Solaris SPARC to Solaris x86 Porting Guide

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Solaris SPARC to Solaris x86

Porting Guide

Table of contents

Overview............................................................................................................................................ 3

Solaris and HP................................................................................................................................. 3

Solaris x86 benefits.......................................................................................................................... 3

Migration ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Prerequisites .................................................................................................................................... 3

Issues and recommendations ............................................................................................................. 3

Custom code migration ........................................................................................................................ 4

Processor architectural difference and porting issues ............................................................................ 4

Porting issues based on endianness................................................................................................ 4

C and C++ compiler difference between SPARC vs x86 Solaris ............................................................ 9

Sun Studio developer tools ............................................................................................................ 9

Compiler options for SPARC platform not used on x86 platform....................................................... 10

Compiler options for x86 platforms not used on SPARC platform ..................................................... 13

Compiler options used on both Solaris versions but with different implications ................................... 14

Using Solaris developer tools........................................................................................................... 16

Kernel-Level debugging ............................................................................................................... 16

Using the Sun StudioTools ........................................................................................................... 16

Using the NetBeans IDE .............................................................................................................. 17

Linker and loader overview ............................................................................................................. 17

Link-editor.................................................................................................................................. 17

Runtime linker ............................................................................................................................ 17

Shared objects........................................................................................................................... 17

Object files................................................................................................................................18

32–bit Environments and 64–bit environments ............................................................................... 18

Support tools ............................................................................................................................. 19

Data migration .............................................................................................................................. 19

Backing up the data on stoarge: .................................................................................................. 19

Configuring storage on Solaris x86 servers ................................................................................... 19

Creating target disk layout .......................................................................................................... 19

Migrating data to target machine:................................................................................................ 19

Performance benchmarking............................................................................................................. 20

Programming to specific hardware and configurations ....................................................................... 20

Known Solaris compatible hardware ............................................................................................ 20

Testing x86 hardware for Solaris compatibility .............................................................................. 20

Developing in the x86 assembly language .................................................................................... 20

Developing 64–bit applications for the Solaris OS ......................................................................... 20

Platform infrastructure......................................................................................................................... 21

I/O architecture............................................................................................................................. 21

Drivers and hardware supported...................................................................................................... 21

Summary of content (26 pages)

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Solaris SPARC to Solaris x86 Porting Guide Table of contents Overview............................................................................................................................................ 3 Solaris and HP................................................................................................................................. 3 Solaris x86 benefits..........................................................................................................................
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Database migration ........................................................................................................................... 21 Database backup (Oracle databases)............................................................................................... 21 For copying database back to target machine ................................................................................... 21 Services migration ...................................................................................
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Overview Solaris and HP Solaris has been certified to run on HP ProLiant servers since 1996. During this time, the joint solution has established a significant installation base. HP and Sun Solaris engineers have worked together on platform interoperability to satisfy customer needs, resolving issues, and enhancing the customer experience.
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keyboard, display, and mouse attached to the system. The kdmconfig command can determine this information interactively from the user or can obtain configuration information from the JumpStart server or from a file. Custom code migration Processor architectural difference and porting issues To achieve the goal of multiple-platform and multiple-instruction-set architecture portability, the first dependency issue to address is the endianness (or byte ordering) of the processor.
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protocols. The standard C library also provides the routines ntohl(),ntohs(),htonl() and htons(), which convert numeric data between network byte order and host byte order. These routines are appropriately implemented on the host platform to handle the conversion between host and network byte order and must be used to shield the application from the underlying architecture.
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Solution: For the resolution of shared memory issues such as memory-mapped graphics adapters, the multi-byte values can be explicitly byte-swapped before storing to, or after loading from, the opposite endian device. Another solution to the shared memory problem due to the endianness of the processor is the use of apertures for different endianness. One example is a PCI-based graphics adapter using a little-endian processor internally.
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return (date_to_compare.month - date_compare_against.month); if (date_to_compare.day != date_compare_against.day) return (date_to_compare.day - date_compare_against.day); } Data alignment differences The alignment of the field members in a structure differs across platforms, resulting in variable padding requirements and causing the structure to be a different size. To make the code portable, use the sizeof operator to access the structure size.
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Compilers add padding bytes into structures so that all values are appropriately aligned. The amount of padding added is a function of the structure, the processor's architecture, and the compiler. Because of this, structures may increase in size when code is ported to a processor architecture with more bits (for example, from 16 to 32, or from 32 to 64).
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instantaneous. It can take several seconds to run. fpversion also reports the best -xtarget code generation option to use for the host system. 32-bit and 64-bit Issues Enterprise-wide business critical applications that benefit from 64-bit technology include data warehousing, high-resolution graphics, computer-aided design, simulation and scientific data analysis, and multimedia web servers.
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and code generation modules based on the instruction set for a particular hardware. The Sun Studio 12 Compiler Collection works on both the Solaris OS SPARC and x86 platforms; the front-end component works the same for both, so the source code can be ported without changes. However, when the intermediate code generated by the front-end has to be optimized, the backend compiler flags are used. These are architecture dependent and are different for SPARC and x86 platforms.
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indeterminable situations. This option specifies that SIGBUS be raised when a misaligned access occurs. -xalias_level Used to determine the assumptions that can be made by the compiler in order to perform optimizations (using the -xO option) using type-based alias-analysis. Warning issued by C compiler [2] -xautopar (C) This option turns on automatic parallelization for multiple processors used in the SPARC architecture.
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performance libraries. -xlinkopt (C) This option instructs the compiler to perform link-time optimization on the resulting executable or dynamic library over and above any optimizations in the object files. Warning issued by C compiler[2] -xloopinfo (C) This option shows which loops are paralleled and which are not. Warning issued by C compiler[2] -xmemalign This option specifies maximum assumed memory alignment and behavior of misaligned data accesses.
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-xthreadvar This option controls the implementation of thread local variables. Warning issued by C compiler[2] -xvector This option enables automatic generation of calls to the vector library functions. Warning issued by C compiler[2] -xvis This option is used when the assemblylanguage templates defined in the VIS instruction-set Software Developers Kit (VSDK) are used.
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-nofstore This option disables forced precision of an expression. Option ignored[3] -x386 (C) This option optimizes the code for the 80386 processor. Option ignored[3] -x486 (C) This option optimizes the code for the 80386 processor. Option ignored[3] -xpentium This option optimizes the code for the Pentium processor. Warning issued by C compiler[2] Key: (C) denotes compiler option used by cc (C compiler). (C++) denotes compiler option used by CC (C++ compiler).
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-KPIC This option is used to compile source files when building a shared library. Equivalent to: xcode=pic32 Same as -Kpic -Kpic This option is used to compile source files when building a shared library. Equivalent to: xcode=pic13 Compiles with positionindependent code. -PIC (C++) This option is used to compile source files when building a shared library. Equivalent to: xcode=pic32 Same as -Kpic -pic (C++) This option is used to compile source files when building a shared library.
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functions carried out by the -x02 option. xO4: Performs loop unrolling, avoids creating stack frames when possible, and automatically inlines functions contained in the same file, on top of the functions carried out by -xO3. xO5: Generates the highest level of optimization. -xtarget This option specifies the target system for instruction set and optimization.
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• Sun Studio Fortran compiler – Includes a full-featured environment and libraries for both f95 and f77. • dbx Debugger—An interactive, source-level, command-line debugging tool. • Sun Studio dmake make tool—A command-line tool for building targets in distributed, parallel, or serial mode. • Math libraries—A floating-point environment that is supported by software and hardware on SPARC® and x86 platforms that run the Solaris OS.
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Object files The Solaris OS link editors work with files that conform to the executable and linking format, otherwise referred to as ELF. Link-editing takes a variety of input files, typically generated from compilers, assemblers, or ld(1). The link-editor concatenates and interprets the data within these input files to form a single output file.
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No command-line option is required to distinguish a 32–bit link-edit or 64–bit link-edit. The link-editor uses the ELF class of the first relocatable object on the command-line to govern the mode in which to operate. Specialized link-edits, such as linking solely from a mapfile or an archive library, are uninfluenced by the command-line object. These link-edits default to a 32–bit mode. A 64–bit link-edit can be enforced by using the link-editor -64 option.
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Endianness might occur when you try to manipulate multi-byte data (for example, raw files which, are used by applications or individual data types using pointers). To resolve this issue, perform byte swapping. Performance benchmarking Sun has not published any major benchmarks on SPARC during 2009. However, Sun has published a number of single system benchmark results in 2009, on the x86 platform. These systems have Intel® Xeon® X5570 processors and Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris OS.
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This book also describes some of the tools provided by the operating system for developing 64-bit applications. Platform infrastructure I/O architecture Unlike the x86 family, which uses special IN/OUT instructions to access the PCI I/O space, the SPARC chip family treats access to the PCI I/O space the same as it treats access to the memory space. Communication with I/O devices in the SPARC platform is accomplished through memory. A range of memory locations is logically replaced by device registers.
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• The data from the large tables (fact tables and the large dimensions) is exported. • The destination database is set up with all the same global roles, users, user privileges, system triggers (on_logon) and tablespaces (for example, the settings which are not exported using exp). If you need a different tablespace or storage configuration, then this must be taken into account in the latter stages.
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The configure utility checks for the path of the build tools that to be used during the build, and verifies that the tools worked in the path are specified in the PATH environment variable. The utility configures the APR (Apache Portable Runtime) library used for implementing Apache-specific calls in the native implementation of the OS platform. The configure utility checks for various executables such as gcc and cc, along with the basic options make, awk, ld, sed.
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• -xarch=v8plus—Specifies the target instruction set architecture (ISA). This option is used to override the -xarch option used in the -xtarget option because this value is more suitable for enabling the compiler to generate code for good performance on the V8plus ISA. The abovementioned compiler options work with the SPARC version, but if the same macros or compiler flags must be used on the x86 architecture, then not all of them are supported by the x86 platform.
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-xtarget=pentium_pro—This option optimizes code for the pentium_pro architecture, since the processor used in the machine (Pentium III 550- MHz) for the case study belongs to the P6 (Pentium Pro) family. After these compiler flags are chosen, the build is successfully completed on the x86 machine without any further compiler warnings.
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References HP Technical Documentation website Sun Microsystems Documentation website Solaris on HP ProLiant website Technology for better business outcomes © Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.