4, 1991, Sun announced that it would replace its existing BSD-deriv
ed Unix, SunOS 4, with one based on SVR4. This was identified internally as SunO
S 5, but a new marketing name was introduced at the same time: Solaris 2.[12] Al
though SunOS 4.1.x micro releases were retroactively named Solaris 1 by Sun, the
Solaris name is used almost exclusively to refer to the SVR4-derived SunOS 5.0
and later.[13]
The justification for this new "overbrand" was that it encompassed not only SunO
S, but also the OpenWindows graphical user interface and Open Network Computing
(ONC) functionality. The SunOS minor version is included in the Solaris release
number. For example, Solaris 2.4 incorporated SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, Sun
dropped the "2." from the number, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the l
atest release SunOS 5.11 forms the core of Solaris 11.2.
Supported architectures[edit]

Solaris uses a common code base for the platforms it supports: SPARC and i86pc (
which includes both x86 and x86-64).[14]
Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to symmetric multiprocessing, sup
porting a large number of CPUs.[15] It has historically been tightly integrated
with Sun's SPARC hardware (including support for 64-bit SPARC applications since
Solaris 7), with which it is marketed as a combined package. This has led to mo
re reliable systems, but at a cost premium compared to commodity PC hardware. Ho
wever, it has supported x86 systems since Solaris 2.1 and 64-bit x86 application
s since Solaris 10, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity
64-bit CPUs based on the x86-64 architecture. Sun has heavily marketed Solaris f
or use with both its own "x64" workstations and servers based on AMD Opteron and
Intel Xeon processors, as well as x86 systems manufactured by companies such as
Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. As of 2009, the following vendors support Solar
is for their x86 server systems:
Dell
will "test, certify, and optimize Solaris and OpenSolaris on its rack and b
lade servers and offer them as one of several choices in the overall Dell softwa
re menu"[16]
IBM also distributes Solaris and Solaris Subscriptions for select x86-based IBM
System x servers and BladeCenter servers[17]
Intel[18]
Hewlett-Packard[19]
distributes and provides software technical support for Sola
ris on ProLiant server and blade systems
Fujitsu Siemens[20]
As of July 2010, Dell and HP certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterpris
e Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms,[21] and IBM stopped dir
ect support for Solaris on x64 kit.[citation needed]
Other platforms[edit]
Solaris 2.5.1 included support for the PowerPC platform (PowerPC Reference Platf
orm), but the port was canceled before the Solaris 2.6 release.[22] In January 2
006 a community of developers at Blastwave began work on a PowerPC port which th
ey named Polaris.[23] In October 2006, an OpenSolaris community project based on
the Blastwave efforts and Sun Labs' Project Pulsar,[24] which re-integrated the
relevant parts from Solaris 2.5.1 into OpenSolaris,[22] announced its first off
icial source code release.[25]
A port of Solaris to the Intel Itanium architecture was announced in 1997 but ne
ver brought to market.[26]
On November 28, 2007, IBM, Sun, and Sine Nomine Associates demonstrated a previe
w of OpenSolaris for System z running on an IBM System z mainframe under z/VM,[2
7] called Sirius (in analogy to the Polaris project, and also due to the primary
developer's Australian nationality: HMS Sirius of 1786 was a ship of the First
Fleet to Australia). On October 17, 2008 a prototype release of Sirius was made
available[28] and on November 19 the same year, IBM authorized the use of Sirius
on System z IFL processors.[29]
Solaris also supports the Linux platform ABI, allowing Solaris to run native Lin
ux binaries on x86 systems. This feature is called "Solaris Containers for Linux
Applications" or SCLA, based on the branded zones functionality introduced in S
olaris 10 8/07.[30]
Installation and usage options[edit]
Solaris can be installed from various pre-packaged software groups, ranging from
a minimalistic "Reduced Network Support" to a complete "Entire Plus OEM". Insta
llation of Solaris is not necessary for an individual to use the system. Additio
nal software, like Apache, MySQL, etc. can be installed as well in a packaged fo
rm from sunfreeware[31] and OpenCSW.[32] Solaris can be installed from physical

media or a network for use on a desktop or server, or be without installing on a

desktop or server.[citation needed]
Desktop environments[edit]
olvwm with OpenWindows on Solaris
Early releases of Solaris used OpenWindows as the standard desktop environment.
In Solaris 2.0 to 2.2, OpenWindows supported both NeWS and X applications, and p
rovided backward compatibility for SunView applications from Sun's older desktop
environment. NeWS allowed applications to be built in an object oriented way us
ing PostScript, a common printing language released in 1982. The X Window System
originated from MIT's Project Athena in 1984 and allowed for the display of an
application to be disconnected from the machine where the application was runnin
g, separated by a network connection. Sun s original bundled SunView application s
uite was ported to X.
Sun later dropped support for legacy SunView applications and NeWS with OpenWind
ows 3.3, which shipped with Solaris 2.3, and switched to X11R5 with Display Post
script support. The graphical look and feel remained based upon OPEN LOOK. OpenW
indows 3.6.2 was the last release under Solaris 8. The OPEN LOOK Window Manager
(olwm) with other OPEN LOOK specific applications were dropped in Solaris 9, but
support libraries were still bundled, providing long term binary backwards comp
atibility with existing applications. The OPEN LOOK Virtual Window Manager (olvw
m) can still be downloaded for Solaris from sunfreeware and works on releases as
recent as Solaris 10.
The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) was open sourced in August 2012. This scree
nshot is a build of CDE for Linux.
Sun and other Unix vendors created an industry alliance to standardize Unix desk
tops. As a member of COSE, the Common Open Software Environment initiative, Sun
helped co-develop the Common Desktop Environment. CDE was an initiative to creat
e a standard Unix desktop environment. Each vendor contributed different compone
nts: Hewlett-Packard contributed the window manager, IBM provided the file manag
er, and Sun provided the e-mail and calendar facilities as well as drag-and-drop
support (ToolTalk). This new desktop environment was based upon the Motif look
and feel and the old OPEN LOOK desktop environment was considered legacy. CDE un
ified Unix desktops across multiple open system vendors. CDE was available as an
unbundled add-on for Solaris 2.4 and 2.5, and was included in Solaris 2.6 throu
gh 10. In 2001, Sun issued a preview release of the open-source desktop environm
ent GNOME 1.4, based on the GTK+ toolkit, for Solaris 8.[33] Solaris 9 8/03 intr
oduced GNOME 2.0 as an alternative to CDE. Solaris 10 includes Sun's Java Deskto
p System (JDS), which is based on GNOME and comes with a large set of applicatio
ns, including StarOffice, Sun's office suite. Sun describes JDS as a "major comp
onent" of Solaris 10.[34] The Java Desktop System is not included in Solaris 11
which instead ships with a stock version of GNOME.[35] Likewise, CDE application
s are no longer included in Solaris 11, but many libraries remain for binary bac
kwards compatibility.
The open source desktop environments KDE and Xfce, along with numerous other win
dow managers, also compile and run on recent versions of Solaris.
Sun was investing in a new desktop environment called Project Looking Glass sinc
e 2003. The project has been inactive since late 2006.[36]
License[edit]
From 2005 2010, when Solaris was still being developed by Sun Microsystems, Solari
s' source code (with a few exceptions) was released under the Common Development
and Distribution License (CDDL) via the OpenSolaris project.[37]

When Sun was acquired by Oracle in 2010 the OpenSolaris project was discontinued
after the board became unhappy with Oracle's stance on the project.[38] In Marc
h 2010, the previously freely available Solaris 10 was placed under a restrictiv
e license that limited the use, modification and redistribution of the operating
system.[39] The license allowed the user to download the operating system free
of charge, through the Oracle Technology Network, and use it for a 90-day trial
period. After that trial period had expired the user would then have to purchase
a support contract from Oracle to continue using the operating system.
With the release of Solaris 11 in 2011 the license terms changed again. The new
license allows Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 to be downloaded free of charge from th
e Oracle Technology Network and used without a support contract indefinitely how
ever the license only expressly permits the user to use Solaris as a development
platform and expressly forbids commercial and "production" use.[40] Educational
use is permitted in some circumstances. From the OTN license:
"If You are an educational institution vested with the power to confer official
high school, associate, bachelor, master and/or doctorate degrees, or local equi
valent, ( Degree(s) ), You may also use the Programs as part of Your educational cur
riculum for students enrolled in Your Degree program(s) solely as required for t
he conferral of such Degree (collectively Educational Use )."
When Solaris is used without a support contract it can be upgraded to each new "
point release" however a support contract is required for access to patches and
updates that are released monthly.[41]
Version history[edit]
Solaris logo introduced with Solaris 10 and used until Oracle's acquisition of S
un
Notable features of Solaris currently include DTrace, Doors, Service Management
Facility, Solaris Containers, Solaris Multiplexed I/O, Solaris Volume Manager, Z
FS, and Solaris Trusted Extensions.
Updates to Solaris versions are periodically released, such as Solaris 10 10/09.
In ascending order, the following versions of Solaris have been released:

Colour Meaning
Red
Release no longer supported
Orange Sustaining Support Indefinite
Green Release still supported
Blue
Future release
Solaris version SunOS version Release date
End of support[42]
Major ne
w features
SPARC x86
1.x
4.1.x 1991 1994
September 2003 SunOS 4 rebranded as Solaris 1 for ma
ting purposes. See SunOS article for more information.
2.0
5.0
June 1992
January 1999
Preliminary release (primarily a
vailable to developers only), support for only the sun4c architecture. First app
earance of NIS+.[43]
2.1
5.1
December 1992 May 1993
April 1999
Support for sun4
and sun4m architectures added; first Solaris x86 release. First Solaris 2 relea
se to support SMP.
2.2
5.2
May 1993
May 1999
SPARC-only release. First to sup
port sun4d architecture. First to support multithreading libraries (UI threads A
PI in libthread).[44]
2.3
5.3
November 1993
June 2002
SPARC-only release. OpenWindows
3.3 switches from NeWS to Display PostScript and drops SunView support. Support
added for autofs and CacheFS filesystems.
2.4
5.4
November 1994 September 2003 First unified SPARC/x86 release.

Includes OSF/Motif runtime support.

2.5
5.5
November 1995 December 2003 First to support UltraSPARC and
include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP. Dropped sun4 (VMEbus) support. POSIX.1c-1995 pth
reads added. Doors added but undocumented.[45]
2.5.1 5.5.1 May 1996
September 2005 The only Solaris release that su
pports PowerPC;[46] Ultra Enterprise support added; user and group IDs (uid_t, g
id_t) expanded to 32 bits,[47] also included processor sets[48] and early resour
ce management technologies.
2.6
5.6
July 1997
July 2006
Includes Kerberos 5, PAM, TrueTy
pe fonts, WebNFS, large file support, enhanced procfs. SPARCserver 600MP series
support dropped.[49]
7
5.7
November 1998 August 2008
The first 64-bit UltraSPARC rele
ase. Added native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging). Dropp
ed MCA support on x86 platform. Sun dropped the prefix "2." in the Solaris versi
on number, leaving "Solaris 7." Last update was Solaris 7 11/99.[50]
8
5.8
February 2000 March 2012
Includes Multipath I/O, Solstice
DiskSuite,[51] IPMP, first support for IPv6 and IPsec (manual keying only), mdb
modular debugger. Introduced Role-Based Access Control (RBAC); sun4c support re
moved. Last update is Solaris 8 2/04.[52]
9
5.9
May 28, 2002
January 10, 2003
October 2014
iPlanet
Directory Server, Resource Manager, extended file attributes, IKE IPsec keying,
and Linux compatibility added; OpenWindows dropped, sun4d support removed. Most
current update is Solaris 9 9/05 HW.[53]
10
5.10
January 31, 2005
January 2021
Includes x86-64 (AMD64/I
ntel 64) support, DTrace (Dynamic Tracing), Solaris Containers, Service Manageme
nt Facility (SMF) which replaces init.d scripts, NFSv4. Least privilege security
model. Support for sun4m and UltraSPARC I processors removed. Support for EISAbased PCs removed. Adds Java Desktop System (based on GNOME) as default desktop.
[54]
Solaris 10 1/06 (known internally as "U1") added the GRUB bootloader for x86 sys
tems, iSCSI Initiator support and fcinfo command-line tool.
Solaris 10 6/06 ("U2") added the ZFS filesystem.
Solaris 10 11/06 ("U3") added Solaris Trusted Extensions and Logical Domains(sun
4v).
Solaris 10 8/07 ("U4") added Samba Active Directory support,[55] IP Instances (p
art of the OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource Control project), iSC
SI Target support and Solaris Containers for Linux Applications (based on brande
d zones), enhanced version of the Resource Capping Daemon (rcapd).
Solaris 10 5/08 ("U5") added CPU capping for Solaris Containers, performance imp
rovements, SpeedStep support for Intel processors and PowerNow! support for AMD
processors.[56][57]
Solaris 10 10/08 ("U6") added boot from ZFS and can use ZFS as its root file sys
tem. Solaris 10 10/08 also includes virtualization enhancements including the ab
ility for a Solaris Container to automatically update its environment when moved
from one system to another, Logical Domains support for dynamically reconfigura
ble disk and network I/O, and paravirtualization support when Solaris 10 is used
as a guest OS in Xen-based environments such as Sun xVM Server.[58]
Solaris 10 5/09 ("U7") added performance and power management support for Intel
Nehalem processors, container cloning using ZFS cloned file systems, and perform
ance enhancements for ZFS on solid-state drives.
Solaris 10 10/09 ("U8") added user and group level ZFS quotas, ZFS cache devices
and nss_ldap shadowAccount Support, improvements to patching performance.[59]
Solaris 10 9/10 ("U9") added physical to zone migration, ZFS triple parity RAIDZ and Oracle Solaris Auto Registration.[60]
Solaris 10 8/11 ("U10") added ZFS speedups and new features, Oracle Database opt
imization, faster reboot on SPARC system.[61][62]
Solaris 10 1/13 ("U11") see release notes.[63][64]
11 Express 2010.11
5.11
November 15, 2010
November 2024 Adds new
Image Packaging System) and associated tools, ZFS(only) f
packaging system (IPS
or boot, 1gb ram min x86, Solaris 10 Containers, network virtualization and QoS,

virtual consoles, ZFS encryption and deduplication, fast reboot,[65] updated GN

OME. Removes Xsun, CDE.,[66] BSD-style tools in /usr/ucb
11
5.11
November 9, 2011
November 2024 New features and enhance
ments (compared to Solaris 10) in software packaging, network virtualization, se
rver virtualization, storage, security and hardware support:
Packaging: Image Packaging System, network and local package repositories; Autom
ated Installer to automated provisioning, including Zones; Distro Constructor to
create ISO 9660 filesystem images;
Network: network virtualization (vNICs, vSwitches, vRouters) and QoS, Exclusive IP
default for Zones, the dladm utility to manage data links, the ipadm utility to
manage IP configuration (including IPMP), ProFTPD and enhancements;
Zones: Immutable (read only) Zones, NFS servers in zones, delegated administration
, P2V pre flight check, the zonestat utility coupled with the libzonestat dynamica
lly linked library;
Security: root as a role, netcat and enhancements;
Storage: ZFS shadow migration, ZFS backup/restore with NDMP, recursive ZFS send;
Hardware Support: SPARC T4, critical threads, SDP enabled and optimized, includi
ng support for Zones, SR-IOV, Intel AVX;
UEFI Boot support (Solaris 11.1 onwards on x86)
UltraSPARC II, III, IV series support removed; IA-32 architecture support remove
d.[67]
11.1
5.11
October 3, 2012 November 2024 New features and enhancements:[6
8][69][70]
Installer enhancements
Service Management Facility configuration improvements
Zone improvements
Address space layout randomization
11.2
5.11
April 29, 2014 November 2024 New features and enhancements:[7
1]
Integrated hypervisor
Kernel Zones
Full OpenStack distribution
Automation of software patches and updates, and other packaging improvements[72]
Software-defined networking
[73][74]
A more comprehensive summary of some Solaris versions is also available.[75] Sol
aris releases are also described in the Solaris 2 FAQ.[76]
Development release[edit]
The underlying Solaris codebase has been under continuous development since work
began in the late 1980s on what was eventually released as Solaris 2.0. Each ve
rsion such as Solaris 10 is based on a snapshot of this development codebase, ta
ken near the time of its release, which is then maintained as a derived project.
Updates to that project are built and delivered several times a year until the
next official release comes out.
The Solaris version under development by Sun since the release of Solaris 10 in
2005 is codenamed Nevada, and is derived from what is now the OpenSolaris codeba
se.
In 2003, an addition to the Solaris development process was initiated. Under the
program name Software Express for Solaris (or just Solaris Express), a binary r
elease based on the current development basis was made available for download on
a monthly basis, allowing anyone to try out new features and test the quality a
nd stability of the OS as it progressed to the release of the next official Sola
ris version.[77] A later change to this program introduced a quarterly release m
odel with support available, renamed Solaris Express Developer Edition (SXDE).

In 2007, Sun announced Project Indiana with several goals, including providing a
n open source binary distribution of the OpenSolaris project, replacing SXDE.[78
] The first release of this distribution was OpenSolaris 2008.05.
The Solaris Express Community Edition (SXCE) was intended specifically for OpenS
olaris developers.[79] It was updated every two weeks until it was discontinued
in January 2010, with a recommendation that users migrate to the OpenSolaris dis
tribution.[80] Although the download license seen when downloading the image fil
es indicates its use is limited to personal, educational and evaluation purposes
, the license acceptance form displayed when the user actually installs from the
se images lists additional uses including commercial and production environments
.
SXCE releases terminated with build 130 and OpenSolaris releases terminated with
build 134 a few weeks later. The next release of OpenSolaris based on build 134
was due in March 2010 but it was never fully released, though the packages were
made available on the package repository. Instead, Oracle renamed the binary di
stribution Solaris 11 Express, changed the license terms and released build 151a
as 2010.11 in November 2010.
See also[edit]
Sun Management Center
Trusted Solaris
OpenSolaris
Illumos
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "Oracle Announces Availability of Oracle Solaris 11.2". April 29, 2014
. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
Jump up ^ "Oracle Completes Acquisition of Sun". Yahoo. January 27, 2010. Retrie
ved January 27, 2010.
Jump up ^ Michael Totty (September 11, 2006). "Innovation Awards: The Winners Ar
e...". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 5, 2008. The DTrace trouble-shooting
software from Sun was chosen as the Gold winner in The Wall Street Journal's 200
6 Technology Innovation Awards contest
Jump up ^ "2008 Technology of the Year Awards: Storage
Best File System". InfoWo
rld.