Sun-Spots-Request@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (10/05/88)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Tuesday, 4 October 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 248 Today's Topics: Re: FootMouse Re: Problem: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns Re: Force periodic password changes Re: Sharing roots under SunOS 4.0; one solution Re: Problems with VME address spaces Congrats on a billion-dollar year More NULLs in files cc after dbxtool Lack of DNI (DECnet) documentation Lightweight Processes in SunOS 4.0 Problem with TB+ dialing out at 2400 baud Problem setting up Parallel Printer on Sun 4 TAAC board queries Using DTR on a serial printer connection? SIGFLUSH? PCNFS problems? videoing a sun screen? porting an applications from SUNs to networked Macs? Send contributions to: sun-spots@rice.edu Send subscription add/delete requests to: sun-spots-request@rice.edu Bitnet readers can subscribe directly with the CMS command: TELL LISTSERV AT RICE SUBSCRIBE SUNSPOTS My Full Name Recent backissues are available via anonymous FTP from "titan.rice.edu". For volume X, issue Y, "get sun-spots/vXnY". They are also accessible through the archive server: mail the request "send sun-spots vXnY" to "archive-server@rice.edu" or mail the word "help" to the same address for more information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 11:58:37 PDT From: weiser.pa@xerox.com Subject: Re: FootMouse My student Glenn Pearson and I had papers in each of the last two Computer-Human Interaction (CHI '87 and CHI '88) conferences, describing several different models of foot-mouse Glenn built for Sun and Xerox workstations, and various experiments of their utility for different tasks. -mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 13:46:22 EDT From: Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy@ai.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: Problem: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns We have 3 3/60s in the same room, on the same DELNI. Oddly enough, one machine is black and white and has never exhibited the slow TFTP problem. The colour and the grey-scale ones do it all the time (1 fast boot every full moon). 3/50s exhibit some variability, but nowhere as extreme. We have the exact opposite problem with 2/50s booting off a Sun 4 under SunOS 4.0. TFTP is very quick, loading the kernel takes forever and a half. Telling the server to route packets through slower machines does not help, and since /etc/bootparams does not allow specifying wsize and rsize for the initial root and swap mounts, there is little else we can do. As I recall, Sun's answer for the Sun 2 problem was "reboot until it goes quickly". Sure. Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.utoronto.ca, uunet!ai.utoronto.ca!lamy AI Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 15:01:53 PDT From: pixar!r2d2!dv@sun.com (David W. Vezie) Subject: Re: Force periodic password changes I don't have any code that'll do that, but I can get you on the right track. There's an undocumented feature in passwd (with support from at least "finger", maybe others) that if a '*' appears as the first character in the gecos (real name) field of the password file when the password is changed, then it will be removed. "Finger" knows about this, and when it does it's name lookup, removes any '*' from output. I don't know if yppasswd{,d} honor the same convention. At any case, it wouldn't be too hard to write a program that checks every so often to see who still has a '*' in their gecos field, and reminds them to change their password (afterwards, making sure everyone has a '*' in their gecos field). Reminder: It's undocumented, so if you start using it, and Sun sees that it's useful, they might take it away :-). Name: David Vezie Address: pixar!lfl!dv Company: Lucasfilm Ltd. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 21:40:18 EDT From: scs%lokkur.UUCP@umix.cc.umich.edu (Steve Simmons) Subject: Re: Sharing roots under SunOS 4.0; one solution Reference: v6n234 Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy@ai.utoronto.ca> writes >The general idea is to have clients mount an appropriate root read-only, >and give them devices and whatever files need be private as soon as >possible. [[and goes on to give a nice description]] This is a useful thing, but I believe we accomplished the same at Schlumberger with considerably less "strain" on the 4.0 layout. Also a lot less work! You'll have to forgive me if some of the details are slightly wrong; I no longer work at Schlumberger and this is from memory. All the root file systems are simply directorys in a master root partition. Since the great bulk of these files are (a) identical and (b) essentially read-only, we did the following. Go thru the root file systems and delete all but one copy of any given executable. Link the remaining one back to the file systems you have deleted it from. Do a similar thing for any data file that is (in effect) read-only. If you have ten clients on a server, you'll find you've recovered about 80% of the disk space in that partition. Yes, you run the risk that one user with his local root login can muck up *all* the workstations on that server, but in practice this never happened. (Maybe we had nice users? Nah... :-) ). You still look like a vanilla 4.0 system, but you're a hero in providing a lot more room than the Sun default for /tmp. >There are obvious disadvantages to this (you can't give a particular >client a different kernel named "vmunix", because there is nothing private >at boot time), but if you have several clients configured identically >making them share their root may worthwhile. Here customizing a user's kernal is easy. Just rm /vmunix from his partition and copy the new one in. Similar customizations apply to any other utility/setup. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 04:49:29 EDT From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Problems with VME address spaces >We have a device which looks like a piece of memory in the vme24d16... >On sun 3 machines running SunOS 3.4 or 3.5 we have had no problem in >writing to it using bcopy() or dereferencing integer pointers. We >understood that any 32 data bit accesses were being handled by the MMU and >split into 2 * 16 bit accesses. No, this is not correct. The MMU has nothing to do with it. It is the 68020 CPU itself that is splitting up the accesses. >However, on a Sun 4/260 running SunOS 4.0 a bus error is given... The SPARC CPU will not do the splitting for you. At all. No way, no how. It has nothing to do with caches or MMUs. This is one of the slightly- dubious features of the decidedly-complex 68020 that did not make it into the much simpler SPARC. You are going to have to change your code to do things the way your device wants them; the SPARC will not try to cover up the differences for you. >Also, using the read() system call to read from a file or a raw disk >directly into the mmap'ed memory works fine on the Sun 3 but hangs the Sun >4 (the disk controller being SCSI on the Sun 3 and Xylogics SMD on the Sun >4). Presumably the DVMA system on the Sun 3 handles this ok... I'm not sure about this one, but again I think you have a misdiagnosis: it's the difference in controller that's biting you, would be my guess. I'd suspect that the Sun 4's controller, or the software running it, expects to be able to do 32-bit DMA (while the Sun 3's controller is only doing 16-bit DMA, so it happens to work). Aren't I/O buses fun? :-( :-( Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 18:40:01 -0700 From: gnu@toad.com Subject: Congrats on a billion-dollar year I'm surprised I haven't seen any comments in Sun-Spots on Sun's 1988 fiscal year results. They tried really hard to break a billion dollars in sales, despite the RAM crunch, and went $51 million over! In six years they have introduced four generations of products and sold us more than 100,000 systems. >> Congratulations, folks! << John Gilmore ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 16:13:21 -0500 From: abe@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Vic Abell) Subject: More NULLs in files I previously reported an exotic server/client execution combination that sometimes caused file characters to be changed to NULLs. I have now experienced the same problem using vi on a file on the server, then on the client. Here's a sample sequence (staff.cc is the 3/280 server and vic.cc is my 3/50 client): vic.cc % rlogin staff staff.cc % vi <file> # add some stuff to <file> staff.cc % ^Z vic.cc % vi <file> # the added stuff is replaced with NULLs The file being edited resides on the server's disk, a r/w partition mounted by the client. The transformation to NULLs is a permanent condition. Vic Abell [[ Could be that disk addresses for the new blocks are being dropped from the inode. In this case those blocks would look like "holes" and upon reading would turn into NULLs. Just a thought. --wnl ]] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Sep 88 12:27 CDT From: CS_MRDF_10@uta.edu Subject: cc after dbxtool Greetings fellow SunTanners: This message is in regard to the problems with doing cc after using dbxtool. I had the same problem when I quit dbxtool using say, CTRL C, or the "quit" option on frame menu. But I found that this problem does not occour if I type "quit" at the dbxtool prompt inside the window. I hope this helps. P.S. I'm runing a Sun3/260 with Unix 4.2 Version 3.4 Murthy Suryam Dept. of Computer Science Engineering Univ. Texas, Arlington e.mail : cs_mrdf_10@uta.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 13:23:32 ADT From: dalcs!david@uunet.uu.net Subject: Lack of DNI (DECnet) documentation Further to the recent note on the lack of online graphics documentation: this is also missing for Sun's DECnet product SunDNI. We reported this as a bug but heard nothing more about it. It is certainly not in the Unix tradition. If I had known about it ahead of time, I would not have bought the product. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 11:46:38 pdt From: kcooley@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Keith Cooley) Subject: Lightweight Processes in SunOS 4.0 Has anyone tried using the lightweight process library of SunOS 4.0 ? I wrote some small programs that used the monitor facilities but was unable to link on a 3/110 because: ld: undefined symbol REGOFFSET Subsequently I tried linking the examples in Chapter 6 of the System Services Overview but I obtained the same message from ld. Sun support identified this as bug id:1012022 for which there currently is no known bug or workaround. As far as I can see this makes the lightweight process library unusable. I want to find out if anyone has had more success with lightweight processes. Keith Cooley kcooley@teknowledge.arpa {uunet!sun!ucbvax!decwrl!uw-beaver}!kcooley%teknowledge.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 20:20:45 PDT From: versatc!tran@sun.com (Tony Tran 9824317) Subject: Problem with TB+ dialing out at 2400 baud Did anybody have any success with the Trailblazer+ dialing out at 2400 baud to a Hayes? I can only do FAST (s50=255X3) or at 1200 baud (s50=2X0) on my Trailblazer. I was able to connect at 2400 baud, but could not log in. Did I do anything wrong ? Tony Tran Versatec, Inc (408) 982-4317 UUCP: {sun|mips|pyramid}!versatc!tran ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 88 18:00:21 GMT From: Paul Steele <@relay.cs.net:aucs!paul@dalcs.uucp> Subject: Problem setting up Parallel Printer on Sun 4 I am trying to set up a parallel printer on the Sun-4 parallel port (referred to as /dev/mcpp0). I set up a printcap entry as follows: mcp|CI-600 printer in Carnegie:\ :lp=/dev/mcpp0:pw#80:sd=/usr/spool/mcp:\ :fs#06320:if=/usr/lib/lpf:lf=/usr/adm/lpd-errs: I think this is the correct printcap entry, but the spooler reports that the printer is not ready (maybe offline?). Anyone got any ideas? Please mail responses directly to me since I don't read this newgroup very often. Thanks. -- Paul H. Steele USENET: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Paul Acadia University BITNET: Paul@Acadia Wolfville, NS Internet: Paul%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU CANADA B0P 1X0 (902) 542-2201x587 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 9:03:48 BST From: everson%COMPSCI.BRISTOL.AC.UK@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: TAAC board queries We're just about to take delivery of Sun's new TAAC board and are interested in how other TAAC owners are using the board - for instance are you concentrating on using C or are you mainly using TAAC assembler? We'd also be interested in what fields people are using the board in, although I realise that for some people this may be very sensitive information. Phill Everson University of Bristol, UK ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 88 16:33:41 GMT From: Paul Steele <@relay.cs.net:aucs!paul@dalcs.uucp> Subject: Using DTR on a serial printer connection? Is there any way to connect a printer to the Sun with DTR protocol. By default, async lines on unix systems use xon/xoff and we need DTR since the printer is connected to a printer sharing box. There must be a way to make use of this common protocol. Mail replies to me if possible since I don't read this news group very often. Paul H. Steele USENET: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Paul Acadia University BITNET: Paul@Acadia Wolfville, NS Internet: Paul%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU CANADA B0P 1X0 (902) 542-2201x587 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 13:27:09 PDT From: chaos%gojira.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu Subject: SIGFLUSH? Is there any way under SunOS to get an already executing background process to flush its I/O buffers to open files, before one kills it? Often I would like to check the progress of a long simulation by looking at its output files without having to write in fflush into the code. Jim Crutchfield Physics, UCB (415) 642-1287 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 17:23:43 EDT From: ted@braggvax.arpa Subject: PCNFS problems? We have Sun PCNFS 3.0 with Micom-Interlan NI5210 ethernet cards connected to Latticenet twisted pair ethernet. The ethernet NFS driver is from Micom, not Sun. Our PCs are AT class with 640K, our servers are Sun 3/160s running 3.5. Now, the question. Can the Sun NFS overrun the PC in this configuration? To get the lifeline POP daemon to stop overrunning the PCs, I had to insert a manual delay in it, otherwise, long messages got trashed. I suspect that something similar is happening with NFS. Sometimes when I try to transfer many files to a remote drive, the transfer hangs, and I get the famous MSDOS abort retry ignore message. After this, even the local hardisk is unresponsive and a reboot is necessary. I was able to reproduce this today several times with the same transfer, then it cleared up. I suspect that if I call Sun, they'll tell me my ethernet board is unsupported, so I wanted to find out if other people are having similar problems with pop and nfs. Also, does anyone know a way to set the rsize and wsize for PC mounts if this is a factor? If there is a way, it doesn't seem to be in the manual. Ted Nolan ted@braggvax.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Sep 88 11:24:28 BST From: everson%COMPSCI.BRISTOL.AC.UK@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: videoing a sun screen? Has anyone successfully managed to video a sun screen? We have tried but have had considerable flicker problems with the sun refresh rate of 66Hz (?) and our video camera's rate of 25 Hz (?). Is there a solution? I've seen Sun promo videos of sun screens so it must be possivble somehow - I hope you don't have to get a genlock video camera! [[ That's probably how they did it. --wnl ]] Any pointers or suggestions would be appreciated. Phill Everson University of Bristol ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 88 00:21:46 GMT From: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) Subject: porting an applications from SUNs to networked Macs? We are considering a port of an application implemented on a network of SUNs to a network (including or exclusively) of Macs. The application (in C) uses SunView, and the Simplify/Unify relational dbms and the Sun3 ethernet. If anyone has done any similar work or thoughts on the topic, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Cheers, ---Werner (ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1) (INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu (UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner ------------------------------ End of SUN-Spots Digest ***********************