Sun-Spots Digest, v7n8
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at Rice.edu
Wed Nov 9 03:15:16 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Monday, 7 November 1988 Volume 7 : Issue 8
Today's Topics:
Re: DELNI collisions (was: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns)
Re: Problems with dump on 4.0
Re: Algebraic Calctool with Trig Functions
Re: TTY windows in Sunview
Re: C/A/T troff to ditroff
Re: Looking for troff previewer for Sun's
Re: LaTeX and TeX environment on Suns
Get together at SUG?
753 vs 7053
Something clobbers subnet mask - YP clients die
Strange 'rshd' behavior on SunOS 4.0
Suntools crashes servers
Problem loging-in a SUN 4.0 server
process killed due to text modification
Fujitsu 2249?
Used Suns?
Sun OS 4.0 and Trace
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 9:39 GMT
From: Piete Brooks <pb%computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: DELNI collisions (was: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns)
Reference: v6n277
Two quickies and a real message.
1) ukc sent me a message saying that they had noticed & fixed the problem.
2) "Cure for the Summertime Blues?" this has been thrashed out in the UK list
3) Main one follows ....
[ % = original, > = reply, * = my comment, $ = my guru ]
% Appearently there is enough shared logic in the DELNI that trying to
% rapidly pump large amounts of data between two ports results in a large
% number of 'collisions' being reported. (Can anyone confirm/deny this?)
% When we put the two machines on seperate DELNIs that where connected by
% coax the file transfer rates were much closer to the rates we saw when the
% machines themselves were directly on the coax.
> I'm no expert, but this doesn't sound right. We had a similar problem and
> found the _real_ cause of these "pseudo-collisions" was Ethernet version
> mismatches. We thought we could just insert a DELNI between an old
> Interlan board and its transceiver. No way since that hardware was
> version 1 and the DELNI is (sort-of) version 2. We saw a _lot_ of
> collisions when sending thru the Interlan, e.g. average of 1.5 collisions
> per packet sent! Attaching the DELNI to the backbone with its own
> transceiver and re-connecting the old hardware fixed that. Now I can send
> gobs of packets from one port of the DELNI to the other without seeing a
> _single_ collision when our net is lightly loaded.
* Nor am I an expert, but our local guru muttered something about heartbeat.
* It turns out that the above fix is suitable ....
$ There is a grain of truth in this, but there is some confusion.
$ There are two potential problems with the DELNI that I know of:
$
$ - it insists on sending the "heartbeat" signal (feature)
$ - the heartbeat is signalled on all 8 ports, not just the one which
$ transmitted (bug)
$
$ Because of the bug, you will see many more collisions when you are on
$ a DELNI port - there will be one for every successful transmission by
$ somebody else on the same DELNI. But they aren't "real" collisions.
$
$ I presume that what is happening is that these "pseudo-collisions" are
$ in some way upsetting the Sun's Ethernet access logic. Maybe it goes dead
$ for some fixed period after seeing a collision, or something like that.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 88 09:26:41 EST
From: ted at braggvax.arpa
Subject: Re: Problems with dump on 4.0
In v6n278 Ian Domville <mcvax!stl.stc.co.uk!id at uunet.uu.net> writes:
>The second problem is like this. I wrote two small dumps onto one tape.
>I tried to read the second one with:
>
> /usr/etc/restore ibfs 1750 /dev/rst0 2
>
>Restore then demands the second volume. The first dump is perfectly
>readable, as far as I can tell. So how can I safely put multiple dumps on
>a tape?...
I have seen this under 3.X also, usually (if memory serves) when I have
multiple dumps on a tape, and want to restore them without using mt to
position the tape. I rewind and restore the first dump using the nrst
device, then cd to the correct place and give the restore command again.
This will fail, asking for tape two. Then do it one more time, and it
will work. I think it has to do with reading past a tape mark or some
such between dumps.
Ted Nolan
ted at braggvax.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 14:41:06 -0500
From: mesard at bbn.com
Subject: Re: Algebraic Calctool with Trig Functions
Phone: 617-873-1878
Office: 13/216
> Does anyone know of a calctool with operator precedence (i.e., 2+3*4+5 =
> 19, NOT 25) and trig functions, logarithms, and other assorted goodies?
I wrote a command line calculator (i.e., it doesn't run in its own window)
which does all that and more fun stuff (bitwise operations, base
conversion, etc.). It's available via anonymous ftp to titan.rice.edu as
"wsm_calc.shar" in the "public" directory (since it's not Sun specific).
void *Wayne_Mesard(); MESARD at BBN.COM BBN, Cambridge, MA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 88 09:46 EST
From: Holland at dockmaster.arpa
Subject: Re: TTY windows in Sunview
A question was asked as to whether there was a hard limit to the number of
TTY windows in an application. The file descriptors which were mentioned
are one factor, but a probably more important factor is a NOTE which
appears on P. 180 in the SunView Programmer's Guide and says "You can
only have one tty subwindow per process". I'm using Sun OS 3.x and it may
change going to 4.x but I have tried to use more that one and it didn't
work.
Also what we really need is a simple text display window! Not an editor
and not a tty. That would be a useful package if someone were to build
the required functions on top of a CANVAS. There are so many times when
this would be useful and PANEL TEXT ITEMS are just not the right way. Of
course, anything which scrolls off the top could be thrown away just like
TTY windows. Multiple fonts? Any volunteers with time enough to write
this??
Brian
P.S. One way around the 1 TTY window limit is for forked processes to
create their own. But, keeping the windows together could be a problem.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 17:02:14 +0100
From: Jaap Bril <mcvax!kunivv1!jaap at uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Re: C/A/T troff to ditroff
Reference: v6n268
Don't know if anyone is interested but: An educational licence costs
$1500,- for the complete documentals workbench (including pic etc.)
For just ditroff, $400
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 88 09:30:38 EST
From: ted at braggvax.arpa
Subject: Re: Looking for troff previewer for Sun's
In v6n278 Glenn C. Shute gshute at polyslo.CalPoly.EDU writes:
>Can anyone give me any pointers to troff previewers on Sun3's. Something
>like texx for Latex.
There was a program called tseetool on the first SUG tape which previews
CAT troff in a window. Not bad either.
Ted Nolan
ted at braggvax.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 88 14:03:21 EST
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy at ai.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: LaTeX and TeX environment on Suns
I sent Pierre McKay a version of undump for SunOS 4.0. Turns out the only
thing to change was to ignore the glorified parsing routine that did not
use varargs. We don't use undump anymore either, not worth it even on a
Sun3.
Jean-Francois Lamy lamy at ai.utoronto.ca, uunet!ai.utoronto.ca!lamy
AI Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 88 00:02:34 CST
From: Your Moderator <phil at Rice.edu>
Subject: Get together at SUG?
All Sun-Spots readers who are interested in some sort of gathering at
Miami SUG raise your right hand. Oh wait, we still don't have multi-media
mail....
I'm still thinking about what we can do at SUG. They have these things
called "SIG meetings" which I guess are like BOF (Birds Of a Feather)
gatherings at Usenix. Would that be appropriate? "SIG-Spot"? I would
invite you all to my room, but I'm not sure you would all fit. Plus I
won't have enough glasses. The SF-Lovers people have a tradition of
placing a "@" symbol on their name cards at certain science fiction
conventions. Kind of like a secret handshake.
So how 'bout it? Anyone interested in gathering in Miami? What would be
the best way to go about it? SIG? Or more informal? We don't have much
time left, so better send comments on this directly to me.
William LeFebvre
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 18:23:19 PST
From: Richard Smith <smiddy at spam.istc.sri.com>
Subject: 753 vs 7053
I have also been told, by some sun-spots reader, thank you, that the 7053
is Sun Eurocard format, while the 753 is a "real" VME board, and thus
requires a VME to VME adapter when used with a Sun.
Thanks
Smiddy at spam.istc.sri.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 17:20:26 EST
From: gfr%wolfgang at gateway.mitre.org (Glenn Roberts)
Subject: Something clobbers subnet mask - YP clients die
Periodically we receive some kind of packet that clobbers the netmask on
our Sun 386i's. When this happens the portmapper process hangs and all
the YP clients on my network essentially hang. The only solution seems to
be to reboot client and server (usually via L1-A ... arghh!!!). Both
clients and server are 386i's. We also periodically get the message:
"Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000"
on some of our Sun 3 systems, but we've never noticed a problem with them
since the mask is always reset to a class B mask, which is our normal mask
(problem on 386i's is when mask is set to 0xffffff00 or 0x0).
Sun tech. support says they've heard of this and that they "think the
problem originates on a VAX".
The following lines were 'grepped' on the phrase 'subnet' from the
/usr/adm/messages file on the YP server 'cobra'. (NOTE: Mask resets
usually seem to come in pairs):
Oct 6 08:00:20 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 6 08:00:20 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0x0
Oct 14 13:03:26 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 14 13:03:26 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 17 16:04:45 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 19 07:52:16 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 19 07:52:16 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0x0
Oct 21 16:31:54 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 21 16:31:54 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 21 17:08:23 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 21 17:08:23 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 25 08:11:23 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 25 08:11:23 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0x0
Oct 26 13:21:05 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0x0
Oct 28 11:29:25 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 28 11:31:26 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 28 12:40:19 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 28 12:40:19 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffff0000
Oct 31 07:37:55 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
Oct 31 07:38:46 cobra Setting subnet mask to 0xffffff00
MITRE has many machines on the ethernet including all flavors of Sun,
PC/PS2, VAX, Macintosh, etc.
Has anyone seen this behavior before? Any ideas on what may be causing
this? Thanks ...
- Glenn Roberts, The MITRE Corporation, McLean VA (703) 883-6820
gfr%wolfgang at gateway.mitre.org
------------------------------
Date: 1 Nov 88 16:24:58 GMT
From: ehrlich at shire.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: Strange 'rshd' behavior on SunOS 4.0
We just started observing some strange behavior on the bahalf of rshd
under SunOS 4.0 on a Sun 4/260S named shire. Here is what happens:
If I try to 'rsh shire ls -FC' from another machine (in this case an IBM
RT 6152 running AOS 4.3 release 2 or a VAX 11/780 running 4.3 BSD) the
error message returned is:
shire.cs.psu.edu: Address already in use
On the other hand if I try the same thing while logged on to shire itself
the error message is:
Protocol error, shire.cs.psu.edu connection closed
The Sun is using resolver based gethostby* routines as are the RT and the
Vax. Has anyone seen this before? Does anyone know what is causing it
and how to fix it? Thanks in advance.
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich at shire.cs.psu.edu>
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Computer Science
University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 16:51:30 PST
From: Jim Rudolf <rudolf at oce.orst.edu>
Subject: Suntools crashes servers
We have two 3/280 servers; one is running 3.5 and the other is running
3.4. When I try to bring up suntools or NeWS on the console of either,
about 1 try in 40 will result in a crash and these messages:
Memory Error Register d8<INTR,INTENA,CE_ENA,TIMEOUT>
DVMA = 0, context = 6, virtual address = f2552c2
pme = f30003f0, physical address = 7e12c2
panic: memory timeout error
syncing disks...
At first, it only happened on the 3.4 machine. Our Sun FE replaced the
CPU & memory boards, to no avail. And recently it started to happen on
the 3.5 machine. Again, this is not easily reproduceable; it only happens
about once a month when invoking NeWS or suntools.
Has anyone seen this behavior before? Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Jim Rudolf College of Oceanography
rudolf at oce.orst.edu Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 18:18:11 PST
From: versatc!tran at sun.com
Subject: Problem loging-in a SUN 4.0 server
We sometimes seem to have problem loging-in a remote SUN OS 4.0 server.
from a SUN 3.4 system. Does anybody run into this same problem ? Thanks
in advance.
Tony Tran
Versatec, Inc.
Attached is a transcript of the login session:
{versatc is a SUN 3.4 system. Marin is the SUN OS 4.0 server}.
____________ Transcript of the login session starts ____________
Script started on Fri Oct 28 15:44:41 1988
versatc(output) 1 % rlogin marin
Last login: Fri Oct 28 15:51:39 from versatc
SunOS Release 4.0 (MARIN_IPC) #1: Mon Aug 29 11:53:25 PDT 1988
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
Marin(tamura) 1 % exit
Marin(tamura) 2 % logout
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
crt0: /usr/lib/ld.so mapping failure
@Marin
Connection closed.
versatc(output) 2 % exit
versatc(output) 3 %
script done on Fri Oct 28 15:45:00 1988
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 88 09:52:42 EST
From: straw at bridge.cam.nbs.gov (Mike Strawbridge)
Subject: process killed due to text modification
We occasionally have the following problem when running Suntools under
SunOS 3.5:
Everything seems to be running fine. I have a small number of shelltool
windows open (4 to 6). I select to start a new shelltool and BANG!!! Not
only do I not get a new window, but all my existing windows disappear!
Dmesg tells me that each of those processes was 'killed due to text
modification'. I can restart Suntools and everything is fine again.
Does anyone else have this problem?
NAME: Michael Strawbridge TELE: (301) 975-3852
USMAIL: National Institute of Standards ARPA: straw at cam.nbs.gov
and Technology UUCP: uunet!cme-durer!straw
Rm. A-151, Bldg. 225
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 88 13:09:42 +0100
From: mcvax!prosys!merkurius!pp at uunet.uu.net (Peter Printzen)
Subject: Fujitsu 2249?
Does anyone out there have any experience of the Fujitsu 224[789] SCSI
drives and would like to share these with us? We plan to connect the 2249
to a Sun 3/50 and would appreciate any comments, especially regarding
controllers and parameters to diag(8).
AdvThanksance /Peter Printzen
uucp: {uunet,mcvax,...}!enea!prosys!pp Internet: pp at prosys.se
------------------------------
Date: 31 Oct 88 21:24:07 GMT
From: uplherc!wicat!meph!gsarff at cs.utah.edu (Gary Sarff)
Subject: Used Suns?
Does anyone have any information on obtaining used Suns (1's,2's or 3's)?
The system is not intended for heavy use so speed is not a real
consideration. Thanks.
P.S., what is the going price for Sun 386i/xx 's these days?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 88 10:08:24 EST
From: levisonm at QUCIS.BITNET
Subject: Sun OS 4.0 and Trace
We have just recieved the 4.0 documentation, but are not due to receive
our upgrade until Dec, and so I need some help in determining if the trace
command does everything that I want. I would like to know how much
information the trace command gives about system call. My application is a
file oriented database program and we are trying to determine the number
and the arguements of the reads, writes, lseeks etc. If anybody has any
trace output (preferably from a file oriented program) and could send me a
copy along with any revelant thoughts that would much appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Mark Levison (levisonm at qucis.bitnet)
Research Assistant or
Computing Science Dept. (levisonm at queensu.ca)
Queen's University
Kingston, Ont.
------------------------------
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