----------------------------------------------------------------------------
							The Florida SunFlash

	  Sun-managers FAQ (frequently asked questions)
   
SunFLASH Vol 36 #1					       December 1991 
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From:		phil@eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre)
Newsgroups:	alt.sys.sun
Subject:	Sun-managers FAQ (frequently asked questions)
Organization:	EECS Department, Northwestern University
Lines:		489

Sun-Managers' Frequently Asked Questions

Last update 12-October-1991

This is collection of common questions posted to the sun-managers
mailing list.  This will hopefully reduce traffic to the list and
become a useful resource by itself.

Keeping with the style of a similar FAQ for comp.windows.x, questions
marked with a '+' indicate questions new to this issue; those with
significant changes of content since the last issue are marked by '*'

Please send corrections or submissions to "sun-managers-faq@eecs.nwu.edu".

				Questions

1)	How do I use the sun-managers mailing list?
2)	How do I join, post to or remove myself from the mailing list?
3)	How do I find out what patches are available from Sun?
4)	What is "anonymous ftp" and how do I use it?
5)	How do I find anonymous ftp sites?
6)	How do I set up NIS/YP to use DNS?
7)	How do I use DNS instead of NIS for hostname resolution?
8)	Can I run both OpenWindows and MIT X11R4?
9)	What is the format.dat entry for drive X?
10)	What does "NFS write error X" mean?
11)	Can I use a disk greater than 700meg?
12)	What does the "nres_gethostbyaddr !=" error mean?
13)	How do I move disks from xy451 to xy753/7053 disk controllers?
14)	How come yppasswdd does not automatically update the yp maps?
15)	What does NFS getattr failed/RPC: Authentication error mean?
16)	How come my mouse doesn't work sometimes?
17)	How come my internal 105 megabyte hard disk stopped working?
18)	Can I replace the 105 megabyte internal drive with a higher capacity
	model?
19)	How do I enable synchronous SCSI?
20)	How do I set up anonymous ftp on my machine?
21)*	How do I tell what caused my machine to crash?
22)	What can I do if my machine slows to a crawl or hangs?
23)	How can I turn my Sun3 into an X-Terminal?
24)+	Where can I get a version of ftp that does logging?

				Answers

1.	How do I use the sun-managers mailing list

	Requests to be added (and removed) to the sun-managers mailing
	list should be sent to "sun-managers-request@eecs.nwu.edu".
	Once you are added, you will receive an acknowledgement that
	consists of an introduction, the policy statement, and this
	list of frequently asked questions.  These messages (especially
	the first two) will explain the proper use of the list.	 It
	is highly recommended that you read the policy statement BEFORE
	using the list.	 The mailing list has certain rules that are
	designed to hold down traffic.	Ignoring or violating them may
	subject you to severe net-criticism.

2)	How do I join, post to or remove myself from the mailing list?

	see above.  Send your request to
	"sun-managers-request@eecs.nwu.edu".

3)	How do I find out what patches are available from Sun?

	You can call the Sun patch database system at 1-800-477-4768,
	login as "guest".   You can search for patches and have them
	mailed to you.

	Many anonymous ftp sites have partial collections of patches.

	The Sun User Group (SUG) CD ROM also has a collection of Sun 
	patches.

4)	What is "anonymous ftp" and how do I use it?

	Anonymous ftp is a way to provide restricted access to a host
	for the Internet community at large.	You typically use ftp
	to connect to a host and enter "anonymous" (possibly "ftp" or
	"guest") for the user name and your "real" user name for the
	password.   Do not type your real password at any time, as it
	is common to log all anonymous transactions and your password
	would be visible on the remote system.

	When transferring files, make sure you have "binary" or "image"
	mode set for transferring binary (non-ascii) files.   This
	is true in the most common cases, such as compressed files or
	tar archives.	In some rare cases, you might need "tenex" mode.
	
	Read the manual page for 'ftp'.

5)	How do I find anonymous ftp sites?

	There are a number of well known ftp sites, such as
	"ftp.uu.net" (137.39.1.2) and "gatekeeper.dec.com" (16.1.0.2), 
	you usually find out about these from newsgroups, mailing 
	lists or word of mouth.
	
	There is a program that allows you to search for programs
	and tells you what ftp sites they are available on.  
	Log into "quiche.cs.mcgill.ca" (132.206.2.3) with the user name
	of "archie".  It will give you directions from that point.

6)	How do I set up NIS/YP to use DNS?

	Under SunOS 4.1 and 4.1.1, there is a "#B=" at the top of
	/var/yp/Makefile, uncomment and change this to "B=-b" and
	setup NIS in the usual fashion.	  Under 4.0.x, edit the
	Makefile or apply the following "diff":

*** Makefile.orig	Wed Jan 10 13:22:11 1990
--- Makefile	Wed Jan 10 13:22:01 1990
***************
*** 63 ****
!		    | $(MAKEDBM) - $(YPDBDIR)/$(DOM)/hosts.byname; \
--- 63 ----
!		    | $(MAKEDBM) -b - $(YPDBDIR)/$(DOM)/hosts.byname; \
***************
*** 66 ****
!		    | $(MAKEDBM) - $(YPDBDIR)/$(DOM)/hosts.byaddr; \
--- 66 ----
!		    | $(MAKEDBM) -b - $(YPDBDIR)/$(DOM)/hosts.byaddr; \

7)	How do I use DNS instead of NIS for hostname resolution?

	The "normal" behavior of a hostname lookup under NIS is to
	consult the NIS hosts map and then DNS (if configured).
	You can change this so all hostname lookups go directly to
	DNS.	The SunOS shared library mechanism allows you change
	the behavior of any command that is dynamically linked to
	the shared library.   In SunOS 4.1 and greater releases, there
	is an optional package called "shlib custom" that contains a
	kit for rebuilding shared libraries.  You can select this
	in suninstall or load it later.	 It will put the files in 
	/usr/lib/shlib.etc.  Note that machines that come with pre-installed 
	SunOS don't include this.   It contains both a "normal" and System V 
	version of libc and some tools to build shared libraries.   The 
	Sun-supplied README file gives some help, but doesn't detail how to 
	change the hostname lookup functions.	The most complete procedure
	for this that I have come by is on titan.rice.edu, called 
	"bindon41.shar" - it goes one step further and replaces the 
	Sun resolver routines with BIND 4.8.3 versions.	  
	Note that you can still use NIS for other things in environment,
	such as passwd, group info, etc - the NIS hosts map is just ignored.
	There are several important statically linked binaries that will
	break if you replace the Sun routines. "/etc/mount" is probably
	where you will first notice that it doesn't know about any host
	that is not present in /etc/hosts.  The same goes for "rcp". 
	My solution was to recompile mount and rcp with the new resolver 
	routines, but you need source code to do this.	 Sun apparently
	will give you a dynamically-linked version of mount if you have
	software maintenance.  You can compile your own version of rcp
	from the Berkeley 4.3 source that is available on various ftp
	site. Otherwise, you might just have to have all hosts (and 
	aliases) in /etc/hosts that you want to mount or use Internet 
	addresses (yuck).  
	Another "feature" of a DNS-only environment is that hostnames
	will sometimes be returned all in uppercase and these will not 
	match the lower-case entries you typically have in /etc/exports, 
	/etc/bootparams, etc.	
	There are some patches to BIND 4.8.3 called "resolv+" that allow you
	to specify hostname lookups to /etc/hosts only, DNS only or both.

	bind 4.8.3 is on ucbarpa.berkeley.edu (128.32.130.11) in /4.3
	resolv+ is on schizo.samsung.com (134.228.1.2) in 
	/pub/usenet-archives/alt.sources/283[12].Z
	
8)	Can I run both OpenWindows and MIT X11R4?

	The shared libraries for OpenWindows have higher version
	numbers than the MIT versions. MIT executables will try to use
	the OpenWindows libraries and OpenWindows executables will
	complain about version mismatches.  You can toggle between
	the two environments by setting your $path and LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
	variables.	Assuming you installed the MIT libraries in
	/usr/lib and the OpenWindows libraries are in
	/usr/openwin/lib, set the following before you start the
	windowing system:

	MIT X11R4 environment

		set path = (/usr/bin/X11 $path)
		setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib

	Sun OpenWindows

		set path = (/usr/openwin/bin /usr/openwin/demo $path)
		setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/openwin/lib

	You can also run clients from one environment under a different
	server on a one command at a time basis.  This example runs a
	OpenWindows client under the MIT server:

		(setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/openwin/lib; x_soundtool)

	The OpenWindows server has the ability to display PostScript that
	several of the OpenWindows applications require to run.	 Sun's 
	AnswerBook is an example that requires PostScript.  These clients 
	will not run under the MIT server.   You can get a limited 
	PostScript preview capability under either server with GNU 
	Ghostscript, a public domain package available from various 
	ftp sites.  Two enhanced versions of Ghostscript are also available,
	CSPreview and Ghostview, they both offer fancier preview capabilities. 
	These programs are currently available via anonymous ftp:

	Ghostscript is on prep.ai.mit.edu (18.71.0.38) in /pub/gnu
	GSPreview   is on export.lcs.mit.edu (18.24.0.12) in /contrib
	Ghostview   is on appenzell.cs.wisc.edu (128.105.2.196) in /pub
	
9)	What is the format.dat entry for drive X?

	This is a tough one.  The answer can vary according to what OS
	you are running, the architecture of your machine or the type
	of SCSI/SMD/IPI controller you are using.  Opinions also vary
	on how to format once you have all the information you need.
	If you are buying a Sun supported drive, you will likely find
	an entry for it in "/etc/format.dat".  On third party drives,
	you should inquire with the vendor you bought it from.	If you
	are on your own, try to get hold of the manufacturer's OEM
	manual for your drive model.   You might be able to derive
	enough information from the manual to make up your own entry.
	Some drives has numerous jumper and dip switch settings and
	may be described in terms you are not familiar with.  You are
	probably better off posting to a list (such as sun-managers!)
	for help.  Some drive manufacturers run "bulletin boards" with
	drive information on them.  The ones I've seen are biased towards
	PC drives, but most of the information is still relevant.

	Fujitsu America BBS   408 944 9899
	Seagate Tech BBS      408 438 8771 
	Maxtor BBS	      303 678 2222
	Micropolis BBS	      818 709 3310

	I am aware of several efforts to collect format.dat entries,
	but I'll hold off on listing them here until I get approval.

10)	What does "NFS write error X" mean?

	You can lookup the error codes in /usr/include/sys/errno.h.
	Two common ones are 13, which is "permission denied" and 70
	"stale file handle".   13 is probably coming from an
	incorrect /etc/exports entry.  70 will occur when a fileserver
	goes down for some reason.   You can usually get rid of the
	error by unmounting and remounting the filesystem in question.
	Under SunOS 4.1, you can run "showfhd" to translate the NFS
	"file handle" given in the error message into a Unix pathname.
	Beware that showfhd does a "find" on your server to get the
	filename.  "man 2 intro" will give you some more general 
	information on what error codes could mean.

11)	Can I use a disk greater than 700meg?
 
	Yes, Sun has recently introduced a 1.3 gigabyte drive or you can
	choose from a variety of the third party drives. The older Sun
	SCSI drivers use SCSI group 0 commands.	 This command set only 
	has 21 bits of storage for the block number.  This means you can
	have 2^21-1 or 2097151 as the largest block number understood by
	the SCSI driver.  The fix is to use SCSI group 1 commands, where 
	you have 31 bits for block numbers.  The newer Sun SCSI drivers 
	(SCSA) use group 1 commands, but require a patch to work properly. 
	The patch for a Sun4c running SunOS 4.1.1 is 100343-02.	 There was
	an earlier patch, 100343-01, but you should install the latest 
	version.  This includes a new format.dat for the Sun 1.3 gig drive.
	The patch will come with the drive if you order it from Sun or you
	can get it from the Sun patch database mentioned in question 3.
	You can use the recent crop of 1.2 gigabyte drives with the current
	driver, but you "waste" several megabytes (i.e. no big deal).
	The Fujitsu M2266SA, CDC/Imprimis/Seagate Wren 7, HP 97549T and
	Micropolis 1598 are known to work.   These should all be around
	$2.5k or under and most have 5 year warranties.	 

	Note: The Fujitsu M2266SA has firmware bug in the use of the
	on-drive read-ahead cache that causes random read errors.
	You can disable the cache by removing the jumper on pins 5-6 on
	CN9.   Fujitsu recently has made new PROMs available that fix
	the cache problem.  You should be able to obtain these from 
	your drive vendor at no cost.  The PROM is marked "81202"
	followed by a revision letter. Revision "C" and earlier
	should be replaced by the new "D" version.

12)	What does the "nres_gethostbyaddr !=" error mean?

	This message is from "ypserv" and has been determined to be
	"harmless" (bug #1039839). Sun supplied a patch 100141-01 to
	quiet it, but the patched version appears to die silently at 
	random times, so Sun now has a new patch, 100141-02.

13)	How do I move disks from xy451 to xy753/7053 disk controllers?

	You have to reformat the drives for them to be recognized by
	the new controller.  Save the bad block list on drives while
	they are still on the old controller and load this back on 
	the disk when you are formatting the disk on the new
	controller.   The "dump" command in "defect" menu of "format"
	will write out a defect list to a file, the "load" command
	in the same menu will read the defect list from a file. 

14)	How come yppasswdd does not automatically update the yp maps?

	There is a bug in 4.1 rpc.yppasswdd that causes it misinterpret
	the command line arguments.  A work-around is to add the 
	"-nosingle" flag (which is the default), this shifts the 
	arguments over one, so "passwd" is read instead of "-m".

	For example:

	rpc.yppasswdd /var/yp/passwd -nosingle -m passwd DIR=/var/yp

	If you are running the C2 security package, you should apply
	patch 100201-04, as it fixes several problems with rpc.yppasswdd.

15)	What does NFS getattr failed/RPC: Authentication error mean?

	You are probably running a pre-4.0 version of NFS and your 
	username is in more than 8 groups.  There is a limit on the
	number of groups that could be represented in the rpc service
	(called NGRPS).	 On pre-4.0 systems this was 8, now it is 16.
	Since many vendors other than Sun are still running old versions
	of NFS, you might see this error even if your SunOS is recent.
	Authentication errors are also caused by having secure RPC 
	enabled on the client but not on the server, or by having a 
	misconfigured secure RPC configuration for the user name 
	generating the errors.	Beware of this problem when you are
	using the automounter, as programs (such as Sendmail) may 
	silently fail when when they try to mount a directory
	and get this error.

16)	How come my mouse occasionally doesn't work?

	You may have one of the bad mice that came with early SS-1 shipments.
	The LED on the underside of the mouse can fail.	 Request a 
	replacement from Sun.

17)	How come my internal 105 megabyte hard disk stopped working?
	
	There is a problem in the Quantum 105S 3.5" disk with
	the drive lubricant.  It prevents the platter from rotating if
	it cools down enough, which will happen if the drive is powered 
	down.	Before you call Sun in for replacement, try lightly tapping 
	the drive to loosen the lubricant.

18)	Can I replace the 105 megabyte internal drive with a higher capacity
	model?

	The higher capacity drives create more heat and draw more power than
	the 105S.  The case cooling ability and power supply in the SS-1 and 
	SS-1+ are not adequate for the 210 megabyte or higher capacity drives
	possible in the SS-2.  
 
19)	How do I enable synchronous SCSI?

	It depends on the type of SCSI controller and the SunOS release.  

	The SCSI device must be able to support it.  Most modern SCSI drives
	do, check the drive manual to see if there is a jumper or switch 
	to enable or disable it on the drive itself.

	If you have a VME-based system with the Sun SCSI controller on a 
	separate card (a 4/470	for example), you are out of luck unless you 
	go with a third-party SCSI controller.	The Sun VME SCSI "si" and "sc"
	controllers are old products that were developed for the Sun3 line 
	and do not support many newer SCSI features.	
	VME systems with the "sm" controller on the cpu board, (such as the 
	4/370) are capable of sync SCSI, along with desktop systems with the 
	"esp" controller (SS-1, SS-1+, SS2, etc).  
	You can see what type of controller you have by watching the boot
	process or running /etc/dmesg. 

	There were some problems with sync SCSI on the SS-1 that prompted Sun
	to disable it by default in 4.0.3 and 4.1. You can enable it manually 
	by tweaking the kernel:

	echo 'scsi_options?W 0x38' | adb -w /vmunix
	reboot system

	or a better method:

	uncomment the 'SCSI_OPTIONS_SYNC' line in 
	/sys/scsi/conf/scsi_confdata.c

	rebuild kernel
	reboot system

	Under 4.1.1, sync SCSI is negotiated at boot time by checking each
	device to see if it supports it.   4.1.1 will print a message if it
	is successful:

	esp0:	Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate
	sd0 at esp0 target 3 lun 0
	sd0: <SUN0207 cyl 1254 alt 2 hd 9 sec 36>

	Enabling sync SCSI only makes sense on systems with multiple
	drives, as a single drive has no competition on the bus from
	other devices.	 SCSI cable length will also affect drive 
	performance, this should be kept to a minimum for sync
	devices.
	
20)	How do I set up anonymous ftp on my machine?

	Read the man page ftpd(8) in the SunOS 4.x documentation, as 
	the procedure differs from vanilla BSD and most examples in 
	system administration books. The "ls" binary is dynamically linked,
	requiring you to duplicate ld.so, libc.so.* and /dev/zero in the 
	ftp area.   The permissions and ownership of the files within the 
	ftp area are critical to having a secure configuration.

21)	How do I tell what caused my machine to crash?

	The crash messages will usually be displayed on the console
	or kept around after reboot long enough for you to run /etc/dmesg.  
	Syslog can sometimes record the crash message.	If your system
	repeatedly crashes with similar looking errors, try searching 
	through the patch list on the Sun patch database for a description 
	that matches your machine.   Read chapter 22 of the SunOS 4.1 
	system administration manual on how to gather more information 
	for reporting a crash and making crash dumps.

	To enable a crash dump, uncomment the "savecore" lines in
	/etc/rc.local.

	To report a crash dump, you need a symbolic traceback for it
	to be useful to the person looking at it.

	# cd /var/crash/`hostname`
	# echo '$c' | adb -k vmunix.0 vmcore.0

22)	What can I do if my machine slows to a crawl or just hangs?

	Try running "ps" to look for large numbers of the duplicate programs
	or processes with a huge size field.  Some system daemons are
	famous for getting into a state where they fork repeatedly and
	eventually swamp the system.  Killing off the child processes
	doesn't do any good, so you have to find the "master" process.
	It will usually have the lowest pid.  

	The programs "top" and "sps" are good for finding processes
	that are loading your system.  They can be found a most anonymous
	ftp sites (try gatekeeper.dec.com:pub/sysadm).	"Top" will give 
	you the processes that are consuming the most cpu time.	 "Sps" 
	is a better version of "ps" that runs much faster and displays 
	processes in an intuitive manner.  

	Sometimes you run out of memory and you won't be able to run
	enough commands to even find out what is wrong.	 You will get
	messages of the type "out of memory" or "no more processes".
	
	You can sync the disks to minimize filesystem corruption if
	you have to crash the system:

	Use L1-A sequence to crash system
	If you are on an older system, type "g0" and you will get
	the message "panic: ... syncing file systems".	When you
	see the word "done", hit L1-A again and reboot.
	On systems with the "new" prom, type "n" to get into the
	new command mode and type "sync".  

23)	How can I turn my Sun3 into an X-Terminal?

	You can use Seth Robertson's Xkernel package.  This is available
	via anonymous ftp from sol.ctr.columbia.edu (128.59.64.40) in 
	/Xkernel.  The package describes how to configure a minimal kernel 
	that runs the X server and offloads all the clients onto another,
	hopefully more powerful host on the network.   This is attractive 
	to some sites that have a large investment in sun3 platforms, as 
	moving	most of the processing off the sun3 cpu makes it tolerable 
	to use.	 The price of a used 3/50 is competitive with low-end X 
	Terminals and you get a 19" monitor with an optical mouse.  Some 
	disadvantages are that 4.1.1 is supposed to be the last SunOS 
	release on the sun3 and maintenance costs might be higher for
	sun3 hardware.

24)	Where can I get a version of ftp that does logging?

	These are 3 versions that have enhanced logging or can be modified 
	to enable logging:

	isy.liu.se (130.236.1.3) /pub/ftpd.tar.Z
	ftp.adelaide.edu.au (129.127.40.3) /pub/4.3/ftpd-sirius.tar.Z
	ftp.cs.widener.edu (192.55.239.132) /pub/unix/widener.ftpd.tar.Z

	The stock Sun ftpd will log some information if you add the "-l" 
	flag in /etc/inetd.conf:

	ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/etc/in.ftpd in.ftpd -l

	Also enable syslogd by adding:

	daemon.info	 /var/adm/syslog

	to "/etc/syslog.conf".

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