HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: del@fnx.uucp (Dag Erik Lindberg)
Subject: Re: ISC 3.0: growreg errors. Do I worry about these?
Organization: I/Ovations
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 09:59:43 GMT

In <1992Oct6.160622.7297@homebase.vistachrome.com> andy@homebase.vistachrome.com (Andy Finkenstadt) writes:
>Is this something I should worry about?  (If a page is 4096 bytes,
>then I don't have 1.6GB in RAM sitting around waiting to be allocated.
>I only have 48MB.)

>NOTICE: growreg - Insufficient memory to allocate 475592 pages - system call failed

This seems to be a common problem with your (and my) version of ISC.
Several of us have experienced this, and spent considerable time trying
to find the cause.  While we have many theories, an 'answer' hasn't been
found.  ISC is no help either.  The messages seem to be harmless.
Juggling kernel parameters can sometimes make them go away.  I mean
little things like adding or *removing* a couple of disk buffers.  Go
figger.

-- 
del AKA Erik Lindberg                             uunet!pilchuck!fnx!del
                          Who is John Galt?
From: wadswort@babss.UUCP (John H. Wadsworth)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
Subject: Re: ISC 3.0: growreg errors. Do I worry about these?
Date: 16 Oct 92 18:51:08 GMT
Organization: Bell Atlantic Business Systems Service Branford, Ct.


Below is a message I saved last time this went around....

###START OF SAVED MESSAGE ###

From: stevea@i88.isc.com (Steve Alexander)
Subject: Re: growreg - what causes the error?
Date: 8 Mar 92 18:28:35 GMT
Organization: INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation, Naperville, IL

>Does ANYBODY really understand this growreg thing, and its signifigance?
>
>I know there have been some replies to this growreg thing, but none so
>far seem to be satisfactory:  After examining the kernel modules in
>/etc/conf/pack.d using strings(1), I find that growreg is mentioned as
>a symbol only in the kd driver, that is the one associated with the
>virtual terminals.

This is because the bulk of the kernel objects are loaded into a giant
.o, using ld -r, so few external references occur.  It's referenced within
the kernel proper, shared memory support, display keyboard driver, the XENIX
shared data driver, and  the virtual 8086 emulator.

Most I/O drivers won't be calling growreg because they don't deal with
process structures.  They deal with buffers, clists, and the user area.
The kd driver only does it to support the MAPCONS ioctl which maps the
screen into process memory.

>To see if it
>is caused by a memory allocation request, I wrote a test thingie
>calling malloc(3) with an argument of 40000000.  Naturally, the
>call failed, as one would expect on a system with 8 meg RAM 16 meg
>swap.  NO MESSAGE FROM GROWREG APPEARED IN /usr/adm/messages, so I
>would gather its not due to failed malloc(3) or sbrk(2)/brk(2) calls,
>at least not such calls in user-level code.

This is probably due to the value of MAXUMEM on your system.  The sbrk
call checks this tunable before it tries to call growreg.  On my generic 
SVR3.2/386 system, MAXUMEM is set to 2560 pages, which is not big enough.
In fact, the limit in /etc/conf/cf.d/mtune is defined as 8192, which is 
still too small.  SCO 3.2v4 raises the maximum to 131072, but the default
value is still only 4096.

If you're interested in seeing what the origin of these messages is,
set a breakpoint using the kernel debugger.  Breakpoint at the
routine nomemmsg, and then get a stack traceback using the debugger.

>
>The messages I (and others as well) see is a growreg - system call failed
>msg, with some HUGE number of pages as the reported argument.

"System call failed" will be reported regardless of where growreg is
invoked from.  That's an error on the part of nomemmsg.

In my experience the only thing that causes these messages is programs that
dump core, or a genuine shortage of memory as controlled by MINARMEM and
MINASMEM.

I hope this helps.

-- 
Steve Alexander, Software Technologies Group    | stevea@i88.isc.com
INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation, Naperville, IL | ...!{sun,ico}!laidbak!stevea

######END OF SAVED MESSAGE#####
From: bassin@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu (Ed Bassin - Sociology;S23679)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
Subject: MicroEmacs for AT&T Sys5.3
Date: 13 Oct 92 22:41:47 GMT
Organization: Washington State University

Several people responded via e-mail to my earlier request for an easy to 
use editor.  The most frequently cited options were GNU EMACS and MicroEmacs.
I found both and downloaded them.  When I try to make MicroEmacs, I get 
several undefined symbols.  On searching for them, it appears that they are
all referenced in estruct.h.  First, has anyone been able to make this 
program using AT&T System V/386 Relase 3.2.3?  (This is the AT&T distribution.)
Second, does anyone have or could someone mail me a copy of their estruct.h
file?  I think there may be something wrong in my copy.

Thanks to all those who offered suggestions and thanks in advance for any 
help you may be able to offer.

Ed Bassin
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
From: martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas)
Subject: XFree86 on ISC SVR3 2.0.2 ?
Summary: Is this possible, or should I upgrade?  To what?
Keywords: SVR3 xfree86 
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:35:26 GMT

I have a 386 here running ISC SVR3 2.0.2.  It has bugs, I know,
but has run well enough up till now, and last I checked (a while ago)
the upgrade to version 2.2 was rather exorbitant.

Now I would like to get some sort of X running on this machine :
XFree86 looks ideal.  (the price is right :)  I noticed on the
announcement it is known to run on ISC 2.2, but not ISC 2.0.2.
I tried that other free X386 about a year ago, but couldn't get
it to work with my VGA card.

My question : in the wisdom of those of you reading, what is
the cheapest way for me to get to a working XWindows system?

I'll summarise here any replies I receive.

Martin
--
,--------------------------------------------------------------.      _ .
| All the deserts I could irrigate      Martin Dougiamas.      |   _r| Ll\
| All the poor I could emancipate    martin@cs.curtin.edu.au   |  |  |    \
| But that's not what interests me      Curtin University      |  \  |_   /
| I'm interested in apathy          Perth, Western Australia  -+-> x~  `-'
`=== This Is Serious, Mum ====================================='        V
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3,comp.unix.syv386,comp.unix.sys5.r4
From: fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang)
Subject: Re: FOR SALE:  ESIX System V, Release 3.2
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 23:00:16 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.213121.708@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> jon@Turing.ORG (Jon Gefaell (KD4CQY)) writes:
>In article <1992Oct9.222849.2716@fallst> tkevans@fallst (Tim Evans) writes:
>>I have a complete ESIX SVR3.2 (revision D--the latest) for sale.
[and he wants to sell it :]

>>You can use this, or trade it in on SVR4.

[so Jon wants to sell it too and undesell Tim :]

>Heh Heh..... I'll give it to an appropriate charity...

I can't resist this :)  How about this?  I have both ESIX 5.3.2D and
(here is the bomb! :) Dell SVR4 issue 2.2 both for sale. Asking
$650 for both.  Unlimited versions!  

Hey, Larry, you want to pick 'em up :) :) :)

Chin Fang :)
fangchin@leland.stanford.edu


Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3,comp.unix.syv386,comp.unix.sys5.r4
From: tkevans@fallst (Tim Evans)
Subject: FOR SALE:  ESIX System V, Release 3.2
Organization: Tim Evans
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 22:28:49 GMT

I have a complete ESIX SVR3.2 (revision D--the latest) for sale.
Includes software development, networking (with SLIP), text-
processing, and X Windows.  Also, I have several almost-new
volumes of the standard AT&T SVR3.2 manual set.

You can use this, or trade it in on SVR4.

Email offers to tkevans%fallst@wb3ffv.ampr.org
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
From: jallen@oat2.standard.com (John Allen)
Subject: Re: ISC 3.0: growreg errors. Do I worry about these?
Organization: Standard Insurance Company - Portland Oregon
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 19:59:25 GMT

AT&T 386 Unix 3.2.3 has the same problems and AT&T/NCR could not figure it out.

Question for you folks, are you running TCP/IP and NFS?


-- 
===============================================================================
John Allen  - Network Executive                   E-mail: jallen@standard.com
Network Services                               Telephone: (503) 243-6189
Standard Insurance, Portland Oregon                  FAX: (503) 321-3313
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
From: jon@Turing.ORG (Jon Gefaell (KD4CQY))
Subject: Re: FOR SALE:  ESIX System V, Release 3.2
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 21:31:21 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.222849.2716@fallst> tkevans@fallst (Tim Evans) writes:
>I have a complete ESIX SVR3.2 (revision D--the latest) for sale.
>Includes software development, networking (with SLIP), text-
>processing, and X Windows.  Also, I have several almost-new
>volumes of the standard AT&T SVR3.2 manual set.
>
>You can use this, or trade it in on SVR4.
>
>Email offers to tkevans%fallst@wb3ffv.ampr.org

Yeah, I've got the same thing here gathering dust. You can use it, or upgrade 
it. It comes with the complete 8 volume manual sex from ESIX in binders with
slipcases.. I'll sell it to you for 10% less than Time Evans' best offer :)

Heh Heh..... I'll give it to an appropriate charity...


 
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3
From: larry@gator.rn.com (Larry Snyder)
Subject: Re: SVR3 shutdowns automatically
Organization: The Gator Conferencing System 219-289-3745 
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:12:11 GMT

isaac@unislc.uucp (Isaac Soundararaj) writes:

>  I have got a system with Unix SVR3 installed.  It shuts down automatically.
>I understand this does not happen in SVR4. Can some one explain why this 
>happens.

What specifically are you referring to?

It is possible to shut down a SVR4 machine using cron and init --


-- 
Larry Snyder                                    internet: larry@gator.rn.com
keeper of the Gator                                  uucp: uunet!gator!larry
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sys5.r3,comp.unix.syv386,comp.unix.sys5.r4
From: mbundy@NeoSoft.com (Michael Bundy)
Subject: Re: FOR SALE:  ESIX System V, Release 3.2
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 00:06:05 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.230016.20734@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes:
>
>I can't resist this :)  How about this?  I have both ESIX 5.3.2D and
>(here is the bomb! :) Dell SVR4 issue 2.2 both for sale. Asking
>$650 for both.  Unlimited versions!  
>
>Hey, Larry, you want to pick 'em up :) :) :)
>
>Chin Fang :)
>fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
>

I would definitely be interested in that deal...

Michael
From: joslin_paul@ae.ge.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 15 Oct 92 15:21:28 GMT
Reply-To: joslin_paul@ae.ge.com
Distribution: na
Organization: GE Aircraft Engines
Originator: news@c0228.ae.ge.com

cjc@ulysses.att.com (Chris Calabrese) writes:

>We have a home-grown admin system that controls accounts on all of our
>machines.  It has a remove user operation that removes the user from
>all machines at the same time in the middle of the night.

>Well, one night, the thing goes off and tries to remove a user with
>the home directory '/'.  All the machines went down, with varying
>ammounts of stuff missing (depending on how soon the script, rm, find,
>and other importing things were clobbered).

>Nobody knew what what was going on!  The systems were restored from
>backup, and things seemed to be going OK, until the next night when
>the remove-user script was fired off by cron again.

True confession time: Cron is a great way to hide your flubs.  I
installed the COPS security package on a system, then set up cron to
recheck the system once a month.  No problem, right? Except that I had
configured COPS to put the reports in /.  As a security measure, COPS
chmods its directory to u-rwx,w-rwx so that only the COPS owner can
read the reports. 

The chronology was

1) Run cops.  Add cops entry to root's crontab.  Later that day, notice
that / was 600; change it back. 

2) 30 days later: get calls from users - can't log in, "No shell" error
messages.  Find / is 600; change it.  Vaguely remember that this
happened once before.  The machine was a sandbox, so almost anything
could have changed /.

3) 30 days later: get calls from users - can't log in, "No shell" error
messages.  Find / is 600; change it.  Vaguely remember that this
happened once before.  Happen to think "cron"; notice that the only cron
activity for root last night was COPS.  Read COPS source and discover problem.  

Moral: RTFM.  Keep logs, so that you can notice patterns in your data.
Don't do anything as root that you can do as a mortal.

-- 
     Paul R. Joslin     |
joslin@c0223.ae.ge.com  | "For every problem, there is a solution that is
   +1 513 583 3537      | simple, elegant, and wrong."
                        | (H. L. Mencken)
From: dave@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Dave Pottinger)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Accessing old wtmp files
Date: 13 Oct 92 18:03:37 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona



I'm in need of a way to get user data, etc from an old wtmp file.  Is
there a way to do this using "ac" (or something else) without making the
old wtmp file the current one?  Everytime I try to get some data from
the old wtmp, it makes it the current one and starts to write stuff to
it.  I'm running Ultrix 4.2 on a Decsystem 5000/240, is this even
possible?  I'm kinda new at all this and all help would be greatly
appreciated.  Thanks.

dave
--
*************************************************************************
*            These are entirely my own opinions, of course...           *
*************************************************************************
*  Dave C. Pottinger            *   "You're perfect, yes, it's true,    *
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Who's got files open on /dev/xxx
Date: 14 Oct 1992 17:31:15 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com

In article <1992Oct14.005256.25107@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> sherwood@fenris.space.ualberta.ca (Sherwood Botsford) writes:
>However lsof doesn't handle nfs files.  e.g.  I'm on a  
>server; suddenly the disk goes snake.  I want to know what  
>process is doing this.

Someone else tried to refute this, but apparently missed the clause "I'm on
a server".

Sorry, but the NFS protocol doesn't provide the information for a server to
know which client process is performing each access; there's no processid
in NFS requests.  And kernel-based, stateless NFS servers don't open files,
they just access the files directly for each request (the NFS file handle
includes device and inode information).

When this happens here we use the PD tools nfswatch and/or tcpdump to find
the client machine that's hammering the server.  I then use tcpdump to get
a hex dump of the NFS packets from that client and find the userid.  Then I
use ps on the client machine to look for active processes of that user.

If the author of nfswatch is reading this, I suggest that it provide a mode
where user@client information is displayed.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,alt.folklore.computers
From: adb@geac.com (Anthony DeBoer)
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 13:39:43 GMT
Organization: Geac Computer Corporation

In article <1992Oct10.010412.3448@waggen.twuug.com> broberts@waggen.twuug.com (Bill Roberts) writes:
>My most interesting in the reguard was when I deleted "/dev/null".  Of
>course it was soon recreated as a "regular file", then permission problems
>started to show up.

I was once called in to save a system where most things worked, but the
main application package being used on it hung the moment you entered it
(leaving the system more than a little useless for getting things done). 
I poked around for awhile, verified that the application's files were all
present, undamaged, and had the right permissions.  The folks who
normally used the machine had also discovered that all was well if root
tried to run it.  But nothing was visibly wrong anywhere.  So, being a
bit hungry by then, I took a break for supper, and about halfway through,
the little voice at the back of my head that sometimes helps me said,
"/dev/tty".  Sure enough, somebody had chmod'ded it to 0644, and the
application directed (or tried to direct, in this case) all its I/O
through it rather than just using stdin/stdout like a sane normal process.
-- 
Anthony DeBoer       adb@geac.com | uunet!geac!adb | GEM: ANTHONY.DEBOER
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: toddi@mav.com (Todd Inch)
Subject: Re: crontab disabled?
Organization: Maverick International Inc.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 19:49:08 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.143027.18074@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
>In article <1992Oct01.203453.14960@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> cfwpm@ux1.cts.eiu.edu (Bill McGown) writes:
>>On one system here at EIU crontab has been "restricted" so that
>>it is not available to regular users. The reason given is that
>>it has the potential to interfere with backups. Is this a real
>>concern (i.e., can it do so)? If it can screwup backups is there
>>some fix/patch/kludge that can avoid the problem?

>BS. User crontabs can't interfere with system crontabs; what you have
>is an ignorant or asinine person in control of the system. 

I agree with the first statement - the crontabs won't directly
interfere with each other, but think you may be jumping to conclusions
about the mentality of the sysadmin(s).

I have a situation here where backups take a LONG time, most of the
night, and because it is primarily a database system, I have to make
sure no one (no process) is writing to files while I'm trying to back
them up - I HAVE SEEN this totally trash selected backup file copies. 
Kind of like taking a photo of a fast-moving object with slow film, and
blurred data is no good.

So, I have a problem is someone tries to (a) write to a data file while
backups are running, or (b) use too many system resources, causing
backups to not complete before the 6 am production crew needs to use
the system (e.g. write to the data files.)

I used to disable logins while backups were running, but found that
occasionally (when I'm on vacation, usually) the backup job would die,
leaving the users disabled or would run too long because I hadn't kept
the system tuned well enough and the users would be out of luck.

Now, I just put up with the tail end of the backups sometimes being
trashed - I do the database files first to minimize this since the
other files are less vulnerable, and pray.

I'd suggest really working with your sysadmin - assuming he/she isn't
incredibly stubborn - and see what you can work out.  In my case, I'd
want to see what the user wanted to do and if it took too many
resources or wrote database files I'd syncronize it the end of the
backups or before the backups began.

Yes, in an ideal world with infinite resources I could easily work
around these simple problems, like buying a faster system or spending
hours programming interlocks and failsafes.
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Floppy Disk Labels
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:07:13 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <1992Oct7.203555.12778@unet.net.com> jrs@zippy.unet.com (John Switzer Frame 3.0) writes:
>In article <1992Oct1.194156.26435@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> jona@iscp.bellcore.com (Jon Alperin) writes:
>>I once (back when I was working in a college computer center) watched in
>>horror as a newbie computer user tried to put a 5 1/4" diskette in a
>>machine by very carefully placing his fingers in the round cutout where
>>the disk showed through, and then inserting the disk in backwards.
>>
>>Of course, there was also the student who punched 2 holes into the floppy
>>so they could store it in their notebook binder :-))
>>
>>Ah.. the good ol' days...
>
>I think it was Persoft Communications who shipped their software with a
>take-off on the typical disk jacket that showed all the things that you 
>shouldn't do to a disk (expose to heat, magnetic fields, touch the disk 
>with your fingers, etc.). The Persoft jacket, though, included pictures of
>someone eating a disk, putting it in the toaster, etc. This was back in 
>1985 or 1986. 

I just went and opened my ancient Apple II archives.

Beagle Bros. Indoor Sports 1983

The jacket shows:

Don't step on it.
Don't set it on fire.
Don't cut it in half with scissors.
Don't feed it to an alligator.
Don't put it in a toaster.
Don't use it to play ring toss.
Don't use it as a paper airplane.
Don't use it to support the ends of a roll of toilet paper.
Don't fly it like a kite.

I wish I had a scanner.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.sys.sun.admin
From: linneman@rulcvx.LeidenUniv.nl (Stefan Linnemann)
Subject: Re: TIMEZONE Question
Keywords: timezone
Cc: walt@diusys.cms.udel.edu
Organization: CRI, institute for telecommunication and computerservices.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 09:42:52 GMT

In article <Bw2wsF.Fpy@news.udel.edu> walt@diusys.cms.udel.edu writes:
>Got a quick question to which I need a quick reply...

>I am going to be using a machine in one timezone and need to coordinate the
>updates to a db (ingres) on a machine in another timezone. I was going to
>put them both on GMT, but after reading some documentation I have come to
>the assumption I dont need to, that UNIX will take care of timezone conversions
>for the file creation dates. Is this right or should I put them both on GMT??? 

>If it makes any difference, one machine will be in Australia and the other
>in Delaware (ie. international date line crossing).

Makes no difference at all: both systems should have (almost) exactly
the same time.  You can check this by typing "date -u", which gives
you the real system time in "UTC", or what your system thinks the time
in UTC is.  The timezone is just used to convert this time to your
local time.

On a further note: use NTP or XNTP to synchronise your two systems
more accurately than you can do by hand.  You can ftp them from
louie.udel.edu.  Derfinitely a must.

Ask for more info if you need it.

Greetings,
Stefan.

-- 
Stefan M. Linnemann		Internet: Stefan.Linnemann@CRI.LeidenUniv.NL
System Programmer UNIX		CRI, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
* The basic nature of reality is love. *

Xref: sparky comp.unix.admin:5443 comp.lang.perl:6421
From: gordon@dcs.exeter.ac.uk (Gordon Watson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.lang.perl
Subject: New user scripts?
Date: 8 Oct 92 13:43:31 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Computer Science Dept. - University of Exeter. UK

Anyone got a good script for creating new users,
preferably in Perl?  We use the old p/d nu program,
mixture of C and csh - not very easy to change.
--
Gordon Watson
 Systems Administrator
  Department of Computer Science
   University of Exeter
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: casper@fwi.uva.nl (Casper H.S. Dik)
Subject: Re: xargs (was: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !)
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 15:09:55 GMT

simon@lia.di.epfl.ch (Simon Leinen) writes:

>A problem with find ... -print | xargs ... is that it has trouble with
>filenames containing whitespace.  GNU find/xargs have options to use
>ASCII NUL as the separator, which is much safer (since it is difficult
>to create files with NULs in their names).

Not difficult, impossible.

Casper
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.sgi,comp.unix.wizards