Sun-Spots-Request@RICE.EDU.UUCP (01/27/87)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Monday, 26 Jan 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 3 Today's Topics: Network Simulation Tool available for Suns Ether bridges may require rsize, wsize Re: singleuser boot security (v5n1) Disk speeds of Sun file servers (long) Sun sl Screen Saver for SUNs, answer! (2) domain support in Sun 3.2 Re: Sun 3.0 /bin/login doesn't set tty ownership 3/260's are NOT vaporware (2) rwhod fixes RCS Ethernet controller information wanted? vectors unaffected by clipping? hardware flow control? Re: mail on diskless workstations? 1/2" tapes on Sun-3's? C compiler bug? nd and arp problems? Sun terminal emulation? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Jan 87 14:11:25 EST From: <dupuy%amsterdam@columbia.edu> Alexander Dupuy Subject: Network Simulation Tool available for Suns Columbia University Computer Science Department Distributed Computing & Communications (DCC) group Network Simulation Testbed (Nest) version 2.3 Now Available Nest is part of a collection of tools being developed at Columbia for the design and analysis of large scale distributed systems. Nest allows rapid prototyping of these systems by providing a simulated network environment in which independent functions can easily be composed into distributed systems. The simulated network can be modified while the system is running, allowing performance tracing and measurement in a wide variety of simulated conditions, including failures. Nest implements this with a library that maintains a model of the simulated network and multiplexes the independent functions within a single process. The functions are associated with nodes in the network, and communicate with other nodes through library facilities which can model many communication methods or behaviors. This library also supports a user interface client which allows runtime control and measurement of the simulated network. The current release of Nest version 2.3 runs on Sun and Vax computers under any 4.2bsd Unix derivative (including 4.3). The user interface client runs on Suns with 2.0 or later release of SunView/SunWindows. Nest version 2.4 should be ready by spring 1986, and will include an enhanced user interface client with both SunView and X versions. Nest is available to non-profit and educational institutions at no cost, and at a nominal $100.00 support fee for others. Please contact Alexander Dupuy or Jed Schwartz for details. Alexander Dupuy Jed Schwartz 485 Computer Science Building 517 Computer Science Building Columbia University Columbia University New York City, N.Y. 10027 New York City, N.Y. 10027 (212) 280-8622 (212) 280-8192 arpa: dupuy@columbia.edu arpa: jed@cs.columbia.edu uucp: seismo!columbia!dupuy uucp: seismo!columbia!cs!jed ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Jan 87 20:01:32 PST From: <speck@vlsi.caltech.edu> Don Speck Subject: Ether bridges may require rsize, wsize One fellow here was trying to run NFS across a network containing Ungermann-Bass bridges on a 5 Mb/s backbone, and was getting wierd errors. The errors went away when he changed /etc/fstab to specify rsize=4096,wsize=4096. Apparently, the Ungermann-Bass bridge can't take very many packets back-to-back, much like 3com Ethernet boards. Don Speck speck@vlsi.caltech.edu {seismo,rutgers,ames}!cit-vax!speck ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 87 23:41:57 From: <lrj@lasspvax> Lewis R. Jansen Subject: Re: singleuser boot security (v5n1) Why not just place "login root" in /.profile? I imagine it does present a window, if small, for a ^C, i really haven't explored it much. The other problem is if you like using the Bourne shell when root; we use csh. This suggestion was taken from the BUGS section of the SunOS 3.2 man page on init(8). It doesn't seem to appear in the 3.0 version of that man page. -- Lewis R. Jansen, LASSP Systems Grunt lrj@lasspvax.tn.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jan 87 00:28:43 PST From: <speck@vlsi.caltech.edu> Don Speck Subject: Disk speeds of Sun file servers In hopes of gauging the differences in disk speed across the range of Sun file servers, I ran some experiments measuring the minimum rotational latency between successive reads on the raw device as a function of blocksize. This is related to the "rotdelay" filesystem tuning parameter, but is a little larger because the raw device has higher overhead than the block I/O internals. My method was to do reads some number of sectors apart, and push the number down until I stopped gaining any speed from this (i.e. until I started losing revolutions). The "gap" so obtained depended on the size of the reads, so to separate the per-kilobyte setup time from the per-kilobyte recovery time, I alternated large reads and small reads. From this, I found that the setup time did not depend strongly on the size of the read, but the recovery time did, and when the reads were made large enough (i.e. recovery time got large enough) the disk lost a revolution anyway. I conclude that the DMA wasn't keeping up with the disk, and the large recovery time was buffer draining. For moderately large transfers, the buffer became full, and the disk had to "blow a rev" while the buffer emptied. The machines tested pretty much spanned the range of Sun file servers: Name CPU OS controller disk sectors rps rosie 3/260 3.2 Xylogics 451 M2333 67 60 stokes 3/160 3.1 Xylogics 451 M2333 67 60 jove 3/160 3.0 Xylogics 450 Eagle 46 66 sol 2/170 3.0 Xylogics 450 Eagle 46 66 Two rotational gaps were measured at each block size: the first is the gap preceding the large read (setup time), and the second is the gap after the large read (recovery time). Between each large read was a small (1 KB) read to serve as a reference and timing point. The measurements are in units of disk sectors: 1K 4K 8K 16K 20K 24K 25K 32K 43K sol 25 25 26 29 28 33 32 41 36 50 37 53 jove 14 14 15 17 16 19 17 26 17 32 17 33 stokes 17 17 17 20 17 25 17 34 18 39 rosie 14 14 14 18 14 20 16 26 18 38 19 46 Attempts to do transfers larger than those in the table would lose revolutions while the buffer emptied. Knowing the buffer size (8 KB) and the average transfer rates of the disks, we can calculate the DMA rate: sol 1.0 MB/s jove 1.0 MB/s stokes 1.2 MB/s rosie 1.6 MB/s (Life must be really miserable with ancient 450's that have only a 2K buffer; those can be expected to blow revs even on 8K transfers). In no case was the DMA fast enough to keep up with the disk; you're fooling yourself if you think you're gaining anything from transfer rates higher than an Eagle's. Reducing the "raw numbers" to milliseconds per transfer: interblock time xfer time total for 8K sol 7.9ms + 0.52ms/KB 0.66ms/KB 17.3 ms (2/170, XY450) jove 4.5ms + 0.33ms/KB 0.66ms/KB 12.4 ms (3/160, XY450) stokes 4.2ms + 0.30ms/KB 0.50ms/KB 10.6 ms (3/160, XY451) rosie 3.4ms + 0.22ms/KB 0.50ms/KB 9.2 ms (3/260, XY451) Surprisingly, the difference between a 3/160 and a 3/260 is not large; it is exceeded by the difference between a 450 and a 451. The 3/260 doesn't look like a cost-effective file server, given its high price. Certainly one wouldn't want to hobble such an expensive file server with the slower Xylogics 450. Remember that this is *minimum* transfer time, such as encountered when reading huge files on a properly tuned filesystem. ("Properly tuned" means that the rotdelay parameter is set correctly, as in the above table, instead of leaving it at the default setting, which is far from optimal). Random traffic also encounters the average seek time and average rotational latency (= 1/2 revolution time); both figures are lowest in Eagles. Don Speck speck@vlsi.caltech.edu {seismo,rutgers,ames}!cit-vax!speck ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 87 13:51:15 EST From: <mark@mimsy.umd.edu> Mark Weiser Subject: Sun sl I recently had the 'opportunity' of putting SLIP into a sun kernel without source, and discovered that my previously posted version depended on some Maryland kernel hacks. A new guaranteed to work for object only suns (at least for 3.2) is available for anonymous ftp from mimsy.umd.edu, file sun_sl.shar. I watched what I did this time, so there is also a README with step-by-step installation instructions. -mark ----- Spoken: Mark Weiser ARPA: mark@mimsy.cs.umd Phone: +1-301-454-7817 CSNet: mark@mimsy UUCP: {seismo,allegra}!mimsy!mark USPS: Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 87 10:35:58 EST From: <mckay@ee.ecn.purdue.edu> Dwight D McKay Subject: Screen Saver for SUNs, answer! (1) A while back I asked about a Screen Saver for SUN workstations. I just got a message back from someone at SUN that this feature is part of their 3.2 UNIX release. Specifically: screenblank (1) - turn off video when the mouse and keyboard are idle --Dwight Mckay, ECN Text & Workstation Software Support [arpanet: mckay@ee.ecn.purdue.edu, usenet: ...ihnp4!pur-ee!mckay] [Compu-serve: 75776,1521, office: EE 348B, phone: (317) 494-3561] ------------------------------ Date: 14 January 1987 1150-PST (Wednesday) From: <wallen@nprdc.arpa> Mark Wallen Subject: Re: Screen Saver for SUNs, answer! (2) Here is a real simple minded screen saver that you can run from crontab-- it just uses lockscreen. The two weak points are: 1) the test for "idleness" is extremely simpleminded-- the console is owned by root. 2) You exit lockscreen with the "exit desktop" selection but you get no login prompt; you have to type RETURN. --------save_idle_screen -- run from crontab #! /bin/csh -f set DotSuntools = /local/bin/save_idle_screen.data set llout = ( `/bin/ls -l /dev/console` ) # this is a really poor test of the idleness of the system if ( X$llout[3] !~ Xroot ) exit exec suntools -d /dev/fb -m /dev/mouse -k /dev/kbd -s $DotSuntools & --------save_idle_screen.data -- use the icon of your choice # # dummy .suntools for save_idle_screens lockscreen -e -WI /local/lib/icons/idle_sun1.icon ------------ Mark Wallen Institute for Cognitive Science UC San Diego wallen@ucsd.edu wallen@nprdc.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 87 12:48:31 est From: <hedrick@topaz.rutgers.edu> Charles Hedrick Subject: domain support in Sun 3.2 You might be interested to know that in 3.2 Sun more or less supports the use of bind. They supply named (called /usr/etc/in.named). They also supply an interface to the resolver. ypserv will call the resolver if it looks up a name in the yp hosts database and doesn't find it. To get this, you must run ypserv with the undocumented option -i. In addition, you must create a file /etc/resolv.conf. You should put in it the commands domain foo.edu nameserver 127.0.0.1 where foo.edu gets appends to any name that doesn't have a dot in it. (Obviously you replace foo.edu with your own domain name.) This file should not be needed, except that Sun's defaults seem odd. By default it uses the domain taken from your yp domain. Maybe that's OK for some sites. But we use rutgers.edu for all of our host names, but each set of machines with a different passwd file have their own yp domain. So for us it is wildly inappropriate to use the yp domain as the default for hostname lookup. The default nameserver is something completely off the wall, like 239.0.0.1. The example above assumes that you want to run named on every machine that is a yp server. If not, then of course the nameserver command can point to a machine or machines that you want domain queries to go to. If you want to use only the domain system, you will want to create a very short /etc/hosts, and then to a make in the yp directory. We use /etc/hosts that lists only 127.0.0.1, as localhost and loghost. Apparently named needs that entry in order to start. For sites that have a number of multi-homed hosts, Sun provides an extension to the resolver to let you select which address you prefer. /etc/resolv.conf can have a line like address 128.6.0.0 128.121.0.0 The resolver will sort the list of addresses by looking for any address on network 128.6 and moving it to the beginning of the list, then any address on 128.121, etc. However this is controlled by a conditional in gethostnamadr.c, in ..src../usr.etc/in.named/res. So to get this, you'll have to turn on that conditional in the Makefile, rebuild libresolv.a in that directory, and then rebuild ypserv in ..src../usr.etc/ypserv. We have an additional problem, because we have machines that serve clients on two different networks. So we have an additional sorting that depends upon which network the request arrives from. SInce Sun specifically prohibits such configurations, we assume that this change will not be relevant to many other people. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 87 12:58:11 CST From: <phil@titan.rice.edu> William LeFebvre Subject: Re: Sun 3.0 /bin/login doesn't set tty ownership? That's funny. As far as I know, I am on a Sun 3 running 3.0, and my tty is owned by both my user id and group id. Perhaps your system was not installed correctly? Perhaps /bin/login is not setuid to root like it is suposed to be? William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 87 19:42:37 EST From: <mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu> Mark Weiser Subject: 3/260's are NOT vaporware (1) Well, I heard from at least 3 people within 24 hours that had received 3/260's as regular customers. All had received them in the last 2-3 weeks. I also heard from other people who had been told by Apollo reps that no one was shipping 68020's. This seems to be a nasty rumor (or perhaps it was true when it was started k months ago.) So, when your friends from Apollo start trashing 68020's, point them at Sun. -mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 11:17:56 EST From: <mo@seismo.CSS.GOV> Mike O'Dell Subject: 3/260's are NOT vaporware (2) If 260's are vaporware, I am not exactly sure just what the 3 machines next to me really are, then. My site has three 3/260HM's delivered and running like nothing I've ever seen (fast, Fast, FAST!). Further, my 3/280 server with 16 Megs, a 9-track, and 2 Eagle XP's just came in the door yesterday. Oh yes, we have had the 260's since mid-November. So if anyone says 260's are vaporware, tell 'em they're only blowing smoke. Smoke from the flaming tires on a 260. -Mike O'Dell PS - Jumpdemo on a 260, in a dark room, with your face close enough that the image fills your field of vision is a Real Trip. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 12:05:08 EST From: <mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu> Mark Weiser Subject: rwhod fixes It has been pointed out to me that changes to rwhod were posted to Jim Knutson about a year ago (to this list, V 4, I 4, dated Saturday, 8 Feb 1986). His approach is the same I recently mentioned and offered diffs for. I have no reason to think Jim's isn't a good approach--I simply forgot it was there. -mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 10:45:48 cst From: <ables%pp@mcc.com> King Ables Subject: RCS We just recently (finally) got RCS fixed on Sun-3s. The solution is to use diff from 4.3BSD as rdiff in RCS. diff didn't have the right parameter so they wrote rdiff. However, they hacked diff to get rdiff. There was a bug deep in diff that made it not work when dereferencing null pointers (which on a Vax, you can do). They fixed this basic bug in diff in 4.3BSD in addition to adding the needed parameter. RCS under 4.3BSD doesn't even need rdiff since diff works like it needs to! Also, just FYI, Jim Knutson of U. of Tex. (knutson@ngp.utexas.edu) posted almost the same fix to rwho that was posted recently at least a year ago (I *think* to this very newsgroup/mailing list!). I've been running it that long and it does a great job of cutting down net traffic! -king ARPA: ables@mcc.com UUCP: {gatech,ihnp4,nbires,seismo,ucb-vax}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!mcc-pp!ables ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 87 4:50 +0800 From: <see%ubc.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET> Helen Lim See Subject: Ethernet controller information wanted? I'm currently writing Ethernet device drivers for a distributed operating system (Team Shoshin) for Sun-2/50s which use the Intel 82586 LAN controller chip and Sun-3/50s which use an AMD LANCE (Local Area Network Controller for Ethernet) Am7990 chip. The specifications and users manuals for these chips, and the 3Com chip as well, would be extremely helpful to me. I would appreciate it if someone could send me any of this material or tell me where I can obtain it. Even better, has someone written a driver for either the Intel or AMD device that they can send to me? Thanks very much for your assistance. Helen L. See | {ihnp4!alberta,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!see Dept. of Computer Science | see@cs.ubc.cdn University of British Columbia| see%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Vancouver, B.C. | see@ubc.csnet Canada V6T 1W5 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 11:01:21 EST From: <mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu> Mark Weiser Subject: vectors unaffected by clipping? On page 18 of the Pixrect Reference Manual (Version A of 17 February 1986), near the bottom, it says: "The vectors are balanced according to their endpoints as given and not as clipped, so that the same pixels will be drawn regardless of how the vector is clipped." The following little program illustrates that, sadly, this statement is false. Compile the guy below with cc -o vectortest vectortest.c -lsuntool -lsunwindow -lpixrect Run it, then draw a vector with the left mouse button, and try setting different clipping regions with the right button. The vector is redrawn each time you change the clipping region, and the pixels are NOT necessarily the same each time. Now, I'm not a graphics person--is there something I misunderstand? Perhaps pw_vector doesn't use pr_vector?? ----cut here for program------ #include <suntool/sunview.h> #include <suntool/canvas.h> #include <suntool/panel.h> Pixwin *mainpw; void main_event_proc(), draw_proc(), clear_proc(); int cx = 100, cy = 100, vx, vy; main(argc, argv) char **argv; { Frame mainframe; Canvas maincanvas; Panel mainpanel; mainframe = window_create(NULL, FRAME, FRAME_LABEL, " left to set vec, right to set clip", 0); maincanvas = window_create(mainframe, CANVAS, WIN_EVENT_PROC, main_event_proc, 0); mainpw = canvas_pixwin(maincanvas); window_main_loop(mainframe); exit(0); } void main_event_proc(window, event, arg) Window window; Event *event; caddr_t arg; { int id = event_id(event); if (event_is_button(event) && event_is_down(event)) { switch(id) { case MS_LEFT: vx = event_x(event); vy = event_y(event); break; case MS_RIGHT: cx = event_x(event); cy = event_y(event); break; } draw(); } } draw() { Pixwin *pw; pw = pw_region(mainpw, 0, 0, cx, cy); pw_vector(pw, 0, 0, vx, vy, PIX_SRC, 1); pw_close(pw); } ------------------end of program-------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Jan 87 20:04:31 -0500 From: <mark@markssun.cs.umd.edu> Mark Weiser Subject: hardware flow control? What is anyone doing about hardware flow control (using DTR, etc. instead of XON/XOFF)? Anyone implement this in a version I can borrow? (We have Sun Source). Does this come with the appropriate Sun networking product? There have been two previous requests on this list for this information, but I saw no replies. Thanks in advance... -mark ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jan 87 10:00:00 PST From: <ted@braggvax.arpa> Ted Nolan Subject: Re: mail on diskless workstations? >From: Doug Bryan <Bryan@SU-SIERRA.ARPA> >Subject: mail on diskless workstations? >My question is: Is there an easy way to set up mail so that the users >can log into any of the 110s and read their mail sent to them at the >file server? >doug We have been successfully running the POP protocol provided with UCI's MH 6.5 for several months now. It provides what you want, the only disadvantage being that you can no longer use the regular Mail command to read your mail, you must use the MH commands (we already did, so had no problem with that). You have to add one demon to the fileserver, but you can turn off sendmail on all the clients. MH is available free by anonymous ftp. Ted Nolan ted@braggvax.arpa (a POP host) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jan 87 11:56:22 EST From: <smb@mimsy.umd.edu> Steve M. Burinsky Subject: 1/2" tapes on Sun-3's? I've seen people discussing several drives running on several controllers. I am interested in Xylogics controllers because Sun will support them. The 451 and 472 have both been suggested as tape controllers. Can someone summarize which drives go with which controllers? Also, I have a DEC TU80 that I'd like to put on a Sun, but can't figure out who makes it. Bottom line is, which controller do I need for a TU80? Steve Burinsky smb@mimsy.umd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 87 22:13:57 -0500 From: <ken@rochester.arpa> SKY Subject: C compiler bug? Sorry if this is the wrong list, but could people tell me if this bug is still in the C compiler? The error message is: "foo.c", line 21: compiler error: no table entry for op REG typedef struct int_board_pos { /* internal rep of board */ int white, red, kings; int border; /* which squares have highlight */ } int_board_pos; display_board(current) int_board_pos *current; { register int changes; register int white, red; register int white_kings, red_kings; register int prev_white_kings, prev_red_kings; static int_board_pos previous = { 0, 0, 0, 0 }; /* locate all squares that have some change */ changes = current->border ^ previous.border | current->white ^ previous.white | current->red ^ previous.red | white_kings ^ prev_white_kings | red_kings ^ prev_red_kings; } Thanks, Ken ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jan 87 21:54:02 GMT From: <jjg@linus.UUCP> Jeff Glass Subject: nd and arp problems? I have a SUN-3/75 which boots via nd from a SUN-3/180. While booting, the ARP table entry for the diskless node changes from 8:0:20:1:3d:ee (good) to da:0:0:0:0:0 (not good) on the diskless node and on the nd server. For some reason, this works fine, until the diskless node is rebooted. Then rarpd on the nd server does not recognize the diskless node until an "arp -d disklessnode" is done on the server, so the diskless node repeatedly gets "tftp timeout" messages. I have a SUN-3/110C which experiences exactly the same problem, only its ARP table entry gets changed to ca:0:0:0:0:0. However, there are seven other SUN-3s booting from the same nd server which do not experience this problem. I presume that nd is at fault because the ARP table entry for the diskless node on the nd server does not change until just before /etc/rc is executed; that is, it does not change until late in the boot. If I boot the diskless node in single user mode, the ARP table entry becomes incorrect as usual. If I then manually delete that ARP table entry, it remains deleted as long as the diskless node is inactive. Once I execute a command on the diskless node, an incorrect ARP table entry is created. No nfs filesystems are mounted, and yp is not executing. I periodically run "arp -d disklessnode" from cron on the nd server so that the diskless node can reboot if need be, but I would like to know what is happening, and how to fix it. Thanks/jeff ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jan 87 18:50:04 GMT From: <galvin@uo.utexas.edu> Peter Galvin Subject: Sun terminal emulation? I'm using a sun 2 running sun unix v3.0, and I need to talk to Dec-20's. The problem is the terminal type of a shelltool is not quite a vt100, and so using editors et al on the 20's produces wierd results in my windows. Is there any way to do real vt100 (or other terminal) emulation in a window? Sure would make life fun. --Pete ------------------------------ End of SUN-Spots Digest ***********************