jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) (10/27/90)
Does anyone know if the /system/*/pif files are of any use ? I've look at some of the modes, uid, gid and checksums and I have found a few that don't match. Should I worry about it ? jim sadler
paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) (10/31/90)
In article <1150040@misty.boeing.com>, jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: > Does anyone know if the /system/*/pif files are of any use ? > I've look at some of the modes, uid, gid and checksums and I have found a > few that don't match. Should I worry about it ? > The pif files were great while they worked. There was a program called pifck (available on the contrib tape and the support tape) that could automatically check the permissions on every hp-ux file. With hp-ux 3.1, any mismatched modes, uids, gids, or checksums were cause for worry. We really liked the information in the pif files. With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been replaced by a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are all missing. To top it off, HP supplies /system/*/pif files full of bogus information. If you want a "bill of materials" system, you'll have to roll your own. Paul Hite PRC Realty Systems McLean,Va uunet!prcrs!paul (703) 556-2243 You can't tell which way the train went by studying its tracks.
jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) (11/01/90)
/ misty:comp.sys.hp / paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) / 8:29 am Oct 30, 1990 / In article <1150040@misty.boeing.com>, jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: >> Does anyone know if the /system/*/pif files are of any use ? >> > >With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been replaced by >a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are all missing. To top it >off, HP supplies /system/*/pif files full of bogus information. If you want >a "bill of materials" system, you'll have to roll your own. Let me guess. a ENHANCEMENT REQUEST(aka bug report) needs to be generated. The HP response (according to standard SSB terminlogy): "May be fixed in future release." > >Paul Hite PRC Realty Systems McLean,Va uunet!prcrs!paul (703) 556-2243 > You can't tell which way the train went by studying its tracks. >---------- Thanks for the info! jim sadler 206-234-9009 email uunet!bcstec!jsadler | jsadler@misty.boeing.com
rer@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Rob Robason) (11/03/90)
paul> With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been
paul> replaced by a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are
paul> all missing. To top it off, HP supplies /system/*/pif files full
paul> of bogus information. If you want a "bill of materials" system,
paul> you'll have to roll your own.
jsadler> Let me guess. a ENHANCEMENT REQUEST(aka bug report) needs to
jsadler> be generated. The HP response (according to standard SSB
jsadler> terminlogy): "May be fixed in future release."
No, you don't need to do that. The PDF files will be in 8.0, completely
replacing both the pif and revlist files.
Our 7.0 release was a major effort to bring the 300 and 800 systems
closer together. Some of that was accomplished by converging the
processes we used to produce and integrate the system. The PDF tools
were an outgrowth of that process, used internally to check our own
consistency. I pressed to get the PDF tools into 7.0 but was really too
late to ask that all the group that puts the bits on the release tape
switch to them, so they produced the pifs (I don't think anyone here was
aware that they were incorrect, by the way).
Anyway, as things sometimes do, it all worked out for the best: putting
the PDF tools on the distribution provided the exposure necessary to
show up a defect in the checksum algorithm (based on a draft of POSIX.2)
that rendered the checksum almost worthless. That has been remedied by
a change to POSIX and to the PDF tools to use a better checksum
algorithm. Now we've had a chance to wring out the PDF tools before
asking you to rely on them.
Patched versions of the 7.0 PDF tools are available to customers on
support. Ask for patch S300/7.0/p105 or S800/7.0/p106 depending on
which system you have.
You can easily use mkpdf to produce PDFs for the HP-UX 7.0 release with
something like (as root):
ls /system |
while read fileset
do
mkpdf -c "Fileset $fileset" /etc/filesets/$fileset /system/$fileset/pdf
done
Rob Robasonjad@hpcndnm.cnd.hp.com (John Dilley) (11/03/90)
In article <1150042@misty.boeing.com> jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: > / misty:comp.sys.hp / paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) / 8:29 am Oct 30, 1990 / > In article <1150040@misty.boeing.com>, jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: > >> Does anyone know if the /system/*/pif files are of any use ? > >> > > > >With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been replaced by > >a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are all missing. To top it > >off, HP supplies /system/*/pif files full of bogus information. If you want > >a "bill of materials" system, you'll have to roll your own. > > Let me guess. a ENHANCEMENT REQUEST(aka bug report) needs to be > generated. The HP response (according to standard SSB > terminlogy): "May be fixed in future release." Actually, there is good news in addition to the bad news that the bogus pif files went away ... (?) The good news is there are now /system/*/pdf files (which correspond to the supported pdfck utility), which hopefully are not full of bogus information. My understanding is the pdfck utility is supported at 7.0 and beyond (it's on my 8.0 system although "past performance is no indication of future results" as my friends in the financial markets are fond of saying ... these days anyway ...). The pif files were ASCII text files full of information in a format you could hardly begin to use. The pdf files are full of information in a handy, easily computer-parsable format. With pdfck (or manually if you Love TO Hack) you can check your file mode, owner, group, checksum, just like with the pif file; you can also compare file size in bytes between the pdf file and what's on your file system. I hope you find the pdfck tool to be useful. I have. Regards, -- jad -- John Dilley Hewlett-Packard Colorado Networks Division UX-mail: jad@cnd.hp.com Phone: (303) 229-2787 -- This is not an official statement from Hewlett-Packard Corp., and does not necessarily reflect the official position of HP. The information above is provided in good faith but completely without warranty of any kind.
jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) (11/04/90)
/ misty:comp.sys.hp / jad@hpcndnm.cnd.hp.com (John Dilley) / 1:12 pm Nov 2, 1990 / >In article <1150042@misty.boeing.com> jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: > >> / misty:comp.sys.hp / paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) / 8:29 am Oct 30, 1990 / >> In article <1150040@misty.boeing.com>, jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: >> >> Does anyone know if the /system/*/pif files are of any use ? >> >> >> > >> >With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been replaced by >> >a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are all missing. To top it > . . . > Actually, there is good news in addition to the bad news that >the bogus pif files went away ... (?) The good news is there are now >/system/*/pdf files (which correspond to the supported pdfck utility), >which hopefully are not full of bogus information. My understanding is >the pdfck utility is supported at 7.0 and beyond (it's on my 8.0 system I've look at my 7.0 8xx machine and I found pdfck but I didn't find the pdf files. Any idea where they maybe ? . . . > > I hope you find the pdfck tool to be useful. I have. Regards, > It sounds useful. > -- jad -- > John Dilley > Hewlett-Packard > Colorado Networks Division >UX-mail: jad@cnd.hp.com >Phone: (303) 229-2787 >-- >This is not an official statement from Hewlett-Packard Corp., and does not >necessarily reflect the official position of HP. The information above is >provided in good faith but completely without warranty of any kind. ---------- jim sadler 206-234-9009 email uunet!bcstec!jsadler | jsadler@misty.boeing.com
paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) (11/06/90)
In article <JAD.90Nov2161243@hpcndnm.cnd.hp.com>, jad@hpcndnm.cnd.hp.com (John Dilley) writes: > In article <1150042@misty.boeing.com> jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) writes: > > > Actually, there is good news in addition to the bad news that > the bogus pif files went away ... (?) The good news is there are now > /system/*/pdf files (which correspond to the supported pdfck utility), > which hopefully are not full of bogus information. My understanding is > the pdfck utility is supported at 7.0 and beyond (it's on my 8.0 system But John, we didn't get any /system/*/pdf files. We do have pdfck. Could it be that we just got a bad distribution tape? I can think of 4 reasons why you have pdf files and we don't. 1. We got a bad distribution tape. 2. Perhaps you are using 300's which have them while the 800's that we use don't. 3. You got a HP Internal distribution tape with all sorts of goodies that we customers don't get. 4. The files are on 8.0 but not 7.0. Can anyone shed any light on this? Paul Hite PRC Realty Systems McLean,Va uunet!prcrs!paul (703) 556-2243 You can't tell which way the train went by studying its tracks.
rer@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Rob Robason) (11/13/90)
Reposted, since it appears nobody contributing to this discussion saw
this:
paul> With 7.0, HP ruined all of this. The unsupported pifck has been
paul> replaced by a supported pdfck. But the /system/*/pdf files are
paul> all missing. To top it off, HP supplies /system/*/pif files full
paul> of bogus information. If you want a "bill of materials" system,
paul> you'll have to roll your own.
jsadler> Let me guess. a ENHANCEMENT REQUEST(aka bug report) needs to
jsadler> be generated. The HP response (according to standard SSB
jsadler> terminlogy): "May be fixed in future release."
No, you don't need to do that. The PDF files will be in 8.0, completely
replacing both the pif and revlist files.
Our 7.0 release was a major effort to bring the 300 and 800 systems
closer together. Some of that was accomplished by converging the
processes we used to produce and integrate the system. The PDF tools
were an outgrowth of that process, used internally to check our own
consistency. I pressed to get the PDF tools into 7.0 but was really too
late to ask that all the group that puts the bits on the release tape
switch to them, so they produced the pifs (I don't think anyone here was
aware that they were incorrect, by the way).
Anyway, as things sometimes do, it all worked out for the best: putting
the PDF tools on the distribution provided the exposure necessary to
show up a defect in the checksum algorithm (based on a draft of POSIX.2)
that rendered the checksum almost worthless. That has been remedied by
a change to POSIX and to the PDF tools to use a better checksum
algorithm. Now we've had a chance to wring out the PDF tools before
asking you to rely on them.
Patched versions of the 7.0 PDF tools are available to customers on
support. Ask for patch S300/7.0/p105 or S800/7.0/p106 depending on
which system you have.
You can easily use mkpdf to produce PDFs for the HP-UX 7.0 release with
something like (as root):
ls /system |
while read fileset
do
mkpdf -c "Fileset $fileset" /etc/filesets/$fileset /system/$fileset/pdf
done
Rob Robason
----------jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) (11/15/90)
Rob I posted the below but I guess it didn't make it out. Rob Thank you very! much for the explaination and info. It is much appreciated. (This time I take back my comment about "May be fixed") :-) jim sadler 206-234-9009 email uunet!bcstec!jsadler | jsadler@misty.boeing.com