HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kleemann@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de (Fritz Kleemann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: HELP: problem with memory on SUN IPX
Date: 7 Oct 92 15:46:30 GMT
Organization: University of Wuerzburg, Germany
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]


Hi netters!

I have a little problem with my SUN IPX( SunOS Release 4.1.3):

After upgrading from 16MB to 32MB the command 'wc /dev/mem' says
that there are only 16MB memory!

But my initial screen, after powering on, says that there are 32MB 
memory installed.
And, while booting, the message 'vmunix: mem = 32768K (0x2000000)'
appears on the screen!

                  WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SYSTEM?

Thanx for your help!
  Fritz
--
 Fritz Kleemann				Department of Computer Science
 kleemann@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de	University of Wuerzburg, Germany
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Plenty of free space on drive, but 100% full?
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:05:25 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>This behaviour has been the same since at least SunOS 3.5.

Since at least 4.1cBSD (did 4.1b have the old V7-derived file system or
the new file system?).

However, that doesn't explain the rest of the stuff he mentioned:

> Deleting some small file aill make the "avail" number go negative, but
> after a while it will spontaneously go back to zero.  A full fsck from
> single user and a reboot doesn't help anything.

If he truly means that "df" printed a negative number in the "avail"
column, something bizarre is going on - "df" doesn't normally print
negative numbers there, it prints 0 if you're over the "maximum space
available for non-privileged users" threshhold, and besides, I've yet to
see a file with a *negative* number of blocks assigned to it, so it's
hard to see how *deleting* a file would make it go negative.  (Maybe a
file that somehow got >2^31 blocks assigned to it would do that, but I
don't think 4.x supports file systems that big, so that would be a
corrupted file....)

Now, maybe that's *not* what he meant by "go negative", in which case he
probably shouldn't have said "go negative".  If he meant that it became
*greater* than zero (which doesn't match *my* notion of "negative"), but
went back down to zero after a while, there's probably some program
writing to a file on "/usr", such that when you free up some space by
deleting a file, that space gets chewed up again by the program in
question.

If that's the problem, and if a reboot doesn't fix it, the problem may
be with some process that's restarted on a reboot.  For starters, a "ps"
might be advised here, to see what processes *are* running.  Whatever
processes are chewing up the space are presumably running as "root",
because they can dig into the 10% reserve....
From: jh@cadre.com (Joe Hartley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Size of swap file
Date: 7 Oct 92 13:26:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: fripp.1992Oct7.132659.6926
Reply-To: jh@cadre.com
Organization: Cadre Technologies, Inc.

In article 1at0jpINNt7g@early-bird.think.com, barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>Argh, when will people stop posting those silly "swap = N x RAM" myths
[ Some text sacrificed to bandwidth gods ]
>
>Yes, swap space should be at least as large as memory, because crash dumps
>go into the swap partition.  Other than that, there's no specific
>relationship between swap and memory sizes.
>
>Swap needs to be big enough that you can run all the simultaneous programs
>you need to run.  It contains the data and swap spaces of all the running
>processes.
>
>Main memory needs to be big enough that you don't page too much.
>
>Swap space governs total system capacity, main memory size governs
>performance.
>
[ Concrete example requiring 100+MB of swap w/ 20 MB of RAM sacrificed ]
>
>If you want to be able to switch back and forth between two of these
>applications without lots of paging, then you would probably want to double
>your RAM.  If you want to be able to switch between any of the ten
>applications swiftly then you would want as much RAM as swap (actually,
>even more, since you also need RAM to hold the text segment of programs,
>and these don't go into swap).

By the end of this example, Barry, you've gone and made RAM > swap.  This,
as I touched on before, will effectively reduce the amount of RAM available
to the system.  You even mention at the beginning of your post that 
> Yes, swap space should be at least as large as memory...

Now, considering that I can't dynamically allocate swap space from the 
free space on my hard drive, and that I'm only going to determine the
amount of disk space to allocate to swap when I'm a) setting up a new
machine or b) adding RAM, how should I make such am decision at that
time?  I've always found the RAM x 2 formula to be a great rule of thumb
for determining such things.

How would *you* determine the swap area at setup time?

===============================================================================
Joe Hartley          | jh@cadre.com  -  Whenever you find that you are on the
Cadre Technologies   | side of the majority, it is time to reform. - M. Twain
222 Richmond St.     | --------------------------------------------------------
Providence, RI 02903 | Overman 1st Class - the Kilgore Trout Memorial Clench
(401) 351-5950 x266  |            of the Church of the SubGenius  
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan)
Subject: Re: Size of swap file
Reply-To: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Organization: Communication Research Centre
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 22:09:09 GMT

In article 92Oct8130434@mitra.mitra.com, larry@mitra.mitra.com (Larry Williamson) writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.163601.3305@clark.dgim.doc.ca> don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan) writes:
>   I always initially configure for swap >= the max memory that could possibly be
>   stuffed directly on the motherboard. For all SS1/SS@'s this is 64M. For
>   the 630 it is 128MB. This is generally ok for quite a while.
>
>Hmm, our Sparc10 can support up to 512M on the motherboard. Do you
>suggest that a swap partition of 512M is appropriate? This box came
>with only a 424M disk.

Yes. Get a bigger disk:) (no I don't work for a disk drive company).

Seriously, as has been discussed, you want at least as much swap as memory.
If you think it is remotely possible you will EVER fill your simm slots,
pre-configure for that much swap.  Remember that if it can be done, someone
will do it.  Especially as the price of memory comes down.

---
Donald McLachlan			e-mail	don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Communications Research Centre / DRL	office	613-998-2845
3701 Carling Ave.,			lab	613-998-2423
Ottawa, Ontario				fax	613-990-7987
K2H 8S2
From: tim@crash.canon.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: bizarre boot-time message -- "silo overflow"
Date: 16 Oct 92 08:49:42 GMT
Organization: me myself and i

metzler@pablo.physics.lsa.umich.edu (Chris Metzler) writes:
:
|At boot-time, my machine (during the process of booting)
|returns the message:
|
|		zs1:  silo overflow
|
|Anybody know what the hell this means?  No reference in my
|Sys and Net Admin manual . . .

On SunOS, man 4 zs:

ZS(4S)           DEVICES AND NETWORK INTERFACES            ZS(4S)

NAME
     zs - Zilog 8530 SCC serial communications driver

DIAGNOSTICS
     zsnc: silo overflow.
          The 8530 character  input  silo  overflowed  before  it
          could be serviced.

Tx. [arty...]
-- 
Tim F O'Donoghue <tim@crash.canon.co.uk> <uunet!canon!tim>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: jmg@iko.stdavids.picker.com (Jeff Granito)
Subject: Modems on Sun Sparc 1+
Organization: Picker International, St. Davids
Distribution: comp.sys.sun.admin
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:07:00 GMT



  I recently purchased the Telebit Qblazer modem for use on two of our Sun
work stations so users can dial in from home.  I have connected to modem to
ttyb and set up the /dev/ttyd1 to have the same major and minor device
values.  I modified /etc/gettytab to add in a line for D9600, so we can dial in
at 9600 baud.  The /etc/gettytab file looks like so for the D9600 :


	D9600|Fast-Dial-9600:\
		:nx=D2400:tc=9600-baud:
	D2400|Fast-Dial-2400:\
		:nx=D1200:tc=2400-baud:
	3|D1200|Fast-Dial-1200:\
		:nx=D9600:tc=1200-baud:


  I modified /etc/ttytab so a getty at 9600 would start on /dev/ttyd1.  When
I dial into the modem at 9600 baud, I get a connect at 9600 and a login prompt.
I login and do a stty to look at the terminal settings, and I get info back
which says speed is 2400 baud.  This is where I am confused.  If the modem says
CONNECT 9600, and the getty is a D9600, shouldn't be speed be 9600??

  Any help for the problem would be appreciated.


  Please respond via e-mail.  Thanks for your time.


Jeff Granito
jmg@stdavids.picker.com
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: modem handshake confusion
Keywords: t3000 handshake
Date: 14 Oct 92 20:45:28 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

> Someone said that the Sun doesn't wiggle RTS, so I assume that setting
> crtscts just leaves RTS high? yes? And the SUN will still take note of
> the modems CTS?

Well, let's look at the manual - in particular, TERMIO(4):

     If CRTSCTS is set, and the terminal has modem control  lines
     associated  with it, the Request To Send (RTS) modem control
     line will be raised, and output will occur only if the Clear
     To Send (CTS) modem status line is raised.  If the CTS modem
     status line is lowered, output is  suspended  until  CTS  is
     raised.   Some  hardware  may not support this function, and
     other hardware may not permit it to be disabled;  in  either
     of these cases, the state of the CRTSCTS flag is ignored.

>Should I use XON/XOFF, CTS/RTS, or both?

If you want to control the flow of data *into* the Sun, you have to use
XON/XOFF, at present.

If you only have to control the flow of data *out of* the Sun, CRTSCTS
should do.

>What effect do the eeprom settings have on things?

The Sun's EEPROM, or the modem's EEPROM?  The Sun's EEPROM settings have
no effect whatsoever; the only EEPROM setting that affects SunOS is the
one that says "ignore carrier", and that's a historical artifact - I
guess the folk who did the SS1 decided, correctly, that it was silly to
be obliged to set "soft carrier" by re-configuring the kernel, but were
obliged not to put the correct solution, as embodied in 4.1, into the
system for Sun bureaucratic reasons (that's why the 4.1 solution didn't
get into 4.0), and made it an EEPROM flag.

One unfortunate consequence of that decision appears to be that a lot of
people now think the right way to control stuff like soft carrier is to
use the EEPROM, rather than to use the "local" option in "/etc/ttytab",
and think that the EEPROM controls all sorts of other things as well (it
doesn't).
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: mewing@hitchcock.eng.uiowa.edu (Michael A. Ewing)
Subject: vi under SunOS 4.1.2
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 20:07:47 GMT
Organization: Department of Elect. and Comp. Engr., University of Iowa, USA.
Keywords: vi SunOS 4.1.2
Followup-To: comp.unix.admin, comp.sys.sun.misc


I am in the process of upgrading the operating system on the Sun
workstations to SunOS 4.1.2, and have been informed of a problem
with the "vi" editor.

The problem arises when an individual using a BBN BitGraph Terminal,
which is connected to the serial port of a SPARCstation SLC running
SunOS 4.0.3, logs into a system running SunOS 4.1.2 and attempts to
edit a file with the "vi" editor.  He receives a message stating the
terminal type is unknown and is returned to the system prompt.

If he uses a SunOS 4.0.3 version of the "vi" editor on the same SunOS
4.1.2 system, he encounters no problems.

I have modified the /etc/termcap file on the SunOS 4.1.2 system to 
include an entry for the BitGraph Terminal, but still receive the
error message that the terminal type is unknown.

Any information on how to correct this problem will be greatly
appreciated.

Please email me responses and I will post a summary to the netgroup.

Thanks in advance.

Michael Ewing
Systems Analyst
University of Iowa
Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.
Iowa City, IA 52242
email: mewing@eng.uiowa.edu
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Size of swap file
Date: 10 Oct 92 18:53:44 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>Yes, swap space should be at least as large as memory, because crash dumps
>go into the swap partition.

However, as of 4.1, not *all* pages of physical memory are dumped in a
crash; only the ones seemed "potentially interesting" are.  Those don't
generally include J. Random pages that came from a file or from some
process' data or stack, for example.

(Then again, if you have an Auspex, pages not from the host processor's
memory are dumped in a crash, i.e. pages from the other processor
boards, and we don't yet have a "dump only the interesting pages" scheme
on those boards, so you need more swap space for crashes.)

On top of that, you need enough swap space to run much of the system
startup scripts - for example, you have to be able to run your "fsck"s
*without* using the swap space used for crash dumps, at least if you
want the crash dumps to be saved; if the swap space for crash dumps is
used by the "fsck"s, it'll have been overwritten by the time "savecore"
is run, and you won't get a crash dump.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: dododge@wam.umd.edu (David O. Dodge)
Subject: Re: What's in an audio cable? Pinout?
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:35:58 GMT

In article <Bw04nI.H0C@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> cnwietho@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Carsten Wiethoff) writes:
>I want to build my own variation of the sun audio cable for Sparcstations.
>So I'm looking for the pinout of the 8 pin DIN connector

There's a pinout diagram in one of the Sun manuals -- can't remember
where, though.

>and I need to know what's inside the little box of the Sun audio cable.

I'm not sure there's much of anything in there. I made my own cable
using just a piece of wire and some connectors (finding an 8-pin mini-DIN
connector was a real pain), and it seems to work okay.

                                            -Dave Dodge/dododge@wam.umd.edu
From: claes@sparc2.ikb.uni-essen.de (Heinz-Josef Claes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: ZyXEL too fast?
Keywords: ZyXEL sun sparc
Date: 13 Oct 92 11:40:24 GMT
Organization: University of Essen, Germany



Often, I'm dialing from a Sparc into normal mailboxes (PC, Amiga, ...)

When I want to download from the mailbox with zmodem, I've no problems.
When I wand to upload to the mailbox, I get errors from zmodem!

Here are some infos (there were both ZyXEL-Modems):
ATI2

   ZyXEL U-MODEM LINK STATUS REPORT

   Chars Sent           674k    Chars Received      90112 
   Octets Sent          427k    Octets Received     58283 
   Blocks Sent         2664     Blocks Received      4835 
   Blocks Resent          2     Max Outstanding         7 
   Max Block Size       256     Retrains Requested      0 
   Link Duration         13     Retrains Granted        0 
   T401 Timeouts        124     T402 Timeouts         163 
   FCS Errors            14     Round Trip Delay      106 
   Xmitter Underrun       0     Receiver Overrun        0 

   Last Speed/Protocol     CONNECT 16800/ARQ/V42b

   Disconnect Reason      Local Hang Up

Is it possible, that the combination of Sparc and ZyXEL are too fast for
PC or Amiga? The ZyXEL is connected with 38400 baud at the sparc. If I
configure the serial port with 19200 baud (sparc <-> ZyXEL) I get a
smaller number of errors when uploading.

The combination of Robotics and PC at the other end is absoluteley
terrible. I can download, but not upload.

The zmodem I use is:
sz -> Version 1.26 03-10-87 for V7/BSD by Chuck Forsberg
rz -> Version 1.18 02-18-87 for V7/BSD by Chuck Forsberg


Thanks for any information.

Heinz-Josef Claes
University of Essen
Germany

email: claes@sparc2.ikb.uni-essen.de
From: jre@uxb.liv.ac.uk (John Ellis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: REPOST:Automounter: what's it good for?
Date: 16 Oct 92 11:15:55 GMT
Organization: Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Univ. Liverpool, UK

Dear all,

I posted this yesterday but my email address came out wrong. It should
be jre@uxb.liv.ac.uk

Sorry for wasting your bandwidth. Here's the message again.


I have a query about using an automounter. Basically, what are the
advantages as opposed to keeping directories permanently mounted?

This system I have in mind is this:

~10 suns (sparc2's, sunos4.1.2) with X terminals hanging off them. The users
generally access the sun that has the disk their files are on, so most
file access is local. However, they will occasionally need to access
file on the other disks on remote machines, so those disks must be
accesible via nfs.

Currently the system is smaller than this and all drives are
permanently cross-mounted from all other machines with disks. This
seems to work OK. When the system grows to the above, would I see any
performance improvement by using the automounter? In other words, is
having a mounted but unaccessed remote disk causing any load that the
automounter could remove?

Also, would using the automounter make things easier to administer for me
even if it doesn't help the users?

Finally, if an automounter is a good idea, is the amd one better than
sun's for this scale of things?

I'm really just looking to benefit from other peoples experience
before I go off and change things to no good effect.

Thanks for your attention,

John Ellis
From: olsenc@carson.u.washington.edu (Clint Olsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Questions about ypset and ypbind -ypset
Date: 11 Oct 92 19:25:40 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle


Hello:

I was wondering about the use of ypset.  On HP-UX, you
can issue a ypset to any client with no problems, but on
a Sun (SunOS 4.1.2 -- Sparc 2), ypbind seems to reject
my request for a ypset.

What's the deal?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Clint Olsen 
olsenc@u.washington.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: jimh@pacdata.com (Jim Harkins)
Subject: NIS maps not propagating
Organization: Pacific Data Products
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:36:47 GMT

I've got a rather strange problem.  I'm updating my text files in /var/yp/ypetc,
then doing a make in /var/yp.  The changes don't take effect even though
the dbm files in /var/yp/engr.pacdata do have the changes.  When I go to a
client I see that the dbm file(s) in /var/yp/engr.pacdata have also changed,
but the changes aren't there.  By 'changes aren't there' I mean that if I
do a ypcat then the changes aren't reflected.

Pdps2 is my master.  If I edit /var/yp/group and add a group 'foo', then add
the -v flag to yppush in the makefile I get the following after a make:

Finding NIS servers:Map ypslaves.pdps2 unknown NIS client error code -- using\
ypservers
 outland drucker cerebus calvin pdps2
 hagar
hagar has been called.
pdps2 has been called.
calvin has been called.
cerebus has been called.
Status received from ypxfr on pdps2:
        Transfer not done:  master's version isn't newer.
drucker has been called.
outland has been called.

On cerebus, /var/yp/ypxfr.log contains:

Tue Oct 13 15:26:10: Transferred map group.byname from pdps2 (2 entries).
Tue Oct 13 15:26:11: Transferred map group.bygid from pdps2 (2 entries).
Tue Oct 13 15:26:14: Transferred map netid.byname from pdps2 (2 entries).

By doing a hexdump on the group.*.pag on both pdps2 and cerebus then I
see the string 'foo'.  Yet, if I type ypcat then group 'foo' isn't there.

Any suggestions?

jim

-- 
One of the great ironies of our time is that voters with brains are
greatly outnumbered by voters without brains, yet somehow the
intelligent fail to perceive that not everybody thinks the way they do,
thus they fail to argue persuasively for their points and then are
surprised when the majority makes dumb choices.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Harkins                         [ucsd|uunet]!pacdata!jim
Pacific Data Products               jim@pacdata.com
--------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: rcc@zycor.lgc.com (Randal C. Clarke)
Subject: 1/4" boot tape from CD-ROM?
Originator: rcc@oasis.zycor.lgc.com
Organization: Landmark/Zycor  (Austin TX)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:25:41 GMT

Hello Netters,
   
    I've come across an interesting situation that I would like some help on.
We have an old Sun 3/260 that no longer boots from its internal disk; and we
don't have a boot tape for it.
    On the other hand, we a few Sparcstations with cd-rom drives, 1/4" drives
and the SunOS Installation on CD-ROM.
    My question is this:  Would it be possible to make a Sun3 boot tape from
the CD-ROM?  If so, How?

    Thanks,
     Randy
From: yaosenko@acsu.buffalo.edu (Yaosen Ko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: What to do when /etc/fstab is corrupted?
Date: 13 Oct 92 02:12:27 GMT
Organization: UB

OK, I deserve it.  I did some stupid thing and /etc/fstab
has a wrong mount partition for root (/) directory.

The machine (SS1+ and SunOS 4.1.1) still boots normally up to the
point of mounting file systems.  Then it jumps into some single user mode
and I can see what I did to the /etc/fstab.  I can also use ed to read
and edit this file, but I can NOT save (write) it back to disk since the
system keeps telling me it's a READ-ONLY file system.

What to do next?  How can I fix this file?  I am sure once /etc/fstab
is fixed, everything will come up normally again.

Thanks for any help.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: drinckes@csl.dl.nec.com (Doug Rinckes)
Subject: Re: Strange username bug?
Organization: TSSC New Zealand Ltd
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 01:53:09 GMT

In <1992Oct7.140946.7924@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>, Bob Nutter writes:

........
(lots of stuff about a user with 9 letter id deleted)
........

I'm afraid I'm going to have to say .... RTFM on this one.

Under passwd(5), you will find the following extract:

     username       is the user's login name.   This  field  con-
                    tains  no  uppercase characters, and must not
                    be more than eight characters in length.

Have a nice user id.  :-)

-- 
Doug Rinckes, Network Administrator | My companys opinions are
Telecommunications Systems Support  | like my companys cars - 
Centre New Zealand Ltd              | They don't trust me with
drinckes@nzl.abk.nec.co.jp          | either.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: ignatios@euklid.cs.uni-bonn.de (Ignatios Souvatzis)
Subject: Re: reading a VAX data tape
Organization: /home/theory/ignatios/.organization
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:59:38 GMT

hm....

basically, yes...

First, floating point formats are different.
Integer formats are at least reversed.

You might be able to do something if the tape was written with FIXED
record length on the VAX side and if it contains only integers... then
you can read the integers, and swap the bytes from 12 to 21 for
integer*2 and from 1234 to 4321 for integer*4.

If it's written with variable record length, you have also to find out
how the record length's are coded. Sorry, I have no solution handy.


--
	Ignatios Souvatzis
	ignatios@cs.uni-bonn.de souva@babsy.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin