bind 4.8.x and AIX 1.2 ?

[Steve Jankowski [cut]]

In article <A0020.90Jul31105537 at aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de> a0020 at rrz.uni-koeln.de (Axel Clauberg) writes:
>AIX/370 1.2's nameserver seems to be based on a very old BSD version (4.7 ?). 
>As this version has a lot of bugs I'd like to install a more recent one. 
>I tried to install bind 4.8.1 from Berkeley and 4.8.2. The resolver library
>is working, tools like nslookup run fine using a remote server.
>Running named gives you format errors when a name not being in the cache
>or authoritative data is to be resolved.
>Before I start to debug:
>does anyone have a properly running bind (named) rel. >= 4.8.1 on AIX/370
>or PS/2 release 1.2 ?

We have the same problem here and I've started a port of named from
4.8.1 to AIX 1.2 on a PS/2.  The problem with AIX (especially the
PS/2) is their (ahem) crappy C compiler.  named uses bit fields to pick
apart request packets.  This is a less than portable solution, but
it's ok since most C compilers honor the spirit of bit fields and
pack the bits into the smallest space possible.  But, the AIX
compiler just makes every bit field 32-bits and leaves it at that.

If you look in arpa/nameser.h you'll notice that they've put in
two unsigned chars and a bunch of macros to replace the bit fields.
(this is in the structure that represents a request packet)
This means lots of manual labor to change each reference to the
structure.  I started the work, but stopped when I heard that
we would be getting AIX 1.2 which reportedly has named from
4.8.1.  But I just string'ed the binary and I'm not impressed;
the dates in the file are all from 1986.

If I actually go through with the port and get it working, I'll
let people know.


Steve Jankowski		booga at polyslo.calpoly.edu
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Computer Science
Systems Administrator       (uunet!pyramid!polyslo!booga)

-- 
Steve Jankowski --------------------------------------------------------------
booga at polyslo.CalPoly.EDU        |V|   |)         "I'm not a Sys Admin, 
                                 | |r  |)ooga      but I play one on TV."
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