[comp.sys.encore] Things I miss....

phil@eecs.nwu.edu (Bill LeFebvre) (08/03/89)

Sigh.  Some programs can make system management sooooo much easier.
Too bad UMAX doesn't have them.  Wishful thinking: maybe I can get
copies from *somewhere*......  I realize that some of these are
non-standard, but here's my list anyway:

	vmstat
	pstat
	clri		(especially given the UMAX4.2 file system problems)
	sps
	top		(but that's my fault, I guess)

All I have is ps, and it can't even select processes by username.
Sigh.
		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>

rackow@SKEEVE.MCS.ANL.GOV (Gene Rackow) (08/03/89)

There is also a problem with depending upon the OS level you are at with sysmon.
The VM stats are incorrect.  This is not really a problem with sysmon, but the
system calls themselves if I remember correctly.  You can't even write a utility
that will give you the correct info, unless you correct the system call.

This is somewhat from memory as these are things that I wanted some time ago, but
has been promised for the next release.


-- 
   Gene Rackow                    email: rackow@mcs.anl.gov
   Math & Computer Science        voice: 312-972-7126
   Argonne National Labs
   Argonne, IL  60439

clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover) (08/03/89)

Well, you are discovering that UMAX 4.2 is not BSD 4.2.  Those particular
programs won't work under UMAX (well, clri probably could).  The others in your
list (vmstat, sps, top, pstat) all rely on the kernel data structure formats
and naming convention from BSD kernels.  UMAX uses a sufficently different way
of organizing its kernel structures that these BSD-isms won't work.

However, all is not lost - there are sufficent equivilants available in the 
'sysmon' command:
	vmstat = sysmon -n vm
	sps, top, pstat = sysmon -n proc

Play around with the '-d' option to sysmon to truely get more information than
you know what to do with.

	-Clyde

Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas  
	clyde@emx.utexas.edu; ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!clyde

Tip #268: Don't feel insecure or inferior! Remember, you're ORGANIC!!
	  You could win an argument with almost any rock!

phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Bill LeFebvre) (08/03/89)

In article <16531@ut-emx.UUCP> clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover) writes:
>Well, you are discovering that UMAX 4.2 is not BSD 4.2.  Those particular
>programs won't work under UMAX (well, clri probably could).  The others in your
>list (vmstat, sps, top, pstat) all rely on the kernel data structure formats
>and naming convention from BSD kernels.  UMAX uses a sufficently different way
>of organizing its kernel structures that these BSD-isms won't work.

Yeah, I figured that, having written one of those utilities :-).
But clri?!?  C'mon!

>However, all is not lost - there are sufficent equivilants available in the 
>'sysmon' command:

Yes, and thanks to all who pointed me at sysmon.  I didn't know it was
there (I haven't had time to explore yet).  I wish there was something
simpler to use, but it will have to do.

Think about it, tho....  The times when you REALLY want to run
something like sysmon are the times when the system is misbehaving.
Chances are that you are going to have a difficult time getting
anything started.  Sysmon uses curses, which is a big hog.  It's going
to take forever to crank up if someone has started a bunch of
processes running amok.  And when I noticed that pstat was missing was
when processes were dying from an inability to allocate virtual
memory.  I NEEDED to find out how much swap space was left to see if
that's what the problem was.  Sysmon is HUGE!  There's no way it would
have started up.  So it's pretty much useless at that point.  If I'm
stuck in a traffic jam, I can't use a car to get to the source of the
jam very easily.  I need something smaller, like a bike!

So my feeling is:  sysmon is a cute toy, but it isn't going to be much
of a help when I really need it.
		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>

peralta@xenna.Encore.COM (Rick Peralta) (08/04/89)

In article rackow@SKEEVE.MCS.ANL.GOV (Gene Rackow) writes:
> There is also a problem with ...
> [and the fix] has been promised for the next release.

There will be a normal /dev/kmem in Umax 4.0 (4.3BSD w/tahoe) too.
So, all your favorite kernel toys will be able to have access...


 - Rick "Running at better beta sites now..."

phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Bill LeFebvre) (08/04/89)

In article <12006@xenna.Encore.COM> peralta@xenna.UUCP (Rick Peralta) writes:
>There will be a normal /dev/kmem in Umax 4.0 (4.3BSD w/tahoe) too.
>So, all your favorite kernel toys will be able to have access...

Yeah, but will the nlist labels be the same?!?  :-)


		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>

peralta@xenna.Encore.COM (Rick Peralta) (08/05/89)

In article phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Bill LeFebvre) writes:
>In article peralta@xenna.UUCP (Rick Peralta) writes:
>>There will be a normal /dev/kmem in Umax 4.0 (4.3BSD w/tahoe) 
>>So, all your favorite kernel toys will be able to have access...
>
>Yeah, but will the nlist labels be the same?!?  :-)

Well, the basic answer would have to be no.
But, the raw information should all be there.


 - Rick "Uh oh... I hear the peanut gallery clammering..."

robertl@bucsb.UUCP (Robert La Ferla) (08/05/89)

In article <16531@ut-emx.UUCP> clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover) writes:
>Well, you are discovering that UMAX 4.2 is not BSD 4.2.  Those particular
>programs won't work under UMAX (well, clri probably could).  The others in
>your list (vmstat, sps, top, pstat) all rely on the kernel data structure
>formats and naming convention from BSD kernels.  UMAX uses a sufficently
>different way of organizing its kernel structures that these BSD-isms won't
>work.

We have both top and sps running here at Boston University on our 4 XPC
Multimax.

   __  
  /  \      /         __/_
 /___/ __  /_  __  __  /
/ \   '_' /_/ |_- / ' /

barbarae@maxzilla.Encore.COM (Barbara S. Epstein) (08/07/89)

Here is the status of the Umax 4.3 programs in question . . .

vmstat		-  this has been ported for Umax 4.3 and uses 
			(for the most part) inq_stats rather than kmem.

pstat		-  this has been ported for Umax 4.3 and uses
			(for the most part) kmem.

clri		-  this exists in Umax 4.3

sps		-  

top		-  I beleive that this is in Umax 4.2 (the current release)
			but it is certainly in Umax 4.3 and uses inq_stats.

sysmon		- same as always

netstat		- this exists in Umax 4.2 and also in Umax 4.3.  It uses
			inq_stats.

iostat		- this has been ported for Umax 4.3 and uses
			(for the most part) inq_stats rather than kmem.

systat		- this has been ported for Umax 4.3 and uses 
			(for the most part) inq_stats rather than kmem.
			(it also contains an extra section to display
			 relative cpu statistics)

				
Of course I, personally, make no guarantees on the above mentioned programs.
Furthermore there may be one or two fields missing from any given program.

	Hope this is helpful,
	Barbara Epstein

boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (Brian O'Neill - SoftXc) (08/08/89)

In article <1000@accuvax.nwu.edu> phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Bill LeFebvre) writes:
>
>Yeah, but will the nlist labels be the same?!?  :-)
>
>
>		William LeFebvre

Speaking of the nlist labels, does the UMAX 4.2 kernal have an equivalent to
BSD's avenrun, for finding the load average? In porting X-windows code,
xload is the only program I could not compile, and it needs the load average
variable.

==============================================================================
Brian O'Neill, MS-DOS Software Exchange Coordinator
Internet: boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu 
UUCP: {(backbones),harvard,mit-eddie,et. al.}!ulowell!hawk.ulowell.edu!boneill

madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (08/09/89)

In article <12267@xenna.Encore.COM> barbarae@maxzilla.UUCP (Barbara S. Epstein) writes:
|Here is the status of the Umax 4.3 programs in question . . .
[..]
|sps		-  
[..]

If you've been reading this you know, but I just posted my
public-domain version of sps for the encore.  It makes use of
inq_stats.

jim frost
software tool & die
madd@std.com

wtm@buengc.BU.EDU (W. Thomas Meier) (08/11/89)

 I wonder how accurate the inq_stats are for some of the calls.  On
 using vm_swap and vm_file it seems like you get pretty low values
 on a loaded system with little memory.  There is little in the form
 of direction on how to use the system calls beside what you can read
 from the ".h" files in /usr/include/sys. Also, does anyone know what
 the value of lazy validations is?  


 Tom Meier
 System Mangler
 Boston Univeristy Information Technology

loverso@Xylogics.COM (John Robert LoVerso) (08/16/89)

Actually, the two things I miss greatly are process arguments and
working network code!  (Not being able to reach BARRnet from NEARnet
because the of 4.2-style IP TTL handling is sad).  Thankfully, the
network code has been taken care of in UMAX4.3 (hopefully, ptys too).

However, the only way to get real argument lists out of a kernel
is to run MACH instead of UMAX.  Thankfully again, it is available
now, albeit as a beta release.  Additional pluses are that you also
get 4.3BSD-Tahoe compatibility at the kernel and user code levels,
with such bonuses as bind4.8, sendmail5.61, etc, all being standard
and working.

John

(of course, the viewpoints above in no way reflect opinion at Xylogics)

phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) (08/16/89)

In article <6917@xenna.Xylogics.COM> loverso@Xylogics.COM (John Robert LoVerso) writes:
>Actually, the two things I miss greatly are process arguments and
>working network code!  (Not being able to reach BARRnet from NEARnet
>because the of 4.2-style IP TTL handling is sad)....

I'ts really not IP TTL that's the problem (does IP even *have* a TTL
field?).  It's TCP's TTL field that's too small:  15.

But if you have software support, tell Encore that you need a larger
TTL.  We did, and we are now running a UMAX 4.2 kernel with TCP TTL
set to 60!  They were quite helpful.

This is kind of an annoying, funny, sad story: when one of the
technical guys got back with me about this problem, he said "we'll
make you a kernel with TCP_TTL set to 60.  Is that alright?"  I said,
"60?!?  What were you using before?"  He said, "30".  I said, "well
you started off where I want to be---ours came set at 15.  So 60 will
certainly be adequate."

		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>

loverso@Xylogics.COM (John Robert LoVerso) (08/16/89)

In article <1057@accuvax.nwu.edu> phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) writes:
> I'ts really not IP TTL that's the problem (does IP even *have* a TTL
> field?).  It's TCP's TTL field that's too small:  15.

Actually, it is an IP TTL.  TCP doesn't have one.  The problem is really
in the default value for the IP TTL that's given to originating TCP segments.
4.2BSD did two bad things: set the default to 15 (4.3 has 30) and decrement
the TTL of incoming IP datagrams by 5 (4.3 decs by 1).

John