Sun-Spots-Request@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (09/22/88)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Wednesday, 21 September 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 231
Today's Topics:
Re: 4.0 NFS/yp bug (sun4)
Patch 1 for Rolo 2.0
GNU emacs on Sun 4/280 with SunOS 4.0
Interphase controllers in Sun systems
Sun4/110 SCSI restriction
emulated floating-point on Sun 4
Your opinion requested: putting a yp port into named and/or hesiod
yellow pages+sunos4.0+sunos3.5: forget it.
SUN hotline
UREP device driver for SunOS 4.0?
More than 8 groups with NFS?
client as server console?
Sunview on PC?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 09:02:45 CDT
From: Kathy Holle <spar!ascway!holle@decwrl.dec.com>
Subject: Re: 4.0 NFS/yp bug (sun4)
Yes, Jonathan, I had the same problem. I finally figured out that you
have to ypset to a slave server instead of your yp master. If your 4/110
is set to the master, you can't do NFS mounting. I also had the problem
that I couldn't rlogin, rsh, etc. But when I reset that machine to a
slave server, everything worked. There is a problem with ypbind and I
have reported it to Sun Bugs. I also put a line in /etc/rc.local to ypset
to a slave server until I can get a fix from Sun.
Kathy Holle
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 88 01:01:05 CDT
From: vixen!ronbo@cs.utexas.edu (Ron Hitchens)
Subject: Patch 1 for Rolo 2.0
OK, sports fans, here's patch #1 to Rolo 2.0. This fixes three basic
problems:
1) Seg faults on Sun4s caused by a missing 0 at the end of the
icon_create() attribute list. The process stack is completely
different on SPARC systems, and it's much less likely that a zero
would be conveniently sitting on the stack. It IS quite likely
on a 680x0 or 80386, especially shortly after startup.
2) Seg faults in init_card() when the user has selected retained text
edit windows in the Defaults database. This is apparently caused
by a bug in the Sunview code which fails to evaluate a ATTR_ROW()
macro value when passed to window_create. The encoded character
unit value never gets converted to pixels and gets passed all the
way down to malloc, which goes boom. The fix is to work around the
the bug by setting up the card window in two steps.
3) Rolo would ignore window sizing command line args, such as -Ws,
because it uses its own frame squeezing rules. Work around this
by saving off the window args which Rolo overrides, then parse them
again after Rolo has done its window setup.
I don't know of any other oustanding bugs, if anyone runs across any,
please report them to me.
Thanks to all the folks who sent bug reports to me. For those people that
I've sent partial patches too, please get this official patch and apply it
to the originally posted code. This patch file covers all the known
problems.
There have been several suggestions for added features. I'll try to
incorporate them in the future and post the changes, but for the near term
I need to do some real work.
Ron Hitchens ronbo@vixen.uucp hitchens@cs.utexas.edu
[[ The patch file has been placed in the archives under "sun-source" as
"rolo2.0.patch. It is not a shar file, it is a file suitable for use as
input to the "patch" utility. It is 8943 bytes long. It can be retrieved
via anonymous FTP from the host "titan.rice.edu" or via the archive
server. For more information about the archive server, send a mail
message containing the word "help" to the address
"archive-server@rice.edu". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 14 Sep 88 03:19:27 GMT
From: krf@wucs1.wustl.edu (Kevin Fenster)
Subject: GNU emacs on Sun 4/280 with SunOS 4.0
We also have problems with GNU emacs hanging on a Sun4/280 with SunOS 4.0.
Note that when you type a ^Z or M-x suspend the line can be made to unhang
(neat word) by typing the sequence
^S ^Q ( A control-S followed by a control-Q)
The emacs process then properly stops, and 'fg'-ing the process definitely
puts it into the fun hung up case. The control sequence above always
seems to work after a ^Z
Kevin Fenster -- Engineering Computer Lab, Washington University, St. Louis
uucp uunet!wucs1!krf
internet krf@wucs1.wustl.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 88 13:10:49 CDT
From: convex!iphase!erle@a.cs.uiuc.edu (Erle Mote)
Subject: Interphase controllers in Sun systems
ADVISORY
Interphase Controllers In Sun Systems
V/SMD 3200
V/SMD 4200 Cheetah
V/ESDI 4201 Panther
V/TAPE 3209
Which slot do you plug it into?
CAUTION. Not all slots in Sun systems will accept any non-Sun VME
controller. On the 12-slot Sun models, 3/160, 3/180, 3/260, 3/280, 4/260
and 4/280, only certain slots will accept these boards.
Many VME boards, including some from Interphase and other vendors, have
signals on P2 Row A and C. This could cause a problem if the board is
installed in slots 1-7 or 10-12. The seriousness of the problem could
range from a system malfunction to ACTUAL DAMAGE to the controller board
or other boards in the system.
The following table shows what happens to P2 A & C on the Sun
backplane:
Slot P2 Row A & C
---- ------------
1-6 bused from slot to slot
7 cabled to the cartridge tape, etc.
8-9 not connected (BEST PLACE TO PUT CONTROLLERS)
10-12 are bused from slot to slot
Obviously, because some of the signals are bused from slot to slot,
incompatible combinations may result in damage both to the boards and the
backplane. YOU CAN DESTROY YOUR SYSTEM!!!
This may also apply if your backplane is supplied by a third party vendor
(non-Sun backplane). Check your backplane limitations.
For some time now, Interphase has been shipping controllers with no
connection on P2 A & C whenever we knew the board was going into a Sun
system. If you bought your controller in 1987 or earlier, or if you bought
through a distributor, be sure to double check before changing slots.
If you have any questions about which slot your Interphase controller may
be plugged into, please call me. Thank you.
Erle Mote Interphase Corporation
(214)350-9000 fax2143501433 2925 Merrell Road
{uunet,sun}!convex!iphase!erle Dallas, Texas 75229
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 09:49:49 PDT
From: jsohn@sun.com (Jeff Sohn)
Subject: Sun4/110 SCSI restriction
>From the 4/110 Read Me First:
The Small Computer Systems Interface(SCSI) connector on the Sun 4100 CPU
board installed in your 4/110 system may not adhere completely to the SCSI
specification. Pin 26 on the SCSI connector may be grounded. Do NOT use
non-Sun SCSI disk drives with any Sun 4/110 or any 4100 CPU based system.
Use of a SCSI drive not purchased from Sun may result in the damage or
destruction of the disk drive/s.
An extract from Sun-Spots relating to the above:
> Is this really a particularly sleazy attempt by Sun to prevent users from
> adding third party disks to their "open" systems?
My response to the above comment:
Sun introduces many products very rapidly as circuit designs are
frequently copied between similar products. In this case a circuit was
copied off an earlier product (Sun-3/60) and this SCSI circuit caused a
customer's disc drive to "smoke".
I wanted to alert our customers to this problem and prevent damage at
other sites. The Read Me First was the quickest way to go without
impacting schedule. The problem has been corrected in the circuit by way
of an Engineering Change Notice.
This problem was corrected on CPU's which have a revision -09 or later. If
you are not sure how to determine the revision please call your field
engineer or myself.
Jeff Sohn
Customer Service Engineer
(408) 276-3833
E-mail jsohn@boona
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 00:58:16 EDT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net
Subject: emulated floating-point on Sun 4
[earlier I said]
>If you have sources for the stuff, you might look to see if Sun has
>implemented a simple optimization that roughly doubled emulated floating-
>point performance on the pdp11 in vaguely similar circumstances: before
>returning to the user program after emulating an instruction, look to see
>if the *next* instruction will also require emulation...
I got mail from an acquaintance in Sun (who may not be speaking officially
for Sun) saying roughly: "Interesting idea. We hadn't thought of that.
It's not clear whether it will make a big difference. We'll investigate."
Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 11:43:10 -0400
From: Ronald G. Minnich <rminnich@duper.super.org>
Subject: Your opinion requested: putting a yp port into named and/or hesiod
I just saw the note from someone at rutgers who is having FUN with yp.
His nfs mounts aren't happening or even timing out. He has a mixed 4.0/3.5
system and the 4.0 system is not working. Reason is yp; fix is to make
ypbind on the 4.0 system bind to ypserve on the 4.0 system. nothing else
will do.
Now i have a question on esthetics. I don't like the idea of making big
changes to libraries on our suns, since we are going to have a lot of
them, and that is a pain to keep control of. Sun has done us all a big
favor in the sense that if a lookup fails on, say, /etc/hosts, the lookup
is retried via sunrpc to what is expected to be a yellow pages server.
After seeing that the yp server will fork to do the lookup via named, i
began to wonder ... why not just have named and/or hesiod just support the
rpc call directly? I can't decide if this is too gross to do or not. I
have looked at the various pieces of code and it doesn't look too bad, but
i need a hint from all you art critics out there as to whether it is a
clean way to go.
Advantages:
no more ypserv! no need to talk to three sockets to get one
lousy host name, just two. no need to have a fork() by ypserv
between you and a resolved host name.
no need to recompile the world. just replace ypserv with
ypnamed or yphesiod. Much less painful to get hesiod going
on your sun system, esp. if it is binary only. No need for
you to have to maintain the libraries. No need to have to
fix things in /bin. lotsa other good reasons.
Disadvantages:
Well, it seems kind of ugly, for starters. On the other hand,
what i have to do to use yp is kind of ugly, sad to say...
But it's a real bag on the name server, to say the least ...
All opinions on this would be greatly appreciated. BTW, the sun 'patch
tape' for yp/named for sunos 4.0 appears to contain a ypserv that does not
work at all. sigh. Also, makedbm on our system appears to make dbm files
that ypserv doesn't understand. dbm files from the 3.5 system are fine;
dbm files run through 4.0 dbm just don't work.
ron
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 15:07:05 EDT
From: Jon Rochlis <jon@bitsy.mit.edu>
Subject: yellow pages+sunos4.0+sunos3.5: forget it.
> Anybody know anything about the availability of Kerberos/Hesiod? I hate
> to throw 150 copies of /etc/{passwd, etc.} everywhere if there is a better
> solution. For now, however, homegrown's all right with me. ron
Kerberos is still in beta-test pending working out some legal issues.
More info may be obtained from info-kerberos@athena.mit.edu and there is a
mailing list kerberos@athena.mit.edu that wish to get on
(kerberos-request@athena.mit.edu)
Hesiod is avalible as follows ...
Project Athena is pleased to announce the availability of a preliminary
version of the Hesiod name server. Hesiod is a general-purpose name server
layered atop the BIND domain name server from the University of California
at Berkeley. It was described at the Winter '88 USENIX conference by
Steve Dyer, one of the original implementors.
The distribution is available on athena-dist.mit.edu (18.71.0.38)
for anonymous ftp. There are both compressed and uncompressed tar
archives in pub/hesiod.tar and pub/hesiod.tar.Z.
For those of you closer to the West Coast than the East, Paul Vixie has
made the Hesiod distribution (in compressed from) available on
decwrl.dec.com.
Communication about Hesiod takes place on the mailing list
hesiod@athena.mit.edu. For more information about Hesiod, or to be
added to the mailing list, please send mail to hesiod-request@athena.mit.edu.
Win Treese
DEC/Cambridge Research Lab/Project Athena
treese@athena.MIT.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Wed 14 Sep 88 06:54:38-PDT
From: PAWKA@nosc-tecr.arpa
Subject: SUN hotline
> The next time you have to justify the net to your boss, tell him/her about
> sun!hotline.
Can anyone translate this into an address reachable from ARPA or MILNET?
Thanks, Mike
PAWKA@NOSC-TECR.ARPA
[[ Internet address: "hotline@sun.com" --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 12:24:11 EDT
From: arnold@unix.cc.emory.edu (Arnold D. Robbins)
Subject: UREP device driver for SunOS 4.0?
Phones: Home: (404) 636-7221 Work: 727-7636
Kind Folks,
I am in desperate need of a working UREP device driver for a serial line
for a Sun, under SunOS 4.0. We have a Sun 4 that we wish to run UREP on,
and it is running SunOS 4.0.
We have a current UREP source license from Penn State. While I have the
driver for SunOS 3.x from leonid@taurus.bitnet, and I got it to compile
and load under 4.0, I have not been able to get it to work. If anyone else
has succeeded in this, then *please* let me know. I will be glad to send
copies of any relevant licenses that anyone may wish to see.
Thanks very much,
Arnold Robbins
Unix Systems Programmer
Emory University Computing Center
DOMAIN: arnold@emory.edu (finally!)
UUCP: { decvax, gatech, skeeve }!emory!arnold
BITNET: arnold@emoryu1
PHONE: +1 404 727-7636
------------------------------
Date: 15 Sep 88 14:59:14 GMT
From: ehrlich@blitz.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: More than 8 groups with NFS?
Could someone out there please refresh my memory as to what Sun is doing
(if anything) about the eight group restrictions in NFS? Thanks in
advance.
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@blitz.cs.psu.edu>
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Computer Science
University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 16:24 CDT
From: Ralph Byers <BYERS@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: client as server console?
We have a 4/110 server without a monitor running 4.0. As it is now, we
must dedicate an ascii terminal to be the console. This is a sufferable
arrangement, but terminals are in demand around here. It would be nice to
free the server's console terminal for use elsewhere. There is is a
client not more than two feet from the server. Can a window on the client
be used as the server's console? What we have in mind is using an
ordinary cable and null modem to connect a serial port on the server to
one on the client. We would miss all the boot up messages from the
server, but once the server is up, the client could tip to the serial port
and display the server's console messages. (Halting the server is a
little delicate but possible.)
Has anyone tried this? Will it work? What are the hazards?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 88 16:13:01 CDT
From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp)
Subject: Sunview on PC?
Can Sunview be run on a PC used as a terminal via NCSA_Telnet? I have a
PS/2 Model 60 with mouse and VGA. It sure would be nice to be able to do
this.
-David-
(314) 362-3635 Mr. David J. Camp
Room 1108D ^ Box 8067, Biostatistics
706 South Euclid < * > Washington University Medical School
v 660 South Euclid
Bitnet: david@wubios.wustl Saint Louis, MO 63110
Internet: david%wubios@wucs1.wustl.edu uucp: wucs1!wubios!david
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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