Bnews 2.11 and SCO Unix

[Mike Stefanik/78125]

In article <3342 at medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>, jmastel at medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Joachim Astel) writes:
> No. The problem is the 14 bytes filename-length restriction of SCO UNIX.
> BNEWS is trying to create temp-files in /tmp which are longer than 14 bytes.
> Within (at least) its latest patchlevel, BNEWS has an "#ifdef FOURTEENMAX",
> which will insert a '\0' after the 14th position of each temp-filename to
> solve this problem.
> 
> Simply get the latest patchlevel of BNEWS and insert the line
> "#define FOURTEENMAX" in your definitions-file (defs.h).

Another, more widespread solution for the problem is to patch the kernel.
I contacted SCO about this, and here is the fix that they gave me (thanx
Scott!):

---[ cut here ]----------------------------------------------------------------

Eliminating errors caused by file names longer than 14 characters.

KEYWORDS: file name long file unix adb /etc/_fst patch kernel ETRUNC nami 14 unix length

RELEASE:  SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2.0

PROBLEM:  Attempts to create a file with a file name longer than 
	  14 characters fails with an error rather than truncating 
	  the name to the 14 character limit.

CAUSE:    This functionality was added for conformance to the POSIX 
	  standards.

SOLUTION: The following patch can be applied to the UNIX kernel so 
	  that long file names will be silently truncated.  Bring 
	  your system into System Maintenance mode and enter the 
	  following commands:

		# /etc/_fst -w /etc/conf/pack.d/s5/Driver.o
		* $x
		* s5namei+0xab?w 0x0feb
		s5namei+0xab:     0xc74 =  0xfeb           [response from _fst]
		* $q

		# /etc/_fst -w /etc/conf/pack.d/xx/Driver.o
		* $x
		* xxnamei+0xa6?w 0x0feb
		xxnamei+0xa6:      0xc74=  0x0             [response from _fst]
		xxnamei+0xa8:      0x3d83= 0xfeb           [response from _fst]
		* $q

	  Relink your kernel by moving to the directory /etc/conf/cf.d 
	  and entering the command /etc/conf/cf.d/link_unix.  You must 
	  reboot your system for the change to take effect.

	  NOTE: This patch does not apply to SCO UNIX Release 3.2 
	  Version 2.0 or Open Desktop Release 1.0.  To implement this
	  change on these platforms, use configure(ADM) to set the
	  value of the kernel tuneable parameter ETRUNC (in the 
	  "Files, Inodes and Filesystems" menu) to 1.

SEE ALSO: configure(ADM), "Tunable System Parameter Descriptions" in
	  the System Administrator's Guide

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Stefanik, Systems Engineer (JOAT), Briareus Corporation
UUCP: ...!uunet!bria!mike
"If it was hard to code, it should be harder to use!"