Sun-Spots Digest, v6n105
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at RICE.EDU
Thu Jun 9 15:38:11 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Wednesday, 8 June 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 105
Today's Topics:
Re: Is NFS "secure" in SunOS 4.0?
Re: Xylogics 753
Re: 4.0 unbundled software
3.5 Upgrade bug
TIOCCONS
Summary of investigation into Backup Applications
CDC Sabre series drives
Installing C++ on a Sun 4/260
Questions about 8mm backups for entire networks
New TCP/IP release and Sun 3?
tape drive sharing via switch?
Direct Sun <--> PSN connection?
Sun 3/50 eyestrain?
Binders for the manuals?
Send contributions to: sun-spots at rice.edu
Send subscription add/delete requests to: sun-spots-request at rice.edu
Bitnet readers can subscribe directly with the CMS command:
TELL LISTSERV AT RICE SUBSCRIBE SUNSPOTS My Full Name
Recent backissues are available via anonymous FTP from "titan.rice.edu".
For volume X, issue Y, "get sun-spots/vXnY". They are also accessible
through the archive server: mail the request "send sun-spots vXnY" to
"archive-server at rice.edu" or mail the word "help" to the same address
for more information.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 15:55:34 PDT
From: sxn at sun.com (Stephen X. Nahm)
Subject: Re: Is NFS "secure" in SunOS 4.0?
Reference: v6n94
> As far as I understand, secure RPC uses encryption so it will no longer be
> possible to breach security by using etherfind(1) or a network tap
> analyzer to watch data packets fly by on the ethernet.
Not ture. The only thing that's encrypted is a timestamp that's used to
verify the identity of the client or server. The data is still in the
clear.
> ... anybody with a workstation can assume any uid on that workstation and
> if you export any file systems to that workstation, that user can
> read/write any files (except those owned by uid 0).
Wrong. This was true for "AUTH_UNIX" NFS authentication, the type used in
pre-4.0 releases of SunOS (and is the default for 4.0 SunOS). With
"AUTH_DES", the user (client) must enter a password that is used to
construct the verifier passed to the server. See Brad Taylor's paper in
the Summer 1977 Usenix Proceedings.
>Also, is the *server* allowed to specify "read-only" when it exports a
>file system in SunOS 4.0 ?
Yes.
Steve Nahm
Portable ONC/NFS
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 09:28:37 PDT
From: texsun!sun!bpowell at sun.com (Brad Powell/Corporate Sales Tech Support)
Subject: Re: Xylogics 753
Reference: v6n99
Steve Grandi asks,
>Various vendors assure us that SunOS version 4.0 contains a driver for the
>Xylogic 7053 (Sun's new VME disk controller).
It does.
>Does 4.0 for Sun-4s include a driver for the Xylogics 7053/753? Does any
>one have experience with Xylogics 753s on any Sun?
Yes the Xylogics 7053 driver is part of the standard release. We use the
controllers in house now. Since I work for Sun I guess I shouldn't be
refered to as a "reference site" (sounds too much like a sales pitch).
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 09:28:37 PDT
From: bpowell at sun.com (Brad Powell/Corporate Sales Tech Support)
Subject: Re: 4.0 unbundled software
Reference: v6n99
Steve Simmons writes,
>>1) Unbundled s/w means you'd better get the stuff ordered now(i.e. NeWS, lisp
>> f77vms, etc)
>This is a *big* issue for us. We *need* f77 and pascal for our products.
If you are under a 'Software Maintenence Contract' you will receive the
unbundled Languages (FORTRAN&Pascal) free of charge. This is a One Time
Only free upgrade. A small incentive to help in the transition. Note that
these are NEW versions of FORTRAN and Pascal, many new features and
extensions.
>Down point: my 8mm tape drive doesn't read tapes written under 3.X/4.0
>beta. I've not tried writing new ones yet. This is especially
>distressing since it worked under the beta.
Sorry for this, actually the SCSI drivers changed in 3.5 and then again in
4.0FCS. the 4.0Beta was using the 3.4 driver code. Beta code after all IS
beta code, not a finished product. You should have no problems with
writing and reading new tapes.
>The install procedures are much better....
glad to hear customers like this. A lot of effort went into suninstall.
Any time you (we) change something there is a learning curve involved.
Once this curve is achieved I think everyone will see the benefits of
suninstall.
>The re-organisation of the file system is actually much less pain than I
>expected....
Amen to the loong overdue statement. Look for more improvements to the
5bin, 5libs and /usr/ucb story in further releases.
Good Luck and looking forward to a better software enviornment.
Brad Powell
Sun Microsystems
Technical Support
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 17:08:40 MDT
From: dbd%benden at lanl.gov (Dan Davison)
Subject: 3.5 Upgrade bug
We have two servers, one with four Fujitsu 2333's and one with a 2344 (as
xy0) and a 2333 (as xy1). This weekend we did the upgrade from 3.4.2 to
3.5 and discovered that the upgrade script would not run on the machine
with the 2344 xy0 disk. The other server, with a 2333 xy0 disk, upgraded
with no problem.
The error message was
./UPGRADE: opt_software: not found
and it came from the upgrade script:
# Determine and Select optional software lists
#
rm -f /tmp/EXTRACTLIST10 /tmp/EXTRACTLIST20
if [ "$SERVERTYPE" = "homo" -o "$MACHINE" = "standalone" ]; then
opt_software ${ARCHTYPE}
elif [ "$SERVERTYPE" = "heter" ]; then
opt_software ${ARCHTYPE} ${OTHERARCH}
fi
We worked around this by UPGRADing on the "legal" machine, and using rdist
to copy the newly upgraded files to the "illegal" machine.
I assume the problem is somehow related to the fact that the 3/280 does
not have the disk geometry for the 2344 wired in, as it does the 2333.
Or, the xy controller in Miniunix doesn't know how to talk to the 2344.
Whichever, beware that "unsupported" configurations (even something as
trivial as a 2333 vs 2344) can get you in trouble!
I didn't try to start from scratch, i.e. "install", so I don't know if the
same applies. We "installed" 3.2 with no difficulty on the 2333.
dan davison theoretical biology los alamos national lab (dd at lanl.gov)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 23:36:23 PDT
From: gandalf at csli.stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner)
Subject: TIOCCONS
In fact, the following program will redirect console output without
requiring you to be superuser (which worries me a bit). Redirection can be
done to any pty or /dev/console. I didn't know it doesn't work with real
tty ports, but in these cases just run a filter which runs this program as
a slave under a pty.
Juergen "Gandalf" Wagner, gandalf at csli.stanford.edu
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford CA
# include <sys/file.h>
# include <stdio.h>
# include <sys/ioctl.h>
main(argc,argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
int fd = 1;
if (argc == 2) {
fd = open(argv[1], O_RDWR, 0);
if (fd < 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "can't open tty device %s", argv[1]);
exit(1);
}
}
ioctl(fd, TIOCCONS, 0);
}
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 11:12:28 EDT
From: czei at accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger)
Subject: Summary of investigation into Backup Applications
I recently posted an inquiry on sun spots asking for any information about
commercial backup systems. I found one product that claims to provide a
comprehensive backup system for suns, but the company was unable to backup
any of their claims. The company is Spectre, and the product is called
REELbackup.
Although the salesman claimed the product worked fine on suns, he admitted
that they had not actually sold the program to any sun users. According
to the pitch, Spectre has just recently ported the program to suns, so
there was no references or performance data he could provide. When I
talked to a member of the technical staff, it became clear that the
product worked on suns- to a point. The big problem is that it is unable
to backup remote disks that aren't mounted. If you only have one server,
that would be fine, but we have three, and only one has a tape drive.
There is no way to backup one server remotely to the tape drive over the
network, making this system unusable in our situation.
The program looked fairly interesting otherwise, so I asked to talk to ANY
satisfied customer that had purchased their product for any UNIX system.
The salesman provided a name and phone number of someone at the University
of Wisconsin; the phone number turned out to be disconnected. The sales
office then provided me with a second number, but when I called the
individual he claimed he had never heard of the company or their product.
The salesman never called me back.
If you'd like to contact these people yourself, the address is:
Sceptre
P.O. Box 8031
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48107
(313) 665-8778
Michael S. Czeiszperger
Systems Analyst | Snail: 2015 Neil Avenue (614)
The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH 43210 292-
UUCP:att!accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu!czei PAN:CZEI 0161
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 11:16:07 cdt
From: grunwald at m.cs.uiuc.edu (Dirk Grunwald)
Subject: CDC Sabre series drives
Office: 72 DCL (217) 333-1925
Does anyone have experience with the CDC 9720 series of disk drives?
These are very competatively prices with the Fuji & NEC drives. We're
getting 4 of the 9720-850 (850 Mb unformatted) drives to replace our
double eagles. They were $5183/each in that quantity, plus extra for
mounting hardware (these are 1/2 width drives -- two fit in the space of a
single Eagle) from Arrow Electronics.
We've been told by various vendors that there is no problem with using
these on a Sun (except you need to enter the data by hand).
These drives have a 3yr HDA warrenty, 1 year other. It's made in the USA,
and service can be local if there are qualified service people. I didn't
get the complete spectrum of prices from Arrow, but I did from Camex Corp.
Theirs were:
Model Mb (unformatted) Avg Seek(milli) Transfer(MB/s) $$
----------- --------------- -------- --------- ----
9720-368 368 18 1.8 3912
9720-500 491 18 2.4 4573
9720-736 736 16 1.8 5368
9720-850 850 ?? ?? 5566
9270-12000 1.2Gb ?? ?? 8614
These come with either an SMD, EMD or SCSI interface.
Horror stories anyone?
Dirk Grunwald
Univ. of Illinois
grunwald at m.cs.uiuc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 15:39:39 MDT
From: brownj at boulder.colorado.edu (James Brown)
Subject: Installing C++ on a Sun 4/260
We are having problems trying to install AT&T C++ Version 2.00, Release 2,
on a Sun 4/260 running Sys4-OS version 3.2. Has anyone done this before,
we would greatly appreciate any help you could offer.
Please reply by mail, I'll post a summary of what happened when we're
successful.
Thanks,
James D. Brown brownj at anchor.colorado.edu
Univ. of Colorado at Boulder Dept. of Computer Science
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 17:44
From: G.D.Pratt (on Keele GEC machine) <CC14%GEC.KL.AC.UK at cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: Questions about 8mm backups for entire networks
With the 8mm video-tape drives used for backup, e.g. Exabyte, can I ask a
few questions. If this is used as the major backup medium on a network of
Sun 3s can it also be used to backup a mainframe, Sequent Symmetry, also
on the Ethernet networkAnd does it have to be connected to a) the Sun
file-server, b) the Sequent or c) both.
Doug Kingston mentioned support for the Exabyte drive in the 'Sun supplied
driver' - is this the SCSI driverIf this is the case is anything other
than the Exabyte Hardware necessary to do backups from any UNIX machine on
the network via rsh.
Thanks
Gerry Pratt, Computer Centre, University of Keele, NEWCASTLE,
Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, ENGLAND ( 0782 621111 x 3290 )
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 88 17:19:15 -0500
From: Gurudatta Parulkar <guru at flora.wustl.edu>
Subject: New TCP/IP release and Sun 3?
Has anybody tried to install the new TCP/IP from UCB (Van Jacobson's
modified one) on a Sun 3/50 (binary only) ? I'll like to hear about it and
maybe take some help.
Thanks in advance.
-guru
Dr. Guru Parulkar
Asst Professor guru at flora.wustl.edu
Dept of Computer Science parulkar at udel.edu
Washington University wucs1!guru at uunet.uu.net
St. Louis MO 63130
(314) 889-4621
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 18:05:36 mdt
From: era at scdpyr.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold)
Subject: tape drive sharing via switch?
We have a 3/280 and a 4/280 we'd like to share a Fuji m244x 1/2" tape
drive between, without the nuisance of manually switching the drive cables
between the tape controllers, or the nuisance of using the tape drive via
ethernet and w-a-i-t-i-n-g ... Has anyone out there found a source for a
switch that connects tape drive cables to one of two or more controllers?
Ed Arnold * NCAR (Nat'l Center for Atmospheric Research) * Mesa Lab
PO Box 3000 * Boulder, CO 80307-3000 * 303-497-1253
era at ncar.ucar.edu (128.117.64.4) * {ames,gatech,noao,...}!ncar!era
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1988 13:27:34 PDT
From: "Michael A. Cooper" <mcooper at oberon.usc.edu>
Subject: Direct Sun <--> PSN connection?
We are trying to connect a Sun-3/280 directly to a PSN. Nobody seems to
have done this. Our Sun sales person knows only about the SunLink X.25
package.
We are not even looking for a "drop in" package. Just a VMEbus 1822
interface would be great. Rumor has it that ACC has such a beast, but
none of the sales people we talked to know anything about it.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Michael A. Cooper, University Computing Services, U of Southern California
UUCP: {sdcrdcf, cit-vax}!oberon!mcooper BITNET: mcooper at kylara
ARPA: mcooper at oberon.USC.EDU PHONE: (213) 743-2957
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 20:42:21 PDT
From: Rich Wales <wales at cs.ucla.edu>
Subject: Sun 3/50 eyestrain?
I just got a Sun 3/50 (monochrome display) for my office. While I love
the thing in general, I've been experiencing marked eyestrain problems.
I'd be interested in knowing whether other Sun workstation users have had
similar problems, and what (if anything) you've been able to do to resolve
it.
I have my windows set up to use black characters on a white background.
(I've tried it the other way around, but I find white-on-black hard to
read, and the reflections off the screen are intolerable.) I've turned
the brightness down to a "medium" level -- about as dim as I could make it
without the screen reflections becoming objectionable.
My office has fluorescent lighting (and there is no hope of my getting
said lights changed to incandescent). Since my office has no windows,
it's not feasible for me to work with the lights off.
I am 36, with excellent vision (20/15 in each eye, uncorrected).
-- Rich Wales // UCLA CS Dept // wales at CS.UCLA.EDU // +1 (213) 825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales ...!uunet!cs.ucla.edu!wales
[[ There is a distinct possibility that your eyestrain is caused by a poor
interactoin between the screen's refresh and the fluorescent light's
flicker. This seems to effect some people more than others. Not much you
can do about it except to push for better lighting in your office. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 11:34 EST
From: "Yates, John H." <YATES at a.chem.upenn.edu>
Subject: Binders for the manuals?
Does anybody know how to map the new sun documentation set to orange DEC
manual binders, i.e. how many of what ring sizes to order to have a
comfortably accessible set? The set I got last year still lives in the
cardboard box it was delivered in.
John H. Yates , Ph.D.
Director of the Chemistry Computer Facility
Department of Chemistry
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
yates%a.chem.upenn.edu at relay.upenn.edu (INTERNET)
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
***********************
More information about the Comp.sys.sun
mailing list