Sun-Spots-Request@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (09/26/88)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Sunday, 25 September 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 235
Today's Topics:
Re: TCP/IP on SunOS
Re: 3/60 memory: Parity Systems
Re: Scsi vs. SunOS 4.0
Re: cc dies after using dbxtool -- confirmed (no solution)
More Sun 4/110 performance info
Protection problem with PC-NFS, multiple groups
Problems with rpc.lockd and rpc.statd?
fcntl/lockf locking under 4.0
Fig 1.4.FS
Has anyone installed a CDC Wren V (620MB)
sun parallel printer interface?
How do I tell what version of SunOS is running?
Ada for SPARC?
Ctrace(1) on SunOS 3.5?
Force periodic password changes?
graphing Directed (A)Cyclic Graphs?
uninterruptible power systems?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 08:48:11 EDT
From: steve@umiacs.umd.edu (Steven D. Miller)
Subject: Re: TCP/IP on SunOS
> From: Kang.ESAE@xerox.com
> What is the relationship between NFS and TCP/IP?
NFS is Just Another Protocol in the protocol stack, though admittedly a
very useful one. It uses the Sun RPC/XDR routines, which in the NFS case
use UDP for output. UDP is in turn layered above IP. It need not be this
way, though; I've run NFS over RPC/XDR on a homebrew XNS protocol, and it
worked fine, more or less. (Try sending a series of 4K packets over a
hacked-up scheme to add fragmentation and reassembly to Xerox IDP and
where the MTU must be treated as 576 bytes, and see how many fragments you
generate!)
There is more information on NFS, RPC, and XDR in the Networking on the
Sun Workstation document. More on this later. Also, the Sun RPC scheme
is now an Internet RFC (RFC 1057). You can get this via anonymous FTP
from sri-nic.arpa, or by sending mail to service@sri-nic.arpa with the
word "Help" in the subject line. In the latter case, you'll get a help
message back that will help you get the actual RFC.
> Is Sun's version of TCP/IP different from other implementations?
The implementation is almost certainly slightly different. The observed
behavior (at least with SunOS 4.0) should be fairly close to that of
4.3BSD, plus or minus a few bug fixes (I suspect but am not sure). As one
looks at 3.X for smaller values of X, the Sun TCP/IP behavior more closely
approximates that of the old and crufty 4.2BSD code with some bug fixes
thrown in.
At the user level, many utilities remained at least somewhat
4.2BSD-flavored until SunOS 4.0 hit the streets. Things should be better
now, though I haven't actually brought 4.0 up yet. Whether or not the YP
scheme used to talk to domain name servers in 4.0 (or earlier) is truly
useful is perhaps somewhat of a religious issue. (I am firmly in the BIND
purists' camp.)
> What commands/system calls are available to utilize TCP/IP capabilities on
> the Sun? Where can I obtain documentation on the above mentioned items
> and please forward me the address/phone numbers.
More than I can document here. You should look at the Interprocess
Communication Tutorial in the "Networking on the Sun Workstation" document
bundle. If you're running 4.0, there's both an introductory and an
advanced IPC tutorial in a similar place. These docs should come standard
with your SunOS docubox(es). My old SunManuals price sheet lists the 3.0
or 3.2 version (I'm not sure which) of the Networking bundle as part
number 800-1324, $45, Rev B of February 1986. I don't know the part
number for the similar 4.0 documentation. You local Sun sales rep should
hopefully have more details.
For networking commands, take a look at the man entries for telnet, rcp,
rlogin, ftp, whois, finger, rup, ruptime, rusers, rwho, and traffic.
There are others (sendmail, netstat, and ifconfig come to mind) that are
more system-administrator oriented.
I hope this helps.
-Steve
Spoken: Steve Miller Domain: steve@mimsy.umd.edu UUCP: uunet!mimsy!steve
Phone: +1-301-454-1808 USPS: UMIACS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 09:46:31 PDT
From: celeste@coherent.com (Celeste C. Stokely)
Subject: Re: 3/60 memory: Parity Systems
I have a Sun 3/60 happily running with Parity memory, and plan to order
another 44MB as soon as I get some more cash in my budget. The memory has
never hiccupped (as far as I can tell), it comes with a LIFETIME guarantee
(which can't be beat!), and is very competitively priced.
I ordered it on Monday, and they got it to me on Tuesday. Those Parity
folk are so cool--they even shipped a grounding wrist strap with the
memory!
I like Parity's disk shoeboxes, too--I've got 11 of them on order.
..Celeste Stokely
Coherent Thought Inc.
UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!celeste Domain: celeste@coherent.com
Internet: coherent!celeste@ames.arpa or ...@sun.com or ...@uunet.uu.net
VOX: 415-493-8805
SNAIL:3350 W. Bayshore Rd. #205, Palo Alto CA 94303
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 17:49:43 MDT
From: colley%sunspot.UUCP@noao.edu (Steve Colley)
Subject: Re: Scsi vs. SunOS 4.0
Reference: v6n229
Brian H. Powell put out a query in v6n229:
> I sent this to hotline@sun.com a few days ago. They insist that it's a
> hardware problem.
> We recently installed SunOS 4.0. We are now unable to reliably read QIC
> tapes. I tried cleaning the heads, but that didn't help.
I faced a similar cartridge tape problem but with a different
hardware/software mix. I brought up a 3/50 under 3.2 and installed a 3.4
upgrade. I immediately started getting scsi read and write errors which
occurred frequently but seemingly randomly. It really looked like a
hardware problem. I cleaned the heads, tried different tapes, checked the
connections in the shoebox with no results. Sound familiar, Brian? So,
under warranty, I worked with SUN at swapping boards in the shoebox via
Fed Express. They felt that it was a hardware problem also. No luck. I
put an oscilloscope on the power supply. Looked fine. Then, just for the
halibut, and before shipping the whole shoebox back (losing the disk
anyway) I redid the whole system under 3.2. This solved the problem.
Then, I started working with the software side of SUN. They could not
find any bug reports on my symptom. The final response was, "Well, 3.4 was
a mess. We suggest you go up to 3.5 or stay back at 3.2". This is where it
stands today! I guess the lesson is not to rule out software, no matter
what. Apologies to all software heavies.
Stephen Colley, National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak
P.O.Box 62, Sunspot, NM 88349 USA, (505)434-1390 FTS 571-0232
UUCP: {arizona,decvax,ncar}!noao!sunspot!colley
Internet: scolley@noao.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 14:08:21 CDT
From: meier@src.honeywell.com (Christopher M. Meier)
Subject: Re: cc dies after using dbxtool -- confirmed (no solution)
Reference: v6n226
> From: phri!bc-cis!fami!norm!serge@nyu.edu (Serge Sretschinsky)
>
> I have been wondering for sometime now why, on any of the 3/50's we have
> here, the first invocation of cc after using dbxtool usually dies....
> Anyone out there know what gives?
I am using 3.5 on a 3/160 and see the same problem, or
cc: Fatal error in ccom: Killed
I haven't had time to track it down yet, as the next cc works fine.
Originally I thought it might be a problem with our system hardware, but
couldn't find anything wrong that would cause it. Must have something to
do with some signal generated by dbxtool.
Christopher M. Meier MN65-2300
Honeywell Systems & Research Center
3660 Technology Drive
Mpls, MN 55418 (612) 782-7191
{ems,philabs,ihnp4,dayton,mmm}!srcsip!meier
meier@SRC.Honeywell.COM
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 14:14:00 MDT
From: roberts%studguppy@lanl.gov (Doug Roberts @ Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Subject: More Sun 4/110 performance info
There's been a fair amount of talk on Sun-Spots recently about floating
point performance, and performance in general regarding the 4/110. A
recent posting stated that a 4/110 w/o an FPU ran C 14 x slower than a
3/50, for example.
I recently compared the performance of a large KEE/LISP application on a
2/260 and a 4/110. The application is a discrete-event simulation running
on top of KEE, and contains a mix of symbolic and numerical computation.
The disk-saved image of the application is approximately 29 MB (lots of
paging). Earlier tests done on the 3/260 showed that optimizing the code
with calls to the 68881 for floating point had almost no effect on
performance. This led us to conclude that the bottlenecks in the code were
elsewhere when running on the 3/260.
We weren't sure that this would be the case on the 4/110, given the huge
difference the FPU seems to make in the SPARC architecture, so I ran the
application on both machines. The machine configurations, while similar,
are not exactly the same. The 3/260 has 24 MB of memory, a 300 MB CDC
Wren-IV disk with a 100 MB pageing space. This machine was running Lucid
Lisp 2.1.2 and the code was not optimized for the 68881 co-processor. The
4/110 has 20 MB memory (we purchased 16 MB from Helios), no FPU, and the
same disk configuration and swap space. The 4/110 is running Lucid Lisp
lisp.2.1.3sun4-prelim, since we haven't received our release version yet
from Sun.
The bottom line: the 4/110 ran 1.42 X _slower_ than the 3/260!
Next step is to purchase an FPU and compare again.
--Doug
Douglas Roberts
Los Alamos National Laboratory
(505)667-4569
dzzr@lanl.gov
------------------------------
Date: 20 Sep 88 19:33:11 GMT
From: gt-eedsp!jensen@gatech.edu (P. Allen Jensen)
Subject: Protection problem with PC-NFS, multiple groups
I have run into a problem with PC-NFS that I am not sure is a 'BUG' or a
'Feature'. The situation is as follows:
1. A directory, d1, contains a subdirectory d2
2. The group of d1 is g1 and the group of d2 is g2
3. Group g2 does not occur in /etc/passwd
4. The entry in /etc/group is:
g2:*:77:u1,u2,u3
5. Users u1,u2 and u3 all occur in the passwd file and have different groups
specified in the passwd file.
6. The protection on d1 is 755
7. The protection on d2 is 770
8. The directory d2 is mounted with "net use e: \\host\d2"
9. YP is being used
10. User u1 is logged in with "net name u1 *"
On the IBM-PC, when I go to the e: drive while logged in as u1 and do a
"dir" I do not see directory d2. When I try to do a "cd d2" I get an
invalid directory specification. If I change the user to u2 with "net
name u2 *" and then do a "dir" on disk e: the directory d2 appears.
It seems that PC-NFS does not look at the YP group database when
determining if the user has group access to the file or directory. I have
tried this both with and without a group file on the PC. I tried a group
file with just:
g2:*:77:u1,u2,u3
in it and one with just:
+:
in it and neither made any difference.
Have I missed something, or is this a bug ?
Thanks,
P. Allen Jensen
Georgia Tech, School of Electrical Engineering, Atlanta, GA 30332-0250
USENET: ...!{allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,ulysses}!gatech!gt-eedsp!jensen
INTERNET: jensen@gteedsp.gatech.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1988 13:57:15 PDT
From: Eliot Lear <lear@net.bio.net>
Subject: Problems with rpc.lockd and rpc.statd?
Usmail: 700 East El Camino Real, Mtn View, California 94040
Phone: (415) 962-7323
Has anyone had problems with locking using fcntl or lockf on clients
running SunOS 4.0? I find myself hanging when using these calls. Any
references would be appreciated.
[[ Check out Sun-Spots volume 6 issue 167 and the article with the subject
"Problem with fcntl". --wnl ]]
Eliot Lear
The BIONET Project
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 10:06:43 -0500
From: abe@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Vic Abell)
Subject: fcntl/lockf locking under 4.0
I have been unable to get record locking to work properly under SunOS 4.0.
Has anyone else had any success?
I find it tempermental - processes that call fcntl() and lockf()hang if
all the rpc.statd and rpc.lockd processes aren't running and started in
the proper order. I also find that fcntl() and lockf() return an
unadvertised error, their test commands do not work between clients, their
lock commands aren't setting locks that are recognized by the server _and_
the clients, although they are recognized by all the clients.
Vic Abell
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 13:13:33 GMT
From: prlb2!trtsu0!ns@uunet.uu.net (Nicholas Sanvoisin)
Subject: Fig 1.4.FS
Could the new Fig software components (sunspots volume 6 issue 195) be
made available through the archive server? If not how would it be possible
ot get hold of them? For example are there any machines connected to X25
networks that will accept anonymous UUCP accesses and which maintain
source archives?
Nick Sanvoisin TRT Paris, France
[[ I am already swamped with additional sources for the archive server,
but I will see what I can do. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 08:09:58 CDT
From: John Bennett <jkb@skykomish.rice.edu>
Subject: Has anyone installed a CDC Wren V (620MB)
There has been considerable discussion of how to connect the 300MB Wren IV
to the Sun SCSI port. Has anyone successfully installed the Wren V (620
MB)?
Thanking you in advance, etc.
John Bennett
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 88 12:46:50 -0400 (at ncrlnk.Dayton.NCR.COM)
From: @relay.cs.net:steve%c10sd3%ncrcce@ncrlnk.dayton.ncr.com
Subject: sun parallel printer interface?
I am trying to configure an epson printer to work off a sun 3/280 server.
I am using the parallel port that comes off a ALM board. I can find no
documentation on setting up the printcap file on this type of port. I know
the port is /dev/mcpp0, can anyone help me on this?
Steven Engelhardt ENGELHARDT@STPAUL.NCR.COM
NCR Comten ..!ncr-sd!ncrcce!steve
Development Computer Center, MS: S015 612-638-7223
2700 Snelling Ave. N. Roseville, MN 55113 NCR 652-7223
------------------------------
Date: 20 Sep 88 12:51:50 GMT
From: ehrlich@blitz.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: How do I tell what version of SunOS is running?
In real BSD UNIX there are a couple of defines in sys/param.h along
the lines of:
#define BSD 43
#define BSD4_3 1
which allows one to determine what version of the OS is being used. My
questions is, "Is there an equivalent for SunOS?" Or is this just another
feature deemed useless by 'the wise ones' in California?
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@blitz.cs.psu.edu>
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Computer Science
University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 10:56:15 -0400
From: howell%community-chest.mitre.org@gateway.mitre.org
Subject: Ada for SPARC?
I'd appreciate any information available on existing and/or planned Ada
compilers hosted on and targetted for the SPARC; Thanks!
Chuck Howell The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop Z645 7525 Colshire
Drive, McLean, VA 22102 NET: howell@mitre.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 08:27:03 PDT
From: Edward Dergharapetian <edward@math.ucla.edu>
Subject: Ctrace(1) on SunOS 3.5?
Has anyone had any problems running ctrace(1) on SunOS 3.5? We have a
3/280 running 3.5 and even though we have the source code for ctrace, the
binary was not part of the distribution. I have compiled the source to
test whether it works or not, but apparently there are some problems with
cc(1), namely some programs which compile and run fine by themselves,
crash either in compilation or during execution when put through ctrace.
Any clues as to why this is happening is appreciated. Please send replies
to me directly: 'edward@math.ucla.edu'. Thanks,
edward.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 13:15:46 PDT
From: ho@hac2arpa.hac.com (Peter Ho)
Subject: Force periodic password changes?
Does anyone out there have software to force users to change password
every so often on a SUN?
Peter Ho
Hughes Aircraft Company
ho@hac2arpa.hac.com
[[ Is this even possible without rewriting "/bin/login"? --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 20 Sep 88 17:15:33 GMT
From: Daniel Winkowski <dgw@mimsy.umd.edu>
Subject: graphing Directed (A)Cyclic Graphs?
** PLEASE REPLY DIRECTLY **
Is there any public software available for drawing directed cyclic or
acyclic graphs? We have a network which we would like to graph on the
screen. Any node may have 1 or more children and parents.
References dealing with drawing such monstrosities would be appreciated also.
Daniel G. Winkowski (301) 725-1333 work, (301) 490-7824 home
9318 Cabot Court
Laurel, MD 20707
<=>
ARPA & CSNet: dgw@mimsy.umd.edu
UUCP: uunet!mimsy!dgw
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 15:34:43 mdt
From: era@scdpyr.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold)
Subject: uninterruptible power systems?
There have been several inquiries about UPS systems in sun-spots within
the last couple months. If anybody's still looking, check the summary of
small UPS companies in the August issue of Computer Decisions. E-mail me
your USnail address if you want a copy.
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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