Sun-Spots-Request@RICE.EDU (Vicky Riffle) (09/04/87)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Friday, 4 September 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 39
Today's Topics:
Re: What does "text: table is full" mean (3)
Re: Sun 3.4 problems
Modems and Security
VME disk controllers for Suns
RCS and compatible make for Suns
Re: Root non-security on Sun workstations
800 numbers from the UK
Bug in SunView 3.4
ASPLOS-II advance program
Need advice on multiple-disk server
Modem wont hang up
Suns and high speed modems?
Sun-3 executables on a Sun-4?
shelltool .vs. parity bit?
Ciprico VMEbus controllers?
Public Domain version of SPICE for Sun3?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 87 17:24:11 EDT
From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: What does "text: table is full" mean (1)
There are two approaches and a little bit of advice:
1. Just increase MAXUSERS in the appropriate /sys/conf config file, build
a new kernel and re-boot. If your users use a lot of processes and you're
not horribly short on memory I'd try double or at least 150% of the actual
number of users logged on. This will increase the size of the text table
(the number of pure procedures simultaneous being run). The daemons etc
tend to eat up quite a few slots.
2. Edit /sys/conf/param.c, change the initialization for 'int ntext'. As
opposed to the above this will increase the text table size w/o increasing
the size of everything else which is calculated from MAXUSERS. This may or
may not be a losing battle (ie. you might soon run out of something else,
I'd try (1) first, that's all I ever do).
Advice: You can inadvertantly build Sun3.4 kernels that will immediately
panic with "panic: sys pt too small" (something like that) so use the
standard precautions (copy the old vmunix to /ovmunix before installing a
new one).
If this happens you almost certainly have copied lots of devices into your
config file that you're not using, clean it up and re-build and you should
be ok.
-Barry Shein, Boston University
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 87 21:14:30 PDT
From: Tim Ehrhart <ehrhart@spam.istc.sri.com>
Subject: Re: What does "text: table is full" mean (2)
I have a fix for this we have been using since 1.4. With all the stuff
getting spun of by inetd for networking we quickly blew out our text table
and got the same message. The text table is the mechanism that keeps track
of the text portions (i.e. code) of executables being stored in the swap
area. It creates an entry for every UNIQUE binary being run. That is, if
you have 10 csh processes running there is still only ONE text table entry
being used. But with all the different diverse processes being run on a
multi-user networked UNIX box you can exhaust the table real quick. I have
modified /sys/conf/param.c to make the table size larger when I grind out
a kernel. Sun's default parameter is to use a hard coded 24 + MAXUSERS
(defined in /sys/conf/YOUR_MACHINE). Most folks set MAXUSERS to 4 or 8.
In this case I feel the increase of MAXUSERS should cause some kind of
multiplitive increase, not addition.
Here are the context diffs of /sys/conf/param.c and /sys/param.c.orig
50,54d49
< #ifdef INET
< #define NETSLOP 40
< #else
< #define NETSLOP 0
< #endif
57c52
< int ntext = 24 + MAXUSERS + NETSLOP;
---
> int ntext = 24 + MAXUSERS;
Basically, if I have defined INET in /sys/conf/MY_MACHINE file I bump
ntext by NETSLOP (couldn't think of a better name). This sets it to a much
more realistic value. This file IS for you to put your site specific
system configuration parameters into. Don't flame Sun, these were only
ballpark figures meant to be tuned. I say this because I've told other
folks this and they were scared Sun wouldn't "support" this kernel
configuration because param.c had be changed, God forbid.
Tim Ehrhart
Information Sciences and Technology Center
SRI International
[[ Thanks to Dick St.Peters at ge-crd for a similar suggestion. He also
recommends the command "pstat -T" to check on kernel table usage. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 87 10:33:17 -0700
From: Craig Rolandelli <craig@rome.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: What does "text: table is full" mean (3)
It has nothing to do with memory, you could have gigabytes of memory and
still have the same problem. The problem is that you have maxusers set to
small. Sun distributes the kernal with maxusers set to 4. We have have
changed this to 32.
But that's not all, by raising maxusers to 32, you will exercise another
bug in the Sun kernel and your system will panic when it tries to boot.
Sun has a patch for the kernel, just call your Sun rep. and ask for the
maxusers.bzero patch.
The maxusers variable can be changed in two places.
1) The configuration file in /usr/sys/conf
2) The file param.c in /usr/sys/conf
Currently param.c sets the number of text tables (variable name "ntext" in
param.c) to 24 + maxusers. You could just change the 24 to 52, but its
easier to change the configuration file.
Craig Rolandelli (craig@ics.uci.edu, craig!ucivax!ucbvax)
Computer Science Department
University of California, Irvine
Irvine Ca. 92717
(714) 856-4222
------------------------------
Date: 3 Sep 87 21:18:53 GMT
From: jmr@philabs.philips.com (Joanne Mannarino)
Subject: Re: Sun 3.4 problems
Thanks for all your responses to my 3.4 problem. We have finally found a
solution.
The 3.4 release introduced subnetting. The way the networking software
for 3.4 works is that the diskless client comes up and requests a subnet
mask. It waits for a response from the server. The TCP/IP software
(we're running XLAN but problems have occured with Wollongong also)
responds with a subnet mask that is invalid. The diskless client is
supposed to check it, determine that it is invalid, disregard it, and wait
for the server to respond with the correct subnet mask. BUT with the 3.4
release, the client wasn't ignoring the invalid subnet mask so thus it
would hang. Sun has provided a patch to the kernel software to take care
of this.
If anyone else is still having this problem, you should call Sun support
and ask for the fix to bug id 1006127. This solution was sent to me by
Bill Nowicki, Network Software Developer at Sun. According to him, they
have a guard against this in release 3.5.
-Joanne Mannarino
joanne mannarino uunet!philabs!jmr
philips laboratories or
(914)945-6008 jmr@philabs.philips.com
------------------------------
Date: 2 Sep 87 12:24:00 MST
From: tjsober@sandia-2.arpa
Subject: Modems and Security
In response to ALDER1@BRANDEIS.BITNET:
The problem you describe should not occur if the kernel has been modified
to enable hardware carrier detect (see chapter 5 Adding Hardware to your
System in System Administration Manual). By changing the flags on the
serial port, a logout is forced when the modem notifies the computer that
the carrier is lost (via the DTR line, which should be set on the modem
for hardware DTR). Also, the carrier should be set to follow the remote
system.
This will eliminate a large number of unauthorized logins, but is not 100%
secure. To increase security, we have two different systems. The first is
a Cermetek Security Modem. The Cermetek requests a password from each
caller and then grants access or hangs up and dials a preprogrammed
callback number. This system has been the most reliable, although it only
operates up to 1200 baud. The second system uses a secure front end made
by Tact Technology, called a Computer Sentry. The Computer Sentry
functions in a similar manner to the Cermetek, but instead the codes are
numeric and are entered via a touch-tone phone. The Computer Sentry also
logs all calls to a printer and has a variety of shutdown modes if an
excessive number of failed attempts occur. It will also work at any baud
rate. Now for the bad news. Although the Computer Sentry works, and we are
using it, it is a marginal piece of equipment. One example is that it
doesn't reset the date at the end of the month (did you know there are 33
days in february?). Occasionally, it just goes off in left field and dies.
When talking to the company, I had to explain to their applications
engineer how their system worked. The only reasons we still use it is
because of the higher baud rate and a single modem can be used for dialup
and dialout, which can't be done easily with the Cermetek.
------------------------------
Date: 02 Sep 87 18:13:08 CDT (Wed)
From: Todd Nugent <nugent@anubis.uchicago.edu>
Subject: VME disk controllers for Suns
> A Xylogics salesman told me that his company has, and that Sun will later
> this year release, a 32 bit disk controller for the VME bus. He says that
> the current 16 bit controller is just a Multibus-VME converter.
The rumor I have heard is that Sun has contracted Xylogics to make a
Eurocard version of the Xylogics 752 VME (32 bit) disk controller which
can be used on the Suns without an adapter. This will be sold exclusively
through Sun. If you buy your own Xylogics 752 card, you will also need to
buy a VME-to-"triple height extended Eurocard VME" adapter.
I will be interested to see if Sun prices their VME controller so high
that it is cheaper to buy the xy752 with an adapter.
Todd Nugent - Univ of Chicago
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 87 11:44:06 PDT
From: Hibbert.pa@xerox.com
Subject: RCS and compatible make for Suns
RCS can be retrieved on the arpa internet by anonymous ftp (give
"anonymous" as your username, and your real name as a password) to
purdue.edu. There is also a version of make there that knows about RCS.
It's incompletely documented, but there are builtin rules for ".CO" and
".CLEANUP" that allow you to change respectively the way files are checked
out (telling where the RCS directory is for instance), and the way checked
out files are deleted after everything is built. Both are in the
directory /pub/RCS, and they're available in tar and flar format.
In RCS I had to edit files.c by changing "#ifdef vax" to "#if defined(vax)
|| defined(sun)" in two places. It looks like suns and vaxen have similar
structures defined in a.out.h. The standard version of make on our vax
(running 4.3BSD) has this fix in it. I suspect it came that way from
Berkeley. This fix may have made it into the source, since I sent Walter
Tichy a mesage about it.
I also installed a change in rcs.c and rcsbase.h that I apparently got in
sun-spots. It defines a macro STRCMP that fixes an incompatibility in
strcmp. The macro to be added to rcsbase.h is:
#define STRCMP(a,b) ((a)? ( (b) ? strcmp((a),(b)) : 1 )\
: ( (b) ? -1 : 0) )
in rcs.c I changed line 993 to use the macro rather than the function.
It's the first use of strcmp in breaklock(). I don't know why all the
uses of strcmp in rcs.c aren't changed, but that's what I have in my code,
and it runs just fine.
I also had to make a change in make. Apparently someone is using a
homebrew replacement for rm that takes a -n flag that means "don't
squirrel away a copy of the file before deleting it so I can find it if I
decide I didn't really mean to delete the file." The new make has a
RMFLAG definition of -fn builtin that has to be changed to -f in order for
the automatic checkout to not blow up during cleanup. This change is in
rules.c, and I haven't told Walter about it yet, so you'll definitely have
to fix it yourself.
Chris
P.S.: I don't know anything about availability to sites that can't get to
the internet. Can someone who does send a followup to sun-spots?
[[ I will se what can be done about placing a copy in the sun-spots
archives. This would make it available to non-Internet people. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 87 16:11:20 EDT
From: Guy Middleton <gamiddleton%orchid.waterloo.edu@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Re: Root non-security on Sun workstations
It seems a few people want clients that won't come up single-user. This
is how we did it; the following are changes to /etc/init. If the machine
is a client, and if /.secure exists, then init will go straight to
multiuser.
[[ The entire diff is available from the host "titan.rice.edu" via
anonymous FTP as the name "sun-source/init.c.diff". Those without
Internet access can obtain a copy by sending the request
"send sun-source init.c.diff" to the address "archive-server@rice.edu".
For further information on the use of the archive server, send it the word
"help". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 87 18:18:11 -0100
From: Jeff Dalton <jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: 800 numbers from the UK
>> ([The NIC] user assistance number is 800-235-3155.)
> That number doesn't seem to work from Scotland :-)
> [[ It might if you put the appropriate international dialing prefix in
> front of it! --wnl ]]
Unfortunately, the problem is the 800 rather than the missing prefix. As
far as I have been able to determine, these numbers are for use only
inside the US, and it is not possible to call then from Scotland even with
the assistance of the international operator.
Jeff Dalton, JANET: J.Dalton@uk.ac.ed
AI Applications Institute, ARPA: J.Dalton%uk.ac.ed@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Edinburgh University. UUCP: ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!J.Dalton
[[ I did not know this at the time. I naturally assumed that any number,
including 800 numbers, would be accessible via 01+ dialing. Oh well. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 87 10:47:27 CDT
From: Michael Begeman <begeman@mcc.com>
Subject: Bug in SunView 3.4
SunView 3.4 introduces a window_create() bug:
In 3.2, you could create a TEXTSW with a particular font by specifying:
textsw = window_create(base_frame, TEXTSW,
WIN_FONT, my_font,
0);
In 3.4, the window_create() call apparently ignores the WIN_FONT
attribute and the textsw will be assigned the DEFAULT_FONT. A
workaround for 3.4 is to split the assignment of WIN_FONT out of the
window_create() call as follows:
textsw = window_create(base_frame, TEXTSW,
0);
window_set(textsw, WIN_FONT, my_font, 0);
Note that in 3.2 one had to split the WIN_COLUMNS attribute out of the
window_create() when assigning a non-DEFAULT_FONT to the TEXTSW. At least
we're moving to a point of consistency: now *all* of the font stuff has to
be outside of the window_create() for it to work! Sheez....
[[ Did you send this bug report to the "hotline"? If not, you should.
--wnl ]]
Michael L. Begeman, MCC, 9390 Research Blvd., Austin TX 78759
(512)338-3308
begeman@mcc.com
{gatech,harvard,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!begeman
------------------------------
Date: 2 Sep 87 18:18:13 GMT
From: mfreeman@cascade.stanford.edu (Martin Freeman)
Subject: ASPLOS-II advance program
SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
ARCHITECTURAL SUPPORT FOR PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
AND OPERATING SYSTEMS
(ASPLOS-II)
Palo Alto, California, October 5-8, 1987
Sponsored by ACM and Computer Society of the IEEE
CONFERENCE CHAIRMEN
General: Martin Freeman, Stanford University & Philips
Research Labs
Program: Randy Katz, U.C. Berkeley
Finance: Dennis Reinhardt, DAIR Computer Systems
Publicity: Jim Flournoy, Consultant
[[ The entire program is must too large to include here (even without the
registration forms at the end). It is available in the archives as
"sun-spots/asplos2". Archive-server users can use the request
"send public asplos2". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 87 16:10:18 PDT
From: ultra!wayne@ames.arpa (Wayne Hathaway)
Subject: Need advice on multiple-disk server
We have eight diskless Sun 3/50's on an Ethernet with one Sun 3/280
server. Currently the server has one 600 MB Eagle, and we have
partitioned it pretty much as suggested by Sun. We are acquiring a second
600 MB Eagle, and were wondering if anybody out there had any particular
recommendations on what to put where on what disks? One obvious idea is
to try to "load share" by balancing the total activity on the two disks
(although we have no idea how to MEASURE such activity). Another
(unrelated) thought is to move the clients' swap spaces to the new disk.
Since this is undoubtedly old hat to many of you, we'd appreciate any
advice anybody can share. And by the way, our job mix is pretty much
program and driver development in C and (non-Sun) assembler: editing,
compiling, kernel makes, debug. No huge programs, no AI, no LISP. Oh,
and an occasional iconedit to sweep away cobwebs ...
AdTHANKSvance!
Wayne Hathaway ultra!wayne@Ames.ARPA
Ultra Network Technologies
2140 Bering drive with a domain server:
San Jose, CA 95131 wayne@Ultra.COM
408-922-0100
------------------------------
Date: 3 Sep 87 19:45:18 GMT
From: jwabik@ub.d.umn.edu (Jeff Wabik)
Subject: Modem wont hang up
I need help from you Sytem Administrator types out there:
I just installed a modem on my 3/160. I use the modem for dial-ins,
dial-outs (tip, kermit), and UUCP. In all cases, I am unable to get the
getty (or whomever is responsbile) to drop DTR to the modem, inhibiting
the modem from hanging up properly. Here are cases that I've noticed:
1) On dial in, when I "logout", rather than hanging up, I get another
"login:".
2) On dial-out, "~." from tip gives the appropriate "disconnecting"
message, but fails to drop DTR and my modem interprets the dial-tone
to be another hosts till I manually hang it up.
3) On UUCP, when uucico fails, again, the line never gets dropped
thus inhibiting any more outcalls till the next day when I get
to the system to recycle the modem. I've been fortunate in that
the systems I UUCP to and from are smart enough to hang up at
the end of a conversation, thus giving me a 50% sucess ratio
to date.
Bottom line is, HOW DO I MAKE THE SUN DROP DTR? I've got my modem
configured to depend on DTR, and have made all appropriate changes to
/usr/sys/conf/<SYSTEM> that the "adding hardware to your system" section
of the Administrator's manual mentions.
-Jeff
P.S. My async connection is to the "ttya" port on the CPU board.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 87 19:44:36 -0400
From: mayer.wbst@xerox.com
Subject: Suns and high speed modems?
Does anyone have any experience running a 9600 baud modem off of a Sun
3/60 or 3/110 workstation? I noticed that the serial ports on these (and
other) Sun products are rated at 9,600 baud (input) and 19,200 baud
(output). I have heard rumors (ONLY RUMORS... I HAVE NO PERSONAL
EXPERIENCE WITH THIS) that they don't handle input over 2,400 baud very
well. Is this true, and is there any way around the problem? What are
the failure modes? For my application, I expect to be generating and
receiving data as fast as the modem can handle it.
Also, is there any way to receive data at 19,200 baud? Some of the modems
on the market use data compression to get better than 9600 baud
performance on a clean line. Note that the 3/60 has no slots, and the
3/110 has virtually no slots, so buying an "asynchronous line multiplexor"
is not an option.
-- Jim Mayer (mayer.wbst@xerox.com)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 87 15:52:55 EST
From: Steve M. Burinsky <smb@mimsy.umd.edu>
Subject: Sun-3 executables on a Sun-4?
Does anyone know if there is any chance of running Sun-3 executables on a
Sun-4? Or am I going to have to upgrade all the commercial software I have?
Steve M. Burinsky
smb@mimsy.umd.edu
[[ I seriously doubt that Sun-3 executables will run on a 4, since the
architectures are radically different. Sun would have to provide a 68020
emulator that would run on a 4, and emulators like that are hard to get
100% correct. I would welcome comments from those who know differently.
--wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 3 September 1987 1050 PDT (Thursday)
From: bierma@nprdc.arpa (Larry Bierma)
Subject: shelltool .vs. parity bit?
Does anyone know a way to convince shelltool (when in raw mode) not to
throw away characters with the 8th-bit set.
--Larry ARPA: bierma@nprdc.arpa
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!sdics!nprdc!bierma
PSTN: (619) 225-2161
------------------------------
Date: 3 Sep 87 17:33 +0500
From: naren <naren%systems.carleton.cdn%ubc.csnet@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Ciprico VMEbus controllers?
A local rep is trying to sell us a Rimfire 3200 VMEbus controller from
Ciprico for our sun-3/160. They seem to provide the boot rom and the
driver also. Anyone have any experience with this controller. A
comparision with Xylogics 451?
Also, has anyway tried using a smd disk drive on a sun-3/140.
Thanks
Narendra Mehta,
Systems & Computer Eng. Department, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
UUCP: {allegra,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!watmath!clan!naren
CDN: naren@systems.carleton.cdn
ARPA: naren%systems.carleton.cdn%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
CSNET: naren%systems.carleton.cdn@ubc.csnet
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 87 08:45:25 EDT
From: Comer Duncan <duncan%andy.bgsu.edu@relay.cs.net>
Subject: Public Domain version of SPICE for Sun3?
Is there a public domain version of SPICE which will run on the Sun3
machines and hopefully also runs in the Sun windows environment? The
versions one finds in Catalyst seem beyond the means of most university
department operating budgets.
Comer Duncan
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403
CSNET: duncan@bgsu.edu
ATT: (419) 372-8108
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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