ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (05/15/88)
Several months ago I remember seeing a lot of talk on the net about mysterious crashes related to 3.51 uucp. At the time, I was not running uucp and didn't really follow the subject...WELL, I just set up a uucp connection with oswego.Oswego.EDU using /dev/ph1 a few days ago, and then the fun began! First some background. I have a 3B1 with 2 MB RAM/67 MB disk and am running 3.51 as supplied with my machine last fall. I run a BBS 24 hrs daily using my own software. I have a data line hooked up to /dev/ph1 for logins and nothing on /dev/ph0; I don't use the phone manager with a voice line. /dev/tty000 is set up as a direct terminal line at 9600 baud. Until yesterday, I have had absolutely no problems - the only times my system has been down is when I have shut it down, and two power outages - uptimes of 4-6 weeks have been typical. Last night uucp called up oswego, sent and received a file and disconnected as it should (according the the LOGFILE). When I logged in the mail icon was showing and ksh informed me that I had mail. I started to read my mail and things slowed down to a crawl, garbage characters began to spew on the console screen, the "working" icon stayed on and everything froze up. The "Suspd" key didn't work, but the mouse cursor did move. Tried to login over tty000, but nothing happened. Tried to dial in and the OBM clicked to answer, but no response there either. Finally I pressed the reset button and it booted up ok. /usr/adm/unix.log shows a "HD: Spurious Interupt", which I assume is when I hit the reset button. SO, here's what I'd like to know... 1) Does this sound like the same problem that others have experienced with 3.51 uucp? 2) Will 3.51a really fix it? Our AT&T users group just got a hold of 3.51a, but nobody has tried to install it yet. No one else is making much use of uucp on their Unix PCs yet, but they want to in the future, so my experiences will hopefully guide them. 3) If the answer to question 2 is "yes", then what NEW problems might 3.51a create for me? I don't want to "fix" anything that isn't broken. 4) I also remember lots of discussion about problems using the same line for dial-in and outgoing uucp calls. I have a second phone line which I use for voice only - its not connected to the system at all. Would I gain anything by putting an external modem on tty000 and setting it up for UUCP dial-out ONLY late at night when I'm not using the voice line? 5) On a slightly different but related topic, are there any (preferably public-domain) mail programs available? I don't see any listed in THE STORE! catalog. The mail(1) provided with the system is pretty limited. Is anything available for SysV through anonymus ftp? 6) FINALLY, I would eventually like to get USENET news on my 3B1. Is there a version of rn especially for the Unix PC, or is it generic enough that I can get the sources running under Ultrix from my local vax and compile it under SysV? I'm really only interested in a handful of newsgroups - how much disk space will the sources/binaries/whatever eat up? How much will it hog my cpu/disk when it runs? All responses will be greatly appreciated! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boyd Ostroff * Technical Director * Department of Theatre * SUNY Oswego Voice: (315) 341-2138 * sysop "The CallBoard": (315) 947-6414 300/1200 baud Internet: ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
darren@bacchus (Darren Friedlein) (05/16/88)
-Boyd,
For fixing the UUCP problems, I'd suggest getting HoneyDANBER from the STORE!
or another site. It is vastly supperior to the normal UUCP and I've never
experienced a problem with it.
As for mail, mailx is available from the store. This is a derivative of the
Berkley Mail program. If you're into visual (full-screen) stuff, I'd suggest
Elm, a program written by Dave Taylor (I'm not sure what his UNIX address is).
Hope this helps.
-darren
____
/ \
| Rt 4, Box 416, Durham, NC 27703
_____|_____ Darren G. Friedlein data (bacchus) : 919/596-7746
/ | \ voice : 919/596-9492
( | )
\____/ __/ {mcnc|icus|ethos|gladys|bakerst}!bacchus!darrenostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (05/17/88)
In article <430@bacchus> darren@bacchus.UUCP (Darren Friedlein) writes: >For fixing the UUCP problems, I'd suggest getting HoneyDANBER from the STORE! > I know this has been the subject of considerable flameage, so I will restrain myself, BUT, you need to be have a higher level password to get HDB uucp from the STORE! :-( evidently it is for AT&T employees only). AT&T is very supportive of our local user's group (The 3B UNIX Users Group of Upstate NY), and one of their employees is looking into (legitimate) ways of obtaining these forbidden fruits for us... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boyd Ostroff * Technical Director * Department of Theatre * SUNY Oswego Voice: (315) 341-2138 * sysop "The CallBoard": (315) 947-6414 300/1200 baud Internet: ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
wilkes@mips.COM (Who let HIM in?) (05/17/88)
In article <430@bacchus> darren@bacchus.UUCP (Darren Friedlein) writes: >For fixing the UUCP problems, I'd suggest getting HoneyDANBER from the STORE! >or another site. Gee, is HDB UUCP available from the STORE! these days? Last I heard, it was available only to AT&T employees, not paying customers who happen to work for another company. However, I have not called the STORE! for five or six months, so maybe this policy has quietly changed. If there is another site that can provide me with HDB, I'd be eternally grateful. -wilkes -- -- @work: -- {decwrl,ames,pyramid,prls}!mips!wilkes -- OR, for those of great faith: -- wilkes@mips.com
darren@bacchus (Darren Friedlein) (05/17/88)
Please disregard my last posting where I mentioned that HoneyDANBER was
available from the STORE!. I was posting that for a friend of mine who
works at AT&T. After careful inspection, however, I've found that HDB is
only available to AT&T employees.
-darren
____
/ \
| Rt 4, Box 416, Durham, NC 27703
_____|_____ Darren G. Friedlein data (bacchus) : 919/596-7746
/ | \ voice : 919/596-9492
( | )
\____/ __/ {mcnc|icus|ethos|gladys|bakerst}!bacchus!darrendarren@bacchus (Darren Friedlein) (05/17/88)
In article <3400@pitt.UUCP> you write: >In article <728@rush.cts.com> bob@rush.cts.com (Bob "Rush" Ames) writes: >>I'm setting up a UNIX PC for public access and am interested in hearing >>from others who have done this. Are there any UNIX PC BBSs out there? >>What types of BBS software are available? I'm only interested in providing >>news, mail, and possibly local discussions, to the outside world. Users will >>not get to shells or Offices. >> >>RRRR U U SSS HHHHH INET: bob@rush.cts.com > >Bob, > >I just started running a BBS with a 7300, 40M HD. Two public domain BBS >packages are SBBS and UNaXcess. Both have been posted to comp.sources.unix >and can be obtained via anonymous ftp at uunet.uu.net. Make sure you get >the SECOND UNaXcess (V 1.00.02). If you have trouble I can send them. >... > >kapolka@vax.cs.pittsburgh.edu >...{allegra, cadre}!pitt!kapolka M. Anthony Kapolka III >anthony@pittvms.Bitnet Andy Pitts (andy@rbdc) has made a number of fixes/changes/enhancements to UNaXcess and is working on a re-write to be distributed under another name. Meanwhile, his newest version is 2.44A and it allows for mail, local newsgroups, and USENET newsgroup access. Three boards in this area are joined in a UNaXcess network (for the discussion of the humanities): Humanities Forum (Gray, TN) - gary@ethos (Gary Smith) Humanities Forum - RTP (Durham, NC) - darren@bacchus (Darren Friedlein) Humanities Forum III (Winston-Salem, NC) - david@gladys (David Dalton) (HF-III was formerly SFWN) Since my site (bacchus) is in a PCPursuit city, we transfer messages through news with my site as the hub. All of us have 3b1s in some configuration or another and all of us use UNaXcess. If you (Bob) or anyone else is interested in joining this "network", please send me mail. To sample the BBS, call 919-596-7746 (PCPursuitable). Using the BBS in a networking manner DOES require that the news software be installed on your machine, but it need not be active for anything but the BBS. UNaXcess can be used stand-alone as well. Hope I've helped you some with your decision. -darren ____ / \ | Rt 4, Box 416, Durham, NC 27703 _____|_____ Darren G. Friedlein data (bacchus) : 919/596-7746 / | \ voice : 919/596-9492 ( | ) \____/ __/ {mcnc|icus|ethos|gladys|bakerst}!bacchus!darren
lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) (05/17/88)
In article <802@oswego.Oswego.EDU> ostroff@oswego.UUCP (Boyd Ostroff) writes: ... |> [description of the console slow-down-and-die 3.51 bug left out] |> |>1) Does this sound like the same problem that others have experienced |>with 3.51 uucp? |> Yes. (more like the phone driver in the 3.51 kernel) |>2) Will 3.51a really fix it? Our AT&T users group just got a hold of 3.51a, |>but nobody has tried to install it yet. No one else is making much use |>of uucp on their Unix PCs yet, but they want to in the future, so my |>experiences will hopefully guide them. |> Hopefully temporarily. But tonight (after 3 months of running 3.51a) I reported the similar problems with the slow-down-and-die. For any consolation it will slow down the occurances of these crashes.. Especially if your system is very active with uucp calls. |>3) If the answer to question 2 is "yes", then what NEW problems might |>3.51a create for me? I don't want to "fix" anything that isn't broken. |> Nothing apparent, but this doesn't guarantee totally all the fixes are good, or they will not create others. |>5) On a slightly different but related topic, are there any (preferably |>public-domain) mail programs available? I don't see any listed in |>THE STORE! catalog. The mail(1) provided with the system is pretty limited. |>Is anything available for SysV through anonymus ftp? |> Elm is a good public domain mail program. It is available from most comp.sources.unix sites. I would suggest getting the Elm 1.7beta version if you can find it. It is probably ftp-able from uunet.uu.net. |>6) FINALLY, I would eventually like to get USENET news on my 3B1. Is there |>a version of rn especially for the Unix PC, or is it generic enough that I |>can get the sources running under Ultrix from my local vax and compile it |>under SysV? I'm really only interested in a handful of newsgroups - how |>much disk space will the sources/binaries/whatever eat up? How much will |>it hog my cpu/disk when it runs? |> RN works fine for System V, and compiles nicely on the UNIX pc. There are a few peculiarities with the UNIX pc on board modem that about two lines of code in one of the files needed to be changed (when you get to that point, mail me and I will point them out). Binaries aren't all that big especially if you use the Shared libraries for compiling them on the UNIX pc. It all depends on how active the groups are... on how much space they eat up. I get a semi-full (everything except for soc, talk, sci) feed and I keep most of the groups for two days - four days, It eats up a lot of space ... 24,000 blocks approx. Oh well. As far as CPU hogging, I would suggest to do your news uncompressing/batching at odd(late night) hours. This way the impact won't be so apparent. -Lenny -- US MAIL : Lenny Tropiano, ICUS Computer Group IIIII CCC U U SSS PO Box 1 I C U U S Islip Terrace, New York 11752 I C U U SS PHONE : (516) 968-8576 [H] (516) 582-5525 [W] I C U U S TELEX : 154232428 [ICUS] IIIII CCC UUU SSS AT&T MAIL: ...attmail!icus!lenny UUCP : ...{mtune, ihnp4, boulder, talcott, sbcs, bc-cis}!icus!lenny
scott@zorch.UU.NET (Scott Hazen Mueller) (05/18/88)
In article <363@icus.UUCP> lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) writes: >As far as CPU hogging, I would suggest to do your news uncompressing/batching >at odd(late night) hours. This way the impact won't be so apparent. What I've found to help for news unbatching is the public domain dbm replacement posted to the Usenet recently. Do be careful though - version 1.0 of this (dbz) is buggy and news compiled with it doesn't reject duplicate articles correctly. Version 1.3 seems to work okay. The performance improvement is impressive - it used to take ~5 minutes to decompress/unbatch news; with dbz it takes about 2 minutes. Write me if you're interested and can't find the source. >-Lenny -- Scott Hazen Mueller scott@zorch.UU.NET (408) 245-9461 (pyramid|tolerant|uunet)!zorch!scott
cals@cals01.zone1.com (Charles A. Sefranek) (05/20/88)
In article <802@oswego.Oswego.EDU> ostroff@oswego.UUCP (Boyd Ostroff) writes: >SO, here's what I'd like to know... > >1) Does this sound like the same problem that others have experienced >with 3.51 uucp? Yes ! My machine ran fine for four months before I established a uucp connection. After that it would "crash" about every two weeks. Once it did so while I was using vi - symptoms identical to what you describe, even the HD- spurious interrupt error. I discovered that EVERY incident occurred when uucico encountered an error after establishing a connection. The crash happened when uucico tried to exit. Check your /usr/spool/uucp/LOGFILE. Since then I have installed the 3.51a fix disk [all of it] and have had two (count them, *two*) uucico errors, WITH NO CRASH!!! Needless to say I think this is great, but I've only had the fix in for less than a week now (fingers crossed). Good luck ! -- Charles A. Sefranek cals@cals01.zone1.com {sun,decuac,cb-att,gatech,necntc,ukma}!rayssd!galaxia!cals01!cals -- -- Charles A. Sefranek cals@cals01.zone1.com {sun,decuac,cb-att,gatech,necntc,ukma}!rayssd!galaxia!cals01!cals
cks@ziebmef.UUCP (Chris Siebenmann) (05/22/88)
In article <802@oswego.Oswego.EDU> ostroff@oswego.UUCP (Boyd Ostroff) writes: ... >5) On a slightly different but related topic, are there any (preferably >public-domain) mail programs available? I don't see any listed in >THE STORE! catalog. The mail(1) provided with the system is pretty limited. >Is anything available for SysV through anonymus ftp? First, if you aren't already running pathalias and smail, you should be. Both came up with absolutely no problems here, and have been completely trouble-free so far. Pathalias isn't really necessary, since all you use it for is to generate a path-database file which is easy to do by hand if you're going to forward unrecognized addresses to another system for address resolution. There are a couple of mail programs available. I brought up elm here briefly, and it seemed to work OK (although I've heard reports of it changing the group of mailboxes in /usr/mail when it shouldn't). It needed a bit of work to get the configuration and setup right; the configuration script it comes with wasn't sufficient. Mush came across comp.sources.unix recently; I don't know how easy it would be to bring it up on a 3B1. I'm currently running MH, which is large but fits very well with how I like to deal with mail. It needed some porting to get it running under SysV with smail; I can make the patches needed available to interested people. >6) FINALLY, I would eventually like to get USENET news on my 3B1. Is there >a version of rn especially for the Unix PC, or is it generic enough that I >can get the sources running under Ultrix from my local vax and compile it >under SysV? I'm really only interested in a handful of newsgroups - how >much disk space will the sources/binaries/whatever eat up? How much will >it hog my cpu/disk when it runs? rn runs fine on the 3B1 (with a minor change to cope with the fact that you can't open /dev/tty read-only if you're calling in through /dev/ph[01]). Larry Wall's configuration script handled everything just fine. The B news source, on the other hand, needed some tweaking before the configuration came out right (the supplied 3B1/7300 configuration wasn't quite right). The news binaries and support files take up about a meg here, and then there's the news articles themselves. Compressed, the news sources take up two floppies; there's no need to keep them online if you're low in disk space. There's a fairly large performance hit when B news starts running to receive or expire articles; some of this will probably go away with the dbm-for-SysV-news code posted to alt.sources recently. -- "I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world." Number Ten Ox, "Bridge of Birds" Chris Siebenmann {uunet!mnetor!lsuc,utgpu}!ncrcan!ziebmef!cks cks@ziebmef.UUCP or ...!utgpu!{radio,ontmoh,ncrcan!brambo}!cks