Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!vanilla.lcs.mit.edu!treese
From: tre...@lcs.mit.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,news.answers
Subject: comp.unix.ultrix Frequently Asked Questions
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers) about the ULTRIX operating system from
Digital Equipment Corporation.
Message-ID: <ultrix-faq_725825633@lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 31 Dec 92 18:14:19 GMT
Expires: Sat, 13 Feb 1993 18:13:53 GMT
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Last-Modified: 28 December 1992
Originator: tre...@vanilla.lcs.mit.edu
Archive-name: ultrix-faq
Version: 1.5
This is the Frequently Asked Questions posting for comp.unix.ultrix. It
is also posted on comp.sys.dec, but it is not a full FAQ for comp.sys.dec.
This FAQ is available in the following archive sites, in the file
/pub/DEC/ultrix-faq.txt.
gatekeeper.dec.com
crl.dec.com
decuac.dec.com
It can also be obtained by sending mail to ftpm...@pa.dec.com with the
following lines:
connect
get /pub/DEC/ultrix-faq.txt
To receive this posting by mail, send a note to ultrix-faq-requ...@crl.dec.com.
If the location of a file in an archive is not specifically mentioned
below, it is in /pub/DEC on the above machines.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to ultrix-...@crl.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found via
anonymous FTP on ftp.cc.rochester.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix.
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Although the editor of this FAQ is an employee of Digital Equipment
Corporation, this posting is not an official statement from Digital
Equipment Corporation.
Alpha
=====================================================
A1. Where can I get more information about Alpha? **CHANGED**
A2. Where can I find software that has been ported to Alpha?
A3. How well do Alpha systems perform? **CHANGED**
A4. What does the "AXP" in "DEC 3000 Model 400 AXP Workstation" mean?
Software
======================================================
S1. How do I play music CDs on DEC CD-ROM drives?
S2. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error? **CHANGED*
S3. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S4. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
S5. Where can I get a T-shell (tcsh) that works on ULTRIX 4.2?
S6. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S7. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S8. Why doesn't troff work?
S9. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S10. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3? **NEW**
Installation
======================================================
I1. How do I copy a setld(8) tape?
I2. How do I copy a CDROM installation kit to TK50?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work? **CHANGED*
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run. **CHANGED**
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
D2. Where can I get a disktab entry for the XXX disk?
Programming
======================================================
P1. What does "unaligned access" mean, and how can I fix it?
P2. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX? **NEW**
P3. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX? **NEW**
Laser and Line Printers
======================================================
L1. Where can I get a printcap entry for the XXX printer?
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX 4.1 machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
Hardware
======================================================
H1. What are the pinouts of the MMJ jacks on the back of various DECstations
and VAXstations?
H2. How do I set the SCSI ID on an RZ25?
H3. How can I get detailed information on the TURBOchannel?
H4. What third-party hardware can I get for the TURBOchannel?
H5. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H6. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Where can I get free source code for interesting programs on ULTRIX?
M5. Where can I get technical information on the DECstation family of machines?
M6. Where can I get performance information about DECstations?
M7. Why can't I submit a bug report by electronic mail?
M8. How do I send mail to Digital employees?
M9. How do I get a list of available patches for my release of Ultrix?
M10. How can I get files available by anonymous FTP if I'm not connected
to the Internet?
M11. How can I write documentation in Bookreader format?
M12. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system? **CHANGED**
M13. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
M14. Where can I get on-line copies of the DEC Software Product Descriptions
(SPD)?
M15. Where can I get more information about Digital's UNIX products? **NEW**
******************** Alpha ***************************************
=====================================================
A1. Where can I get more information about Alpha? **CHANGED**
A variety of documents about the Alpha architecture and systems can be
copied from gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Alpha. See the README file for
more information.
Technical overviews of the DEC/3000 Model 400 and 500 AXP Workstations
and Server products are available on gatekeeper.dec.com in the
/pub/DEC/DECinfo/technical-overview directory.
dec-3000-400-axp.ps (and .Z)
dec-3000-500-axp.ps (and .Z)
The index file in that directory lists other available technical overviews.
Details of the software rollout (operating systems and layered
products) can be found in /pub/DEC/DECinfo/misc on gatekeeper.dec.com:
axp_software_phases.ps
axp_software_rollout.ps
[Russ Jones, rjo...@wsl.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
=====================================================
A2. Where can I find software that has been ported to Alpha?
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Alpha/apps has several free programs that
have been ported to Alpha. Alpha support is also appearing in many
kits from the originator.
=====================================================
A3. How well do Alpha systems perform? **CHANGED**
Here is the SPEC performance summary for the Alpha systems announced
in November, 1992:
DEC 10000 Model 610 AXP, @200 MHz
SPECmark89 184.14
SPECint89 104.52
SPECfp89 268.60
SPECint92 106.54
SPECfp92 200.36
DEC 7000 Model 610 AXP, @182 MHz
SPECmark89 167.43
SPECint89 95.06
SPECfp89 244.18
SPECint92 96.58
SPECfp92 182.11
DEC 4000 Model 610 AXP, @160 MHz
SPECmark89 136.23
SPECint89 83.73
SPECfp89 188.45
SPECint92 83.51
SPECfp92 143.10
DEC 3000 Model 500 AXP, @150 MHz
SPECmark89 121.50
SPECint89 73.47
SPECfp89 169.89
SPECint92 74.30
SPECfp92 126.0
DEC 3000 Model 400 AXP, @133 MHz
SPECmark89 108.14
SPECint89 65.80
SPECfp89 150.6
SPECint92 65.32
SPECfp92 112.2
More detailed performace information can be found in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Alpha/performance:
AXP_VMS_SVR_PERF_BRIEF_921120.PS
axp_vms_svr_perf_brief_921120.ps.Z
Alpha AXP Server Family Performance Brief - OpenVMS
10 benchmarks
AXP_VMS_WS_PERF_BRIEF_921120.PS
axp_vms_ws_perf_brief_921120.ps.Z
Alpha AXP Workstation Family Performance Brief - OpenVMS
5 benchmarks
At this time there are no OSF/1 benchmark reports available
in this directory.
=====================================================
A4. What does the "AXP" in "DEC 3000 Model 400 AXP Workstation" mean?
The AXP is part of the trademark. Trademarking a name internationally
is challenging.
******************** Software ***************************************
==============================================
S1. How do I play music CDs on DEC CD-ROM drives?
Music CDs can be played through a speaker jack on RRD42 CD-ROM drives,
which is the one contained in the DECstation 5000/{120,125} box.
There are two different programs: A command line version and a
Motif-based version. Both can be found in:
gatekeeper.dec.com or decuac.dec.com
in /pub/DEC:
cdp.c[.Z] /* command line version */
xcd_source.tar.Z /* Motif version. */
Neither of these programs is supported by Digital.
==============================================
S2. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error? **CHANGED**
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
.Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S3. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 10. They will probably
change in patchlevel 19.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef".
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
For patchlevel 19, you can ignore the comments above about "volatile".
==============================================
S4. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available by anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar.
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from decuac.dec.com, in /pub/DEC/syslog43.urc.tar.Z
==============================================
S5. Where can I get a T-shell (tcsh) that works on ULTRIX 4.2?
Versions of tcsh later than 6.01 run on ULTRIX 4.2. The latest
version the FAQ editor knows is 6.02, available by anonymous FTP from
tesla.ee.cornell.edu. You do not need csh sources for this version of
tcsh.
==============================================
S6. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S7. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites.
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital doesn not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available for FTP from decuac.dec.com in
~ftp/pub/binaries.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S9. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell.
/usr/bin/sh5 is the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a
few other odds and ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages
will give an idea of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S10. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3? **NEW**
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
******************** Installation ***************************************
==============================================
I1. How do I copy a setld(8) tape?
First, a few words about the format of a setld tape.
Tapes used by setld(8) consist of a number of tape files that contain the
product subsets, installation control files and other stuff. The fourth
file on the tape is an uncompressed tar(1) archive of the inventory files
(.inv), subset control programs (.scp) and control information (.ctrl).
There is also a file that lists the subsets, their sizes and checksums
(.image). The tapes files after the 4th are the subset files. They may or
may not be compressed. They will have a block size of 10 KB. The order of
lines in the .image file is the order of subset on the tape, with the
classic exception.
There are two flavors of tapes; Layered product tapes and ULTRIX
distribution tapes. The first three files on layered product tapes will
typically be space holders and only one 10 KB file. Distribution tapes use
the first three files for other things. The 3rd of these files is dump(8)
image of the root file system. The block size of this file will be 10 KB.
In the .image file for the distribution it would be listed ROOT:
44419 12720 ROOT
01690 12080 UDTBASE420
47187 14340 UDTBIN420
etc...
So, on this distribution tape ROOT is 3rd, the installation control
archive (INSTCTRL) is 4th, UDTBASE420 is 5th and so on.
The first two files are a primary and secondary boot program. Whether
the 2nd is necessary depends on system architecture. The MIPS-based
systems typically only use the first boot file; the VAX uses both.
The block size of the first boot program is 512 bytes.
Copying a setld tape
Use dd(1) to copy each tape file using the appropriate block size. When you
run out of tape input files you're done. For example, if you are using
two tape drives:
dd bs=512 if=/dev/nrmt0h of=/dev/nrmt1h
dd bs=10240 if=/dev/nrmt0h of=/dev/nrmt1h
dd bs=10240 if=/dev/nrmt0h of=/dev/nrmt1h
...
mt -f /dev/nrmt0h rew
mt -f /dev/nrmt1h rew
==============================================
I2. How do I copy a CDROM installation kit to TK50?
The two shell shell scripts below can be used to duplicate CDROM or disk
layered product distributions (note: not the base system) onto a TK50.
They are not supported by Digital.
--------------------------cut here--------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh5
# cdrom_kitcap
# This script is based on one from "Guide for Preparing Software for
# Distribution" (but this one really works). This script prepares the
# /etc/kitcap file which is needed by the gentapes script to create,
# in this specific case, a copy of cdrom software (layered product only)
# to TK50...
# note: this script uses tmp space, insure $TMPDIR is pointing to a file
# system with enough space to copy files...
# Original author: John R. Frandsen, Digital Equipment Corporation
TMPDIR=/usr/tmp
KITCAP=$TMPDIR/kitcap
CURVOL=1
BINDIR=`pwd`
touch $TMPDIR/space
tar cf $TMPDIR/SPACE $TMPDIR/space
cd instctrl
I=`expr *.image : '\(.*\).image'`
echo "Your product code is $I"
tar cf $TMPDIR/INSTCTRL *
echo "${I}TK:$TMPDIR:SPACE:SPACE:SPACE:INSTCTRL:\\" >> $KITCAP
for S in `awk '{print $3}' *.image`
do
[ $S = ROOT ] && continue
. $S.ctrl
set -- `(IFS=:;echo $MTLOC)`
VOL=$1
LOC=$2
[ $VOL -ne $CURVOL ] &&
{
echo ":%%$VOL CURVOL=$VOL" >> $KITCAP
}
echo ":$S\\" >> $KITCAP
cp $BINDIR/$S $TMPDIR
done
echo >> $KITCAP
mv $TMPDIR/kitcap /etc
cd $BINDIR
--------------------------cut here--------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh5
# disk_kitcap
# This script is based on one from "Guide for Preparing Software for
# Distribution" (but this one really works). This script prepares the
# /etc/kitcap file which is needed by the gentapes script to create,
# in this specific case, a copy of disk software (layered product only)
# to TK50...
# Original author: John R. Frandsen, Digital Equipment Corporation
KITCAP=/tmp/kitcap
CURVOL=1
touch space
tar cf SPACE space
cd instctrl
I=`expr *.image : '\(.*\).image'`
echo "Your product code is $I"
cp $I.image ..
tar cf ../INSTCTRL *
cd ..
echo "${I}TK:`pwd`:SPACE:SPACE:SPACE:INSTCTRL:\\" >> $KITCAP
cd instctrl
for S in `awk '{print $3}' *.image`
do
[ $S = ROOT ] && continue
. $S.ctrl
set -- `(IFS=:;echo $MTLOC)`
VOL=$1
LOC=$2
[ $VOL -ne $CURVOL ] &&
{
echo ":%%$VOL CURVOL=$VOL" >> $KITCAP
}
echo ":$S\\" >> $KITCAP
done
echo >> $KITCAP
mv /tmp/kitcap /etc
#----------------------------------------------------------------------------
******************** Network ***************************************
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers. A
somewhat different version of named that does not have this problem
can be found in cra-bind.tar.Z. This version cannot use Kerberos for
server-server authentication, as the ULTRIX version can. It does
support Hesiod data and queries. It is not supported by Digital,
although it is in active use on Digital's Internet machines.
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work? **CHANGED**
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run. **CHANGED**
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
To change the IP address of a diskless client, first change it in
whatever hosts database you use (BIND, /etc/hosts, or YP). There is
also a file in the client's /etc directory called netblk.c. It looks like
this:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"server",
0x100b002a, "client", 0x100b003e, 0x100b00ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
The various fields of the structure are defined in /usr/include/sas/mop.h.
Change the client's address (expressed here as a 32-bit integer), and
compile netblk.c using 'cc -c netblk.c'.
The netmask and the broadcast address can also be changed here.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available for FTP from crl.dec.com and
decuac.dec.com in pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z.
ONC RPC will be a supported component of Digital's OSF/1 product.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
******************** Disk ***************************************
==============================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
There is a bug in the V4.1 SCSI driver that will only allow it to read
something like (2 ** 21) or (2 ** 20) LBNs. After that it wraps
around to the beginning of the disk. It is fixed in V4.2.
==============================================
D2. Where can I get a disktab entry for the XXX disk?
A collection of contributed disktab entries is in
/pub/DEC/ultrix-disktabs on the usual archive machines. Get a copy of
the file for an up-to-date list.
==============================================
******************** Programming ***************************************
P1. What does "unaligned access" mean, and how can I fix it?
Unaligned accesses typically come up when programs use malloc(3) or
other memory allocation routines in atypical ways, or when programs do
certain (hazardous) kinds of type casts.
malloc(3) returns data aligned to the most restrictive alignment (8
byte boundaries on MIPS machines). If you are writing your own
malloc wrapper (say to add a reference count) and you write code like
this:
char *mymalloc(int size)
{
short *newmem;
newmem = (short *) malloc(size + sizeof(short));
*newmem = 1; /* initialize reference count */
return (char *) (newmem + 1);
}
you are then returning a pointer that is no longer 8-byte aligned. Now, code
like
int *i;
i = (int *) mymalloc(sizeof(int));
*i = 10;
will generate unaligned access messages whenever *i is used.
An example of dangerous casting would be something like
char buffer[100];
int i;
i = (int)*((int *)&buffer[3]);
The program will usually still run correctly, because an exception
handler in the kernel performs an unaligned read. There are some rare
cases, however, where the fixed read yields incorrect results. The
messages are printed by default because one usually wants to know when
a program is generating the unaligned accesses.
Now, if you're only getting a few of these messages, it might not
matter, but if you're getting pages of them (or worse, have turned off
the logger because you were getting so many unaligned access
messages), you might consider correcting your program.
You can use the uac(1) (Unaligned Acces Message Control) command to
turn off the messages.
If you want to find the the problem in the source code, you can use dbx.
Suppose the message is:
Fixed up unaligned data access for pid 2337 (bozo) at pc 0x5ad364
This tells you that the problem occurs in the program "bozo". In dbx,
you would type, for example:
% dbx bozo
(dbx) 0x5ad364/i
*[main:206, 0x0x5ad364] lw r0,40(sp)
dbx prints the offending instruction, along with its location: line 206
in main().
If you need to do unaligned accesses, you might find the following useful:
int unaligned_load_word(int *src);
int unaligned_load_half(short *src);
unsigned int unaligned_load_uhalf(unsigned short *src);
float unaligned_load_float(float *src);
double unaligned_load_double(double *src);
void unaligned_store_word(int *dst,int val);
void unaligned_store_half(short *dst,int val);
void unaligned_store_float(float *dst,float val);
void unaligned_store_double(double *dst,double val);
These unaligned access routines are an unsupported component of the
standard C library on RISC/ULTRIX. They provide for alignment-safe
access to the primitive data types (short,int,float,double). They are
fairly fast as they use the special MIPS unaligned instructions
(LWL,LWR,SWL,SWL) for doing the complicated part of the work.
If you are running ULTRIX 4.2, and you would like to disable the automatic
fixup of unaligned accesses, use:
#include <sys/syscall.h>
#include <sys/sysmips.h>
syscall(SYS_sysmips, MIPS_FIXADE, 0, NULL, NULL, NULL);
The above code fragment will disable address fixups for your process,
and this will be inherited by any children. Where a fixup would have
occured, you will get a SIGBUS.
==============================================
P2. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX? **NEW**
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P3. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX? **NEW**
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3.
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
******************** Laser & Line Printers **************************
==============================================
L1. Where can I get a printcap entry for the XXX printer?
A collection of contributed printcap entries is in
/pub/DEC/ultrix-printcap on the usual archive machines. Get a copy of
the file for an up-to-date list.
******************** Graphics ***************************************
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX 4.1 machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
Edit the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be
1. This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the
Xdec server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
******************** Hardware ***************************************
==============================================
H1. What are the pinouts of the MMJ jacks on the back of various DECstations
and VAXstations?
This describes the 6-pin modified modular jack (MMJ) used for serial ports
on various DECstations and VAXstations, as well as on other DEC equipment.
DEC carries four DB-to-MMJ adaptors. They are internally wired as follows
Rdy Out TX+ TX- RX- RX+ Rdy In
Adaptor Gender 1 2 3 4 5 6 Use with:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
H8575-A F 20 2 7 7 3 6&8 VTxxx terminal
H8571-C M 6 3 7 7 2 20 DEC printer
H8571-D M 6 3 7 7 2 20 Modem
H8571-E M 20 2 7 7 3 6&8 Female terminal
or LaserWriter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
RS-232 using DB-25 connectors:
DTE DCE
Terminal Modem
or computer
Pin Number Signal Name
2 TD Transmit Data -->
3 RD Receive Data <--
7 GND Ground ---
6 DSR Data Set Ready <--
8 DCD Data Carrier Detect <--
20 DTR Data Terminal Ready -->
==============================================
H2. How do I set the SCSI ID on an RZ25?
Back by the power connector are a row of 3 jumpers. These set the scsi
id. The one closest to the power connector is bit 2, and you install a
jumper to get a "1". The default id is 7, which conflicts with the
controller. Note that the mounting bracket on the drive covers these
jumpers, so they are not immediately obvious.
==============================================
H3. How can I get detailed information on the TURBOchannel?
The TURBOchannel is a 32bit synchronous I/O channel that is currently
used on products in the VAX, MIPS and ALPHA architectures. It is used
in both the workstation and server based systems. Software support for
VMS, Ultrix, and OSF/1 will be provided for the applicable systems
under thos three architectures. For specific product information
contact your local DEC sales person.
Use of the TURBOchannel does not require any license or fees. It is
free to both option and system vendors alike. The documentation that
is provided on-line is available for public use and may be copied, in
its entirety, and distributed freely.
Overview information: There is a postscript presentation available on line at
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/TURBO.ps
/TURBO.ps.Z (compressed file)
The script for the presentation is a postscript file
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/TURBO_README.ps
/TURBO_README.ps (compressed file)
TURBOchannel Specifications: Are available on-line in postscript format for
anonymous ftp at
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/turbo_hw_spec.ps (hardware spec)
/turbo_hw_spec.ps.Z (compressed file)
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/turbo_fw_spec.ps (firmware spec)
/turbo_fw_spec.ps.Z (compressed file)
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/turbo_sys_params.ps (system params)
/turbo_sys_params.ps.Z (compressed)
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/tci_spec05c.ps (ASIC spec)
/tci_spec05c.ps.Z (compressed file)
TURBOchannel Industry Group: The TURBOchannel protocol specifications belong
to an open industry group. The TcIG information
and meeting minutes can be found in the file
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/tcigmeeting.ps (meeting minutes)
/tcigmeeting.ps.Z (compressed file)
TURBOchannel Support: Technical support for TURBOchannel Option and System
developers is available through Digital's TRI/ADD
Program. Membership in Digital's TRI/ADD Program is
free of charge. For more information contact
Digital's TRI/ADD Program 1.800.678.OPEN Canada & US
529 Bryant Ave. PAG-2 1.415.617.3452 Outside North America
Palo Alto, CA 94301-1616 1.415.853.0155 FAX
tri...@decwrl.dec.com
[AJ Casamento, a...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
H4. What third-party hardware can I get for the TURBOchannel?
There is a postscript version of the TRI/ADD Shippable Products
Catalog available for anonymous FTP at
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/TAcatalog.ps
/TAcatalog.ps.Z (compressed file)
for Asian countries, the file is
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/TA+catalog.ps
/TA+catalog.ps.Z (compressed file)
The catalog contains more than just TURBOchannel based products, but
the TURBOchannel products have a special logo next to them which makes
them easy to identify. An overview list (without product details) of
the catalog is the postscript file
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/shortTAcatalog.ps
/shortTAcatalog.ps.Z (compressed file)
or the text file
gatekeeper:pub/DEC/TriAdd/shortTAcatalog.txt
/shortTAcatalog.txt.Z (compressed)
[AJ Casamento, a...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
H5. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H6. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
******************** Miscellaneous ***************************************
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Where can I get free source code for interesting programs on ULTRIX?
The main FTP server for DEC is gatekeeper.dec.com, which maintains a
large selection of sources from the net in general, as well as public
code for ULTRIX, such as "monitor", "top" and other system-specific
tools. ~ftp/pub/DEC has sources for several packages written by
employees at Digital (though they are not supported Digital products),
as well as some programs that required special changes to port to
ULTRIX. More or less up to date copies the pub/DEC directory are also
available on crl.dec.com and decuac.dec.com. None of these sources or
utilities are "supported" by anyone other than their authors.
==============================================
M5. Where can I get technical information on the DECstation family of machines?
Technical information on the DS3100, DS5000/200, and TurboChannel are
available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/specs:
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 184329 Nov 19 1990 DS3100.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 77017 Nov 19 1990 DS5000_200.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 1336 Nov 6 17:36 README
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 24758 Nov 19 1990 tc_cfb.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 77051 Nov 19 1990 tc_ether.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 29304 Nov 19 1990 tc_scsi.ps.Z
Technical information on the new Personal DECstations 5000/20 and /25,
the DECstation 5000/133 and DECstation 5000/240 are available on the
net. Included are the Technical Overviews and Info Sheets for the
products.
The files are on gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/specs1.
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 159698 Dec 13 12:35 3maxp_info.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 336073 Dec 13 12:35 3maxp_teov.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 249185 Dec 13 12:35 3min_info.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 134107 Dec 13 12:35 maxine_info.ps.Z
-r--r--r-- 1 root system 311201 Dec 13 12:35 maxine_teov.ps.Z
"3maxp" ("3Max+") refers to the DS5000/240; "maxine" refers to the
Personal DECstations.
==============================================
M6. Where can I get performance information about DECstations?
Performance information on some of Digital's systems is
available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/performance:
DECSTATION_FAMILY_PERF_SUMMARY_APR_92.PS
decstation_family_perf_summary_apr_92.ps.Z
Results of several well-known benchmarks for the DECstation 5000
family
DECSYSTEM_FAMILY_PERF_SUMMARY_MAY_92.PS
decsystem_family_perf_summary_may_92.ps.Z
Results of several well-known benchmarks for the DECsystem
family
VAXSTATION_FAMILY_PERF_SUMMARY_MAR_92.PS
vaxstation_family_perf_summary_mar_92.ps.Z
Results of 8 well-known benchmarks for the VAXstation 4000
family
DS5100_TPCA_INFORMIX_MAR92.PS
ds5100_tpca_informix_mar92.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark A for INFORMIX running on a DECsystem 5100
DS5500_TPCA_INFORMIX_MAR92.PS
ds5500_tpca_informix_mar92.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark A for INFORMIX running on a DECsystem 5500
DS5100_TPCB_INFORMIX_DEC3.PS
ds5100_tpcb_informix_dec3.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark B for INFORMIX running on a DECsystem 5100
DS5500_TPCB_INFORMIX_DEC3.PS
ds5500_tpcb_informix_dec3.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark B for INFORMIX running on a DECsystem 5500
DS5000_25_TPCB_INFORMIX_APR92.PS
ds5000_25_tpcb_informix_apr92.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark B for INFORMIX running on a DECsystem 5000 model 25
DS5000_240_TPCA_SYBASE_AUG92.PS
ds5000_240_tpca_sybase_aug92.ps.Z
TPC Benchmark A for SYBASE running on a DECsystem 5000 model 240
==============================================
M7. Why can't I submit a bug report by electronic mail?
At this time, Digital does not accept bug reports by electronic mail. We
hope that this unfortunate situation may change in the future. Please file
a Software Performance Report (SPR) instead.
==============================================
M8. How do I send mail to Digital employees?
If you have Internet ftp capability, grab gatekeeper.dec.com:~ftp/gateway.doc,
which contains every bit of relevant lore we've ever collected on this topic.
If you must get by with what little information we have room for here in the
FAQ, well, read on.
The easiest way to find out how to get mail to a Digit is to have them
send mail to you. If you get their mail, look at the headers (check
the "From:" line, in particular) and try sending mail to the address
as it appears to you. (If your Digit doesn't know how to send you
mail, have them grab gateway.doc (it's DECWRL::"/gateway.doc" from the
inside) and read it carefully.
If you need to send mail to someone ``from scratch'', you will need to get
them to tell you their address. If they say something like ``JOVE::VIXIE''
then the right way to reach them is one of:
vi...@jove.enet.dec.com
vixie%jove.e...@relay.dec.com
...!uunet!decwrl!jove.enet!vixie
If on the other hand they say something like ``I'm PAUL VIXIE @WRL,'' then
you can try one of these:
vi...@wrl.mts.dec.com
vixie%wrl....@relay.dec.com
...!uunet!decwrl!wrl.mts!vixie
In the best of all possible worlds they will say something like ``My address
is <vi...@pa.dec.com>'' in which case you should send to one of:
vi...@pa.dec.com
vixie%pa.dec....@relay.dec.com
...!uunet!decwrl!pa.dec.com!vixie
If you try most or all of the above suggestions and can not figure out what
you're doing wrong, send mail to our gateway postmaster, which is one of:
postmas...@dec.com
postmas...@decwrl.dec.com
...!uunet!decwrl!postmaster
==============================================
M9. How do I get a list of available patches for my release of Ultrix?
At this time, Digital does not publish lists of available patches.
The Customer Support Centers will inform you if you call about a
problem for which there is a patch.
==============================================
M10. How can I get files available by anonymous FTP if I'm not connected
to the Internet?
One way is to use the DECWRL ftpmail server. To find out how to use
it, send a one-line message to ftpm...@pa.dec.com (or
...!uunet!decwrl!ftpmail or decwrl::ftpmail). The subject line can be
anything you want since it will be ignored. The text of the message
should be one unquoted lowercase word: "help".
==============================================
M11. How can I write documentation in Bookreader format?
On ULTRIX, VMS, SunOS, and Windows, DECwrite will produce Bookreader
files. On VMS, VAX Document will also produce Bookreader files.
Digital will provide information about the format of Bookreader format
files upon request, although it is apparently difficult to work with
(most have concluded that it's not worth the trouble). If you're
interested in getting the format, send mail to the FAQ Editor, Win
Treese (tre...@crl.dec.com), and he'll see about getting the
information.
[Patrick Stephens, steph...@galvia.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
M12. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M13. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a request to decstation-managers-requ...@ornl.gov.
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
==============================================
M14. Where can I get on-line copies of the DEC Software Product Descriptions
(SPD)?
Most SPDs can be found on gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/DECinfo/SPD. They
are numbered in the usual way; check the file "index" if you aren't sure
of the number. Note that there are over 800, so 'ls' will get you a
long listing!
==============================================
M15. Where can I get more information about Digital's UNIX products? **NEW**
Information about Digital's products is posted to the biz.dec.* newsgroups.
Digital's UNIX Marketing group publishes an electronic newsletter called
"DECnews for UNIX". It appears approximately every 2 to 3 weeks, and contains
information about all of Digital's UNIX products: ULTRIX, OSF/1, SCO UNIX,
as well as layered software products and related hardware.
To subscribe, send a request to decnews-u...@pa.dec.com with a subject line
of either:
"subscribe abstract" (for an abstract issue subscription)
or
"subscribe full" (for a full issue subscription)
[Russ Jones, rjo...@wsl.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,news.answers,comp.answers
Path: gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!
wupost!gumby!yale!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!vanilla.lcs.mit.edu!treese
From: tre...@lcs.mit.edu
Subject: comp.unix.ultrix ULTRIX Frequently Asked Questions
Message-ID: <ultrix-faq_739048052@lcs.mit.edu>
Followup-To: comp.unix.ultrix
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers) about the ULTRIX operating system from
Digital Equipment Corporation.
Originator: tre...@vanilla.lcs.mit.edu
Sender: n...@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Supersedes: <ultrix-faq_736317...@lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 19:08:19 GMT
Approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.Edu
Expires: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 19:07:32 GMT
Lines: 1100
Archive-name: dec-faq/ultrix
Last-modified: Sat Apr 3 16:26:59 EST 1993
Version: 1.10
This is part 1 of the Frequently Asked Questions posting for
comp.unix.ultrix, with answers about the ULTRIX operating system. It
is also posted on comp.sys.dec, but it is not a full FAQ for
comp.sys.dec. Companion postings have answers that apply to both
ULTRIX and OSF/1 and answers that apply to OSF/1 alone.
A separate FAQ describes how to get information about Digital products
and interacting with Digital.
This FAQ is available in the following archive sites, in the directory
/pub/DEC/dec-faq:
gatekeeper.dec.com
crl.dec.com
decuac.dec.com
It can also be obtained by sending mail to ftpm...@pa.dec.com with the
following lines:
connect
get /pub/DEC/dec-faq/
Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of
the article. This FAQ is archived in the directory dec-faq.
To receive this posting by mail, send a note to ultrix-faq-requ...@crl.dec.com.
If the location of a file in an archive is not specifically mentioned
below, it is in /pub/DEC on the above machines.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to ultrix-...@crl.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found via
anonymous FTP on ftp.cc.rochester.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix.
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors. Similarly,
"Alpha" refers to any DEC systems that use the Alpha AXP processor.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Although the editor of this FAQ is an employee of Digital Equipment
Corporation, this posting is not an official statement from Digital
Equipment Corporation.
Software
======================================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
D5. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
D6. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
Programming
======================================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
Hardware
======================================================
H5. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H6. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
H7. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
******************** Software ***************************************
==============================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
.Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 35. It is probably
approximately correct for later versions as well.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef".
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
==============================================
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available by anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar.
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from decuac.dec.com, in /pub/DEC/syslog43.urc.tar.Z
==============================================
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites. ULTRIX includes a program, "otalk",
which uses the old protocol, but it only works with machines that use
little-endian byte order (e.g., VAXen, DECStations, not most others).
==============================================
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital doesn not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available for FTP from
decuac.dec.com:/pub/binaries.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh5 is
the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a few other odds and
ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages will give an idea
of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
DEC's LSE is part of the DECset for ULTRIX product, a set of CASE tools.
GNU Emacs also has packages for several different languages.
[Jean-Marc Digne, di...@prssud.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
Get gcore from gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/gcore.shar. This one is
known to work on ULTRIX 4.2; it should work on 4.3 as well.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
S12. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
No.
Alpha OSF/1 does, however.
==============================================
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
The ULTRIX man program does not understand multiple directories. Some that
do are:
1. The 4.3BSD man program, available from
decuac.dec.com:pub/sources/bsd-man.tar.Z.
2. GNU man, from gatekeeper.dec.com:pub/GNU/man-1.0.tar.Z
is a later version, but I can't remember where it might be.
3. Tom Christiansen's PERL man program, from:
convex.convex.com:pub/perl/scripts/man.shar.Z.
Requires perl
Alpha OSF/1 man understands MANPATH.
[Frank Wortner, fr...@croton.nyo.dec.com]
******************** Network ***************************************
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers.
A somewhat different version of named that does not have this problem
can be found in cra-bind.tar.Z. This version cannot use Kerberos for
server-server authentication, as the ULTRIX version can. It does
support Hesiod data and queries. It is not supported by Digital,
although it is in active use on Digital's Internet machines.
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
The Internet address of a diskless client is determined by the network
boot block the system send as the secondary load file. This file is
initially created by DMS but at the present time DMS does not have
the capability to change an existing netblk.
NOTE: If you attempt to change the IP address of either the client or
server without modifying the netblk then your DISKLESS CLIENTS
WILL NOT BOOT.
The definition of the network boot block is in /usr/include/sas/mop.h and
the netblk structure is shown below.
struct netblk {
char srvname[32]; /* server hostname (boot server)*/
unsigned long srvipadr; /* server IP address (boot server)*/
char cliname[32]; /* client hostname */
unsigned long cliipadr; /* client IP address */
unsigned long brdcst; /* broadcast address */
unsigned long netmsk; /* network mask address */
short swapfs; /* swap file system type*/
short rootfs; /* root file system type*/
short swapsz; /* swap size in 1/2 Meg units */
short dmpflg; /* dump flag 0 - disabled */
/* 1 - enabled */
char rootdesc[80]; /* root filesys descriptor */
char swapdesc[80]; /* swap file descriptor */
char reserved[20]; /* for later use */
};
In order to change the IP address of the client or of the server you will need
to modify the netblk.
The code for the boot block is in the file /etc/bootblk.c on the diskless
client.
An example of this file is:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"my_server",
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/my_client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
A quick cross-reference with the mop include file will tell you which fields
represent which data.
To change the IP addresses you need to use the command /usr/diskless/makpkt.
The format of this command is:
makpkt server_IP_addr client_name client_IP_addr broadcast netmask
Here is an example of using makpkt to change the network boot block parameters.
For a server of address 16.128.128.4 and a client called fred of address
16.128.128.19 on a class B network you'll need to use the command:
% makpkt 16.128.19.4 fred 16.128.20.19 16.128.255.255 255.255.0.0
this will produce the output:
0x10801304,
"fred",
0x10801413,
0x1080ffff,
0xffff0000,
You will now need to edit netblk.c and replace the line
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
with
0x10801304, "fred", 0x10801413, 0x1080ffff, 0xffff0000,
The next step is to compile the new netblk.
% cc -c netblk.c
If you are changing the client IP address then you will also need to modify
the CLIARP field in /etc/dlparam on the client.
eg.
CLIARP="16.182.128.61"
Finally you can change the server and/or client IP address on the server
and reboot.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available for FTP from crl.dec.com and
decuac.dec.com in pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z.
ONC RPC will be a supported component of Digital's OSF/1 product.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
==============================================
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Patches to enable IP Multicast are available from
gregorio.stanford.edu:vmtp-ip. Patches are available for Ultrix 4.1 &
4.2a. Binaries are available for 4.2a.
[Lance Berc, b...@src.dec.com]
******************** Disk ***************************************
==============================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
There is a bug in the V4.1 SCSI driver that will only allow it to read
something like (2 ** 21) or (2 ** 20) LBNs. After that it wraps
around to the beginning of the disk. It is fixed in V4.2.
==============================================
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
"newfs -i XXX" is usually used to increase the number of inodes on a
filesystem, where XXX is the desired number of bytes per filesystem.
However, there is a not-well-known limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder
group, and newfs doesn't tell you that if you try to ask for more.
The solution is to get more cylinder groups, either by using "newfs -c XXX"
to specify the number of cylinders per group or by using 4096-byte
blocks and 512-byte fragments.
Read the newfs manual page before trying this at home or work.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
D3. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
"Gnode" means "generic inode". Like most versions of UNIX these days,
ULTRIX has a virtual filesystem. This means the kernel can support
different types of filesystem - like the BSD FFS, the old V7-style
filesystem in System V, RFS, NFS etc. Gnodes are similar to the vnodes
of the Sun filesystem switch.
The message "out of gnodes" usually means "out of inodes" on the
filesystem. To fix this, you can delete files or reinitialize the
filesystem with newfs (after backing everything up!).
The message "gnode: table is full" means that the kernel table for keeping
track of open files is full. If you need to fix this, increase the maxusers
parameter in your kernel configuration file and rebuild your kernel.
[Jim Reid, j...@cs.strath.ac.uk]
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
******************** Programming ***************************************
==============================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3.
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
******************** Graphics ***************************************
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
Edit the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be
1. This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the
Xdec server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2 and later.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
==============================================
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
ULTRIX 4.3 and later support the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
protocol and include xdm as well. Alpha OSF/1 uses xdm by default and
also supports the authorization protocol.
[Bob Heiney, hei...@pa.dec.com]
******************** Hardware ***************************************
==============================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
==============================================
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
To turn a DECstation into a DECsystem you need to:
1. Remove the graphics stuff.
2. Put a mouse loopback connector in the hole for the mouse
plug. (part number currently unknown)
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.enet.dec.com]
******************** Miscellaneous ***************************************
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a message containing:
subscribe decstation-managers
to majord...@ornl.gov. To subscribe an address other than your
return address, such as a local exploder, add that address to the
subscribe command, e.g.:
subscribe decstation-managers decstation-manag...@foo.bar
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!uunet!olivea!grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!
vanilla.lcs.mit.edu!treese
From: tre...@lcs.mit.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,news.answers,comp.answers
Subject: comp.unix.ultrix ULTRIX Frequently Asked Questions
Supersedes: <ultrix-faq_739048...@lcs.mit.edu>
Followup-To: comp.unix.ultrix
Date: 2 Jul 1993 04:22:19 GMT
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 1211
Approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.Edu
Expires: 15 Aug 1993 04:21:35 GMT
Message-ID: <ultrix-faq_741586895@lcs.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vanilla.lcs.mit.edu
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers) about the ULTRIX operating system from
Digital Equipment Corporation.
Originator: tre...@vanilla.lcs.mit.edu
Archive-name: dec-faq/ultrix
Last-modified: Thu Jul 01 22:58:25 EDT 1993
Version: 1.11
This is part 1 of the Frequently Asked Questions posting for
comp.unix.ultrix, with answers about the ULTRIX operating system. It
is also posted on comp.sys.dec, but it is not a full FAQ for
comp.sys.dec. Companion postings have answers that apply to both
ULTRIX and OSF/1 and answers that apply to OSF/1 alone.
A separate FAQ describes how to get information about Digital products
and interacting with Digital.
This FAQ is available in the following archive sites, in the directory
/pub/DEC/dec-faq:
gatekeeper.dec.com
crl.dec.com
decuac.dec.com
It can also be obtained by sending mail to ftpm...@pa.dec.com with the
following lines:
connect
get /pub/DEC/dec-faq/
Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of
the article. This FAQ is archived in the directory dec-faq.
To receive this posting by mail, send a note to ultrix-faq-requ...@crl.dec.com.
If the location of a file in an archive is not specifically mentioned
below, it is in /pub/DEC on the above machines.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to ultrix-...@crl.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found via
anonymous FTP on ftp.cc.rochester.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix.
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors. Similarly,
"Alpha" refers to any DEC systems that use the Alpha AXP processor.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Although the editor of this FAQ is an employee of Digital Equipment
Corporation, this posting is not an official statement from Digital
Equipment Corporation.
Software
======================================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX? **CHANGED**
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes? **NEW**
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
Programming
======================================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files? **NEW**
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
Hardware
======================================================
H5. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H6. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
H7. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
******************** Software ***************************************
==============================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
.Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 35. It is probably
approximately correct for later versions as well.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef".
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
==============================================
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available by anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar.
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from decuac.dec.com, in /pub/DEC/syslog_mjr.tar.Z
==============================================
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites. ULTRIX includes a program, "otalk",
which uses the old protocol, but it only works with machines that use
little-endian byte order (e.g., VAXen, DECStations, not most others).
==============================================
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital doesn not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available for FTP from
decuac.dec.com:/pub/binaries.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh5 is
the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a few other odds and
ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages will give an idea
of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
DEC's LSE is part of the DECset for ULTRIX product, a set of CASE tools.
GNU Emacs also has packages for several different languages.
[Jean-Marc Digne, di...@prssud.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
Get gcore from gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/gcore.shar. This one is
known to work on ULTRIX 4.2; it should work on 4.3 as well.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
S12. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
No.
Alpha OSF/1 does, however.
==============================================
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
The ULTRIX man program does not understand multiple directories. Some that
do are:
1. The 4.3BSD man program, available from
decuac.dec.com:pub/sources/bsd-man.shar.Z.
2. GNU man, from gatekeeper.dec.com:pub/GNU/man-1.0.tar.gz
There is a later version, but I can't remember where it might be.
3. Tom Christiansen's PERL man program, from:
convex.convex.com:pub/perl/scripts/man.shar.Z.
Requires perl
Alpha OSF/1 man understands MANPATH.
[Frank Wortner, fr...@croton.nyo.dec.com]
******************** Network ***************************************
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers.
A somewhat different version of named that does not have this problem
can be found in cra-bind.tar.Z. This version cannot use Kerberos for
server-server authentication, as the ULTRIX version can. It does
support Hesiod data and queries. It is not supported by Digital,
although it is in active use on Digital's Internet machines.
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
The Internet address of a diskless client is determined by the network
boot block the system send as the secondary load file. This file is
initially created by DMS but at the present time DMS does not have
the capability to change an existing netblk.
NOTE: If you attempt to change the IP address of either the client or
server without modifying the netblk then your DISKLESS CLIENTS
WILL NOT BOOT.
The definition of the network boot block is in /usr/include/sas/mop.h and
the netblk structure is shown below.
struct netblk {
char srvname[32]; /* server hostname (boot server)*/
unsigned long srvipadr; /* server IP address (boot server)*/
char cliname[32]; /* client hostname */
unsigned long cliipadr; /* client IP address */
unsigned long brdcst; /* broadcast address */
unsigned long netmsk; /* network mask address */
short swapfs; /* swap file system type*/
short rootfs; /* root file system type*/
short swapsz; /* swap size in 1/2 Meg units */
short dmpflg; /* dump flag 0 - disabled */
/* 1 - enabled */
char rootdesc[80]; /* root filesys descriptor */
char swapdesc[80]; /* swap file descriptor */
char reserved[20]; /* for later use */
};
In order to change the IP address of the client or of the server you will need
to modify the netblk.
The code for the boot block is in the file /etc/bootblk.c on the diskless
client.
An example of this file is:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"my_server",
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/my_client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
A quick cross-reference with the mop include file will tell you which fields
represent which data.
To change the IP addresses you need to use the command /usr/diskless/makpkt.
The format of this command is:
makpkt server_IP_addr client_name client_IP_addr broadcast netmask
Here is an example of using makpkt to change the network boot block parameters.
For a server of address 16.128.128.4 and a client called fred of address
16.128.128.19 on a class B network you'll need to use the command:
% makpkt 16.128.19.4 fred 16.128.20.19 16.128.255.255 255.255.0.0
this will produce the output:
0x10801304,
"fred",
0x10801413,
0x1080ffff,
0xffff0000,
You will now need to edit netblk.c and replace the line
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
with
0x10801304, "fred", 0x10801413, 0x1080ffff, 0xffff0000,
The next step is to compile the new netblk.
% cc -c netblk.c
If you are changing the client IP address then you will also need to modify
the CLIARP field in /etc/dlparam on the client.
eg.
CLIARP="16.182.128.61"
Finally you can change the server and/or client IP address on the server
and reboot.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available for FTP from crl.dec.com and
decuac.dec.com in pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z.
ONC RPC will be a supported component of Digital's OSF/1 product.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
==============================================
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Patches to enable IP Multicast are available from
gregorio.stanford.edu:vmtp-ip. Patches are available for Ultrix 4.1 &
4.2a. Binaries are available for 4.2a.
[Lance Berc, b...@src.dec.com]
******************** Disk ***************************************
==============================================
D1. Why doesn't ULTRIX 4.1 work with disks bigger than 1.2GBytes?
There is a bug in the V4.1 SCSI driver that will only allow it to read
something like (2 ** 21) or (2 ** 20) LBNs. After that it wraps
around to the beginning of the disk. It is fixed in V4.2.
==============================================
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
"newfs -i XXX" is usually used to increase the number of inodes on a
filesystem, where XXX is the desired number of bytes per filesystem.
However, there is a not-well-known limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder
group, and newfs doesn't tell you that if you try to ask for more.
The solution is to get more cylinder groups, either by using "newfs -c XXX"
to specify the number of cylinders per group or by using 4096-byte
blocks and 512-byte fragments.
Read the newfs manual page before trying this at home or work.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes? **NEW**
The version of the Berkeley Fast File system used by the ULTRIX
Operating System has a limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder group. This
limit is the constant MAXIPG in the include file
/usr/include/ufs/fs.h. To change it you need to be able to recompile
from sources.
When newfs/mkfs runs it attempts to allocate enough inodes so that
there are enough for an average file size of 2 KB. (bytes per inode =
2048). When there are enough cylinder groups this is easy. In fact,
if the cylinder group is small enough, it may not get close to the
MAXIPG limit.
But over the years, disks have gotten bigger. They have more
cylinders, more tracks and the tracks have more sectors. As a result
cylinder groups are larger and it's hard to allocate enough inodes to
meet the 2048 bytes per inode limit, with only MAXIPG available.
Since MAXIPG is fixed the effective average file size goes up.
On a News spool tree, the average file probably is around or less than
2 KB. As a result, these large cylinder disks don't have enough
inodes for the typical file size, and, more importantly, you can't get
more, since you're already at the MAXIPG limit. At least not easily.
But there are some solutions available...
Theme of solutions:
Inodes are allocated on a cylinder group basis.
Want more inodes, use more cylinder groups.
1. Use fewer cylinders per group, thus getting more groups.
See the -c option of newfs(8).
Note: On the 2nd hand advice of Gregory Neil Shapiro
(gshap...@wpi.wpi.edu) there are some disks for which
the -c option won't work because mkfs(8) enforces a set
of cylinder group sizes that won't allow reducing the
number cylinders per below the default of 16. This seems
to be the case for the RZ57 and RZ58.
2. Use a different file system block and fragment size; 4K/512a
instead of the usual 8K/1K. In the case of News this may work
best. Since most files are small, using the smaller size may
help reflect the smaller average file size. It may also waste
less space in partially filled fragments.
3. Lie about the geometry. If the track length or tracks
per cylinder is nice factorable number, reduce one to
increase the effective number of cylinders. By playing
games with the factors of the geometry you manage to keep
the geometry approximately the same.
For some disks this may not matter and you can invent whatever
lie you want. For example; the RZ58 uses zoned based recording
(banding). Depending on where you are on the disk, there will
more or less sectors per track. The single geometry presented
by ULTRIX is a convient lie.
[Allan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
"Gnode" means "generic inode". Like most versions of UNIX these days,
ULTRIX has a virtual filesystem. This means the kernel can support
different types of filesystem - like the BSD FFS, the old V7-style
filesystem in System V, RFS, NFS etc. Gnodes are similar to the vnodes
of the Sun filesystem switch.
The message "out of gnodes" usually means "out of inodes" on the
filesystem. To fix this, you can delete files or reinitialize the
filesystem with newfs (after backing everything up!).
The message "gnode: table is full" means that the kernel table for keeping
track of open files is full. If you need to fix this, increase the maxusers
parameter in your kernel configuration file and rebuild your kernel.
[Jim Reid, j...@cs.strath.ac.uk]
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
******************** Programming ***************************************
==============================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3.
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files? **NEW**
On ULTRIX, mmap(2) only works on character special devices.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
******************** Graphics ***************************************
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
Edit the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be
1. This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the
Xdec server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2 and later.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
==============================================
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
ULTRIX 4.3 and later support the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
protocol and include xdm as well. Alpha OSF/1 uses xdm by default and
also supports the authorization protocol.
[Bob Heiney, hei...@pa.dec.com]
******************** Hardware ***************************************
==============================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
==============================================
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
To turn a DECstation into a DECsystem you need to:
1. Remove the graphics stuff.
2. Put a mouse loopback connector in the hole for the mouse
plug. (part number currently unknown)
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.enet.dec.com]
******************** Miscellaneous ***************************************
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a message containing:
subscribe decstation-managers
to majord...@ornl.gov. To subscribe an address other than your
return address, such as a local exploder, add that address to the
subscribe command, e.g.:
subscribe decstation-managers decstation-manag...@foo.bar
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
==============================================
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
For educational institutions (these are not listed in the SPD):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JRAA-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
2 QB-0JRAA-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
3 QB-0JRAE-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
4 QB-0JRAE-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
This is a little confusing, since the "DESCRIPTION" of all four kits is
the same. As far as I know, you need to order the -0JRAA- kit the
first time, and the -0JRAE- ("update") kit for subsequent releases.
Probably, this is so that you don't have go through a complete set of
paperwork for a new release. You have to have to meet a number of other
requirements; see the Software Product Description (SPD) for more details.
The -E5 kits are on TK50, and the -EM kits are on 9-track magtape.
I don't believe that the source kits are available on any other medium.
All 4 part numbers have the same list price (not especially expensive).
I don't know if they are available outside the US.
If you're not at an educational institution, here are the corresponding
part numbers (these are listed in the SPD, by the way):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JQAA-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
2 QB-0JQAA-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
3 QB-0JQAE-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
4 QB-0JQAE-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
These are more expensive.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!
crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!not-for-mail
From: tre...@crl.dec.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,news.answers,comp.answers
Subject: comp.unix.ultrix ULTRIX Frequently Asked Questions
Supersedes: <ultrix-faq_758757...@crl.dec.com>
Followup-To: comp.unix.ultrix
Date: 5 Mar 1994 19:56:28 -0500
Organization: Digital Cambridge Research Laboratory
Lines: 1303
Approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.Edu
Expires: 19 Apr 1994 00:56:26 GMT
Message-ID: <ultrix-faq_762915386@crl.dec.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: quabbin.crl.dec.com
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers) about the ULTRIX operating system from
Digital Equipment Corporation.
Archive-name: dec-faq/ultrix
Last-modified: Sun Jan 16 16:51:33 EST 1994
Version: 1.14
This is part 1 of the Frequently Asked Questions posting for
comp.unix.ultrix, with answers about the ULTRIX operating system. It
is also posted on comp.sys.dec, but it is not a full FAQ for
comp.sys.dec. Companion postings have answers that apply to both
ULTRIX and OSF/1 and answers that apply to OSF/1 alone.
A separate FAQ describes how to get information about Digital products
and interacting with Digital.
This FAQ is available in the following archive sites, in the directory
/pub/DEC/dec-faq:
gatekeeper.dec.com
crl.dec.com
It can also be obtained by sending mail to ftpm...@pa.dec.com with the
following lines:
connect
get /pub/DEC/dec-faq/
Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of
the article. This FAQ is archived in the directory dec-faq.
To receive this posting by mail, send a note to
ultrix-faq-requ...@crl.dec.com.
If the location of a file in an archive is not specifically mentioned
below, it is in /pub/DEC on the above machines.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to ultrix-...@crl.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found via
anonymous FTP on ftp.cc.rochester.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix.
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors. Similarly,
"Alpha" refers to any DEC systems that use the Alpha AXP processor.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Although the editor of this FAQ is an employee of Digital Equipment
Corporation, this posting is not an official statement from Digital
Equipment Corporation.
Software
======================================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
Programming
======================================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6.**CHANGED** Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
Hardware
======================================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
==============================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
.Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 35. It is probably
approximately correct for later versions as well.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef". This step is reportedly
not necessary for versions perl version 4.0, patchlevel 36 and later.
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
==============================================
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available by anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar.
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from decuac.dec.com, in /pub/DEC/syslog_mjr.tar.Z
==============================================
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites. ULTRIX includes a program, "otalk",
which uses the old protocol, but it only works with machines that use
little-endian byte order (e.g., VAXen, DECStations, not most others).
==============================================
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital doesn not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available for FTP from
decuac.dec.com:/pub/binaries.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh5 is
the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a few other odds and
ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages will give an idea
of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
DEC's LSE is part of the DECset for ULTRIX product, a set of CASE tools.
GNU Emacs also has packages for several different languages.
[Jean-Marc Digne, di...@prssud.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
Get gcore from gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/gcore.shar. This one is
known to work on ULTRIX 4.2; it should work on 4.3 as well.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
No.
Alpha OSF/1 does, however.
==============================================
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
The ULTRIX man program does not understand multiple directories. Some that
do are:
1. The 4.3BSD man program, available from
decuac.dec.com:pub/sources/bsd-man.shar.Z.
2. man, from ftp.che.utexas.edu:/pub/unix/man-1.1.tar.Z.
Not an FSF program, but distributed under the GNU GPL.
3. Tom Christiansen's PERL man program, from:
convex.convex.com:pub/perl/scripts/man.shar.Z.
(Requires perl)
4. For those with Tcl/Tk, try tkman, available from:
ftp://harbor.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/tcl/code/tkman-1.5.tar.Z
Alpha OSF/1 man understands MANPATH.
[Frank Wortner, fr...@croton.nyo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
[Philip J. Tait, p...@pelab.allied.com]
==============================================
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
It means that you need the patch for tcp_output.o, available from the
Customer Support Centers.
==============================================
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
The BSD vacation program is available from
ftp.uu.net:/pub/networking/bsd-net2/usr.bin/vacation.
Another vacation program, written in perl, is available from
convex.convex.com:/pub/perl/scripts/clones/vacation.
Both of these are careful about to whom and how often they reply.
DEC OSF/1 includes the BSD vacation program.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
[Brian Smith, br...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu]
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers.
A somewhat different version of named that does not have this problem
can be found in cra-bind.tar.Z. This version cannot use Kerberos for
server-server authentication, as the ULTRIX version can. It does
support Hesiod data and queries. It is not supported by Digital,
although it is in active use on Digital's Internet machines.
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
The Internet address of a diskless client is determined by the network
boot block the system send as the secondary load file. This file is
initially created by DMS but at the present time DMS does not have
the capability to change an existing netblk.
NOTE: If you attempt to change the IP address of either the client or
server without modifying the netblk then your DISKLESS CLIENTS
WILL NOT BOOT.
The definition of the network boot block is in /usr/include/sas/mop.h and
the netblk structure is shown below.
struct netblk {
char srvname[32]; /* server hostname (boot server)*/
unsigned long srvipadr; /* server IP address (boot server)*/
char cliname[32]; /* client hostname */
unsigned long cliipadr; /* client IP address */
unsigned long brdcst; /* broadcast address */
unsigned long netmsk; /* network mask address */
short swapfs; /* swap file system type*/
short rootfs; /* root file system type*/
short swapsz; /* swap size in 1/2 Meg units */
short dmpflg; /* dump flag 0 - disabled */
/* 1 - enabled */
char rootdesc[80]; /* root filesys descriptor */
char swapdesc[80]; /* swap file descriptor */
char reserved[20]; /* for later use */
};
In order to change the IP address of the client or of the server you will need
to modify the netblk.
The code for the boot block is in the file /etc/bootblk.c on the diskless
client.
An example of this file is:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"my_server",
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/my_client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
A quick cross-reference with the mop include file will tell you which fields
represent which data.
To change the IP addresses you need to use the command /usr/diskless/makpkt.
The format of this command is:
makpkt server_IP_addr client_name client_IP_addr broadcast netmask
Here is an example of using makpkt to change the network boot block parameters.
For a server of address 16.128.128.4 and a client called fred of address
16.128.128.19 on a class B network you'll need to use the command:
% makpkt 16.128.19.4 fred 16.128.20.19 16.128.255.255 255.255.0.0
this will produce the output:
0x10801304,
"fred",
0x10801413,
0x1080ffff,
0xffff0000,
You will now need to edit netblk.c and replace the line
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
with
0x10801304, "fred", 0x10801413, 0x1080ffff, 0xffff0000,
The next step is to compile the new netblk.
% cc -c netblk.c
If you are changing the client IP address then you will also need to modify
the CLIARP field in /etc/dlparam on the client.
eg.
CLIARP="16.182.128.61"
Finally you can change the server and/or client IP address on the server
and reboot.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available for FTP from crl.dec.com and
decuac.dec.com in pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z.
ONC RPC is a supported component of DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
==============================================
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Patches to enable IP Multicast are available from
gregorio.stanford.edu:vmtp-ip. Patches are available for Ultrix 4.1 &
4.2a. Binaries are available for 4.2a. As far as is known, the
patches also work on 4.3.
The multicast patches break the ULTRIX packetfilter. An unsupported
version of pfilt.o that works with the multicast code is in
ftp://crl.dec.com/pub/DEC/multicast/pfilt.o
This patch should work with 4.2, 4.2A, and 4.3, but it is not supported.
[Lance Berc, b...@src.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
SLIP is in the "unsupported" kit for ULTRIX 4.2 and later. It is
included in DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A are unable to handle logical block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1). The left bit positions of block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1) are effectively ignored, causing
access to wrap around to the beginning of the disk. This means that
SCSI disks larger than 1 Gbyte (formatted) cannot be used (assuming
512 kbyte blocks), even if all partition sizes are less than 1 Gbyte.
The earliest version of ULTRIX that can handle DEC 1.3 Gbyte RZ58 drives
on DEC RISC machine is ULTRIX 4.2A.
[Jeffrey C. Gealow, jgea...@mtl.mit.edu]
==============================================
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
"newfs -i XXX" is usually used to increase the number of inodes on a
filesystem, where XXX is the desired number of bytes per filesystem.
However, there is a not-well-known limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder
group, and newfs doesn't tell you that if you try to ask for more.
The solution is to get more cylinder groups, either by using "newfs -c XXX"
to specify the number of cylinders per group or by using 4096-byte
blocks and 512-byte fragments.
Read the newfs manual page before trying this at home or work.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
The version of the Berkeley Fast File system used by the ULTRIX
Operating System has a limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder group. This
limit is the constant MAXIPG in the include file
/usr/include/ufs/fs.h. To change it you need to be able to recompile
from sources.
When newfs/mkfs runs it attempts to allocate enough inodes so that
there are enough for an average file size of 2 KB. (bytes per inode =
2048). When there are enough cylinder groups this is easy. In fact,
if the cylinder group is small enough, it may not get close to the
MAXIPG limit.
But over the years, disks have gotten bigger. They have more
cylinders, more tracks and the tracks have more sectors. As a result
cylinder groups are larger and it's hard to allocate enough inodes to
meet the 2048 bytes per inode limit, with only MAXIPG available.
Since MAXIPG is fixed the effective average file size goes up.
On a News spool tree, the average file probably is around or less than
2 KB. As a result, these large cylinder disks don't have enough
inodes for the typical file size, and, more importantly, you can't get
more, since you're already at the MAXIPG limit. At least not easily.
But there are some solutions available...
Theme of solutions:
Inodes are allocated on a cylinder group basis.
Want more inodes, use more cylinder groups.
1. Use fewer cylinders per group, thus getting more groups.
See the -c option of newfs(8).
Note: On the 2nd hand advice of Gregory Neil Shapiro
(gshap...@wpi.wpi.edu) there are some disks for which
the -c option won't work because mkfs(8) enforces a set
of cylinder group sizes that won't allow reducing the
number cylinders per below the default of 16. This seems
to be the case for the RZ57 and RZ58.
2. Use a different file system block and fragment size; 4K/512a
instead of the usual 8K/1K. In the case of News this may work
best. Since most files are small, using the smaller size may
help reflect the smaller average file size. It may also waste
less space in partially filled fragments.
3. Lie about the geometry. If the track length or tracks
per cylinder is nice factorable number, reduce one to
increase the effective number of cylinders. By playing
games with the factors of the geometry you manage to keep
the geometry approximately the same.
For some disks this may not matter and you can invent whatever
lie you want. For example; the RZ58 uses zoned based recording
(banding). Depending on where you are on the disk, there will
more or less sectors per track. The single geometry presented
by ULTRIX is a convient lie.
[Allan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
"Gnode" means "generic inode". Like most versions of UNIX these days,
ULTRIX has a virtual filesystem. This means the kernel can support
different types of filesystem - like the BSD FFS, the old V7-style
filesystem in System V, RFS, NFS etc. Gnodes are similar to the vnodes
of the Sun filesystem switch.
The message "out of gnodes" usually means "out of inodes" on the
filesystem. To fix this, you can delete files or reinitialize the
filesystem with newfs (after backing everything up!).
The message "gnode: table is full" means that the kernel table for keeping
track of open files is full. If you need to fix this, increase the maxusers
parameter in your kernel configuration file and rebuild your kernel.
[Jim Reid, j...@cs.strath.ac.uk]
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3.
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
On ULTRIX, mmap(2) only works on character special devices.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be 1.
This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the Xdec
server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2 and later.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6.**CHANGED** Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
[Author lost.]
==============================================
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
ULTRIX 4.3 and later support the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
protocol and include xdm as well. Alpha OSF/1 uses xdm by default and
also supports the authorization protocol.
[Bob Heiney, hei...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
==============================================
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
To turn a DECstation into a DECsystem you need to:
1. Remove the graphics stuff.
2. Put a mouse loopback connector in the hole for the mouse
plug. (part number currently unknown)
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a message containing:
subscribe decstation-managers
to majord...@ornl.gov. To subscribe an address other than your
return address, such as a local exploder, add that address to the
subscribe command, e.g.:
subscribe decstation-managers decstation-manag...@foo.bar
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
==============================================
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
For educational institutions (these are not listed in the SPD):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JRAA-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
2 QB-0JRAA-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
3 QB-0JRAE-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
4 QB-0JRAE-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
This is a little confusing, since the "DESCRIPTION" of all four kits is
the same. As far as I know, you need to order the -0JRAA- kit the
first time, and the -0JRAE- ("update") kit for subsequent releases.
Probably, this is so that you don't have go through a complete set of
paperwork for a new release. You have to have to meet a number of other
requirements; see the Software Product Description (SPD) for more details.
The -E5 kits are on TK50, and the -EM kits are on 9-track magtape.
I don't believe that the source kits are available on any other medium.
All 4 part numbers have the same list price (not especially expensive).
I don't know if they are available outside the US.
If you're not at an educational institution, here are the corresponding
part numbers (these are listed in the SPD, by the way):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JQAA-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
2 QB-0JQAA-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
3 QB-0JQAE-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
4 QB-0JQAE-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
These are more expensive.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
The phase over from DECstations running ULTRIX to Alpha AXP running
DEC OSF/1 is common knowledge. Digital will continue to offer new
DECstations (the R4000 DECstations just started shipping in July) and
new versions of ULTRIX (4.3A just came out early this summer) to give
existing customers a multi-year window to evaluate Alpha AXP technology
and DEC OSF/1, and then make transition plans accordingly. Numerous
migration tools and upgrade programs exist.
ULTRIX V4.4 is the last version of ULTRIX with new functionality. V4.4
will be out in Q1/CY94 and will include native X11R5 support, Motif 1.2
support and numerous bug fixes. After that we stablize the product, but
*not* retire it. There will be on going maintenance releases every 6-9
months mainly for bug fixes. We intend to support ULTRIX for at least
the next three to five years, if not to the end of this century.
[Russ Jones, rjo...@pa.dec.com]
Path: nntp.gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!
relay.openmarket.com!OpenMarket.com!treese
From: tre...@OpenMarket.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec
Subject: comp.unix.ultrix ULTRIX Frequently Asked Questions
Followup-To: comp.unix.ultrix
Date: 13 Sep 1994 02:09:39 GMT
Organization: Open Market, Inc.
Lines: 1300
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <TREESE.94Sep12220939@cirocco.OpenMarket.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cirocco.openmarket.com
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers) about the ULTRIX operating system from
Digital Equipment Corporation.
Archive-name: dec-faq/ultrix
Last-modified: Sat Sep 10 19:11:40 EDT 1994
Version: 1.15
This is part 1 of the Frequently Asked Questions posting for
comp.unix.ultrix, with answers about the ULTRIX operating system. It
is also posted on comp.sys.dec, but it is not a full FAQ for
comp.sys.dec. Companion postings have answers that apply to both
ULTRIX and OSF/1 and answers that apply to OSF/1 alone.
A separate FAQ describes how to get information about Digital products
and interacting with Digital.
This FAQ is available in the following archive sites, in the directory
/pub/DEC/dec-faq:
gatekeeper.dec.com
crl.dec.com
It can also be obtained by sending mail to ftpm...@pa.dec.com with the
following lines:
connect
get /pub/DEC/dec-faq/
Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of
the article. This FAQ is archived in the directory dec-faq.
To receive this posting by mail, send a note to
ultrix-faq-requ...@crl.dec.com.
If the location of a file in an archive is not specifically mentioned
below, it is in /pub/DEC on the above machines.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to ultrix-...@crl.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found via
anonymous FTP on ftp.cc.rochester.edu in /pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix.
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors. Similarly,
"Alpha" refers to any DEC systems that use the Alpha AXP processor.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Software
======================================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
Programming
======================================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6.**CHANGED** Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
Hardware
======================================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
==============================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
.Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 35. It is probably
approximately correct for later versions as well.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef". This step is reportedly
not necessary for versions perl version 4.0, patchlevel 36 and later.
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
==============================================
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available by anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar.
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from decuac.dec.com, in /pub/DEC/syslog_mjr.tar.Z
==============================================
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites. ULTRIX includes a program, "otalk",
which uses the old protocol, but it only works with machines that use
little-endian byte order (e.g., VAXen, DECStations, not most others).
==============================================
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital doesn not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available for FTP from
decuac.dec.com:/pub/binaries.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh5 is
the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a few other odds and
ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages will give an idea
of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
DEC's LSE is part of the DECset for ULTRIX product, a set of CASE tools.
GNU Emacs also has packages for several different languages.
[Jean-Marc Digne, di...@prssud.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
Get gcore from gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/gcore.shar. This one is
known to work on ULTRIX 4.2; it should work on 4.3 as well.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
S11. Will ULTRIX ever have shared libraries?
No.
Alpha OSF/1 does, however.
==============================================
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
The ULTRIX man program does not understand multiple directories. Some that
do are:
1. The 4.3BSD man program, available from
decuac.dec.com:pub/sources/bsd-man.shar.Z.
2. man, from ftp.che.utexas.edu:/pub/unix/man-1.1.tar.Z.
Not an FSF program, but distributed under the GNU GPL.
3. Tom Christiansen's PERL man program, from:
convex.convex.com:pub/perl/scripts/man.shar.Z.
(Requires perl)
4. For those with Tcl/Tk, try tkman, available from:
ftp://harbor.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/tcl/code/tkman-1.5.tar.Z
Alpha OSF/1 man understands MANPATH.
[Frank Wortner, fr...@croton.nyo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
[Philip J. Tait, p...@pelab.allied.com]
==============================================
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
It means that you need the patch for tcp_output.o, available from the
Customer Support Centers.
==============================================
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
The BSD vacation program is available from
ftp.uu.net:/pub/networking/bsd-net2/usr.bin/vacation.
Another vacation program, written in perl, is available from
convex.convex.com:/pub/perl/scripts/clones/vacation.
Both of these are careful about to whom and how often they reply.
DEC OSF/1 includes the BSD vacation program.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
[Brian Smith, br...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu]
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers.
A somewhat different version of named that does not have this problem
can be found in cra-bind.tar.Z. This version cannot use Kerberos for
server-server authentication, as the ULTRIX version can. It does
support Hesiod data and queries. It is not supported by Digital,
although it is in active use on Digital's Internet machines.
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
The Internet address of a diskless client is determined by the network
boot block the system send as the secondary load file. This file is
initially created by DMS but at the present time DMS does not have
the capability to change an existing netblk.
NOTE: If you attempt to change the IP address of either the client or
server without modifying the netblk then your DISKLESS CLIENTS
WILL NOT BOOT.
The definition of the network boot block is in /usr/include/sas/mop.h and
the netblk structure is shown below.
struct netblk {
char srvname[32]; /* server hostname (boot server)*/
unsigned long srvipadr; /* server IP address (boot server)*/
char cliname[32]; /* client hostname */
unsigned long cliipadr; /* client IP address */
unsigned long brdcst; /* broadcast address */
unsigned long netmsk; /* network mask address */
short swapfs; /* swap file system type*/
short rootfs; /* root file system type*/
short swapsz; /* swap size in 1/2 Meg units */
short dmpflg; /* dump flag 0 - disabled */
/* 1 - enabled */
char rootdesc[80]; /* root filesys descriptor */
char swapdesc[80]; /* swap file descriptor */
char reserved[20]; /* for later use */
};
In order to change the IP address of the client or of the server you will need
to modify the netblk.
The code for the boot block is in the file /etc/bootblk.c on the diskless
client.
An example of this file is:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"my_server",
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/my_client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
A quick cross-reference with the mop include file will tell you which fields
represent which data.
To change the IP addresses you need to use the command /usr/diskless/makpkt.
The format of this command is:
makpkt server_IP_addr client_name client_IP_addr broadcast netmask
Here is an example of using makpkt to change the network boot block parameters.
For a server of address 16.128.128.4 and a client called fred of address
16.128.128.19 on a class B network you'll need to use the command:
% makpkt 16.128.19.4 fred 16.128.20.19 16.128.255.255 255.255.0.0
this will produce the output:
0x10801304,
"fred",
0x10801413,
0x1080ffff,
0xffff0000,
You will now need to edit netblk.c and replace the line
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
with
0x10801304, "fred", 0x10801413, 0x1080ffff, 0xffff0000,
The next step is to compile the new netblk.
% cc -c netblk.c
If you are changing the client IP address then you will also need to modify
the CLIARP field in /etc/dlparam on the client.
eg.
CLIARP="16.182.128.61"
Finally you can change the server and/or client IP address on the server
and reboot.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available for FTP from crl.dec.com and
decuac.dec.com in pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z.
ONC RPC is a supported component of DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
==============================================
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Patches to enable IP Multicast are available from
gregorio.stanford.edu:vmtp-ip. Patches are available for Ultrix 4.1 &
4.2a. Binaries are available for 4.2a. As far as is known, the
patches also work on 4.3.
The multicast patches break the ULTRIX packetfilter. An unsupported
version of pfilt.o that works with the multicast code is in
ftp://crl.dec.com/pub/DEC/multicast/pfilt.o
This patch should work with 4.2, 4.2A, and 4.3, but it is not supported.
[Lance Berc, b...@src.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
SLIP is in the "unsupported" kit for ULTRIX 4.2 and later. It is
included in DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A are unable to handle logical block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1). The left bit positions of block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1) are effectively ignored, causing
access to wrap around to the beginning of the disk. This means that
SCSI disks larger than 1 Gbyte (formatted) cannot be used (assuming
512 kbyte blocks), even if all partition sizes are less than 1 Gbyte.
The earliest version of ULTRIX that can handle DEC 1.3 Gbyte RZ58 drives
on DEC RISC machine is ULTRIX 4.2A.
[Jeffrey C. Gealow, jgea...@mtl.mit.edu]
==============================================
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
"newfs -i XXX" is usually used to increase the number of inodes on a
filesystem, where XXX is the desired number of bytes per filesystem.
However, there is a not-well-known limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder
group, and newfs doesn't tell you that if you try to ask for more.
The solution is to get more cylinder groups, either by using "newfs -c XXX"
to specify the number of cylinders per group or by using 4096-byte
blocks and 512-byte fragments.
Read the newfs manual page before trying this at home or work.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
The version of the Berkeley Fast File system used by the ULTRIX
Operating System has a limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder group. This
limit is the constant MAXIPG in the include file
/usr/include/ufs/fs.h. To change it you need to be able to recompile
from sources.
When newfs/mkfs runs it attempts to allocate enough inodes so that
there are enough for an average file size of 2 KB. (bytes per inode =
2048). When there are enough cylinder groups this is easy. In fact,
if the cylinder group is small enough, it may not get close to the
MAXIPG limit.
But over the years, disks have gotten bigger. They have more
cylinders, more tracks and the tracks have more sectors. As a result
cylinder groups are larger and it's hard to allocate enough inodes to
meet the 2048 bytes per inode limit, with only MAXIPG available.
Since MAXIPG is fixed the effective average file size goes up.
On a News spool tree, the average file probably is around or less than
2 KB. As a result, these large cylinder disks don't have enough
inodes for the typical file size, and, more importantly, you can't get
more, since you're already at the MAXIPG limit. At least not easily.
But there are some solutions available...
Theme of solutions:
Inodes are allocated on a cylinder group basis.
Want more inodes, use more cylinder groups.
1. Use fewer cylinders per group, thus getting more groups.
See the -c option of newfs(8).
Note: On the 2nd hand advice of Gregory Neil Shapiro
(gshap...@wpi.wpi.edu) there are some disks for which
the -c option won't work because mkfs(8) enforces a set
of cylinder group sizes that won't allow reducing the
number cylinders per below the default of 16. This seems
to be the case for the RZ57 and RZ58.
2. Use a different file system block and fragment size; 4K/512a
instead of the usual 8K/1K. In the case of News this may work
best. Since most files are small, using the smaller size may
help reflect the smaller average file size. It may also waste
less space in partially filled fragments.
3. Lie about the geometry. If the track length or tracks
per cylinder is nice factorable number, reduce one to
increase the effective number of cylinders. By playing
games with the factors of the geometry you manage to keep
the geometry approximately the same.
For some disks this may not matter and you can invent whatever
lie you want. For example; the RZ58 uses zoned based recording
(banding). Depending on where you are on the disk, there will
more or less sectors per track. The single geometry presented
by ULTRIX is a convient lie.
[Allan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
"Gnode" means "generic inode". Like most versions of UNIX these days,
ULTRIX has a virtual filesystem. This means the kernel can support
different types of filesystem - like the BSD FFS, the old V7-style
filesystem in System V, RFS, NFS etc. Gnodes are similar to the vnodes
of the Sun filesystem switch.
The message "out of gnodes" usually means "out of inodes" on the
filesystem. To fix this, you can delete files or reinitialize the
filesystem with newfs (after backing everything up!).
The message "gnode: table is full" means that the kernel table for keeping
track of open files is full. If you need to fix this, increase the maxusers
parameter in your kernel configuration file and rebuild your kernel.
[Jim Reid, j...@cs.strath.ac.uk]
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3.
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
On ULTRIX, mmap(2) only works on character special devices.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be 1.
This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the Xdec
server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2 and later.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6.**CHANGED** Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
[Author lost.]
==============================================
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
ULTRIX 4.3 and later support the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
protocol and include xdm as well. Alpha OSF/1 uses xdm by default and
also supports the authorization protocol.
[Bob Heiney, hei...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
==============================================
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
To turn a DECstation into a DECsystem you need to:
1. Remove the graphics stuff.
2. Put a mouse loopback connector in the hole for the mouse
plug. (part number currently unknown)
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a message containing:
subscribe decstation-managers
to majord...@ornl.gov. To subscribe an address other than your
return address, such as a local exploder, add that address to the
subscribe command, e.g.:
subscribe decstation-managers decstation-manag...@foo.bar
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
==============================================
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
For educational institutions (these are not listed in the SPD):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JRAA-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
2 QB-0JRAA-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
3 QB-0JRAE-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
4 QB-0JRAE-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
This is a little confusing, since the "DESCRIPTION" of all four kits is
the same. As far as I know, you need to order the -0JRAA- kit the
first time, and the -0JRAE- ("update") kit for subsequent releases.
Probably, this is so that you don't have go through a complete set of
paperwork for a new release. You have to have to meet a number of other
requirements; see the Software Product Description (SPD) for more details.
The -E5 kits are on TK50, and the -EM kits are on 9-track magtape.
I don't believe that the source kits are available on any other medium.
All 4 part numbers have the same list price (not especially expensive).
I don't know if they are available outside the US.
If you're not at an educational institution, here are the corresponding
part numbers (these are listed in the SPD, by the way):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JQAA-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
2 QB-0JQAA-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
3 QB-0JQAE-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
4 QB-0JQAE-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
These are more expensive.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
The phase over from DECstations running ULTRIX to Alpha AXP running
DEC OSF/1 is common knowledge. Digital will continue to offer new
DECstations (the R4000 DECstations just started shipping in July) and
new versions of ULTRIX (4.3A just came out early this summer) to give
existing customers a multi-year window to evaluate Alpha AXP technology
and DEC OSF/1, and then make transition plans accordingly. Numerous
migration tools and upgrade programs exist.
ULTRIX V4.4 is the last version of ULTRIX with new functionality. V4.4
will be out in Q1/CY94 and will include native X11R5 support, Motif 1.2
support and numerous bug fixes. After that we stablize the product, but
*not* retire it. There will be on going maintenance releases every 6-9
months mainly for bug fixes. We intend to support ULTRIX for at least
the next three to five years, if not to the end of this century.
[Russ Jones, rjo...@pa.dec.com]
From: lio...@quark.enet.dec.com (Steve Lionel)
Subject: ULTRIX Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Date: 1995/09/29
Message-ID: <44hl8t$55h@zk2nws.zko.dec.com>
X-Deja-AN: 110976495
expires: Tue, 31 October 1995 00:00:00 GMT
distribution: world
approved: news-answers-requ...@MIT.EDU
supersedes: <41apeu$...@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>
followup-to: poster
summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions
organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Nashua NH
reply-to: lio...@quark.enet.dec.com (Steve Lionel)
newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,news.answers,comp.answers
Archive-name: dec-faq/ultrix
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: June 22, 1995
Editor's Note
============
The former "common" and "osf1" FAQs have been merged into a new
Digital-UNIX FAQ. Some pieces of the old "common" FAQ will get merged back
into this FAQ, but I haven't done that yet. Other pieces, now in the
"Digital-UNIX" FAQ, will still be of interest to ULTRIX users so you may want
to peruse it anyway.
Changes since last edition
==========================
None.
Overview
========
This is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list for Digital's RISC ULTRIX
operating system and the hardware on which it runs. Some additional
information relevant to RISC ULTRIX users may also be found in the
Digital-UNIX FAQ which is available in the same archive locations.
This FAQ is archived in the following locations:
comp.answers and news.answers newsgroups
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/dec-faq/ultrix
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/dec-faq/ultrix
http://www.smartpages.com/faqs/dec-faq/ultrix/faq.html
CompuServe VAXFORUM, Library 9, ULTRXFAQ.TXT
The archive name for this FAQ is dec-faq/ultrix
Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site
rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of
the article. This FAQ is archived in the directory dec-faq.
To make suggestions for changes or additions to this Frequently Asked
Questions list, send mail to lio...@quark.enet.dec.com. Answers are
especially appreciated.
An archive of recent postings to comp.unix.ultrix can be found
at ftp://ftp.cc.rochester.edu/pub/usenet/comp.unix.ultrix
Thanks to folks at the University of Rochester for providing this
service.
Some general notes:
When used alone, the word "DECstation" is used to mean any of the
DECstations or DECsystems that use MIPS RISC processors. Similarly,
"Alpha" refers to any DEC systems that use the Alpha AXP processor.
Unless otherwise specified, these answers refer to ULTRIX 4.3, which is
the current release of ULTRIX.
World-Wide Web Universal Resource Locator (URL) notation is used for FTP
addresses.
Many people have contributed to this list, directly or indirectly. In
some cases, an answer has been adapted from one or more postings on the
comp.unix.ultrix newsgroup. Our thanks to all of those who post answers.
The name (or names) at the end of an entry indicate that the information
was taken from postings by those individuals; the text may have been
edited for this FAQ. These citations are only given to acknowledge the
contribution.
Although the editor of this FAQ is an employee of Digital Equipment
Corporation, this posting is not an official statement from Digital
Equipment Corporation.
AlphaGeneration, AlphaServer, AlphaStation, Alpha AXP, AXP, DEC, DECstation,
DECsystem, OpenVMS, ULTRIX, VAX and VMS are trademarks of Digital Equipment
Corporation. OSF/1 is a registered trademark of the Open Software Foundation.
UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries,
licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd. Other names are properties of
their respective owners.
Software
======================================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
S11. Does ULTRIX have shared libraries?
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
S15. Where can I get Netscape for ULTRIX?
Network
======================================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
Disk
======================================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
Programming
======================================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
Graphics
======================================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
Hardware
======================================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
Miscellaneous
======================================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
==============================================
S1. Why does dxpsview sometimes crash with an X error?
dxpsview will often behave better if the "Watch Progress" item is selected
from the Options menu. You can use the following resource in your
Xdefaults file:
DPSViewer*watchProgress: on
to make this the default behavior. Some reports indicate that this resource
only works properly on ULTRIX 4.2A and later, however.
Some have reported that disabling the use of PostScript comments also helps:
DPSViewer*useComments: off
==============================================
S2. How do I compile perl on RISC/ULTRIX?
The following is valid for perl 4.0, patchlevel 35. It is probably
approximately correct for later versions as well.
The biggest trick in compiling perl on RISC/ULTRIX is fixing its
notion of "volatile". To do this, when Configure stops and asks you
if you want to edit config.sh, do so. Search for the word "volatile"
and change the "define" on that line to "undef". This step is reportedly
not necessary for versions perl version 4.0, patchlevel 36 and later.
On machines with a relatively small amount of memory, you may not want
to use -O on eval.c, since the compiler can end up taking a long time
to compile that file.
If the source directory is NFS-mounted, it is usually the case that you
will see the message
io/fs..........FAILED on test 18
This is harmless and can be ignored.
==============================================
S3. Is it possible to run the newer 4.3 BSD syslogd on ULTRIX?
A version of the 4.3BSD syslog library and daemon that detects either
4.2bsd-compatible clients (which is what the Ultrix libc.a will help
you create) or 4.3bsd-compatible clients, which are more flexible, is
available at ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/jtkohl-syslog.shar
Another version that supports regular expressions in syslog.conf is available
from ftp://decuac.dec.com/pub/DEC/syslog_mjr.tar.Z
A version integrated with Net2 code and which builds under Ultrix 4.x
is available at:
ftp://ftp.cic.net/pub/Software/unix/ultrix-net2-syslogd.tar.gz
[Paul Southworth, pa...@cic.net]
==============================================
S4. How do I build gdb on RISC/ULTRIX?
To build gdb, you will also need to install the GNU make.
For gdb 4.0 and later:
- unpack the tar file
- cd <tar-root>
- ./configure +subdirs decstation
- cd H-decstation/T-decstation
- gnumake
This will build the gdb binary in
<tar-root>/gdb/H-decstation/T-decstation/gdb
Install this binary in the location of your choice (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
==============================================
S5. Why doesn't "talk" work between DECstations and other machines?
The original Berkeley talk protocol did not use network byte order, so
machines with different byte order could not talk to each other. This
was fixed in 4.3BSD, and in recent versions of ULTRIX. Some vendors
have not fixed their software. The 4.3BSD talk software is available
from many FTP archive sites. ULTRIX includes a program, "otalk",
which uses the old protocol, but it only works with machines that use
little-endian byte order (e.g., VAXen, DECStations, not most others).
==============================================
S6. Why doesn't troff work?
Digital does not support troff on ULTRIX, mostly because of the way
AT&T licenses the software now. However, you can use groff (GNU roff)
which works pretty nicely and generates pure PostScript. There's a
RISC/ULTRIX binary kit for groff available from
ftp://decuac.dec.com/pub/binaries
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S7. How are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/sh5 related?
/bin/sh on ULTRIX is the traditional Bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh5 is
the newer "System V" shell and has functions and a few other odds and
ends added to it. A comparison of the manual pages will give an idea
of the differences.
[Marcus Ranum, m...@tis.com]
==============================================
S8. Why doesn't syslog work on ULTRIX 4.3?
There is a bug in the distribution: /etc/syslog.pid is owned by root. It
should be owned by daemon.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
S9. Is there an LSE (Language-Sensitive Editor) for ULTRIX?
Digital's LSE for RISC ULTRIX is no longer available.
GNU Emacs also has packages for several different languages.
[Jean-Marc Digne, di...@prssud.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
S10. How can I get a core dump of a running process on ULTRIX?
Get gcore from ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/gcore.shar This one is
known to work on ULTRIX 4.2; it should work on 4.3 as well.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
S11. Does ULTRIX have shared libraries?
Shared libraries are not currently available for ULTRIX. Digital UNIX
does have shared libraries.
==============================================
S12. Where can I get a "man" program that understands multiple directories?
The ULTRIX man program does not understand multiple directories. Some that
do are:
1. The 4.3BSD man program, available from
ftp://decuac.dec.com/pub/sources/bsd-man.shar.Z
2. man, from ftp://ftp.che.utexas.edu/pub/unix/man-1.1.tar.gz
Not an FSF program, but distributed under the GNU GPL.
3. Tom Christiansen's PERL man program, from:
ftp://convex.convex.com/pub/perl/scripts/man.shar.Z
(Requires perl)
4. For those with Tcl/Tk, try tkman, available from:
ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/ucb/people/phelps/tcltk/tkman.tar.Z
Alpha OSF/1 man understands MANPATH.
[Frank Wortner, fr...@croton.nyo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
[Philip J. Tait, p...@pelab.allied.com]
[Tom Phelps, phe...@ecstasy.cs.berkeley.edu]
==============================================
S13. What does "panic: km_free: bad addr" mean?
It means that you need the patch for tcp_output.o, available from the
Customer Support Centers.
==============================================
S14. Where can I get a "vacation" program for ULTRIX?
The BSD vacation program is available from
ftp://ftp.uu.net/pub/networking/bsd-net2/usr.bin/vacation
Another vacation program, written in perl, is available from
ftp://convex.convex.com/pub/perl/scripts/clones/vacation
Both of these are careful about to whom and how often they reply.
DEC OSF/1 includes the BSD vacation program.
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
[Brian Smith, br...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu]
==============================================
S15. Where can I get Netscape for ULTRIX?
Sorry, you can't. Netscape Communications has not released a version
for ULTRIX.
==============================================
N1. What does the message "named: accept: Too many open files" in syslog mean,
and how can I fix it?
There is a bug in the ULTRIX version of named that causes it to run
out of file descriptors when it does too many zone transfers.
A somewhat different version of named called cra-bind that does not have this
problem. This version cannot use Kerberos for server-server authentication,
as the ULTRIX version can. It does support Hesiod data and queries. It is
not supported by Digital, although it is in active use on Digital's Internet
machines.
cra-bind has been superseded by the public release of BIND 4.9. BIND 4.9
can be obtained from ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/BSD/bind/4.9
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N2. Why don't packet-filter applications like "tcpdump" or CAP work?
Probably because you have not configured the packet filter into
the kernel. The default kernel configurations do NOT include the
packet filter. See "man 4 packetfilter" for full details, but basically
the process involves
editing your kernel configuration file
add "options PACKETFILTER"
add "pseudo-device packetfilter"
rebuilding your kernel
installing the new kernel
booting the new kernel
"cd /dev; MAKEDEV pfilt" to create the required entries
You might also want to add the following lines to /etc/rc.local:
[ -f /usr/etc/pfconfig ] && {
/usr/etc/pfconfig +p +c -a 2>&1 & echo -n ' pfconfig' >/dev/console
}
This allows you to use promiscuous-mode applications, such as "tcpdump"
or "nfswatch". Note that the '-a' option to pfconfig allows any user to
spy on the network. If it is omitted, only root may do so.
There are also some patches for ULTRIX 4.2 and 4.2A for the
packetfilter code. Call Digital's Customer Support if you need them.
The official description of the patches is below; here is some
background information. ULTRIX 4.3 has all of the patches included.
Note: these patches cause DECnet-OSI not to work. To run DECnet-OSI
on ULTRIX 4.3, you will need the latest patched version of
net_common.o for 4.3.
Although not mentioned in the description, these patches should also
make Ultrix more forgiving of certain incorrect 802.3 packets. Such
packets are sent by some 3rd-party implementations. I don't think
this will fix the problem in every case, since some Digital Ethernet
interfaces filter out "bad" 802.3 packets in hardware. The patches
should work for DECstations and most DECsystems.
Note that if you install these patches and you have been running CAP,
you should recompile CAP after removing the definition for ULT42PFBUG
from the Configure script. The ULT42PFBUG patch to CAP will not work
once the kernel has been patched. You should also *stop* doing
ifconfig ln0 copyall
once you install the patches.
If you have been using tcpdump, nfswatch, or a similar monitoring
program on an FDDI network, installing these patches will probably
make that not work. You will still be able to use tcpdump on an
Ethernet, of course. The reason for this is that tcpdump only worked
on FDDI networks because of the bug that is fixed by these patches.
These patches are available for Ultrix 4.2 and 4.2A, and for both RISC
and VAX. They must not be applied to previous versions of Ultrix.
Finally, note you must install new versions of BOTH net_common.o
and pfilt.o; you cannot just install one of the files.
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/net_common.o
/sys/{MIPS,VAX}/BINARY/pfilt.o
-----------------------------------
(v4.2 RISC & VAX, v4.2a RISC)
Listed are problem resolved by these 2 patches:
1. PACKET FILTER FAILS TO RECEIVE UNICASTS TO LOCAL HOST
The packet filter mechanism is supposed to allow a user application
to receive packets that are sent to the local host, if no other
protocol in the kernel wants to use the packet. This worked fine
in Ultrix 4.0 and 4.1, but in Ultrix 4.2 it is broken.
Apparently, setting "copyall" with ifconfig is a workaround, but
this is an EXTREMELY inefficient workaround, and requires users
to reconfigure their systems as super-user. This is not needed in
ULTRIX 4.3.
2. PACKET FILTER IOCTL EIOCDEVP RETURNS WRONG MTU VALUE
A change was made to increase the size for ethernet packets
from 1500 bytes to 1514 bytes which is the MAX size for the ethernet.
This will allow 1500 bytes for the message and 14 bytes for the header.
Also corrected the value returned in endevp.end_MTU by the EIOCDEVP ioctl.
3. 802.3/802.2 PACKETS NOT PROPERLY DELIVERED TO PACKET FILTER
The packet filter is defined, in its manual page, to provide packets
to user applications exactly as those packets appear on the network.
The current kernel code mangles the headers of 802.2 encapsulations
of Ethernet packets, causing several popular applications to fail.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
N3. OK, I've done all that and CAP still doesn't run.
[See the previous topic for information on relevant patches for ULTRIX.]
There are several bugs in the Ultrix 4.2 packet filter mechanism, some
of which affect CAP. These are fixed in ULTRIX 4.3. The details are
complex, but you can solve one of them by doing (as super-user,
probably from /etc/rc.local)
/etc/ifconfig ln0 copyall
(substitute whatever interface type you are using for "ln0"). The
other bug, which apparently only affects CAP when "Phase 2" is in use,
requires a patch to CAP. CAP patches are available from a number of
archive sites, including gatekeeper.dec.com: in the directory named
/pub/net/appletalk/cap/cap.patches
Another problem you may have is that some Ethernet interfaces sold for
the Macintosh occasionally send incorrect 802.3 packet headers. (The
bug is that they send a packet whose length does not match the value
provided in the 802.3 header's length field. Ultrix 4.2, as well as
some of Digital's Ethernet interface hardware, is strict about
checking 802.3 header, and does not accept these packets.) As of this
writing, a patch is not yet available and there is no workaround. If
you can, you should try to get the vendor of the nonconforming
interface to provide a solution.
Once you have obtained an up-to-date, fully patched copy of CAP 6.0,
the Configure script does not automatically switch on the workaround
code; you must manually edit the m4.setup file to turn the workaround
code on.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N4. I want to run the "screend" program but I get "Operation not supported
on socket".
By default, support for screend is not configured into the Ultrix 4.2
kernel, and the documentation for this is missing. Edit your kernel
configuration file to include the line:
pseudo-device gwscreen
and rebuild your kernel (i.e., run /etc/config, then change to the
right directory and do "make depend" and then "make"). Install the
new kernel and reboot the system.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N5. I want to use screend but I'm not sure how to set up the
/etc/screend.conf configuration file.
Get a copy of NSL Network Note NN-16, "Using screend to Implement
IP/TCP Security Policies". Send mail with "Subject: help" for
information on how to order this, or just "Subject: send postscript
nn-16" if you want to receive the PostScript file via return mail to
nsl-techrepo...@pa.dec.com
or ...!uunet!decwrl!nsl-techreports
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
N6. Why can't ULTRIX 4.2 mount NFS filesystems that could be mounted with
ULTRIX 4.1?
The version of SUN RPC shipped with ULTRIX V4.2 supports up to 32
groups per user, whereas previous versions supported 8 groups per
user. Users that are members of more than 8 groups cannot NFS mount
file systems from NFS servers using the version of SUN RPC that only
supports 8 groups.
The error message that nfs_mount will give you if you are in too many
groups will look like this:
nfs_mount: crltrx:/usr/local server not responding: RPC: Authentication error;
why = Invalid client credential
nfs_mount: access denied for crltrx:/usr/local
The workaround is to reduce the number of groups you are a member of
to eight or less to make NFS mounts work again. In particular, you should
check the number of groups that "root" is in.
==============================================
N7. How do I change the IP address of a diskless client?
The Internet address of a diskless client is determined by the network
boot block the system send as the secondary load file. This file is
initially created by DMS but at the present time DMS does not have
the capability to change an existing netblk.
NOTE: If you attempt to change the IP address of either the client or
server without modifying the netblk then your DISKLESS CLIENTS
WILL NOT BOOT.
The definition of the network boot block is in /usr/include/sas/mop.h and
the netblk structure is shown below.
struct netblk {
char srvname[32]; /* server hostname (boot server)*/
unsigned long srvipadr; /* server IP address (boot server)*/
char cliname[32]; /* client hostname */
unsigned long cliipadr; /* client IP address */
unsigned long brdcst; /* broadcast address */
unsigned long netmsk; /* network mask address */
short swapfs; /* swap file system type*/
short rootfs; /* root file system type*/
short swapsz; /* swap size in 1/2 Meg units */
short dmpflg; /* dump flag 0 - disabled */
/* 1 - enabled */
char rootdesc[80]; /* root filesys descriptor */
char swapdesc[80]; /* swap file descriptor */
char reserved[20]; /* for later use */
};
In order to change the IP address of the client or of the server you will need
to modify the netblk.
The code for the boot block is in the file /etc/bootblk.c on the diskless
client.
An example of this file is:
#include <sas/mop.h>
struct netblk nblk={
"my_server",
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
0,
5,
0,
0,
"/dlclient0/my_client.root",
"rz3b",
""
};
A quick cross-reference with the mop include file will tell you which fields
represent which data.
To change the IP addresses you need to use the command /usr/diskless/makpkt.
The format of this command is:
makpkt server_IP_addr client_name client_IP_addr broadcast netmask
Here is an example of using makpkt to change the network boot block parameters.
For a server of address 16.128.128.4 and a client called fred of address
16.128.128.19 on a class B network you'll need to use the command:
% makpkt 16.128.19.4 fred 16.128.20.19 16.128.255.255 255.255.0.0
this will produce the output:
0x10801304,
"fred",
0x10801413,
0x1080ffff,
0xffff0000,
You will now need to edit netblk.c and replace the line
0x10b38001, "my_client", 0x10b3803e, 0x10b380ff, 0xffffff00,
with
0x10801304, "fred", 0x10801413, 0x1080ffff, 0xffff0000,
The next step is to compile the new netblk.
% cc -c netblk.c
If you are changing the client IP address then you will also need to modify
the CLIARP field in /etc/dlparam on the client.
eg.
CLIARP="16.182.128.61"
Finally you can change the server and/or client IP address on the server
and reboot.
==============================================
N8. Is ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") supported under ULTRIX - and what should I
do to port my existing applications that rely on it?
ONC RPC (formerly "Sun RPC") is not supported under ULTRIX. This means
that not only may some library routines like "clnt_create" not exist,
but that if they do, they may not work as expected. If you need to use
RPC for an application can use the unsupported version of the RPC4.0
distribution that is available at
ftp://decuac.dec.com/pub/sources/rpc4.0-ultrix.tar.Z
ONC RPC is a supported component of DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
N9. How can I disable forwarding of IP packets on an ULTRIX system with two
network interfaces?
Put this in rc.local:
echo -n 'disabling kernel routing: ipforwarding ' >/dev/console
/usr/etc/kvar -k -wl -s ipforwarding -v 0 /vmunix >/dev/console
==============================================
N10. How can I run network daemons from inetd as users other than root?
inetd will take a username as the fifth field. This is not documented
on the inetd manual page. For example:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/etc/fingerd fingerd
==============================================
N11. How do I decode "stale filehandle" messages from NFS?
In the message
NFS server: stale file handle _fs(21,154) file 4100
21 and 154 are the major and minor device numbers. 4100 is the inode number.
Running 'ls -l' on /dev will show the device numbers, so you can ask
mount what directory the filesystem is mounted on. Then use
find <file system> -inum <inode no> -print
to find the file.
[Peter Mayne, p...@chmeee.enet.dec.com]
[Greg Shapiro, gshap...@monkeyboy.WPI.EDU]
==============================================
N12. Where can I get IP multicast support for ULTRIX?
Patches to enable IP Multicast are available from
ftp://gregorio.stanford.edu/vmtp-ip/ Patches are available for Ultrix 4.1 &
4.2a. Binaries are available for 4.2a. As far as is known, the
patches also work on 4.3.
The multicast patches break the ULTRIX packetfilter. An unsupported
version of pfilt.o that works with the multicast code is in
ftp://crl.dec.com/pub/DEC/multicast/pfilt.o
This patch should work with 4.2, 4.2A, and 4.3, but it is not supported.
[Lance Berc, b...@src.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@crl.dec.com]
==============================================
N13. Where can I get SLIP for ULTRIX?
SLIP is in the "unsupported" kit for ULTRIX 4.2 and later. It is
included in DEC OSF/1.
==============================================
D1. Why don't ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A work with SCSI disks
larger than 1 Gbyte?
ULTRIX releases prior to V4.2A are unable to handle logical block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1). The left bit positions of block
numbers greater than (2**21 - 1) are effectively ignored, causing
access to wrap around to the beginning of the disk. This means that
SCSI disks larger than 1 Gbyte (formatted) cannot be used (assuming
512 kbyte blocks), even if all partition sizes are less than 1 Gbyte.
The earliest version of ULTRIX that can handle DEC 1.3 Gbyte RZ58 drives
on DEC RISC machine is ULTRIX 4.2A.
[Jeffrey C. Gealow, jgea...@mtl.mit.edu]
==============================================
D2. How can I increase the number of inodes on a filesystem?
"newfs -i XXX" is usually used to increase the number of inodes on a
filesystem, where XXX is the desired number of bytes per filesystem.
However, there is a not-well-known limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder
group, and newfs doesn't tell you that if you try to ask for more.
The solution is to get more cylinder groups, either by using "newfs -c XXX"
to specify the number of cylinders per group or by using 4096-byte
blocks and 512-byte fragments.
Read the newfs manual page before trying this at home or work.
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
D3. OK, I used "newfs -i", and I didn't get more inodes?
The version of the Berkeley Fast File system used by the ULTRIX
Operating System has a limit of 2048 inodes per cylinder group. This
limit is the constant MAXIPG in the include file
/usr/include/ufs/fs.h. To change it you need to be able to recompile
from sources.
When newfs/mkfs runs it attempts to allocate enough inodes so that
there are enough for an average file size of 2 KB. (bytes per inode =
2048). When there are enough cylinder groups this is easy. In fact,
if the cylinder group is small enough, it may not get close to the
MAXIPG limit.
But over the years, disks have gotten bigger. They have more
cylinders, more tracks and the tracks have more sectors. As a result
cylinder groups are larger and it's hard to allocate enough inodes to
meet the 2048 bytes per inode limit, with only MAXIPG available.
Since MAXIPG is fixed the effective average file size goes up.
On a News spool tree, the average file probably is around or less than
2 KB. As a result, these large cylinder disks don't have enough
inodes for the typical file size, and, more importantly, you can't get
more, since you're already at the MAXIPG limit. At least not easily.
But there are some solutions available...
Theme of solutions:
Inodes are allocated on a cylinder group basis.
Want more inodes, use more cylinder groups.
1. Use fewer cylinders per group, thus getting more groups.
See the -c option of newfs(8).
Note: On the 2nd hand advice of Gregory Neil Shapiro
(gshap...@wpi.wpi.edu) there are some disks for which
the -c option won't work because mkfs(8) enforces a set
of cylinder group sizes that won't allow reducing the
number cylinders per below the default of 16. This seems
to be the case for the RZ57 and RZ58.
2. Use a different file system block and fragment size; 4K/512a
instead of the usual 8K/1K. In the case of News this may work
best. Since most files are small, using the smaller size may
help reflect the smaller average file size. It may also waste
less space in partially filled fragments.
3. Lie about the geometry. If the track length or tracks
per cylinder is nice factorable number, reduce one to
increase the effective number of cylinders. By playing
games with the factors of the geometry you manage to keep
the geometry approximately the same.
For some disks this may not matter and you can invent whatever
lie you want. For example; the RZ58 uses zoned based recording
(banding). Depending on where you are on the disk, there will
more or less sectors per track. The single geometry presented
by ULTRIX is a convient lie.
[Allan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
==============================================
D4. What the ^&@(%*&) is a gnode?
"Gnode" means "generic inode". Like most versions of UNIX these days,
ULTRIX has a virtual filesystem. This means the kernel can support
different types of filesystem - like the BSD FFS, the old V7-style
filesystem in System V, RFS, NFS etc. Gnodes are similar to the vnodes
of the Sun filesystem switch.
The message "out of gnodes" usually means "out of inodes" on the
filesystem. To fix this, you can delete files or reinitialize the
filesystem with newfs (after backing everything up!).
The message "gnode: table is full" means that the kernel table for keeping
track of open files is full. If you need to fix this, increase the maxusers
parameter in your kernel configuration file and rebuild your kernel.
[Jim Reid, j...@cs.strath.ac.uk]
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.cxo.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P1. Where can I get an ANSI C compiler for DECstations running ULTRIX?
DEC C++ comes with a full ANSI C compiler, which is also known as DEC
C. The GNU C compiler (gcc) also runs on DECstations with ULTRIX, as
well as under OSF/1 on Alpha platforms. It is available from many ftp
sites.
[Dan McCoy, mc...@pixar.com]
[Mads Westermann, w...@dd.dk]
==============================================
P2. Where can I get a Modula-2 (or Modula-3) compiler for ULTRIX?
A Modula-2 compiler for DECstations and VAXen developed at Digital's Western
Research Lab is available in gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-2.
If you like Modula-2, you might be interested in Modula-3, a successor
language to Modula-2 developed at Digital's Systems Research Center and
the (now defunct) Olivetti Research Center. A description of the language
and a portable compiler that runs on many platforms is available in
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Modula-3
[Richard Sharpe, sha...@adodem.enet.dec.com]
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
P3. Does mmap(2) work on plain files?
On ULTRIX, mmap(2) only works on character special devices.
[Win Treese, tre...@lcs.mit.edu]
==============================================
G1. Why does the X server use so much memory?
Xws and the other other DEC X servers generally grow larger with
workload, not because of memory leaks. When you start an X server,
its process is quite small. As applications are started, the server
allocates memory for a variety of reasons to service requests from
clients. An example of this is allocating a pixmap. When the
resource is freed, the corresponding memory is freed back to the
malloc pool, but the server image doesn't get any smaller. This is
true of any application where you malloc memory and then free it. If
your workload is consistent, server growth is asymptotic, growing
quickly at first, then tapering off. In other words, if you exit the
application that caused the server to allocate a lot of memory, the
server size won't shrink when the application exits, but the server
won't grow any larger if you run the same application the same way
again.
Of course it's possible that a memory leak in the server still exists.
If you think you have a memory leak, you should figure out which
application you run that triggers the leak. You should run that
application several times, observing the server size with every
iteration. If the server grows by an appreciable amount each time,
please file an SPR.
For workstations with minimal memory, we recommend that you use the
following server command line arguments:
-once (restart the server afresh for each session)
-su (inhibit save unders)
-bs (inhibit backing store)
The -su and -bs flags essentially trade CPU for memory, making
applications work harder in some cases to save server memory. This
tradeoff isn't as bad as it may sound.
[Joel Gringorten, gring...@wsl.dec.com]
==============================================
G2. How can I build an X11R5 server for an ULTRIX machine?
The display device drivers changed significantly between ULTRIX 4.1
and ULTRIX 4.2. To build an R5 server on ULTRIX 4.1 system, edit the
the file ultrix.cf in mit/config and #define OSMinorVersion to be 1.
This should cause the Xcfbpmax server to be built instead of the Xdec
server. Xdec only runs on ULTRIX 4.2 and later.
==============================================
G3. How do I change or get rid of the Digital logo on the login screen of
my workstation?
To have no logo displayed at all, add this line to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*displayLogo: no
To replace the Digital logo with a different Encapsulated PostScript
image, add the following to /.Xdefaults:
XSessionManager*logoFile: filename
XSessionManager*logoFullScreen: true
Make sure that "filename" is the full path to a PostScript file.
Note that the PostScript should not end with a "showpage" or the page
will print and then disappear with the "new page."
==============================================
G4. How do I run MIT X11 Software?
If you are running with Ultrix 4.2 or later, you should have received
some sort of distribution media with "Unsupported" subsets on it.
Among those subsets are the following:
UDXUNFONTS420 'Unsupported MIT Fonts'
UDXUNMAN420 'Unsupported X11 Reference Pages'
UDXUNMIT420 'Unsupported X11 Components'
These subsets, in total, provide the fonts, manual pages, and clients
from the X11 Release 4 distribution from MIT, with a few minimal
changes to fix problems that cropped up after the MIT release.
If all you want is R4 clients, load the above subsets. These subsets
were built directly from the X Consortium sources and include all of
the public patches. The R4 clients will be installed in /usr/bin/X11;
put that directory in your path in order to access them. An ls on
/usr/bin/X11 will also reveal the names of the applications that are
available.
If you have a previous version of Ultrix, or if you need X11 Release
5, you will have to build from the X Consortium sources yourself.
There are some difficulties associated with building Release 4 from
source on Ultrix versions 4.0 and higher; fortunately, Release 5
corrects these problems, so be sure to start with a fresh Release 5
distribution.
Building from source should be a simple matter of editing the
mit/config/ultrix.cf file and then connecting to the toplevel
directory and typing ``Make World''. If you are running Ultrix 4.2,
you don't need to edit ultrix.cf, but for other versions of Ultrix, be
sure to cd to mit/config and change the OSMinorVersion (and, for
versions of Ultrix prior to 4.0, the OSMajorVersion) number to the
appropriate number for your version of Ultrix.
As mentioned in another FAQ answer, the Xdec server provides
multiscreen capability for colour frame buffers, but features of
Ultrix required to support this capability are not present prior to
Ultrix 4.2; for those versions, the Xcfbpmax server will be built;
this server only supports one display per machine, and only DECstation
2100 and 3100 and DECstation 5000 models running with the CX adapter.
The Xdec server should work on the following systems:
DECstation 2100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 3100 Monochrome or Color Workstations
DECstation 5000/1xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
DECstation 5000/2xx CX, MX or HX Single or Multiscreen Workstations
The support for the HX option on the above platforms is limited to
direct frame buffer I/O - the graphics processor present on the HX
board will not be used. This means that performance with the R5
server will be substantially worse than performance with the
DEC-supplied server in most cases. Support for the PX and PXG options
is not present in R5 in any form. Support for the MX exists, but some
problems have been reported when attempting to render non-black,
non-white pixels.
Source to X11 Release Five can be copied across the Internet from
ftp.digital.com (16.1.0.2), crl.dec.com (192.58.206.2), or
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12). Other internet archives may also
have full source distributions; asking around on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.windows.x will probably elicit this information.
==============================================
G5. How do I build X software that I got from the net?
If you get source code to an X application from somewhere and want to
build it, here are a few helpful hints:
First, make sure the following subsets are installed:
UDXUNMIT420
UDXUNFONTS420
You may also find the man pages for the previous two subsets
useful. They're in:
UDXUNMAN420
Next, add the following line to the end of /usr/lib/X11/config/site.def
#define StandardIncludes -I/usr/include/mit
If there are any README files with the source code, now is a good time
to read them, and make any changes they suggest.
If you installed the MIT X11 distribution from MIT, rather than the
ULTRIX subsets, your local configuration may be different.
If there is an Imakefile:
If the source code has a file called "Imakefile" at the top of its
directory hierarchy, typing the following in that top-level directory
should build the application:
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
To install the application, type
make install
If there isn't an Imakefile:
You might have to edit the Makefile to make the application compile.
If ".h" files (like those for the Athena widget set, "Xaw") are not
being found, adding "-I/usr/include/mit" to the "cc" command(s) in the
Makefile will usually do the trick.
If you are having problems linking, try using "-lXext-mit" and "-lX11-mit"
instead of "-lXext" and "-lX11" in the Makefile.
==============================================
G6. Why do some applications run slowly on the DECstation PX and PXG
displays?
The PX and PXG graphics adapters are designed for high-speed
two-dimensional vector drawing and for high-speed three-dimensional
rotation and polygon fills, respectively. In order to get maximum
performance in these specialized areas, both kinds of adapters have
their own intelligent on-board processor which do high-speed drawing
operations, and in the case of the PXG, a general purpose RISC
processor which does 3D rendering, scaling and rotation.
In order to optimize graphics performance, a tradeoff was made on both
of these boards which prevents your system CPU from directly accessing
display memory. Allowing your system CPU to directly access display
memory would, at a minimum, cut the graphics accelerator performance
by a factor of two, and perhaps more.
Unfortunately, as a result, operations which involve the copying of
large images (Pixmaps) into or out of display memory are performed
much more slowly than they would be if the processor were able to
directly access system memory.
One example of this is the ever-popular background image. The X
server keeps a Pixmap containing the pattern with which to paint the
root window; whenever an area of the root window is exposed, the X
server must copy that portion of the Pixmap over the relatively
low-performance I/O channel to the PX or PXG adapter, which then
copies it into display memory.
As a result, iconifying and deiconifying windows can become a fairly
slow experience, particularly on systems with lower TurboChannel
bandwidth. In this case, the solution is simple; just use the
standard, boring background. However, if an application that you use
actually needs to copy Pixmaps to the screen on a regular basis, you
will definitely experience slow performance; there's no way to fix
this problem.
Unless you need the vector performance of the PX or the 3D rendering
capabilities of the PXG, use one of the several boards DEC produces
which are optimized for windowing and imaging, such as the CX (dumb
colour frame buffer), MX (dumb monochrome frame buffer), HX (smart
colour frame buffer), or TX (imaging colour frame buffer).
[Author lost.]
==============================================
G7. What can I do to improve security with X? Can I use xdm?
ULTRIX 4.3 and later support the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
protocol and include xdm as well. Alpha OSF/1 uses xdm by default and
also supports the authorization protocol.
[Bob Heiney, hei...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
H1. Can I mix 8-Megabyte and 32-Megabyte boards in the DECstation 5000/xxx
family?
All DS5000 series machines set the memory stride from the first memory
array module (this is true of the Personal DECstation and the
DS5000/1xx series and not just the DS5000/2xx machines). The only
supported configurations are those in which all of the memory array
modules are of the same capacity.
Memory array module types are:
MS01-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS2100,DS3100,PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,
DS5000/125,DS5000/133
MS01-CA 4Mbit DRAM PDS5000/20,PDS5000/25,DS5000/120,DS5000/125,
DS5000/133
MS02-AA 1Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
MS02-CA 4Mbit DRAM DS5000/200,DS5000/240
However, you can place one memory array module of a smaller capacity
at the end of a series of higher capacity modules.
Slot Module
0 MS02-CA
1 MS02-CA
2 MS02-AA
This configuration will work, and be properly recognized by Ultrix,
but it is not "supported." The console will see all of the memory
modules. The operating system will be expecting memory in 32MB
segments and when it hits slot 2 it will simply believe that there are
24MB of failed memory on that module.
It will not be possible to support higher memory congigurations in the
DS5000 series machines with 16Mbit DRAM cards. The issue is that both the
physical memory address and the I/O address are provided by the same Kseg0
block (512MB) in the R3000. This will not change with the advent of the R4000
daughter cards, as it would require modification of the memory controller ASIC
(the MT chip) as well.
==============================================
H2. How can I find out which type of DECstation 5000 I have?
If /etc/sizer -c returns:
DS5000 then it's a 5000/200.
DS5000_100 then it's a 5000/1xx (where xx={20,25,33})
DS5000_300 then it's a 5000/240.
DSPERSONAL_DECSTATION then it's a 5000/xx.
For something more specific on the 5000/1xx and 5000/xx, you need to
look at the messages printed out at last boot time (available in the
error log; use /etc/uerf -R -r 300).
==============================================
H3. How can I run a DECstation 3100 without the display?
To turn a DECstation into a DECsystem you need to:
1. Remove the graphics stuff.
2. Put a mouse loopback connector in the hole for the mouse
plug. (part number currently unknown)
[Alan Rollow, a...@nabeth.enet.dec.com]
==============================================
M1. What is the floating-point number representation on ULTRIX?
The floating point format differs depending on which architecture the
ULTRIX software is running on.
Digital's RISC machines all use IEEE floating point representation
with a little-endian byte ordering. You can easily convert between
little and big endian ordering by reversing bytes within the floating
point number.
The VAX line uses a unique (although, given the popularity of VAXen)
quite well known floating point format.
The ULTRIX C libraries include routines which will translate between
RISC (IEEE) and VAX floating point formats. Look under "ftoi" in
either the online or hardcopy documentation.
==============================================
M2. If the console is a graphics device, can it be used as a terminal for
full-screen applications?
The console emulates a dumb terminal, with no ability to address the screen.
To run anything like a screen editor, you must start the window system.
==============================================
M3. M3. How do I read a tar image from a TK50 tape if my only TK50 is on a VMS
machine?
On VMS (assuming your tape drive on VMS is MUA0:) :
mount/foreign/block=10240/record=10240 mua0:
copy mua0: file.tar
On Ultrix:
dcp -i 'vms::where$logical:file.tar' file.tar
==============================================
M4. Why does ULTRIX restrict the number of users on the system?
The answer to this is two-fold. The first reason is that due to
Digital's contract with AT&T, Digital pays royalties to AT&T for its
ULTRIX product on "bands" of user increments which match up to the
capacity upgrade licenses which we sell. For every ULTRIX upgrade
license sold, Digital sends a portion of that royalty payment to AT&T.
Other vendors have worked other licensing arrangements with AT&T.
The second reason is that Digital depends more on "personal" use of an
operating system, and tries to break up the costs of providing an
operating system depending on the number of users using it. Rather
than charge a larger amount of money for a two-user system, Digital
charges a base amount of money, then distributes the rest of the
development costs across the per-user license base. Digital hopes
that this gives an equitable and affordable system to all customers.
[Jon "maddog" Hall, h...@zk3.dec.com]
==============================================
M5. Where else can I discuss ULTRIX with other users?
The decstation-managers mailing list is a rapid-turnaround vehicle for
Ultrix (and maybe OSF/1 someday) administrators to reach a pool of
people with similar expertise who might be able to help them resolve a
problem they're having. There's no discussion on the list--just
questions and summaries of responses to those questions.
To join the list, send a message containing:
subscribe decstation-managers
to majord...@ornl.gov. To subscribe an address other than your
return address, such as a local exploder, add that address to the
subscribe command, e.g.:
subscribe decstation-managers decstation-manag...@foo.bar
[Dave Sill, d...@ornl.gov]
==============================================
M6. What is the part number for an ULTRIX source code license?
For educational institutions (these are not listed in the SPD):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JRAA-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
2 QB-0JRAA-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
3 QB-0JRAE-E5 Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
4 QB-0JRAE-EM Ultrix/UWS Edu Source Code
This is a little confusing, since the "DESCRIPTION" of all four kits is
the same. As far as I know, you need to order the -0JRAA- kit the
first time, and the -0JRAE- ("update") kit for subsequent releases.
Probably, this is so that you don't have go through a complete set of
paperwork for a new release. You have to have to meet a number of other
requirements; see the Software Product Description (SPD) for more details.
The -E5 kits are on TK50, and the -EM kits are on 9-track magtape.
I don't believe that the source kits are available on any other medium.
All 4 part numbers have the same list price (not especially expensive).
I don't know if they are available outside the US.
If you're not at an educational institution, here are the corresponding
part numbers (these are listed in the SPD, by the way):
MODEL
NUMBER DESCRIPTION
---------- -----------------------------
1 QB-0JQAA-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
2 QB-0JQAA-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
3 QB-0JQAE-E5 ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE TK50
4 QB-0JQAE-EM ULTRIX WS LOC.USE SOURCE 16MT
These are more expensive.
[Jeff Mogul, mo...@pa.dec.com]
==============================================
M7. What is the future of ULTRIX?
The phase over from DECstations running ULTRIX to Alpha AXP running
DEC OSF/1 is common knowledge. Digital will continue to offer new
DECstations (the R4000 DECstations just started shipping in July) and
new versions of ULTRIX (4.3A just came out early this summer) to give
existing customers a multi-year window to evaluate Alpha AXP technology
and DEC OSF/1, and then make transition plans accordingly. Numerous
migration tools and upgrade programs exist.
ULTRIX V4.4 is the last version of ULTRIX with new functionality. V4.4
will be out in Q1/CY94 and will include native X11R5 support, Motif 1.2
support and numerous bug fixes. After that we stablize the product, but
*not* retire it. There will be on going maintenance releases every 6-9
months mainly for bug fixes. We intend to support ULTRIX for at least
the next three to five years, if not to the end of this century.
[Russ Jones, rjo...@pa.dec.com]
[End of FAQ]
--
Steve Lionel Mail: lio...@quark.enet.dec.com
DEC Fortran Development WWW: http://www.digital.com/info/slionel.html
Digital Equipment Corporation CompuServe: 75263,3001
110 Spit Brook Road, ZKO2-3/N30
Nashua, NH 03062-2698 "Free advice is worth every cent"
For information on DEC Fortran 90, see http://www.digital.com/info/hpc/f90/