Xref: helios.physics.utoronto.ca comp.unix.solaris:4618 comp.sys.sun.admin:16659 comp.answers:1028 news.answers:9529 Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.answers,news.answers Path: helios.physics.utoronto.ca!utzoo!sq!ian From: ian@sq.sq.com (Ian Darwin) Subject: Solaris 2.1 Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ) $Revision: 1.20 $ Message-ID: <1993Jun16.214346.4978@sq.sq.com> Followup-To: poster Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) about Sun Microsystem's Solaris 2.x system. Reply-To: ian@sq.com Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 21:43:46 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Lines: 1023 Archive-name: Solaris2-FAQ Version: $Id: solaris2.faq,v 1.20 93/06/16 17:43:10 ian Exp $ ----- Maintained-by: Ian F. Darwin [Note: this is the first posting to comp.sys.sun.admin, comp.answers, and news.answers - the former to benefit more system admins, and the latter for archiving. It isn't much different from the latest version posted to comp.unix.solaris; apologies to those who see it twice in a week on that newsgroup. -- ian] The following is a list of questions that are frequently asked about Solaris 2.x. You can help make it an even better-quality FAQ by writing a few lines on one topic that burned you while moving to Solaris 2.1 and sending it BY EMAIL ONLY to me, ian@sq.com. Thanks! CONTENTS GENERAL 1) A real list of questions will be here someday) FOR MORE INFO 1) ditto SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION 1) ditto NETWORKING 1) ditto SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 1) ditto PART ONE - GENERAL What's a Solaris anyway? Solaris(tm) is Sun's name for their UNIX-based user environment, including the UNIX(tm) operating system, window system (X11-based), and other stuff too. Solaris 1.x is a retroactive (marketing?) name for SunOS4.1.x (x>=1), a version of UNIX that is BSD-like with some SVR4 features. Solaris 2.x (which is what most everybody means by "Solaris") includes SunOS5.x, which is an SVR4-derived UNIX. For more details, see the chart in the next-to-next question. What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based? Solaris 2.1 is an "operating environment" that includes the SunOS 5.1 operating system and the OpenWindows 3.1 window environment. SunOS 5.0 and 5.1 are based on USL's SVR4.0. SVR4.0, in turn, was developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0, which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc., are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView are in SVR4.0. What machines does Solaris 2.x run on? Solaris 2.0 only ran on desktop SPARCstations and a few other Sun machines. Solaris 2.1 and later comes in two flavors, SPARC and "x86". Solaris 2.1 (and 2.2, ...) for SPARC run on all SPARCstations and clones, as well as all models of the Sun-4 family. The old FPU on the 4/110 (and 260??) is not supported, so floating point will be SLOW, but it does work. Solaris 2.1 for x86 has recently been released to end users. It runs on a wide range of high-end PC-architecture machines. "High-end" means: 16MB of RAM and an 80486 (or 33MHz or faster 80386DX). It will not run on your 4 MB 16MHz 386SX, so don't bother trying! Also, floating point hardware (80387-style) is absolutely required. All three buses are supported: ISA, EISA, MCA. To summarize all this, Jim Prescott gave this chart, which I've updated: Solaris SunOS OpenWin Other Comments 1.0 4.1.1B 2.0 (sun3 EOL) 1.0.1 4.1.2 2.0 (6[379]0-1[24]0 MP) 1.1 4.1.3 3.0 SP Viking support 2.0 5.0 3.0.1 ONC+ sun4c only 2.1SPARC 5.1 3.1 ONC+ Late '92? 2.1x86 5.1 3.1 ONC+ May '93 2.2SPARC 5.2 3.2 ONC+ May '93 2.? 5.? 4.0 Fall 1993?? According to remarks at the March '93 Solaris Developer's Conference, OpenWin 4 will be X11R5 based: Display PostScript instead of NeWS, no SunView. It will still be primarily OPEN LOOK. The Spring 1994 OpenWin will be Motif and COSE-based. Will my XXX applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2? There is quite a bit of support in SunOS 5.x for running 4.1.x binaries in an emulation mode called "Binary Compatibility" (BCP). This works by dynamically linking the 4.1.x binaries with a shared library that emulates the 4.1.x binary interface on top of 5.x, so there is some overhead. Programs will only work if they were dynamically linked, and if they meet certain other criteria. Best bet: try it and see. Be aware, though, that Sun WILL drop the binary compatibility package someday soon. Try to wean yourself and your users from depending on it, even if it means beating on your software vendors to offer "native" Solaris2 applications. Will my XXX applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/Intel? As with SPARC, there is an emulation mode that should run the majority of well-behaved SVR3 and Xenix binaries. I've not had time to test it. Applications from any other vendor's standards-conforming 386/486 SVR4 should also run. Where is the XXX command gone now? There are too many of these changes to include in this FAQ, but here are some key ones: a. locations are often different hostid /usr/ucb/hostid whoami /usr/ucb/whoami hostname /usr/ucb/hostname b. some old commands don't exist or have replacements 4.1.X Solaris 2.X hostname uname -n pstat -s swap -s (how much swap space?) dkinfo /usr/sbin/prtvtoc raw_dev_name trace truss mount -a mountall exportfs share bar cpio -H bar (read only) The file "whatlist" is included in the "Admigration" package (see below), was posted to Newsgroups comp.unix.solaris and comp.sys.sun.admin by ft@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (frederick.d.true) with the subject line Subject: INFO: Command summary, SunOS 4.x --> 5.x You can also FTP this file from ftp.cs.toronto.edu in /pub/darwin/solaris2/whatlist. Should I upgrade? That depends - on you, your situation, your application mix, etc. Eventually SunOS4.1.x will go the way of the 3/50 - it'll still be around, but Sun will no longer support it. Is Solaris 2.2 reliable/stable enough to use? The concensus seems to be that yes, it is, for many applications and most users. Your mileage may vary. And the performance in 2.2 is very close to that of SunOS 4.1.x. PART TWO - FOR MORE INFO How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore? "RTFM" is an old saying: Read The Manual. Sun still sells printed manuals, but don't automatically distribute them. A smaller, lighter, bookshelf-friendly :-) CD-ROM called "The AnswerBook"(tm) contains all the printed documents in machine-readable (PostScript) form, and a keyword search engine. 90% of your introductory questions are answered therein! Note there are (at least) two answerbooks. The Solaris 2.2 CD itself includes the "OpenWindows Answerbook", which has a few OpenWindows book. There is also the "Solaris 2.2 System Software AnswerBook" (SUNWabook) which has almost *ALL* of the documents (including another copy of /usr/man, but indexed for searching). As distributed, the Answerbook search engine runs only with the OpenWindows server, not with MIT X11. This will change; for now, if you are using the MIT server instead of what Sun provides, you'll have to use one of several "answerbook workaround" scripts that are in circulation. You should buy (or print from within Answerbook) at least the reference manual and the System and Network Administration books, because if your system becomes disabled you won't be able to run the Answerbook to find out how to fix it... What Software is available for Solaris 2.x? Most commercial software that ran on 4.x either will run in BCP mode, or is available for Solaris 2.x, or is being ported now. You can obtain a list of official 3rd party porting commitments, maintained by Sun's "Solaris Demand Center" (whatever that is), by sending electronic mail to "solaris2apps@sun.com" -- this is an automatic reply server. The list shows what third party applications are currently available for Solaris, and lists expected dates for many more. A list of freeware (some "public domain", but mostly copyright- but-freely-distributable) [as well as commercial software??] that has been ported to Solaris 2.x is posted monthly to the newsgroup comp.unix.solaris by ric@updike.sri.com (Richard Steinberger). Look for this: Subject: Solaris SW list. Monthly Post. If you can't wait, the list is also available via anonymous FTP from updike.sri.com. What FTP sites do I need to know about? SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) - Sun sponsors an FTP site at the University of North Carolina. Lots of good stuff here. OpCom. (opcom.sun.ca) - run by Sun Microsystems' OpCom group - lots of stuff. Here is an extract from their README: pub/binaries - binaries/man pages for Solaris 2.0 native binaries. pub/Cygnus - the Cygnus port of gcc (has been removed!) pub/newsletter - issues of the monthly OpCom newsletter. pub/docs - assorted documentation, papers, and other information. - all of the RFCs pub/drivers - information related to device driver writing under under Solaris 2.0 as well as a skeleton SCSI driver. ls-lR.Z - compressed recursive listing of files available on the server. pub/tars - compressed tars. pub/tmp - place for uploading things to the server. pub/R5 - the unadultered MIT x11r5 distribution. pub/x11r5 - port of X11r5 to Solaris 2.0, binaries, libraries and headers. A compressed tar of this tree can be found in tars. export.lcs.mit.edu - the master X11 site ftp.uu.net - UuNet communication archives What other FAQ's do I need to know about? All of them :-). But in particular you should see these FAQ's: 1) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.solaris, comp.answers,news.answers Subject: FAQ: Sun Computer Administration Frequently Asked Questions 2) comp.windows.open-look - Anything related to OpenWindows or the OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface. 3) The Sun-Managers mailing list (see below) has its own FAQ, maintained by John DiMarco . FTP from ra.mcs.anl.gov in the sun-managers directory. *) See also the "Solaris SW list. Monthly Post" above and the "whatlist" file. What mailing lists should I get? First, read all the USENET newsgroups with "sun" in their name :-) 1) The Florida SunFlash is a "closed" mailing list for Sun owners. It contains mostly press releases from Sun and third-party vendors. This list contains information on conferences such as the Solaris Developer's Conference as well. It is normally distributed regionally - to find out about a mail point in your area, or for other information send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au 2) The Sun Managers list is an unmoderated mailing list for *emergency-only* requests. Subscribe and listen for a while, and read the regularly-posted Policy statement BEFORE sending mail to it, and to get a feel for what kinds of traffic it carries. Write to sun-managers-request@eecs.nwu.edu. What books should I read? O'Reilly & Associates specializes in UNIX books. Their "UNIX In A Nutshell" has been updated for SVR4 and Solaris 2.0. Get their catalog by calling 800-998-9938 (1-707-829-0515) 7AM to 5PM PST. SunSoft Press carries books specific to Solaris 2. Look for the inset with your End User Media Kit that lists the most relevant ones. Prentice-Hall has reprints of much of the AT&T documentation. I'm not sure how much of this you need - a lot of the same material is in the Answerbook (see above). PART THREE - SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2? A full install of 2.2 is supposed to be 164 MB, but that doesn't include swap. Here is a net exchange between Casper Dik and Gil Tene: In article <1993Apr2.083549.19177@fwi.uva.nl>, Casper writes: |> >How much disc space does SOLARIS take up ? That is should we buy a |> >424Mb disc or get a 1Gb disc to put it on :-) |> |> Solaris 2.x takes about as much diskspace as SunOS 4.x: |> |> Partition/Slice Solaris SunOS |> / 10MB 8MB |> /usr 78MB 90MB |> /var 10MB 10MB |> /usr/openwin 83MB 83MB |> Gil replies: On my system, with a full Solaris installation (EVERYTHING selected) + gnu's binary stuff for solaris (off of the Catalyst CD) installed in /opt I see a similar situation to the above plus : 16852 /opt/SUNWabe 19 /opt/SUNWcg12 7968 /opt/SUNWdiag 721 /opt/SUNWgt 7740 /opt/SUNWits 14609 /opt/cygnus-sol2-1.0 (output from "du -k -s /du/*") - SUNwabe is the basic answerbook stuff, which you don't need if you use the full answerbook. - SUNWcg12 is (obviously) cg12 support. - SUNWdiag is obvious too. - SUNWgt is support for gt boards. - SUNWits is the xgl3.0 library (it has libPEX5.so.1 in there too). - cygnus-sol2-1.0 is the gcc2.0+tools stuff. I have gcc2.3.3 on another partition and that takes about the same space as 2.0 does. Another important note : The full Solaris 2.1 answerbook takes up 164MB on disk. I highly recommend installing it and not using it off the CDROM drive. It's much more usable (faster) this way. And it always stays around -- even when you have something else in the CDROm drive. How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2? 1) Do it by hand. You did document every single change and check it into RCS, didn't you? 2) Automate it, using the AMToolkit (Administration Migration Toolkit) from the OpCom FTP server (q.v.)! What are "packages"? A SVR4 mechanism for "standardizing" the installation of optional software. Most vendors are expected to use this format for distributing add-on software for Solaris 2.x. Packages can be installed/deinstalled with pkgadd/pkgrm which are standard SVR4 items, or with swm (CRT) or swmtool (GUI-based) which are provided only in Solaris 2. Note that the "pkg" system keeps lots of files in /var/sadm/install, and in particular the file "contents", which is hundreds of KB, and that there are two copies of it while pkgadd is running, so you needs lots of free space where /var is, typically the root. This file must be kept around if you want, for example, to use pkgrm to remove a package, or pkgchk to verify months later that all of a a package's files are still intact. Why can't I write in /home? This is a common one! SunOS is delivered with the "automounter" enabled. The automounter is designed for NFS sites, to simplify maintenance of the list of filesystems that need mounting. However it is a burden for standalone sites. The automounter takes over /home and in effect becomes the NFS server for it, so it no longer behaves like a normal directory. This is normally a Good Thing as it simplifies administration if everybody's home directory is under /home. To kill it off for standalone or small networks, you can comment out the three lines in /etc/init.d/nfs.client that start "if" (from the if to the fi!!), and reboot. To learn about it, read the O'Reilly book Managing NFS and NIS, or ftp the white paper 'The Art of Automounting". from sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/sun-info/white-papers. What is this junk mail about an error in the crontab entry? Solaris 2.1 (FCS on SPARC and OEM on Intel) shipped with a blank line at the end of root's crontab file. The result is that root gets mail at boot time and nightly thereafter, complaining about an error in the crontab file and that it has "ignored the entry". Pretty hard work ignoring that blank line, eh? If the messages bug you (they should), su to root and use "crontab -e" to edit root's crontab and delete the blank line at the end of the file. Fixed in FCS on Intel and 2.2 on SPARC. Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd? System V Release 4 includes a feature called "shadow passwords". The encrypted passwords are moved out into a shadow password file (called /etc/shadow in this release) that is NOT publicly readable. The passwd file has always been readable so that, for example, ls -l could figure out who owns what. But having the passwd encryptions readable is a security risk (they can't be decrypted but the bad guy can encrypt common words and names &c and compare them with the encryptions). The Shadow Password feature is mostly transparent, but if you do any passwd hacking you have to know about it! And DO make sure that /etc/shadow is not publicly readable! Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root? >... when I try to rlogin as root ... >it gives me the message "Not on system console >Connection closed.". What have I left out? Solaris 2 comes out of the box a heck of a lot more secure than Solaris 1. There is no '+' in the hosts.equiv. root logins are not allowed anywhere except the console. All accounts require passwords. In order to allow root logins over the net, you need to edit the /etc/default/login file and comment out or otherwise change the CONSOLE= line. This file's CONSOLE entry can actually be used in a variety of ways: 1) CONSOLE=/dev/console (default) - direct root logins only on console 2) CONSOLE= - direct root logins disallowed everywhere 3) #CONSOLE (or delete the line) - root logins allowed everywhere How can I set up anonymous FTP? If you need help, ftp the file "solaris2-ftp" from ftp.cs.toronto.edu:/pub/darwin/solaris2. How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system? Hmmm, the lp system is totally different than what you're used to. The System V Line Printer System is a lot more, well, flexible. A cynic might say "complicated". Here's a very quick guide -- see the man pages for each of these commands for the details. Let's say your Solaris2 workstation is called "sol" and the 4.1.x server is called "bertha" and you want the printer name to be "printer" (imaginative, eh?). sol# lpsystem -t bsd bertha # says bertha is a bsd system sol# lpadmin -p printer -s bertha # creates "printer" on "sol" # to be printed on "bertha" sol# accept printer # allow queueing sol# enable printer # allow printing sol# lpstat -t # check the status Finally, if that's your only printer, make it the default: sol# lpadmin -d printer On some systems you may have to turn on the port monitor. I did that. Why does it now complain about invalid content types? I said it was complicated! For better or for worse, you need to know about printer content types. See the man page for "lpadmin". To get transparent mode, try this: lpadmin -I any -p printer Isn't there any easier way? The GUI-based Admintool has a Printer Manager that is supposed to be able to do all this and more. Try it; Sun hopes you'll like it. Now my jobs print but they stay in the queue after!? It's a known bug, and will probably get fixed in 2.3, since 2.2 is too close to being frozen. [Now you want to set up Solaris 2 as a print server? You're on your own.] What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices? Device drivers are linked in dynamically. When you add new devices, just shutdown the system and do boot -r # use drive spec if not default disk to *r*ebuild the /devices and /dev directories. If you're just adding a SCSI disk, you don't need to reboot. Run the following script (as root): #!/bin/sh # # add-disk # # Runs the commands to make Solaris locate a new disk that # has been plugged in after the system was booted. # _DVFS_RECONFIG=YES; export _DVFS_RECONFIG /etc/init.d/drvconfig /etc/init.d/devlinks exit 0 Note that this only works if you already have at least one SCSI disk on the system. (This is because the above just makes symbolic links and things, it does not load up the SCSI driver kernel modules, etc.) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local? They're now fragmented into 12 million tiny little pieces. Look in the following files to get oriented: /etc/inittab - starting point for init /sbin/rcS, /etc/rcS.d/* - booting stuff /sbin/rc2, /etc/rc2.d/*, /sbin/rc3, /etc/rc3.d/* - stuff for multi-user startup. Note that all files in /etc/rc*.d/* are hardlinked from /etc/init.d (with better names), so you should grep in there. There are many "run levels" to the System V init; the run level 3 is normally used for "multi user with networking." I can't understand that stuff; can't I have /etc/rc.local back? I just want to keep all my local changes in one place. No. You can never have rc.local back the way it was. But then, it never really *was* purely a "local" rc file. To have a real "local" rc file with just your changes in it, copy this file into /etc/init.d/rc.local, and ln it to /etc/rc3.d/S99rc.local. Put your startup stuff in the "start" section. ----- Cut here ----- # /etc/init.d/rc.local - to be linked into /etc/rc3.d as # S99rc.local -- a place to hang local startup stuff. # started after everything else when going multi-user. # Ian Darwin, Toronto, November, 1992 # As with all system changes, use at own risk! case "$1" in 'start') echo "Starting local services...\c" if [ -f /usr/sbin/mydaemon ]; then /usr/sbin/mydaemon 1>/dev/console 2>&1 fi echo "" ;; 'stop') echo "$0: Not stopping any service - use ucb shutdown for that." ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }" ;; esac ------ End of Cut Here ----- Speaking of that, why are there two versions of shutdown? SVR4 (hence SunOS 5.x) tries to make everybody happy. The traditional (slow) System V "shutdown" runs all the rc?.d/* shell scripts with "stop" as the argument; many of them run ps(!) to look for processes to kill. The UCB "shutdown" tells init to kill all non-single-user processes, which is about two orders of magnitude faster. Unfortunately, the UCB version does everything it should *except* actually halt or reboot in SunOS5.1 (and some other SVR4 implementations). When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2) "init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life in the good old days? I dunno. It should be doable. Wanna fund me to develop it? Don't try this at home, kids!!!!! Experienced UNIX hackers only. If you get it working reliably and securely, let me know so I can mention it in this FAQ! Speaking of what, what have they done to our old friend getty? What is this damn pmadm thing that keeps cropping up? I was hoping you wouldn't ask. PMadm stands for Port Monitor Admin, and it's part of a ridiculously complicated bit of software over-engineering that is destined to make everybody an expert. Best advice for workstations: don't touch it! It works out of the box. For servers, you'll have to read the manual. This should be in admintool in Solaris2.3. For now, here are some basic instructions from Davy Curry. "Not guaranteed, but they worked for me." To add a terminal to a Solaris system: 1. Do a "pmadm -l" to see what's running. The serial ports on the CPU board are probably already being monitored by "zsmon". PMTAG PMTYPE SVCTAG FLGS ID zsmon ttymon ttya u root \ /dev/term/a I - /usr/bin/login - 9600 ldterm,ttcompat ttya \ login: - tvi925 y # 2. If the port you want is not being monitored, you need to create a new port monitor with the command sacadm -a -p PMTAG -t ttymon -c /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -v VERSION where PMTAG is the name of the port monitor, e.g. "zsmon" or "alm1mon", and VERSION is the output of "ttyadm -V". 3. If the port you want is already being monitored, and you want to change something, you need to delete the current instance of the port monitor. To do this, use the command pmadm -r -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG where PMTAG and SVCTAG are as given in the output from "pmadm -l". Note that if the "I" is present in the field (as it is above), you need to get rid of it. 4. Now, to create a specific instance of ttymon for a port, issue the command: pmadm -a -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG -i root -fu -v 1 -m \ "`ttyadm -m ldterm,ttcompat -p 'PROMPT' -S YORN -T TERMTYPE \ -d DEVICE -l TTYID -s /usr/bin/login`" Note the assorted quotes. In the above: PMTAG is the port monitor name you made with "sacadm", e.g. "zsmon". SVCTAG is the service tag, which can be the name of the port, e.g., "ttya" or "tty21". PROMPT is the prompt you want to print, e.g. "login: ". YORN is "y" to turn software carrier on (you want this for directly connected terminals" and "n" to leave it off (you want this for modems). TERMTYPE is the value you want in $TERM. DEVICE is the name of the device, e.g. "/dev/term/a" or "/dev/term/21". TTYID is the line you want from /etc/ttydefs that sets the baud rate and stuff. I suggest you use one of the "contty" ones for directly connected terminals. 5. To disable ("turn off") a terminal, run pmadm -d -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG To enable ("turn on") a terminal, run pmadm -e -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG Ports are enabled by default when you "create" them as above. How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it? Under 4.1.x you invoke screenblank in /etc/rc.local, but there's no screenblank in Solaris 2.1. Sun recommends that you have everybody put `xset s on' in their .xinitrc, but this may be hard to police, and in any event it won't work when nobody is logged in. The simplest workaround is to copy /usr/bin/screenblank from 4.1.x and run it in binary compatibility mode. See ``What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?'' for how to invoke it. Another possibility is to use xdm, but you'll have to use your own, since the xdm shipped with Solaris 2.1 doesn't work. The 4.1.x screenblank didn't work for me; I use Jef Poskanzer's freeware screenblank (FTP source from various archive sites). And what about screendump and screenload? They're gone too. Screendump from 4.1.1 works, at least for some frame buffers. So how about etherfind? There is a replacement for etherfind, but it has changed name; in fact it's a whole new program. It IS better. To find it, though, you would have to realize that network snooping is not really ethernet-specific. To end the suspense :-), here it is: % man -k snoop snoop snoop (1m) - capture network packets and inspect them % It works differently - it has an immediate mode, a capture-to-disk mode, and a playback-from-disk mode. Read the man page for details. Can I run SunOS4.1.x on my SPARC Classic or LX? Not according to Sun - they want you to use Solaris 2. But the technology exists, and you can buy it - but you have to go "offshore". Contact solaris@x1sun5.ccl.itri.org.tw for info. Note that "TW" is the domain address for Taiwan. The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist - is it mad? Yes! Actually, messages like find : cannot open /: No such file or directory. are due to a bug in the tree walking function (nftw(3)). If it runs into problems traversing the tree, it gives up and incorrectly complains about the top level directory of the tree. [The submitter seems] to recall that the most common case which caused trouble was a directory somewhere in the directory hierarchy which was readable but not executable. With the fix it will just complain about the directory to which it couldn't chdir and skip descending that subtree. I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial ports. What should I do? Try using UUCP. The Solaris 2.x sparc serial driver has trouble receiving data at or above 9600 bps. Symptoms include sluggish response, `NOTICE: zs0: silo overflow' console messages, sending spurious control-Gs to the serial port, and applications that cannot be killed even with `kill -9'. This problem surfaces in many applications, including Kermit and tip. UUCP seems immune, though, because its protocol throttles input sufficiently. How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root? Root's shell is /sbin/sh, which is statically linked. Don't just insert a 'c' before "sh" as previously, as that would look for /sbin/csh, which doesn't exist. Don't just change it to /bin/csh, since that's really /usr/bin/csh, which is dynamically linked, because: a) /usr may not be mounted initially, and then you're in deep (the shared libraries are in /usr!), and b) There is code in the startup scripts that assumes that everything critical is in /etc/lib, not /usr/lib. Approach with caution! Safer bet - have an alternate root account, like "rootcsh", with uid 0, and /bin/csh as its shell. Put it after root's entry in the passwd file. Only drawback: you now have to remember to change all of root's passwds at the same time. Third bet - in root's .profile, check if /usr is mounted and, if so, exec /bin/ksh or whatever. What is this message: "automount: No network locking on thathost, contact administrator to install server change."? The other machine (an NFS server) is running 4.1.x and needs a patch from Sun to update its network lock daemon (lockd). If you don't install the patch on the server, file locking will not work on files mounted from "thathost". The 100075-09 patch fixes a bunch of other lock manager problems, so it may be a Good Thing To Get; however, it may also cause the machine on which the patch is installed to have trouble talking to servers with no patch or older patches, so Be Warned. How do I make Solaris2 use my Toshiba MK538FB drives? Append this line to /etc/system and reboot: set scsi_option=0x78 This turns off Command Queueing, which upsets the Toshiba something rotten. How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and Emulex MD-21 disks? As with any hardware addition, first try the obvious (boot -r after installing and power-cycling everything). The adaptec is no longer supported; man -s7 sd no longer even lists it! So I guess they go over the cliff. Either that, or take the drives out and put them on a PC, where ST506 MFM drives are still supported. The MD21 should work. PART FOUR - NETWORKING Can I use DNS with Solaris 2.1? 1) Instability of in.named on Solaris 2.1. It seems that the in.named included in the Solaris 2.1 distribution is terribly unstable. The easiest solution for now I have discovered is to use the OLD (SunOS 4.1.2 in my case) in binary compatibility mode. This works just fine. If it's slower I can't tell. There's also a patch (100902-01) available now for 2.1. 2) Using a Solaris 2.1 host and the DNS for name resolution. Under SunOS 4.1 it was next to impossible to run DNS name resolution without either a kludge fix or the NIS (V2 I guess). Under Solaris 2.1 it is incredibly simple, but you must ignore what the manual (SunOS 5.1 Administering NIS+ and DNS) says (it should be fixed in Solaris 2.2). All that is required to make a non-NIS host use the DNS for name resolution is to change the host: line in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file to the following: hosts: files dns (i.e., when looking for hosts, look in /etc/hosts first, if not found there, try DNS, if still not found then give up) and set up a correct version of /etc/resolv.conf to tell the resolver routines (like gethostbyname) how to contact the DNS nameserver. You must have the names of machines which are somehow contacted during boot in the files in /etc and files must appear first in the hosts: line, otherwise the machine will hang during boot (at least ours did). Make sure that /etc/netconfig is using switch.so. (It does from the factory.) Speaking of nsswitch.conf, what is it? An idea whose time has come (it came to Ultrix a few years ago). You can control which of the "resolver" services are read from NIS (formerly YP), which from NIS+, which from the files in /etc, and which are from DNS (but only "hosts" can come from DNS). A common example would be: hosts: nis files which means ask NIS for host info and, if it's not found, try the local machine's host table as a fallback. Advice: if you're not using NIS or DNS, suninstall probably put the right version in. If you are, ensure that hosts and passwd come from the network. However, many of the other services seldom if ever change. When was that last time *you* added a line in /etc/protocols? If your workstation has a local disk, it may be better to have programs on your machine look up these services locally, so use "files". Terminology: Sun worried over the term "resolver", which technically means any "get info" routine (getpwent(3), gethostbyname(3), etc), but is also specifically attached to the DNS resolver. Therefore they used the term "source" to mean the things after the colon (files/DNS/NIS/NIS+) and "database" to mean the thing before the colon (passwd/group/hosts/services/netgroup etc). So what does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean, and where does it go? Type "man nsswitch.conf" for more info. There is too much detail to summarize here. Briefly, [NOTFOUND=return] means that the name service whose entry it *follows* should be considered authoritative (so that if it's up and it says such a name doesn't exist, believe it and return instead of continuing to hunt for an answer). PART FIVE - SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Where is the C compiler? Where have you been? :-) Sun has dropped their old K&R C compiler, supposedly to create a market for multiple compiler suppliers to provide better performance and features. Here are some of the contenders: 1) SunPro C: SunPro, SMCC, and various distributors sell a new ANSI-standard C compiler on the unbundled (extra cost) SPARCcompiler/SPARCworks CD-ROM. There are some other nice tools there too, like a "make tool" and a visual idiff (interactive diff). You have to license and pay per user. Here's what seems to be their current (June 93) prices per user, in various quantities: SunPro: Q1 Q2 Q5 Q10 Q20 Q25 Q50 Q100 C, no supp 995 995 950 750 700 680 640 600 1yr C & supp 1355 1355 1310 1110 1080 1040 1000 960 2yr C & supp 1835 1835 1790 1590 1560 1520 1480 1440 3yr C & supp 2315 2315 2270 2070 2040 2000 1960 1920 (The "no support" price actually includes three months of support under warrantee. One catch with Sun support is that to get *any* support, you have to pay for support for *all* the users at your site. The quantity prices are only available in fixed size chunks. You don't actually buy multiple years up front, but renew each year if desired.) One misfeature is that these tools use a floating license manager, so your whole staff can't use them without paying large sums of money. Not only that, but as shipped, the tools enforce a 15-minute minimum usage time, to "encourage" you to buy a "floating" license for each and every actual user. This caused so much screaming and tearing of hair that Sun was forced to fix it. New compiler releases after May 1993 have a default 5 minute setting, changeable all the way to zero by having the sysadmin edit the "options file". However, if you set it to zero, the compiler slows down, since it has to talk to the license daemon for every file you compile. Old compilers have a patch available from SunPro to eliminate the 15 minute limit; patch numbers: C: 100966-01; C++: 100967-01; Fortran: 100968-01; Pascal: 100969-01. However, these patches don't seem to be available by anonymous FTP. 2) Cygnus GCC: Cygnus Support and the Free Software Foundation make the GNU C compiler for Solaris, a free software product. Source code and ready-to-run binaries are available by FTP from ftp.uu.net:/vendor/cygnus, or can be installed from the CDware CD (Volume 4 or 5). Like all GNU software, there are no restrictions on who can use it, how many people can use it at a time, what machines it can be run on, or how many copies you can install, run, give away, or sell. Cygnus sells technical support for these tools, under annual support contracts. Price per user (June 93): Cygnus: Q1 Q2 Q5 Q10 Q20 Q25 Q50 Q100 C, no supp 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1yr C & supp 1400 700 580 540 ... 504 2yr C & supp 2800 1400 1160 1080 ... 1008 3yr C & supp 4200 2100 1740 1620 ... 1512 (If you get the compiler from one of the free distribution sites, there is no cost but no warrantee. Cygnus lets you buy support for any number of users, at $500/user after the first two users at $1400. You don't actually buy multiple years up front, but renew each year if desired.) The Cygnus distribution includes: gcc (ansi C compiler), gdb (good debugger), byacc (yacc repl), flex (lex repl), gprof, makeinfo, texindex, info, patch, cc (a link to gcc) The Cygnus compiler on uunet is starting to show its age a bit. If you want to compile X11R5, you can get the latest version of GCC in source code, from the usual places (prep.ai.mit.edu or one of the many mirrored copies of it). Build and install that compiler using the Cygnus gcc binaries. Or get tech support from Cygnus; they produce a new version for their customers every three months, and will fix any bug you find. 3) Info on Apogee, Lucid C, etc will be added if you send us some. Speaking of that, what else do I need to compile X11R5? There are several "patch kits" for X11R5 under Solaris 2.1. Most of them require gcc 2.3.3 and you must have run "fixincludes" when you install the gcc software. What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level network access? See man page DLPI(7). Try NFSWATCH 4.0 for sample code using DLPI. FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu (128.46.128.76, 128.46.154.76): pub/davy/nfswatch4.0.tar.Z or gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2): pub/net/ip/nfs/nfswatch4.0.tar.Z Better yet, FTP the paper "How to Use DLPI in Solaris 2.x" by Neal Nuckolls of Sun Internet Engineering. It's available from newstop.ebay.sun.com in /sun/SunOS5.0/dltest.tar.Z. [Other questions as they get summarized.] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Most of this material is either written by me or sent to me directly. Some of it is cribbed shamelessly (with collective credit below) from USENET postings in several groups. Thanks to: Guy Harris Lee Quin Dean Kemp at Sun Canada Jim Prescott Warren Strange, Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc., Vancouver. Dave Miner Pete Hartman eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) geertj@ica.philips.nl (Geert Jan de Groot) Steve Bellenot Jennine Townsend bill@access.com (Bill Hunter) Dave Miner elling@eng.auburn.edu (Richard Elling) jkp@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (Jens Petersohn) Carl.Smith@Eng.Sun.COM (Carl Smith) Thomas.Maslen@Eng.Sun.COM (Thomas Maslen) ctchang@hawk.cc.as.edu.tw (Chin-Tang Chang) Casper H.S. Dik, FWI, University of Amsterdam Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM Mike Kupfer Bill Hunter ogpaik@cco.caltech.edu (Oon-Gil Paik) Dave Curry Win Strickland Tim Steele John Gilmore ----- End of Solaris 2.x FAQ -- Maintained by Ian Darwin, ian@sq.com -----