[comp.sys.dec] Those stupid setld formats!

awpsys@ultb.UUCP (Andrew W. Potter) (11/18/89)

Does ANYONE know how to simply extract files from those STUPID dec
setld format files?   I need to get some kernal files, and I refuse
to do the stupid DEC ultrix installation all over from scratch!

- Andy

-- 
Andrew W. Potter                 Bitnet:   awpsys@ritvax.BITNET
Systems Programmer               Internet: awpsys%ritvax.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Information Systems and Computing
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 14623 (716) 475-6994

avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (11/18/89)

In article <1629@ultb.UUCP> awpsys@ultb.UUCP (Andrew W. Potter) writes:
>
>Does ANYONE know how to simply extract files from those STUPID dec
>setld format files?   

I do.  In the documentation although somewhat buried.  See below.

> I need to get some kernal files, and I refuse
>to do the stupid DEC ultrix installation all over from scratch!
And that's your right, Andy, as an American. :-)


The stupid format of the stupid setld tape is documented in the stupid
oops... sorry, got caught up in it all :-). is documented in the
system managers doc set... I am at home so I don't have it in front of 
me, but it is in a section called something like creating 
software subset distributions or something like that.

By the way, I think the setld process and the ability to load and remove
subsets is great (especially when linked to the ability to do this
over a network w/o a tape device) so it'd be great if you would 
submit an spr explaining how you'd do it differently.  I suspect you want two
big tar files with everything.


NOw...  roughly the format of the tape (and this is documented and there are
schell scripts on the system that'd give you this info so I'm not giving
away any secrets)

BOOT (or empty file)	bs=512
SPACE (empty file)	bs=512
ROOT (or empty)		bs=10k
INSTCTRL (tar file -- see note below)  all the rest are bs=10k
SUBSET1
SUBSET2
 .
 .
 .

Pull out the INSTCTRL file and untar it into a subdirectory instctrl.
The file ending in .image in that directory tells you what subsets are on the
rest of the tape in what order.  The SUBSET.inv file tells you what files
are on each subset (inv for inventory).  All of the subset files are tar
files.

Hope this helps.

Fred

avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (11/18/89)

Addendum...

The subset files are compressed tar files.

Fred

alan@shodha.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) (11/18/89)

In article <1629@ultb.UUCP>, awpsys@ultb.UUCP (Andrew W. Potter) writes:
> 
> Does ANYONE know how to simply extract files from those STUPID dec
> setld format files?   

	This reply assumes your installation media is tape.

	A setld tape consists of at least four tapes files
	having a 10KB block size.  For simplicity the first
	four of these files will be called SPACE.1, SPACE.2
	SPACE.3 and INSTCTRL.  For what you want the first
	three are rather boring so skip over them.

	The fourth file is a tar(1) archive of the control
	files for that tape.  The ###.image file contains
	the list of subsets on the tape and their checksums.
	This will let you figure out how many files to skip
	over to get the one you want ({ULT,UDT}BIN###).

	After the INSTCTRL file the subset files are tar(1)
	archives, usually compressed.  Once you have positioned
	to the right tape file, you can copy it off, uncompress
	it and extract the files you want.

	NOTE: The {UDT,ULT}.image file lists a file called ROOT
	at the beginning.  This is in the place I called SPACE.3
	earlier.  So, that tape will look like (assume VAX dist-
	ribution and V3.0):

		+---------------+
		| SPACE or BOOT	| (Primary boot file)
		+---------------+
		| SPACE or BOOT	| (Secondary boot file)
		+---------------+
		|      ROOT	|
		+---------------+
		|    INSTCTRL	|
		+---------------+
		|   ULTBASE030	|
		+---------------+
		|   ULTBIN030	|
		+---------------+
		~  and so on...	~
		+---------------+

> I need to get some kernal files, and I refuse
> to do the stupid DEC ultrix installation all over from scratch!

	If you dislike the installation procedure, please send 
	your comments to the address listed on the "Reader's 
	Comments" page of the manual.  Over the years and many 
	versions, the engineering group has genuine interest in 
	making the installation as easy as possible.

	You're welcome.
> 
> -- 
> Andrew W. Potter                 Bitnet:   awpsys@ritvax.BITNET


-- 
Alan Rollow				alan@nabeth.enet.dec.com

avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (11/18/89)

In article <1629@ultb.UUCP> awpsys@ultb.UUCP (Andrew W. Potter) writes:
>
>Does ANYONE know how to simply extract files from those STUPID dec
>setld format files?   

I do.  In the documentation although somewhat buried for the more
esoteric stuff.  See below.

> I need to get some kernal files, and I refuse
>to do the stupid DEC ultrix installation all over from scratch!

And that's your right, Andy, as an American. :-)

The stupid format of the stupid setld tape is documented in the stupid
oops... sorry, got caught up in it all :-). is documented in the
system managers doc set... I am at home so I don't have it in front of 
me, but it is in a section called something like creating 
software subset distributions or something like that.

By the way, I think the setld process and the ability to load and remove
subsets is great (especially when linked to the ability to do this
over a network w/o a tape device) so it'd be great if you would 
submit an spr explaining how you'd do it differently.  I suspect you want two
big tar files with everything.


So before I go into the format of the setld tape, perhaps you don't know
that you can pull off individual SUBSETS (not files from the SUBSETS
though) with the setld command.  It is well documented in the manual pages
so I won't go into it here.  Suffice it to say, that if you just need to
get a certain subset (or to remove a whole subset -- let's say you want
more disk space and you don't need SCCS or Fortran right now, you can
safely remove all the files and restore them easily later) the setld
command is what you're looking for.

But in case you really need to pull out individual files from a tape 
you need to know the format of the setld tape you have.  (The installation
tape.)  Here's roughly the format of the tape (and this is documented and there 
are shell scripts on the system that'd give you this info so I'm not giving
away any secrets):

BOOT (or empty file)	bs=512
SPACE (empty file)	bs=512
ROOT (or empty)		bs=10k
INSTCTRL (tar file -- see note below)  this and all the rest are bs=10k
SUBSET1
SUBSET2
 .
 .
 .

Pull out the INSTCTRL file and untar it into a subdirectory instctrl.
The file ending in .image in that directory tells you what subsets are on the
rest of the tape in what order.  The SUBSET.inv file tells you what files
are on each subset (inv for inventory).  All of the subset files are 
compressed tar files.

Hope this helps.

Fred

hurf@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Hurf Sheldon) (11/22/89)

	Setld is supposed to be stupid so you don't need a PhD to
	install your system - maybe it should have a '-PhD' option
	so we can do all the little tricks everyone ends up needing
	after they have figured out they don't have 70meg of free
	disk space required to remote load 300k to a host. A plain
	vanilla install of Ultrix is painless if a bit long (using
	a tk50) - setld is a helluva shell script and fun to read,
	if you like shell scripts.  I would like
 	to see remote tapes supported officially [ fairly trivial
	to put it in yourself] and have the '-x' option support
	a subset_by_name request (making this discussion not needed)
	anyway - add this to what Fred has already said:

	You can use setld -x to unload a 
	complete tape in image format or you can read the image
	file to find out how far in to 'mt fsf' to get the image
	you want then you can

	 'dd if=/dev/nrmt0h ibs=10k |uncompress | tar xvbfp 20 -'

	or(if you have loaded the SUBSET_NAME to disk with setld -x):

	 'cat SUBSET_NAME |uncompress | tar xvbfp 20 -'


	As the tar file is compressed and then put on the tape
	at 10k blocks, the uncompressed format is 20b (the default
	for tar so you probably can leave the 'b 20' out)

	hurf
-- 
     Hurf Sheldon			 Network: hurf@ionvax.tn.cornell.edu
     Lab of Plasma Studies		  Bitnet: hurf@CRNLION
     369 Upson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853  ph:607 255 7267
     "And the walls came tumbling down"