Sun-Spots Digest, v6n125
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at RICE.EDU
Thu Jun 30 01:28:54 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Wednesday, 29 June 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 125
Today's Topics:
Re: Sorcerer's Apprentice -- Multiple invocation of Daemons
Re: Sun losing track of console
Re: A question about the SunOS License
mapst: a tool to map a streamer tape
SunOS 4.0 comments and questions
CDC Sabre 850
SunOS 4.0 & sed
my new toy
Question about the value of a source licence
Experiences with RT Ingres and SUN Ingres?
QIC format documentation?
Sharing an Imagen between VAX(VMS) and Sun 3 ?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 08:27:01 BST
From: Operator <mcvax!nw.stl.stc.co.uk!root at uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Re: Sorcerer's Apprentice -- Multiple invocation of Daemons
> You would think sendmail with -bd invoked twice would fail because it
> shouldn't be able to bind the SMTP socket again, I've never tried it.
So I thought, let's try it... You're right, it fails:-
ps ax | fgrep sendmail
27588 ? I 0:35 /usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15
3962 p5 S 0:00 fgrep sendmail
105 yew# /usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15m
106 yew# Broadcast message from syslog at pine at Wed Jun 15 08:20:02 1988...
Jun 15 08:20:01 yew.stl.stc.co.uk: 3964 sendmail: cannot get connection
Regards,
Howard Pelling (admin at nw.stl.stc.co.uk +44 782 662212 x235)
System Manager, STC Technology (NW), Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 12:46:30 EDT
From: klm at cme-durer.arpa (Ken Manheimer)
Subject: Re: Sun losing track of console
Reference: v6n111
Yay sun-spots!
About this Sun 3 hardware ignoring its non-bitmapped console -
In article <1988.06.13.16.49.07.714.01791 at rice.edu> Sun-Spots at rice.edu writes:
>[...]
>Someone mentioned rm'ng files in /dev; I can't belive that removing
>dev-nodes could relate to this problem. [...]
Try it! We have a 3/180, running Sun OS 3.5, with an (older) Microterm
vt100-like terminal serving as console. The 3/160 is plugged into a Topaz
"Powermaker" UPS, and sure enough we've been having persistent problems
with the CPU eventually ignoring input (including "real <breaks>") from
the microterm. Until i followed the suggestion to remove
/dev/{kbd,mouse,fb}. No more problems, in what has to be at least an
intervening week. (Previously a day wouldn't go by before the snub.) I'm
convinced this solved our problem, though i don't profess to know how...
As i said above, Yay sun-spots (and thank you Stephen J. Roznowski
<sjr at mimsy.umd.edu> for posting the workaround)!
Ken Manheimer klm at cme-durer.ARPA or ..!uunet!cme-durer.arpa!klm
National Bureau of Standards, Factory Automation System, Software Support
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 21:54:26 EDT
From: mnetor!utzoo!henry at uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: A question about the SunOS License
> ... I heard, indirectly from Sun, that ANY
> software written on a University licensed Sun was PD. The only fee that
> could be charged would be a distribution fee.
The issue is a bit complicated. I don't recall any such condition being
made by Sun. AT&T is another story, however... and if you got Sun source,
it was probably conditional on being AT&T source licensed. Ignoring some
fine points, there are two kinds of AT&T source licenses: the academic
license, which is almost free, and the commercial one, which is stunningly
expensive. It shouldn't be hard to guess which one most universities
have. The academic license puts a number of restrictions on what can be
done with Unix, but the major one is that using it for financial gain is
absolutely forbidden. AT&T enforces this (or at least they used to).
Now, if you *don't* have source, that's a somewhat different story. That
puts you under a binary sublicense from Sun, and those sublicenses carry
no such restrictions.
DO NOT assume that having a binary sublicense and a source license on the
same machine gives you the best of both worlds; there are further
complications that louse that up. In particular, I think the binary
sublicenses have some sort of clause that outlaws importing binaries from
another machine that is source-licensed, and this would probably be taken
to apply to dual-licensing situations too. If you have an AT&T source
license, the only way to get a Unix on which you can legally make money is
to buy a separate machine with a binary license and carefully avoid having
it benefit in any way from the source license.
> ... If I am
> forced to do so, I will reluctantly develop in on a Vax or buy my own Sun.
Developing on a VAX may not help; it may be covered by a source license
too. Buying your own Sun and keeping source (and source-derived items)
off it may be your only recourse. One possible exception: university
computer centers *sometimes* get commercial licenses so that they can sell
computing time. Ask your comp center management.
Caution: I am not a lawyer. Consult a pro before doing anything rash.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry
[[ My understanding of this issue was a little dated and confused before.
I have been more or less straightened out by someone else in the
department here. Ignore what I said before about Unix licenses.
Basically, if you have just a binary license from Sun then you are pretty
much free to do what you want with stuff you develop on the machine.
--wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 11:35 +0100
From: Dominique Petitpierre <petitp%issco.uucp at relay.cs.net>
Subject: mapst: a tool to map a streamer tape
Here is a tool that allows to map the content of a streamer tape cartridge.
Among other possiblilities it can
- tell the number and size of files on the tape.
- tell the recording format (QIC-11 or QIC-24).
- tell you the kind of files stored on the tape.
- give a table of content of multiple tar or dump archives on a tape.
- pipe each file on the tape into an arbitrary command.
And as a side effect, it has also the possibility of silently going to the
end of the tape, were you can start writing. This is useful for automatic
backup scripts. In fact that is how this program started: how can you tell
that a stramer tape is positioned after the last file? I posted this
question in this newsgroup quite while ago, but didn't receive any good
answer, so, here is my solution, with lots of bells and whistles!
This program has been tested on SUN3/50 and SUN3/60 under SunOS 3.2 and
3.4, with a (standard, SUN provided) Emulex MT-02 tape controller (cf
st(4)), drive brand unknown (sorry, I don't want to open the box right
now). It uses undocumented status reports and would certainly need to be
rewritten for another hardware (and a for better style :-)) I have bundled
the sources in two shar archives, so that mailers won't choke!
Comments, bug reports and fixes are welcome.
Mr. Dominique Petitpierre |EAN, BITNET, EARN, MHS, X.400: petitp at cui.unige.ch
ISSCO, University of Geneva |UUCP: mcvax!cernvax!cui!petitp , petitp at cui.uucp
54 route des Acacias |JANET: petitp%cui.unige.ch at ean-relay.ac.uk
CH-1227 GENEVA (Switzerland)|CSNET, ARPA: petitp%cui.unige.ch at csnet-relay.csnet
Tel: 0041/22/20 93 33 extension 2117
[[ This was originally submitted as two shar files. The files were small
enough that I have concatenated them and placed the result in the
archives. It is 17517 bytes long and is stored as "sun-source/mapst.shar".
It can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from the host "titan.rice.edu" or
via the archive server with the request "send sun-source mapst.shar". For
more information about the archive server, send a mail message containing
the word "help" to the address "archive-server at rice.edu". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 13:08:34 -0400
From: (Jeffrey A. Edelheit) <edelheit%community-chest.mitre.org at gateway.mitre.org>
Subject: SunOS 4.0 comments and questions
Like Steve Blair <spar!ascway!scb at decwrl.dec.com>, I too have spent the
last several days installing 4.0; my install is on a 3/280. I have a
couple of comments and then some questions that some folks might be able
to answer.
First the comments. It sure is nice that the 9 track install is down to 2
tapes, but will Sun ever develop a smarter install that doesn't require
the tape to be rewound and then fsf'ed to the appropriate tar.file when
doing the software extracts? The rewinds and fsfs seem to take for ever.
Is Steve ever right about missing the graphic interface for doing
suninstall! I was really disappointed that the install was like using an
ascii terminal. BUT the one nice thing is that install remembers what you
did in previous screens, so if you need to change partition sizes because
you screwed up on the # of clients, no big deal.
I found the installation manual rather confusing and not too clear. I ended
up sending a net-note to hotline at sun.com asking for advice on partition sizes.
(especially /export/swap, /export/root). I had hoped that hotline would have
responded faster (It took over 24 hrs for hotline to acknowledge my net-note
and six hrs to get a phone call back.) I thought that the net-note approach
would have been better than calling 1-800-4SUNUSA, but I may have been wrong.
Now the questions. Why, when I login as root, do my /.login, /.cshrc,
/.alias, /.logout.... not work? My .login and .cshrc are intially ignored
and I must execute a source .cshrc and .alias to get them to work. However,
when I log in as a user, they seem to work ok. What am I doing wrong?
[[ Are the files owned by "root"? I seem to recall that a c-shell running
as root will ignore those files unless they are owned by root. --wnl ]]
Why isn't the mail -v option supported?
Ok, I screwed up and need to add 10 mb to my xy0a partition (I like a lot
of space for /tmp). One approach would be to symbolically link /tmp to a
place in a large partition (/usr/local/tmp? /home/host/tmp?). Another
would be to either reinstall the system with a larger xy0a partition
(i.e., 20mb not the default 9mb), or use the option approach that Steve
mentions. Any suggestions?
Regards,
Jeff Edelheit (edelheit at gateway.mitre.org)
The MITRE Corporation 7525 Colshire Drive
McLean, VA 22102 (703) 883-7586
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 21:28:36 EDT
From: dms at wheaties.ai.mit.edu (David M. Siegel)
Subject: CDC Sabre 850
Yes, you need 600 bytes/sector, to meet the requirements of the Xylogics
451 controller (it needs a minimum of 600 bytes per sector, according to
the controller manual). We are using the 67 sector configuration, with
SWPD disabled, and all works fine. We have a bunch of them and have had no
problems.
You can get buttons for your drive, it's just that you didn't order them.
For an extra 100 bucks you can get a nice little operator panel that gives
you a start button, a write protect switch, and a drive unit selector. For
more money you can get a really fancy "operator control panel".
-Dave
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 15:50:36 PDT
From: pyramid!vsi1!lmb at sun.com (Larry Blair)
Subject: SunOS 4.0 & sed
>We have always used a prompt that keeps track of your history number. We
>accomplish this by putting the following in .cshrc:
>...
I don't understand the need for this complicated procedure. My csh prompt
is the same as described, using the following line in my .cshrc:
set prompt = "`hostname`(\!)%"
For ksh, I use:
PS1="`hostname`(!)%"
I realized that I only addressed the symptom, not the problem here.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 88 18:42:11 EDT
From: ken at gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Subject: my new toy
I have agreed to buy a Sun 2/120 (fully loaded) for my personal machine,
and i now have several questions about the machines.
* The machine has both an SMD and SCSI controller board. Can one machine
mount both SMD and SCSI disks? Is there a list of the SCSI and SMD
drives that the Sun controller supports?
* What does SunOS 4.0 give you that 3.5 does not? Which is better to
run on a Sun 2 (4MB)? Does 4.0 have as many bugs as i have heard
roumoured?
* How much success have people had running some of the larger Sun
programs, such as X Windows 11.2, Kyoto Common Lisp, ObjTalk, GNU,
etc.? Are there any Sun programs that arent source compatable with
the Sun 3?
* how many people use a Sun 2 as a server for a Sun 3/50 or 3/60? With
what success?
* Is there an acceptable alternative memory board for the 2? I would
like to free up some slots by replacing the 1MB Sun boards with 2MB
or 4MB boards...
* How environment sensitive are the 2's? The Sun 3 is awfully sensitive
to temperature...
* Has anyone had any repairs done to thier Sun by a company called Apex?
What were your experiences, god or bad?
Thanks for your time...
ken seefried iii ...!{akgua, allegra, amd, harpo, hplabs,
ken at gatech.edu inhp4, masscomp, rlgvax, sb1, uf-cgrl,
ccastks at gitvm1.bitnet unmvax, ut-ngp, ut-sally}!gatech!ken
soon to be open: ...!gatech!spooge!ken (finally ;'})
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 13:59:46 GMT
From: ubc-cs!calgary!dataspan!kratz at uunet.uu.net (Geoff Kratz)
Subject: Question about the value of a source licence
Our site is considering getting a source licence, but we need some good
reasons to justify the cost.
We currently have 2 Sun 3/160C's and a Sun 3/180. We will be getting a
Sun 4/280, 2 Sun 3/60's and 2 Sun 386i/250's in the next few weeks.
However, when Management found out the cost of a source licence
(US$50,000) and was told how "involved" the licencing is (one with Sun,
one with AT&T) they thought "forget it". (Even the Sun salesperson here
suggested we not bother).
What I need to know (from sites that have source licencing) is this: was
the price of the source licence worth it? I need to know if getting a
source licence will actually pay for itself (ie: we got one and made $X
millions :-) which paid for the licence in N months!) and any other
advantages that having source will bring us, both short-term and
long-term. Money for software-type stuff (things they cannot wrap their
hands around) is tight here, but if I can find enough good reasons, our
Management may say yes.
Please don't suggest dropping some of the new hardware, as we need all the
consoles and file-server power we can get (Management has come to the
realization that we can get more work done with multiple windows than with
plain terminals).
Geoff Kratz Dataspan Technology Inc. Ph:(403) 237-9313
400-540 5th Av SW
Calgary Alberta Canada T2P 0M2 "Hey, no problem!"
...!{ubc-vision,mnetor}!alberta!calgary!dataspan!kratz
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 14:23:28 CDT
From: roloff%uicsrds33.csrd.uiuc.edu at uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Richard Roloff)
Subject: Experiences with RT Ingres and SUN Ingres?
We recently obtained Ingres for the Sun from Relational Technologies. A
number of support items were obtained with it, including "bigraph".
Here is the bad part: there is no mouse support for menu selection. No
pull down menus. Only very clumsy user interfaces.
It gets worse: "bigraph", while running on the Sun, DOES NOT SUPPORT THE
SUN MONITOR AS A GRAPHICS DEVICE. You must fool around with Tektronics
terminal emulators, etc.
Can someone with experience using the SUN version of INGRES please let me
know if it is any better (how could it be any worse?).
roloff at uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu
Rick Roloff (217)-244-0049
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 88 12:23:01 PDT
From: Greg Satz <satz at cisco.com>
Subject: QIC format documentation?
I remember seeing someone mentioning QIC tape format documentation in this
forum. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me where to find it.
Thanks,
Greg Satz
cisco
[[ I checked the master index, and I see no message along those lines.
Perhaps someone with this information can post it. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 20:15:14 GMT
From: maccs!johnb at uunet.uu.net (John Benjamins)
Subject: Sharing an Imagen between VAX(VMS) and Sun 3 ?
Our theory group here, has a Imagen laser-printer connected to the
research VAX 8600 running VMS. Some of the group members have purchased a
network of Sun 3's ( a 3/280 server, and 3 diskless 3/60 clients ). We
have no printer connected to the Sun at the moment. We would like to be
able to print on the Imagen from both the VAX and the Sun. At present we
can copy output to the VAX from the Sun using Sun's Sunlink/DNI package.
This requires the user to then login to the VAX and print on the Imagen
from there.
Does anyone know anything about a multiplexer(sp?) that would allow both
machines to use this same printer? In the PC world this is quite common,
but they use parallel lines. The Imagen needs a serial connection. If
I'm looking for something that doesn't exist, I would like to know. Is
there another way to get what we want?
E. John Benjamins BITNET: BENJAMI at MCMASTER
Dept. of Physics, McMaster University UUCP: johnb at maccs
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
[[ If you already have an Ethernet and are willing to get an Ethernet card
for the Imagen (assuming the Imagen you have has this as an option---you
didn't specify the model number) then you can hook all of them up to the
Ethernet and share the printer that way. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
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