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Illumos

Developer	Illumos Foundation
Written in	C
OS family	Unix ( SVR4) [1]
Working state	Current
Source model	Open source with binary blobs
Initial release	2010; 14 years ago (2010)
Repository	github.com/illumos/illumos-gate
Available in	English
Platforms	IA-32, x86-64, SPARC, ARM (under development), [2] DEC Alpha
Kernel type	Monolithic
License	CDDL, BSD, MIT
Preceded by	OpenSolaris
Official website	illumos.org

Illumos (stylized as illumos) is a partly ^[3] free and open-source Unix operating system. It is based on OpenSolaris, which was based on System V Release 4 (SVR4) and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Illumos comprises a kernel, device drivers, system libraries, and utility software for system administration. This core is now the base for many different open-sourced Illumos distributions, ^[4] in a similar way in which the Linux kernel is used in different Linux distributions. ^[5]

The maintainers write illumos in lowercase ^[6] since some computer fonts do not clearly distinguish a lowercase L from an uppercase i: Il (see homoglyph). ^[7] The project name is a combination of words illuminare from Latin for to light and OS for Operating System. ^[8]

Overview

Illumos was announced via webinar ^[9] on Thursday, 3 August 2010, as a community effort of some core Solaris engineers to create a truly open source Solaris by swapping closed source bits of OpenSolaris with open implementations. ^{[10] [11]}

The original plan explicitly stated that Illumos would not be a distribution or a fork. However, after Oracle announced discontinuing OpenSolaris, plans were made to fork the final version of the Solaris ON kernel allowing Illumos to evolve into a kernel of its own. ^[12]

As of 2010 ^[update], efforts focused on libc, the NFS lock manager, the crypto module, and many device drivers to create a Solaris-like OS with no closed, proprietary code. As of 2012 ^[update], development emphasis includes transitioning from the historical compiler, Studio, to GCC. ^[13] The "userland" software is now built with GNU make ^[14] and contains many GNU utilities such as GNU tar.

Illumos is lightly led by founder Garrett D'Amore and other community members/developers such as Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, via a Developers' Council. ^[15]

The Illumos Foundation has been incorporated in the State of California as a 501(c)6 trade association, with founding board members Jason Hoffman (formerly at Joyent), Evan Powell ( Nexenta), and Garrett D'Amore. As of August 2012, the foundation was in the process of formalizing its by-laws and organizational development.

At OpenStorage Summit 2010, the new logo for Illumos was revealed, with official type and branding to follow over. ^[16]

Development

Its primary development project, illumos-gate, derives from OS/Net (aka ON), ^[17] which is a Solaris kernel with the bulk of the drivers, core libraries, and basic utilities, similar to what is delivered by a BSD "src" tree. It was originally dependent on OpenSolaris OS/Net, but a fork was made after Oracle silently decided to close the development of Solaris and unofficially killed the OpenSolaris project. ^{[18] [19] [20]}

Features

• ZFS, a combined file system and logical volume manager providing a high level of data integrity for very large storage capacities.
• Solaris Containers (or Zones), a low overhead implementation of operating-system-level virtualization technology for x86 and SPARC systems.
• DTrace, a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time.
• Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), a virtualization infrastructure. KVM supports native virtualization on processors with hardware virtualization extensions.
• OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource Control (or Crossbow), a set of features that provides an internal network virtualization and quality of service including: virtual NIC (VNIC) pseudo-network interface technology, exclusive ip zones, bandwidth management, and flow control on a per interface and per VNIC basis.

Distributions

Distributions, at illumos.org ^[21]

• DilOS, with Debian package manager ( dpkg + apt) and virtualization support, available for x86-64 and SPARC. ^[22]
• NexentaStor, distribution optimized for virtualization, storage area networks, network-attached storage, and iSCSI or Fibre Channel applications employing the ZFS file system.
• OmniOS Community Edition, takes a minimalist approach suitable for server use. ^[23]
• OpenIndiana, a distribution that is a continuation and fork in the spirit of the OpenSolaris operating system.
• SmartOS, a distribution for cloud computing with Kernel-based Virtual Machine integration.
• Tribblix, retro style distribution with modern components, available for x86-64 and SPARC. ^[24]
• v9os, a server-only, IPS-based minimal SPARC distribution. ^[25]
• XStreamOS, a distribution for infrastructure, cloud, and web development. ^[26]

Discontinued:

• Dyson, derived from Debian using libc, and SMF init system.
• OpenSXCE, distribution for developers and system administrators for IA-32/ x86-64 x86 platforms and SPARC. ^[27]

See also

• Solaris, the ancestor of Illumos

References

External links

• Official website
• napp-it, a ZFS web interface for Illumos-based NAS or SAN appliances.