Sun-Spots-Request@RICE.EDU (William LeFebvre) (12/17/87)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Wednesday, 16 December 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 71
Today's Topics:
Re: Delinquent ttyp* terminals
Ethernet to Appletalk connections
Sun SCSI shoebox info
Details on using Suns from home
Updated vt100tool wanted
NFS fixes needed
Help with color on Sun's
Small Sun Systems
Questions about MAXTOR's VIP-3000
Any experiences with SPE?
Experience with certain SCSI disks?
Alternate sources for vme 3-2 adapters?
Mail from Suns to VMS?
Upgrade to SunOS 3.4 or not?
SUN/SCSI/IBM pc connection?
Remoting Sun Workstations?
Sun 3 screendumps to HP's ThinkJet printer?
PLATO-tool?
Spreadsheets for Sun?
Netwatch?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 1987 10:46-EST
From: Anund.Lie@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Delinquent ttyp* terminals
I thought this problem was old and well-known and that I'd seen something
about it on the net a long time ago; so someone would be quick to either
post a good fix to it or point out that it in fact _is_ fixed in SunOS
3.2/3.4 or later. (I wouldn't know, I haven't had access to Sun's since
we finally managed to upgrade to 3.2 on our own machines.)
It is fairly obvious to me what happens: Shelltool and friends scribble
in the /etc/utmp file to announce themselves, but, alas, sometimes they
don't get the chance to clean up -- because they are killed to fast.
In Sun-Spots Digest, v5n67, Andrew D. Bowen
<rutgers!cisunx.psu.edu!psuvax1!pitt!adbst@uunet.uu.net> writes:
> Just empty the file /etc/utmp. DON'T RM IT! Just delete all the lines
> using your favorite editor, and save an empty file.
If a Sun is used as a timesharing machine (as some are) this is not a good
idea. Suddenly you have a lot of logged-in users that don't show up on
"w" etc.
A better solution is to write a program that scans the /etc/utmp file and
zaps all outdated entries (by overwriting the "user" member with all
zeroes). This program could either be run when someone notices it is
needed, on exit from suntools, or periodically by "cron".
The catch is to detect whitch entries actually are outdated. I wrote a
program that did this by running "ps axu" and checking whether the tty
turned up in the listing with the correct username. Actually, this is
needlessly clumsy, besides I never managed/cared to get the program
completely bugfree, so it has a tendency to zap valid utmp entries; and
therefore I won't submit it to the net.
The better way to do this is:
- Scan the /etc/utmp file
- For each slave pseudo tty (i.e. /dev/tty[pqr]*) that turns up in a
valid utmp entry, try to open the corresponding master
(/dev/pty[pqr]*).
- If the open succeeds, this pseudo tty pair is unused.
Close it again, and rewrite this utmp entry with null "ut_name"
and "ut_host".
(Maybe you also should write a wtmp logoff record. I don't think
shelltool actually writes login records when it opens a window, but if it
does, if it didn't manage to clear the utmp entry, it is a safe guess it
did not manage to write a logoff record in wtmp either. It is easy to
check this: When there are spurious utmp entries, e.g. displayed by "w",
check if "last" agrees that this user is still logged in on that
terminal.)
Yes, the /etc/utmp file in SunOS is and must be publicly _writeable_!
Anund Lie
Dept. of EE&CS ! Current address:
Division of Information Engineering ! Dept. of Computer Science
Norwegian Institute of Technology ! Carnegie Mellon University
N-7034 Trondheim, Norway ! Pittsburgh, PA 15213
E-mail (ARPA):
A_Lie%vax.runit.unit.uninett@tor.nta.no
Anund.Lie@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu
------------------------------
Date: 7 Dec 87 18:10:47 GMT
From: dukempd.uucp!gpm@cs.duke.edu (Guy Metcalfe)
Subject: Ethernet to Appletalk connections
A few weeks ago I asked how I might connect some Suns on Ethernet to a
laserwriter on an Appletalk network. Two methods were suggested, and I
want to thank all the people who responded. I appreciate the help.
The one method is free. It is a program for a Mac called GatePost.
Gatepost sits and listens to the serial port redirecting all data to a
laserprinter. Communication is one way, ie Macs can not act as terminals
through this, and the Mac must be dedicated when running Gatepost. This
comes from Paul Menon and if anybody wants I have the binary. It is also
in the Mac binaries archives.
The other method is not free. It is a box from Kinetics corp called
FastPath, about (US$)2500. Kinetics phone number is 415-947-0998 (I don't
know the international prefix numbers needed, I'm parochial :-) This
article is reviewed in the July 1987 issue of Byte and should allow full
two way communication between the two networks.
Again, thanks to all who helped me out.
Guy Metcalfe despot@tucc.bitnet
Duke University Dept. of Physics gpm@dukempd.uucp
Durham, N.C. 27706 mcnc!duke!dukempd!gpm
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 87 17:18:33+1200
From: Tony Dale <tony%cantuar%math.waterloo.edu@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Sun SCSI shoebox info
Here is a description of a "homemade" SCSI shoebox we built for our Sun
workstations (3/50s and 3/60s). It may or may not be useful to other
people, but down here in New Zealand the information was hard to come by,
so I thought I'd pass it on.
[[ Far too large for the digest. It can be found in
"sun-spots/SCSI.shoebox" (please note the mixed case). 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: Tue, 8 Dec 87 14:03:58 EST
From: primerd!bobsun!bob@eddie.mit.edu (Bob Pellegrino)
Subject: Details on using Suns from home
I have seen references to using Suns from home, but I would like to know
the details of how people are setting them up. More specifically, how
exactly do I mount the remote file system through my 9600 baud modem?
Someone mentioned a Serial Line IP interface; What is this and where do I
get one? Can I hear gory details from some of you that are actually doing
this? Please respond via mail, and I will summarize back if there is
interest. Thanks very much for your time...
Bob Pellegrino
bob@bobsun.prime.com
decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!primerd!bobsun!bob
------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 87 23:27:08 GMT
From: hao!stcvax!stc-auts!kak@rutgers.edu (Kris Kugel)
Subject: Updated vt100tool wanted
I managed to dig up a copy of vt100tool from a copy on a tape that was
copied from another tape archived on a remote system.
However, I am having problems with it.
After fixing some characters in the shar files which evaporated, and
changing/removing some statements having to do with struct ttysubwindow to
get the files to compile, I get a link error with
nlibsuntool.a(ttysw_main.o) (bad string table index)
I suspect either there is some evaporation in the uuencoded ttysw_main.o
file, or else, something more needs to be done than to change struct
ttysubwindows to Tty's. (not knowing what the old suntools looked like, I
tried to bluff my way past the system changes)
Is there anybody have vt100tool running under Sun 3.x that can help us
with this?
Kris A. Kugel
Storage Tek: ...{hao,nbires,ihnp4}!stcvax!stc-auts!kak
[[ I have been trying, in my spare time, to get a working version that I
can place in the archives. I had problems initially and haven't had the
time recently to work through them. Maybe in January. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 5 Dec 1987 16:25-EST
From: Ralph.Hyre@ius2.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: NFS fixes needed
Does anyone have a fix for NFS' problems with disk quota exceeded and
filesystem full? Ideally, the kernel/filesystem code would block the
process that exceeded the limit and print a message on the process'
control terminal. The process would be unblocked after the problem is
been corrected. This is about the only way to solve the problem of
programs that don't check return codes, especially for close and such.
Presumably this exists on other Unix variants, I was just wondering if
anyone had done this for SunOS. Thanks.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 13:10:09 PST
From: hemphill@cod.nosc.mil (Richard A. Hemphill)
Subject: Help with color on Sun's
We need help using color on the Sun! Does anyone know how you can make
color isons, color buttons, color text items, color panels, or color
anything on a color sun? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in
advance.
Rick Hemphill hemphill@cod.nosc.mil
Artificial Intelligence Technology Branch
NOSC (code 444) San Diego, CA 92077
Phone: (619) 553-5303
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 87 11:49:46 EST
From: Brook_Milligan@um.cc.umich.edu
Subject: Small Sun Systems
I am faced with what appears to be a common problem: trying to set up a
*small* network of Suns on a rather limited budget. However, I have very
little experience either in establishing a network or in what the range of
possibilities really is. Hence, this request in the hope that I can draw
on your collective wisdom.
I would like to interconnect 2-3 machines on a network to share files,
printers, ... In addition, I would like to connect to a campus network
either via a modem or a dedicated line. This will not be a massively
used, production system, but rather one to support the writing and data
processing needs of a single laboratory.
One suggestion is to use 3/50s each with its own disk system, but to share
the user file systems. Another option is to use one 3/50 with a disk
system and other diskless 3/50s. (Would that produce too much network
traffic?) What other options are there? Should I consider 3/60s? Should I
have a real server rather than interconnect the smaller machines? Have any
of you had success implementing similar small systems? What pitfalls are
there? Is it a useful idea to consider 3rd party disk systems over Sun's?
Concerning interconnection with a campus network, is it possible to
connect a 3/50 as a gateway to another network? Would that overload the
3/50? Finally, I will have to deal with getting files from floppy disks
written by PCs. Can such a disk drive be connected to a Sun?
As you are no doubt by now aware, I am very new to the world of Sun. I
must confess that I have much more to learn about implementing a usable
system. As a result I would appreciate any information/help/suggestions
that may prove useful in this endeavor.
Thanks in advance for any assistance that may be offered.
Brook Milligan
Department of Biology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
(313) 747-0898
Brook_Milligan@um.cc.umich.edu
[[ You might want to investigate the possibility of interconnecting your
Suns with a "Thin" Ethernet. It behaves like a real Ethernet, but it
uses a different cable and doesn't cost as much. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 07:30:29 EST
From: ajb%mwcamis@mitre.arpa
Subject: Questions about MAXTOR's VIP-3000
U.S. Industries (apparently a subsidiary of MAXTOR) is now selling a box
called the VIP-3000. It is a standard rack mountable enclosure which can
possibly contain as many as 4 mass storage devices. We are primarily
interested in putting in 4 of the MAXTOR 5.25 inch 765 Meg drives. They
also will sell you a disk accelerator which they claim (through the use of
a 2mbyte disk cache) will give throughputs of 3.8 Mbytes/second through a
SCSI interface. These things are very low in cost, and therefore very
attractive. My questions are:
1. We've been warned of people having problems booting sun-3/50's from
this product. Does anyone have any experience with the VIP on a sun-3/xx ?
(especially when used as a boot device).
2. We're used to the decent performance that can be obtained from the fuji
eagles/super-eagles using the xylogics smd controller. Is our system
likely to experience performance problems as a result of going to an
exclusively SCSI based disk system (we need to remove our eagles and
super-eagles). Note that on the VIP, the 4 drives are daisy-chained off a
single SCSI interface (through the disk accelerator).
Alan J Broder
ajb@mitre.arpa
Image Processing Technology Center
The MITRE Corporation
(703)883-5614
------------------------------
Date: 7 Dec 87 23:34:34 GMT
From: ruffwork@orstcs.cs.orst.edu (Ritchey Ruff)
Subject: Any experiences with SPE?
We are debating what to do for a development environment here at Oregon
State Univ. We have several Interlisp-D machines but are not really happy
with the limitations of the hardware. Our new REAL machines will be Sun
3/60's with a big Sun 3/260, but we are wondering what the Symbolic
Programming Environment (SPE) looks like (we will not go to a generic tty
environment (even an emacs one) for development). I realize it's in beta
right now so you people who could REALLY help me can't talk ( ;-) but has
anyone seen the SPE demos ??? Whats' it look like ??? Memory/swap
requirements ??? Speed ??? How solid is it right now ??? How hard is Sun
going to push it ??? How responsive do they sound like they will be to
bugs/new features ???
The bottom line is that if SPE looks good we go with it, otherwise we will
be getting Mac 2's and run Allegro Common Lisp as our development
environment, then run them on the 3/260 for the *real* fireworks !!!
It's against my programming to impersonate a deity. --C3PO
thanks for any help, ruffwork@cs.orst.edu or
--ritchey ruff ruffwork%oregon-state@relay.cs.net or
...!{ hp-pcd | tektronix }!orstcs!ruffwork
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 87 10:53:01 est
From: kb13+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ken Burner)
Subject: Experience with certain SCSI disks?
Anyone have any experience, good or bad, with the following 5.25" scsi
disks?
Fujitsu M2249E 389MB
HP 97530S 389MB
Hitachi DK514-38 382MB
Miniscribe 9380 380MB
Toshiba MK-250 382MB
Also, what is the current feeling about the CDC 9720 "Saber" series of 8"
drives? Reliability, performance, technical support, service...?
Thanks for any info you can provide.
-Ken Burner
Carnegie-Mellon University
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 87 11:12:42 EST
From: Ned D. Danieley <ndd@cs.duke.edu>
Subject: Alternate sources for vme 3-2 adapters?
Does anyone know of an alternate source (cheaper than Sun) for VME 3-2
adapters (needed when installing 'standard' VME bus cards in Sun
workstations)?
------------------------------
Date: 9 Dec 87 22:42:50 GMT
From: sun!sunncal!laic!root@decwrl.dec.com (Operator)
Subject: Mail from Suns to VMS?
I have gotten UUCP to work (with a mailer) between our suns and a vax.
The problem is that it is slow (polled line, since a tty can't be incoming
and outgoing at the same time). We just got Sunlink DNA (DECnet on Suns)
and was wondering if it could be used to get a faster mailer. Has anyone
had experience writing DNA applications, specifically, a mailer for VAX
MAIL or PMDF? I already have an interface to VMS mail that can be hacked
up if there is a way to do this via shell scripts, etc. Any solutions
would be appreciated.
[[ Earlier this year P. Allen Jensen from Georgia Tech posted a mailer for
use with the DNA system, called (naturally enough) "dnamail". He
described it as follows: "[It] interfaces directly to VAX Mail over
DECNET using SUNLINK/DNA. It may be used with SENDMAIL (see
/usr/lib/sendmail.cf and the tutorials in the back of the Sys. Admin.
Manual)." The shar file is stored in the Sun-Spots archives under the
name "sun-source/dnamail.shar". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 13:40 EST
From: "Roy Richter at GM Research" <RICHTER%gmr.com@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Upgrade to SunOS 3.4 or not?
I am sitting here with my SunOS 3.4 upgrade tapes. I have been running
3.2 with no problems. I have heard (Sun-Spots and other places) of
problems with 3.4. Do any of you have a strong opinion (do ducks float?
:-) ) whether I should
1) Upgrade now (What do I need in 3.4? Why bother?)
2) Stay with 3.2 (in the stone age?), or
3) Wait for SunOS 4.0 (which of course will have no bugs)?
My general inclination is to upgrade, to have the latest version. I would
like to hear other opinions, stories, etc.
------------------------------
Date: 7 Dec 87 21:59:42 GMT
From: megatek!hollen%sdcc6@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Dion Hollenbeck)
Subject: SUN/SCSI/IBM pc connection?
Does anyone have any information about implementation, companies which
have products, etc. regarding SCSI interfaces connecting PC family
products to Suns or Suns to other devices using a PC as a "smart"
controller. Any general help as well as names and addresses of contacts
who _MIGHT_ be able to help would be appreciated.
Please E-mail directly and I will summarize responses to the net if
sufficient interest generated.
Dion Hollenbeck (619) 455-5590 x2814
Megatek Corporation, 9645 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121
ames!scubed!
{sdcsvax,hplabs}!hp-sdd!megatek!hollen
sdcsvax!esosun!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 87 09:52:02 EST
From: SRI International Field Staff <crepea@ccfs>
Subject: Remoting Sun Workstations?
[[ Note: the hostname "ccfs" is obviously bogus, but I can't find the
full and true name of the host. --wnl ]]
I am currently attempting to remote a keyboard and 19" color monitor
between 300 and 500 feet from a sun 110 workstation.
Has anyone had any experience with trying to do something like this? I
have heard about fiber optic multiplexors for other machines, but nothing
that has worked with something like a sun. Has anyone tried to see just
how far you can go using good coax on rgb? Modems on the keyboard?
Any help would be appreciated.
Ken Crepea
------------------------------
Date: 7 Dec 87 11:43:16 GMT
From: mcvax!cgch!whpm@uunet.uu.net (Hans-Peter Mueller)
Subject: Sun 3 screendumps to HP's ThinkJet printer?
For a project I am currently working on, I have found out that it is
necessary for users to be able to dump Sun 3 windows to an HP ThinkJet
printer. I realize that the quality is not even close to that of dumping
to a laser printer! Since I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I hope that
someone has additional information on this subject.
Thanks for any hint, clue and feedback you may have.
Hans-Peter Mueller
Email: whpm@cgcha.UUCP
Ciba-Geigy AG
Basle, Switzerland
------------------------------
Date: 9 Dec 87 20:18:00 EST
From: "Dave Anderer" <dave@vax.oit.udel.edu>
Subject: PLATO-tool?
I'm looking for a terminal emulation program that will connect to Control
Data PLATO systems. (PLATO is a CAI system using a custom communications
protocol, 512 by 512 displays, custom keysets, etc.)
I've heard rumors of a 'platotool'. Does such a beast exist? Anyone have
any information on it?
Thanks.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 87 14:09:54 EST
From: berger@datacube.com (Bob Berger)
Subject: Spreadsheets for Sun?
Has anyone seen a good spreadsheet that works well on the Sun? I'd like
something that will take advantage of the Sun Display and is user
compatable with 1-2-3 or Excell.
Bob Berger
Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960
VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125
UUCP: berger@datacube.COM, rutgers!datacube!berger, ihnp4!datacube!berger
{cbosgd,cuae2,mit-eddie}!mirror!datacube!berger
------------------------------
Date: 9 Dec 87 20:49:14 GMT
From: rutgers!druco.att.com!james@uunet.uu.net (DavisJ)
Subject: Netwatch?
Help, I need to know more about the famed "netwatch". What is it exactly,
how do I find it, etc.
Any clues?
James B. Davis (Jim), UNIX(tm) Systems Programmer
User Interface Group
AT&T Information Systems Laboratories
11900 North Pecos Street, 31G44
Denver, Colorado 80234
303/538-1647, Cornet 374-1647
Computing and Telecommunications Tech. Dept., Dept. XMRB50000 (DRCC)
[ihnp4]!druco!james (or read the Email header!)
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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