Archive-name: sun-managers-faq Sun-Managers' Frequently Asked Questions $Id: faq,v 3.188 2000/01/20 15:01:33 jdd Exp $ This is collection of common questions posted to the sun-managers mailing list twice a month. It is intended to benefit Sun System Managers and reduce traffic to the list by providing quick answers to common problems. 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 '*' The Information Files maintainer is John DiMarco . All corrections, submissions and FAQ administration-related messages should go to "sun-managers-faq@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu". Do not send questions, subscription or unsubscription requests, or sun-managers postings to this address; they will be quietly ignored. The List Server maintainer is Rob Montjoy . Any problems with the mailing list server should be directed to him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions 1. The Sun-Manager's Mailing list 1.1) How do I read, join, post to, or remove myself from the sun-managers mailing list? 1.2) What is the Sun-Manager's Charter? What are the rules? 1.3) Are there any archives for the sun-managers list? 1.4) What should I keep in mind when posting to sun-managers? 1.5) What other forums are there for Suns? 2. Getting Help Over the Net 2.1) How do I find out what patches are available from Sun? 2.2) What is "anonymous ftp" and how do I use it? 2.3) How do I find anonymous ftp sites? 2.4) How do I get help upgrading to Solaris 2.x? 2.5) How do I access Sun's Answerbooks over the net? 2.6) To which web sites can I go for help? 3. NIS, NIS+, DNS, and NFS 3.1) How do I set up NIS/YP to use DNS? 3.2) How do I use DNS instead of NIS for hostname resolution? 3.3) What does the "nres_gethostbyaddr !=" error mean? 3.4) How come yppasswdd does not automatically update the yp maps? 3.5) What does "NFS write error X" mean? 3.6) What does NFS getattr failed/RPC: Authentication error mean? 3.7) How do I change NIS+ credentials for the root master server? 3.8) When I compile something, errors occur saying _dlopen and other _dl routines can't be found. Why? 4. Window Systems 4.1) Can I run both OpenWindows and MIT X11? 4.2) How do I run X11R5 on Solaris 2.x? 4.3) Why does my OpenWindows File Manager abort with a "mknod: permission denied"? 5. Disks, Tapes and SCSI 5.1) What is the format.dat entry for drive X? 5.2) Can I use a disk greater than 700meg on SunOS 4.x? 5.3) How do I move disks from xy451 to xy753/7053 disk controllers? 5.4) Why does my internal 105 megabyte hard disk stop working? 5.5) Can I replace the 105 megabyte internal drive in a SS1/1+ with a higher capacity model? 5.6) How do I enable synchronous SCSI? 5.7) Is it okay to disconnect or connect SCSI devices while powered on? 5.8) How do I configure a sun to use its local disk(s) for swap but not for root? 5.9) My HP DAT drive is running very slowly on my sun running 4.1.x. How do I fix this? 5.10) How do I configure my sun to use Exabyte 4mm DAT tape drives? 5.11) Why is tagged queueing a problem on my third-party SCSI disk under Solaris 2.x? 5.12) Why don't third-party CD-ROMS work on my sun? 5.13) How do I support Exabyte 8505C 8mm tape drives on SunOS 4.x? 5.14) What size and density parameters should I use for dump with a high-capacity tape drive? 5.15) My 8mm tape drive is reporting write errors. What do I do? 5.16) My floppy/cdrom device says "device busy". What do I do? 5.17) What software is available for recording CD-ROMS? 5.18) + Where is my disk space? The "du" and "df" commands disagree. 6. Resource Management and Performance Tuning 6.1) How do I tell what caused my machine to crash? 6.2) What can I do if my machine slows to a crawl or just hangs? 6.3) How do I find out how much physical memory a machine has? 6.4) How do I find out what my machine's memory is being used for? How can I tell if I need more memory? 6.5) Why do some files take up more disk space after being copied? Why are the sizes reported by ls -l and du different? 6.6) How do I add more PTYs? 7. Anonymous FTP Service 7.1) How do I set up anonymous ftp on my machine? 7.2) Where can I get a version of ftp that does logging? 8. Consoles, Keyboards and Key Remapping 8.1) How do I make the numeric keypad on a type 5 keyboard work with xterm? 8.2) How do I swap the CAPS LOCK and CONTROL keys on a type 5 keyboard under Openwindows 3.x? 8.3) How do I use the keyboard and display when the console is on ttya? 9. Sun models and OS Versions 9.1) Which Sun models run which version of SunOS? 9.2) How can my program tell what model Sun it is running on? 9.3) What MBUS CPU modules are available? How can I tell what module(s) is/are in what model of SS10/SS20/SS600? 9.4) Which versions of SunOS/Solaris are Y2000 compliant? Are there patches for older versions of SunOS/Solaris? 9.5) What is the Y2000 compliance status of Sun hardware? 9.6) How do I find out a Sun's boot prom revision? 10. Miscellaneous Software 10.1) My rdump is failing with a "Protocol botched" message. What do I do? 10.2) My rpc.etherd keeps reporting "bad lnth" messages. Why? 10.3) Various daemons report "unknown service" messages. Why? 10.4) Solaris 2.x does not have a C compiler. Where can I get one? 10.5) How do I read Microsoft Word documents on my Sun? 11. Miscellaneous Hardware 11.1) How come my mouse occasionally doesn't work? 11.2) How can I turn my old sun into an X-Terminal? 11.3) How do I do hardware flow control on an ALM-2? 11.4) How can I use a VGA monitor on my Sun? 11.5) Where can I find alternate pointing devices for my Sun? 11.6) What should I do about my Ultra-1's CPU cooling fan? 12. Networking 12.1) Why do both my net interfaces have the same ethernet address? 12.2) How do I find out the hardware vendor from an ethernet address? 12.3) How do I set my hme interface to e.g. 100Mb full duplex? 13. Electronic Mail 13.1) Where can I get a POP or IMAP server for my sun? 14. Printing 14.1) Is there a third-party source for SPARCprinter consumables? 14.2) How do I configure a non-postscript printer for postscript? 15. Misc System Administration 15.1) I've forgotten the root password; how can I recover? 15.2) * How do I disable/remap STOP-A/L1-A? Answers ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Sun-Manager's Mailing list ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 1.1) How do I read, join, post to, or remove myself from the sun-managers mailing list? To have your mailing address added to or removed from the mailing list, send a request to "majordomo@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu". The request should contain simply one line which says either "subscribe sun-managers" or "unsubscribe sun-managers". You can specify the particular e-mail address to be added after the word "subscribe". Messages can be posted to the list by mailing them to the address "sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu". Do not do this until you have read the charter (question 1.2). If you wish to send a message to the sun-managers list, it is strongly recommended that you first read the list's policy statement. This statement is sent to the entire list on the first and 16th of every month. It is also sent out to every new subscriber and is available via anonymous FTP (see question 4) from "ftp.cs.toronto.edu" in the file "/pub/jdd/sun-managers/policy". The policy statement includes instructions for sending a message to the entire list. There is no digest form of sun-managers at this time. The latest version of the FAQ list (this file) is also available at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/faq. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 1.2) What is the Sun-Manager's Charter? What are the rules? 1: This list is NOT moderated! Every message that is sent to the list will be passed on to every member of the list (with a few small exceptions). 2: Requests to have addresses added or removed from the list should NOT be sent to the entire list. Instead, they should be mailed to: majordomo@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu as described in the previous question. Similarly, test messages of any sort should not be sent to the list. 3: This list is intended to be a quick-turnaround trouble shooting aid for those who administer and manage Sun systems. Its primary purpose is to provide the Sun manager with a quick source of information for system management problems that are of a time-critical nature. 4: Answers to questions are to be mailed back to the questioner and are NOT to be sent to the entire list. The person who originally asked the question has the responsibility of summarizing the answers and sending the entire summary back to the list. When a summary is sent back to the list, it should contain the word "SUMMARY" as the first word of the "Subject" line. 5: Discussions on ANY topic are not allowed and will not be tolerated. If you want to discuss something, take it to the appropriate Sun newsgroup. 6: If it is not specifically related to Sun system management, then it does NOT belong on this list. Requests for vendor recommendations are tolerated, provided that the hardware in question is something that system managers normally purchase. 7: COMMERICAL ADVERTISING of any sort on the list IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. ABUSERS of this rule MAY BE BANNED from the list without notice. 8: Postings about employment, either employment sought or offered, are not permitted on this list. Please use a more appropriate forum, e.g. one of the newsgroups in the misc.jobs USENET hierarchy. 9: Requests for software (free or otherwise) should be limited to software that is directly related to Sun SYSTEM MANAGEMENT ONLY. 10: Read the appropriate manuals BEFORE posting, including the "Read This First" documents. Often times the manuals contain answers for common problems. 11: When including a traceback from a system panic, make sure that it is a SYMBOLIC traceback. Numeric tracebacks (the ones included as part of the panic message) are totally useless. Read eg. chapter 22 of the SunOS 4.1 system administration manual to learn how to produce a symbolic traceback. 12: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE...Think before you send a message! Ask yourself "is this really appropriate?" There are enough other newsgroups and mailing lists around to cover the marginal topics. Perhaps there is another forum that is more appropriate. Check the list of Sun specific newsgroups mentioned in answer 1.5. Perhaps your message would be more appropriate there. If after reading all the guidelines you decide that you still want to send your message to the entire sun-managers readership, then see the previous question (1.1) for information on how to post. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in severe chastisement by the list participants. Not only will you succeed in looking like a careless fool, and in making Sun Systems Managers all over the world annoyed at your stupidity, you may end up damaging your professional reputation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 1.3) Are there any archives for the sun-managers list? The site "www.LaTech.edu" archives every summary sent to the list. Questions are not archived. This site provides access to its archives via the HTTP (WWW), WAIS, and gopher protocols. It does not provide any anonymous FTP access. You can access the archives over the World Wide Web by referencing the URL "http://www.latech.edu/sunman.html" from any web browser. This is the preferred way to access the archives. WAIS is the "Wide Area Information Server", an experimental system that provides for automatic search and retrieval of many types of electronic information. Source for Unix WAIS clients can be obtained via anonymous FTP from think.com in the directory "/wais". A WAIS "source" entry for the sun-managers WAIS information server is available via anonymous FTP from "ra.mcs.anl.gov" in the file "/sun-managers/sun-managers.src". Gopher is a distributed document delivery service which allows access to a wide variety of textual information. If your system already has a gopher client installed, you can access the sun-managers gopher by simply typing "gopher info.latech.edu". The sun-manager archives are accessible under the "archives" menu. Source for Unix gopher clients can be obtained via anonymous FTP from "boombox.micro.umn.edu" in the directory "/pub/gopher/Unix". Dataman Benelux in the Netherlands hosts a "fuzzy" full-text index of the Sun-managers mailing list at: http://www.dataman.nl/cgi-bin/sunmanagers Sunsite hosts a WAIS searchable archive for Sun-Managers, at http://metalab.unc.edu/sun/inform/sun-managers-summary.html Manfred Liebchen maintains a full archive site in Germany for Sun-Managers. It can be accessed at: http://www.uni-koeln.de/RRZK/Abt-Systeme/sun/infos/SUN-MANAGERS/sunman.html Hank Leininger maintains a searchable archive site of recent (since Oct 1997) messages (both questions and summaries) at Progressive Computer Concepts in Florida, USA. It can be accessed at: http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=sun-managers&r=1&w=2#sun-managers ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 1.4) What should I keep in mind when posting to sun-managers? o VERY IMPORTANT! Before you post, read the sun-manager's policy, which is available for anonymous ftp at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/policy. o Sun-Managers is a huge unmoderated mailing list. Every message you send will be passed on to every member of the list. This means you get access to a much larger audience when you need help, but it also means you can embarrass yourself in front of a huge number of people, most of them professionals in your field, including colleagues, peers, and possible future employers. o Sun-Managers is completely voluntary. Nobody is required to help you. We are all cooperating by sharing our knowledge. Accept with grace whatever responses you get, and don't hound people if they are helpful or they won't be the next time. o Sun-Managers is not the list to use when you run out of other places to post. Job postings, PC questions, X questions all have their own lists and newsgroups. Use _only_ the appropriate list or newsgroup for such things, not Sun-Managers. Inappropriate postings will only make people annoyed at you. o The more information you give about a problem, the easier it is for others to help you. This doesn't mean you should uuencode the kernel and post it, but you should include your OS version, your hardware, and all relevant symptoms of your problem. Unless the request is of a general nature, the output of "uname -a" is almost certainly helpful. o Be generous. If you have the information requested (especially if it is obscure) then please respond. You may be the person requesting help next time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 1.5) What other forums are there for Suns? Other forums that relate to Suns (please mail me corrections and additions): USENET Newsgroups (accessible via "rn", "readnews", "nn", netscape, etc.): There is now an entire heirarchy devoted to Sun equipment: comp.sys.sun.admin Sun system administration comp.sys.sun.announce Announcements pertaining to Sun equipment comp.sys.sun.apps Applications that run on Suns comp.sys.sun.hardware Sun hardware (and clones too, I think) comp.sys.sun.misc Miscellaneous comp.sys.sun.wanted Sun stuff to buy or sell Other newsgroups that may also be of interest: comp.unix.solaris Solaris 2.x on all platforms alt.sys.sun may not be available everywhere comp.sys.sun newsgroup equivalent of sun-spots comp.sources.sun Sun-specific sources (not very active) Mailing lists: Sun Flash (Sun Product Announcements/news releases) sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM add/remove requests Sunergy (Sun Commercial Newsletter) sunergy_information@Sun.COM add/remove requests Suns-at-home (Home use of Sun Workstations) Suns-at-Home-Request@net-kitchen.com add/remove requests Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com submissions Suns-at-Home-Archives@net-kitchen.com archive requests ssa-managers (Sun RAID software and hardware products) majordomo@eng.auburn.edu add/remove requests (e.g. send "subscribe ssa-managers" in message body) veritas-users (Veritas products) majordomo@eng.auburn.edu add/remove requests (e.g. send "subscribe veritas-users" in message body) CIAC notes (US. DOE Computer Incident Advisory Capability) ciac-listproc@llnl.gov add/remove requests listmanager@cheetah.llnl.gov human list manager CERT Advisory mailing list (security notifications for Suns and others) cert-advisory-request@cert.org add/remove requests Solaris on Intel-based (x86) machines solarisonintel-subscribe@egroups.com add/remove requests solarisonintel@egroups.com submissions solarisonintel-owner@egroups.com human list manager http://www.egroups.com/list/solarisonintel/ Auspex: managers of Auspex NFS file servers auspex-request@princeton.edu add/remove requests auspex@princeton.edu submissions Solbourne: managers of Solbourne SPARC systems "info-solbourne" list majordomo@acsu.buffalo.edu add/remove requests info-solbourne@acsu.buffalo.edu submissions ftp://ftp.acsu.buffalo.edu/pub/misc/info-solbourne.tar.z archives disksuite-l: for users who use Sun's Solstice Disksuite software majordomo@lists.veritel.com.br add/remove requests pinheiro@veritel.com.br list owner NOTE: if you wish to be added to one of the above mailing lists, send mail to the REQUEST address! Do not send add requests to the main address! For Web pages, see the answer to question 2.6. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Getting Help Over the Net ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.1) How do I find out what patches are available from Sun? If you have a software service agreement with Sun, you can use Sun's "SunSolve ONLINE" service to obtain patches. Check your service agreement for details. Sun recommended patches can be obtained from sun via anonymous ftp to sunsolve1.sun.com. Many anonymous ftp sites have partial collections of patches. The archie service can be consulted. WARNING: if you ftp patches from an ftp site, you are trusting whomever put them there. To be absolutely safe, get your patches from a trusted source. Sun makes available certain security patches for anonymous ftp on ftp.uu.net, in the directory /systems/sun/sun-dist. CERT and Sun often publishes the checksums of security patches. You can use the UNIX "sum" command to verify the identity of patches retrieved from ftp sites. Rik Harris maintains a WAIS archive (sun-fixes.src) of most available patch READMEs. The Sun User Group (SUG) CD ROM also has a collection of Sun patches. There is a special patch tape (U1) available from sun for Sun3's running 4.1.1 which fixes many of the bugs that were fixed for Sparcs in later releases. Note that sun3's don't run anything later than 4.1.1. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.2) What is "anonymous ftp" and how do I use it? Anonymous ftp is a way to provide restricted file transfer 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'. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.3) 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 an internet service that allows you to search for ftp sites that might have some file you're looking for. Telnet to one of the following machines, using the login "archie": archie.rutgers.edu 128.6.18.15 (Rutgers University) archie.unl.edu 129.93.1.14 (University of Nebraska in Lincoln) archie.sura.net 128.167.254.179 (SURAnet archie server) archie.ans.net 147.225.1.2 (ANS archie server) archie.au 139.130.4.6 (Australian server) archie.funet.fi 128.214.6.100 (European server in Finland) archie.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.11.3 (UK/England server) archie.cs.huji.ac.il 132.65.6.15 (Israel server) archie.wide.ad.jp 133.4.3.6 (Japanese server) archie.luth.se 130.240.18.4 (Scandinavian server) archie.ncu.edu.tw 192.83.166.12 (Taiwan server) archie.nz 130.195.9.4 (New Zealand server) archie.th-darmstadt.de 130.83.22.1 (Germany server) archie.switch.ch 130.59.10.40 (Switzerland server) archie.unipi.it 131.114.21.10 (Italy server) archie.ac.il 132.65.16.8 (Israel server) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.4) How do I get help upgrading to Solaris 2.x? Start by reading the Solaris FAQ, maintained and posted periodically to comp.unix.solaris by Casper Dik . It can be obtained by anonymous ftp to ftp.fwi.uva.nl, in /pub/solaris. An HTML version can be obtained at ftp://ftp.fwi.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html. Then go to the Solaris Security FAQ, maintained by Peter Galvin and hosted by SunWorld Online Magazine and Sun Microsystems at http://www.sun.com/sunworldonline/common/security-faq.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.5) How do I access Sun's Answerbooks over the net? You can access Sun's complete set of Answerbooks on the World-Wide Web at http://docs.sun.com/ab2/ Thanks to Tim Evans for this pointer. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 2.6) To which web sites can I go for help? This is not a complete list, but: Sun's documentation is available at http://docs.sun.com You can search the Sun newsgroups at http://www.dejanews.com Sun-Managers Archives are described in the answer to question 1.3 above. Some sites suggested by Jeffrey Meltzer are: SolarisGuide http://www.solarisguide.com ISP-Solaris http://www.isp-solaris.com SunHelp http://www.sunhelp.org SolarisCentral http://www.solariscentral.org SunGuru http://www.sunguru.com SunFreeware http://www.sunfreeware.com Gil Young runs a Solaris Forum at Brainbuzz: http://networking.brainbuzz.com/boards/viewboardmessages.asp,b~S2B43 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. NIS, NIS+, DNS, and NFS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.1) How do I set up NIS/YP to use DNS? Under SunOS 4.1.x, 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; \ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.2) How do I use DNS instead of NIS for hostname resolution? In SunOS 5.x (Solaris 2.x), this is easy: simply edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and put "dns" before (or instead of) nis or nisplus on the line that begins with "hosts:". For example, to look up hostnames first in the DNS, and then in the hosts file, use "hosts: dns files". For SunOS 4.x, 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. While you could do this by creating an empty NIS host map, or even removing the host map entirely from your NIS Makefile, 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 complete procedure for this is spelled out in "bindon41.shar", which is available for anonymous ftp from "ra.mcs.anl.gov" in "/pub" - it goes one step further and replaces the Sun resolver routines with the latest BIND versions. Note that you can still use NIS for other things, 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 called "resolv+" that allow you to specify hostname lookups to /etc/hosts only, DNS only or both. Resolv+ is on osl.csc.ncsu.edu (152.1.58.11) in pub/unix/sun/resolv+-2.1.tar.Z. A later version is available at ftp.cc.utexas.edu:/source/tcp-ip/resolv+2.1.1/resolv+2.1.1.tar.Z The latest bind can be found at "ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.3) What does the "nres_gethostbyaddr !=" error mean? This message is from "ypserv" and has been determined to be "harmless" (bug #1039839). Get Sun patch 100482-02 or later which fixes this and other bugs in NIS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.4) 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.5) 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.6) What does NFS getattr failed/RPC: Authentication error mean? You are probably running a pre-4.0 version of NFS, or using another vendor's system, 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.7) How do I change NIS+ credentials for the root master server? If an NIS+ system is functioning correctly and only the root password and root private keys for the system need to be changed, follow these steps: 1) Login as root for the system and change the root password in the /etc/shadow file: {root}3% passwd passwd: Changing password for root New password: Re-enter new password: {root}4% 2) Change the system's private key in the cred table: {root}4% chkey -p Updating nisplus publickey database. Reencrypting key for 'unix.ramayan@bharat.i n'. Please enter the Secure-RPC password for root: Please enter the login password for root: {root}5% 3) If running replica server(s) then wait until the changes to the credential object table has been propagated to its replicas. This could be up to 2 minutes. 4) Change the system's /etc/.rootkey: {root}5% keylogin -r Password: Wrote secret key into /etc/.rootkey {root}6% The procedure above will work for any system -- root server, root replica, non-root servers, and all clients. The steps above change only the system's root password and private keys, not the public keys for the system. Thanks to Ronald W. Henderson . However, if you want to change all the root credentials, including the public key, follow these steps: Use the passwd command on the root master server to change the root password. But DO NOT follow this with a chkey -p to update the credentials for the root master server, because this will disable the entire NIS+ domain. The only way to recover from this is to rebuild the domain from scratch! It is possible to change the credentials of the root master server, but it is not easy. The procedure follows: To change the keys for the root master server do as follows: 1. use these commands in this order: nisupdkeys -CH master.server.name. groups_dir.domain.name. nisupdkeys -CH master.server.name. org_dir.domain.name. nisupdkeys -CH master.server.name. domain.name. (This CLEARS the public key for the HOST "master.server.name" in this directory.) 2. Kill rpc.nisd and restart it at security level O then run this command: nistbladm -R cname=master.server.name. cred.org_dir.domain.name. nisaddcred des 3. Shutdown and restart any replicas of org_dir.domain.name. at run level O nisping org_dir.domain.name. nisdupdkeys domain.name. nisupddkeys org_dir.domain.name. nisupdkeys groups_dir.domain.name. 4. Kill and restart all rpc.nisd servers at level O to security level 2. Note that changing a server's key affects all directory objects containing the key. Thanks to Rogerio Rocha and Sun INFODOC ID 2213 for this information. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 3.8) When I compile something, errors occur saying _dlopen and the other _dl routines can't be found. Why? If your system is running SunOS 4.x, your System Administrator has modified the C library (/usr/lib/libc.a), usually to add hooks for hostname resolution (DNS). This modification is usually made using packages like "bind 4.8.3" or "resolv+ 2.1". Unfortunately there is a bug in that process which is documented but frequently missed by the person doing the installation. There are two ways around this: (i) Specify -ldl when compiling any and all package that complains. (ii) Get the sys-admin to reinstall the libc properly, ensuring that the Makefile used in that process specifies -ldl, so that the dl routines are included. Thanks to markus@octavia.anu.edu.au (Markus Buchhorn) for this answer. Sometimes other routines are also noted as not being found. There are three .o files in the shared library (rpc_commondata.o, rpc_dtablesize.o, and xccs.multibyte.o) that have names longer than 14 characters. These are unpacked during the shared library customization procedure as files without the trailing 'o', and need to be renamed so that the trailing 'o' is present. Ask the sysadmin to fix this. If you are running Solaris 2.x, you are probably trying to compile something statically. You must either include stub routines for the _dl routines, or you must link the C library (or -ldl) dynamically. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Window Systems ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 4.1) Can I run both OpenWindows and MIT X11? In Solaris 2.x, they both work without conflict, although MIT X11 may not support all the available Sun devices. See http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/packages/solaris/sparc/html/X11R6.4.html for more information. In SunOS 4.x, things are a bit more complicated: The shared libraries for OpenWindows have different 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 executables in /usr/bin/X11, 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/R5 environment set path = (/usr/bin/X11 $path) setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib (Actually, for libraries in /usr/lib, /usr/5lib, or /usr/local/lib, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not necessary.) Sun OpenWindows set path = (/usr/openwin/bin /usr/openwin/demo $path) setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/openwin/lib (Actually, for most OpenWindows clients, it's sufficient to set OPENWINHOME to /usr/openwin instead of setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to /usr/openwin/lib may cause MIT clients to fail.) You can also run clients from one environment under a different server on a one command at a time basis. This example runs a OpenWindows client under the MIT server: (setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/openwin/lib; x_soundtool) It is possible to run OpenWindows 3.0 and MIT X11 simultaneously without having to toggle LD_LIBRARY_PATH as above, by putting the X11 libraries before the openwindows libraries in LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and the X11 binaries before the openwindows binaries in PATH, as follows: setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib/X11:$OPENWINHOME/lib setenv path (/usr/bin/X11 $OPENWINHOME/bin $path) Setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH can be avoided altogether if the superuser links all the openwin 3.0 and X11R4 libraries into /usr/local/lib as follows: ln -s $OPENWINHOME/lib/lib*.s[oa]* /usr/local/lib ln -s /usr/lib/X11/lib*.s[oa]* /usr/local/lib /etc/ldconfig Unfortunately, not all OpenWindows 3.0 applications will work with X11R5 libraries. To use the X11 xdm with the openwin 3.0 Xnews server, modify the Xservers file (eg. /usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers) to say something like the following: :0 local $OPENWINHOME/lib/xdm/StartOW -nosunview \ -fp /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc,$OPENWINHOME/lib/fonts,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi Change the options or font path if necessary. Note that sun patch 100452-25 or later should be installed, to prevent the Xnews server from consuming more and more memory as time passes. (Thanks to Margarita Suarez for the last three suggestions) OpenWindows 3.x includes most of the MIT X11 libraries and header files. Most MIT X11 Applications can be compiled and run under OpenWindows 3.0 without change. 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 GNU "copyleft" package available from various ftp sites. Two enhanced versions of Ghostscript are also available, GSPreview and Ghostview, they both offer fancier preview capabilities. These programs are currently available via anonymous ftp: Ghostscript and Ghostview are on prep.ai.mit.edu (18.71.0.38) in /pub/gnu. GSPreview is on ftp.x.org (198.112.44.100) in /R5contrib ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 4.2) How do I run X11R5 on Solaris 2.x? Note: in Solaris 2.3 and later, OpenWindows is X11R5-based, so you may not necessarily need to run stock MIT X11R5. Note also that MIT X11R6 supports Solaris 2.x. If you still wish to run MIT X11R5, start with a stock MIT X11R5 distribution, and apply all the outstanding X11R5 fixes. Grab R5.SunOS5.patch.tar.Z from ftp.x.org:/R5contrib and apply it. Configure and compile as per the patch instructions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 4.3) Why does my OpenWindows File Manager abort with a "mknod: permission denied"? Under Solaris 2.3, the first time filemgr is launched, it created a /tmp/.removable directory owned by the user who launched it. If a different user later starts up filemgr, it will try to create /tmp/.removable, but that directory will already exist from the last time, owned by the previous user, so the attempt will fail. Fix by installing patch 101514-02. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Disks, Tapes and SCSI ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.1) What is the format.dat entry for drive X? 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, contact the manufacturer, or 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 drive manufacturers run "bulletin boards" with drive information on them: Fujitsu America BBS 408 944 9899 Seagate BBS USA/Can 408 438 8771 Seagate BBS England 44 62 847 8011 Seagate BBS Germany 49 89 140 9331 Seagate BBS Singapore 65 292 6973 Seagate BBS Australia 61 2 756 2359 Maxtor BBS 303 678 2222 Micropolis BBS 818 709 3310 Quantum BBS 408 894 3214 Conner BBS 408 456 4415 / 408 456 3200 It is also possible to contact drive manufacturers by telephone. Some relevant numbers: Fujitsu USA 800-626-4686 408-432-1300 Fujitsu FAXLINE 408-428-0456 Fujitsu Canada 416-602-5454 800-263-7091 Hitachi USA 800-HIT-ACHI Hitachi HITFAX 800-HIT-FAX1 Maxtor USA 800-2MA-XTOR Maxtor FAXBACK 303-678-2618 Micropolis USA 800-395-3748 Seagate USA 800-468-3472 405-936-1200 Seagate FAX 408-438-8137 Seagate FAXBACK 408-438-2620 Quantum USA 800-826-8022 Conner USA 408-456-3247 408-456-4500 Conner Tech 800-426-6637 Conner FAXBACK 408-456-4903 CDC spun off their disk-drive business as Imprimis, which was later bought by Seagate, so direct all questions about CDC and Imprimis drives to Seagate. A format.dat file containing entries submitted by various people is available for anonymous ftp at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/format.dat It is currently maintained by John DiMarco (jdd@cs.toronto.edu). New entries (especially vendor-suggested ones) are welcome; mail them to sun-managers-format@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu Note: do not post a format.dat request to the list or to the comp.sys.sun.admin newsgroup unless you have exhausted all these avenues. If you have a SCSI disk on a sun4c, sun4m, sun4e, or sun4d running SunOS 4.1.1 or later, grab John DiMarco's scsiinfo program from ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/scsiinfo/. It will query the disk directly, and generate an appropriate format.dat entry Tips for rolling your own format.dat: - For SCSI disks, any combination of cylinders, heads, and sectors that does not add up to more than the rated formatted capacity of the drive will normally work. A grossly different geometry may result in some slight performance degradation, but it should still work. The SCSI protocol hides most of the drive details from the host, and hence the host need not know much about the drive to format or use it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.2) Can I use a disk greater than 700meg on SunOS 4.x? Yes, Sun sells drives significantly larger than 700MB, and you can choose from a variety of third party drives. However, the SPARCstation SCSI drivers in SunOS 4.1.1 or earlier 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 100343-04 or later. 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 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. This patch is only required for Sun4c's (Sparcstations) running SunOS 4.1.1 or earlier. Sun3's, Sun4m's (600 series, SS10), and Sun4's (100,200,300,400 series) do not require it, and the patch is included in SunOS 4.1.2 and later. Note: Older Fujitsu M2266SA drives have a 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 a "D" or later version. Note: Older Wren 7's may not boot on IPX's, ELC's and later machines, due to a bug in the Wren 7's firmware. Here is a patch to the NVRAM which must be made from the monitor. WARNING : It is important that you type this correctly. Check this several times! Remember all the question marks, dashes and spaces and yes, sstart should be with two "s"'s. Note: Syntax errors in your NVRAMRC can make your machine unbootable. In Prom version 2.x, hitting L1-N after the selftest at bootup will reset the NVRAM. If you have prom revision 2.0 to 2.5, inclusive: (from monitor level) > n ok nvedit 0: true to fcode-debug? 1: probe-all install-console banner 2: cd /sd [ or whatever drive you want to boot from ] 3: patch 0 1 sstart 4: device-end 5: [ press c to exit nvedit at this point ] ok nvstore ok setenv use-nvramrc? true ok reset For prom revision 2.6 or greater, use: (from monitor level) > n ok nvedit 0: probe-all install-console banner 1: cd /esp 2: ' 0 ' 1 ' timed-spin >body 7 /token * + token@ (patch 3: device-end 4: [ press c to exit nvedit at this point ] ok nvstore ok setenv use-nvramrc? true ok reset If you have a prom revision earlier than 2.0, or you don't wish to use the nvramrc, a Wren VII can be made to boot by making the "a" partition start at cylinder two, instead of cylinder zero. Thanks to Rick.Tilson@Corp.Sun.COM (Rick Tilson) and kuhn@math.harvard.edu (Robert M. Kuhn). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.3) How do I move disks from xy451 to xy753/7053 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.4) Why does my internal 105 megabyte hard disk stop 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 removing the drive, holding it around waist height, and give it a couple of quick twists in the plane of the disk surface. This should loosen the lubricant. (Thanks to Dan Razzell for this suggestion.) Tapping the disk lightly may also work, but this is understandably risky. Stan Hoffman adds: I also found a lot of bad connectors where the power cable connects to the motherboard. The connector coming from the drive have horseshoe-shaped clips that straddle the wire and cut into it to make contact. I have often had to reseat these clips by pressing them down a little further before the drive would power up. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.5) Can I replace the 105 megabyte internal drive in a SS1/1+ with a higher capacity model? The higher capacity drives sometimes create more heat and draw more power than the 105S. The case cooling ability and power supply in the SS-1 and SS-1+ is not adequate for drives significantly hotter than the Quantum 105S. The Quantum 105S pulls 10W, so any disk much more than this might be a problem. Since the SS1/1+ supports two drives, if only one drive is installed, it should be possible to relax this constraint somewhat. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.6) 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.x, sync SCSI is negotiated at boot time by checking each device to see if it supports it. 4.1.x (except for 4.1.3 and later) will print a message if it is successful: esp0: Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate To turn on this message for SunOS 4.1.3 and later, you can modify the kernel or /sys/sun[4c|4m]/OBJ/esp.o using adb to set espdebug to 0x1 as above. This can cause problems with some SCSI peripherals, however (eg. some 8mm drives). Better still, grab John DiMarco (jdd@cs.toronto.edu)'s "scsiinfo" program which provides this information and more about SCSI peripherals attached to ESP SCSI host adapters. scsiinfo is available for anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.toronto.edu in /pub/jdd/scsiinfo. Note: SCSI cable length can affect drive performance, especially for fast synchronous SCSI devices and controllers. Cable length should be kept at a minimum. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.7) Is it okay to disconnect or connect SCSI devices while powered on? On older machines (without onboard SCSI controllers), it is never a good idea to do this. You risk blowing a fuse on the CPU board, or part of the SCSI hardware. On newer machines (sparcstations and later), many people have done this regularly without problems. Halt the machine (sync;L1-A), remove or add the device, then continue. However, it is possible to blow the SCSI termination power fuse on the motherboard. If your machine hangs immediately on powerup unless the SCSI bus is externally terminated, this fuse may need to be replaced. Caveat Emptor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.8) How do I configure a sun to use its local disk(s) for swap but not for root? For Solaris 2.x, this is trivial. For SunOS 4.x: It's necessary to configure the kernel to use a designated swap partition. You can do this by replacing the line in the kernel config file (/sys/`arch -k`/conf/KERNEL-NAME) that says config vmunix swap generic with config vmunix root on type nfs swap on type spec Replace '' with the name of the disk block device you want to use, eg. 'sd0b'. Thanks to Nick Sayer . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.9) My HP DAT drive is running very slowly on my sun running 4.1.x. How do I fix this? You'll need to add some configuration data for the HP DAT drive to your Sun 4.1.x kernel as follows: In /sys/scsi/targets/stdef.h, add the line: #define ST_TYPE_HP1 0x2a /* HP C1533A DDS2 DAT drive */ In /sys/scsi/targets/st_conf.c, add the following: /* added DAPM 5-feb-94 * HP C1533A DDS2 DAT tape drive */ { "HP C1533A 4mm DDS DAT", 2, "HP", ST_TYPE_HP1, 10240, (ST_VARIABLE|ST_BSF|ST_BSR|ST_LONG_ERASE|ST_AUTODEN_OVERRIDE), 6000,6000, {0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00}, {0,0,0,0} }, Recompile your kernel, and reboot with the new kernel. Thanks to Dave Mitchell and sjf@mod.dsto.gov.au (Stephen Fitzgerald). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.10) How do I configure my sun to use Exabyte 4mm DAT tape drives? According to Exabyte's customer service center (913-492-6002), for SunOS 4.1.x, for an EXB-4200 and 4200c, add the following entries to /sys/scsi/targets/st_conf.c: /* Exabyte 4mm 2GB cartridge */ { "Exabyte EXB-4200 4mm Helical Scan", 16, "EXABYTE EXB-4200", ST_TYPE_DEFAULT, 1024, (ST_VARIABLE | ST_BSF | ST_BSR), 5000, 5000, { 0, 0, 0, 0 }, { 0, 0, 0, 0 } }, /* Exabyte 4mm 4GB w/compression cartridge */ { "Exabyte EXB4200c 4mm Helical Scan", 17, "EXABYTE EXB-4200c", ST_TYPE_DEFAULT, 1024, (ST_VARIABLE | ST_BSF | ST_BSR), 5000, 5000, { 0x63, 0x43, 0x0c, 0x0c }, { 0, 0, 0, 0 } }, For Solaris 2.x, add the following to /kernel/drv/st.conf: tape-config-list = "EXABYTE EXB-4200", "Exabyte 4mm EXB-4200", "EXBT-4200", "EXABYTE EXB-4200c", "Exabyte 4mm EXB-4200c", "EXBT-4200c" EXBT-4200 = 1,0x34,1024,0x0029,4,0x63,0,0,0,3; EXBT-4200c = 1,0x34,1024,0x0029,4,0x63,0,0x13,0,3; Exabyte also recommends that their 4mm tape drives have firmware revision levels of at least the following when used on suns: EXB-4200 No restriction, but revision 148 or higher is recommended EXB-4200c Level 149 minimum (mode select for compression) Thanks to Dave Hightower . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.11) Why is tagged queueing a problem on my third-party SCSI disk under Solaris 2.x? Tagged Command Queueing (TCQ) is an optional part of the SCSI-2 specification. It permits a drive to accept multiple I/O requests for execution later. These requests are "tagged" by a reusable id so that the drive and the OS can keep track of them. The drive can reorder these requests to optimize seeks. For more details, see the SCSI-2 specifications. A draft version is available at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/scsi-doc/scsi2.10b.gz SunOS 4.x and earlier never uses tagged queueing. However, Solaris 2.x will make use of tagged queuing if the drive claims to support it. Unfortunately, some drive manufacturers have found it hard to design their drives to do tagged queueing properly, and this particular area has been a common source of bugs in drive firmware. If it is not possible to turn off tagged queueing in the drive that is causing the problem, Solaris 2.x can be told not to use tagged queueing at all, by putting the following line in /etc/system: set scsi_options & ~0x80 The "scsi_options" kernel variable contains a number of bit flags which are defined in /usr/include/sys/scsi/conf/autoconf.h. 0x80 corresponds to tagged queueing. However, this turns off tagged queueing for the entire machine, not just the problematic drive. Because tagged queueing can provide a significant performance enhancement for busy drives, this may not always be desirable. In Solaris 2.4 and later, it is possible to disable tagged queueing and set or clear other scsi options on a per-controller or per-drive basis. The appropriate technique is described in the esp(7) and isp(7) man pages. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.12) Why don't third-party CD-ROMS work on my sun? When Sun first decided to add CD-ROM support, there were already a great number of systems in the field, all of which contained boot proms that expected to boot from disks with 512 byte sectors. Sun had to decide between replacing a whole lot of boot proms or finding a way to make a CDROM act like a disk with 512 byte sectors in order to support it as a boot device. They chose the latter approach. Many third party CD-ROM drives use 1024 or 2048-byte sectors, which causes the SCSI driver to see a "data overrun". When the driver asks for N "blocks" (which it thinks are 512 bytes each ) it gets more data back than it expected. Some CD-ROM drives can be told to use 512 byte sectors by setting a jumper, cutting a trace, or using a software command (mode select). Details vary widely, but if you are seeing a data overrun on a third party CD-ROM, then it is most likely doing 1K or 2K transfers and will need some work to be a boot device for a Sun. Thanks to Kevin Sheehan For more information about third-party CD-ROMS on Suns, consult the CD-ROM FAQ, maintained by Mike Frisch and Martin Hargreaves . It can be found on the World Wide Web at "http://204.92.19.89/suncdfaq/" and "http://www.datamodl.demon.co.uk/suncd/". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.13) How do I support Exabyte 8505C 8mm tape drives on SunOS 4.x? Modify /usr/sys/scsi/targets/st_conf.c to add the following entry: /* Exabyte 8mm 5GB 1/2-height cartridge, with compression */ { "Exabyte EXB-8505 8mm Helical Scan", 16, "EXABYTE EXB-8505", ST_TYPE_EXB8500, 1024, (ST_VARIABLE | ST_BSF | ST_BSR | ST_LONG_ERASE), 5000, 5000, { 0x14, 0x90, 0x15, 0x00 }, { 0, 0, 0, 0 } }, Create a new kernel and boot using it. The devices corresponding to the different modes supported by the drive are as follows: Device Capacity Emulation st0,st1 2.3GB Exabyte 8200 st8,st9 2.3GB with compression Exabyte 8200C st16,st17 5GB Exabyte 8500/8505 st24,st25 5GB with compression Exabyte 8505C Thanks to Paul Roland Note: Exabyte 8505C 8mm support is included in SunOS 5.x a.k.a. Solaris 2.x, so no special modifications are required for OS versions later than 4.x. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.14) What size and density parameters should I use for dump with a high-capacity tape drive? The only purpose of the dump (ufsdump in Solaris 2.x) size and density parameters is to let dump calculate the capacity of each tape and then decide for itself when it needs a new tape. If the filesystem you are dumping is larger than the tape, you will need to use more than one tape. In SunOS 4.x and earlier, dump uses the size and density parameters to decide when to stop writing to a particular tape and prompt for a new one. Since SunOS 4.x has a filesystem limit of 2GB, it is most often the case, for modern high-capacity tape drives, that the filesystem will fit on one tape. If, as is the case with SunOS and high capacity drives, you are dumping multiple filesystems one after another to the non-rewinding tape device, each successive dump has no way of knowing how much of the tape has been already used, so there's no recourse but human intervention. In other words, you have to figure out manually how many of your filesystems will fit on one tape. All that the dump size and density parameters do is tell dump that it has lots of space left. Since it hardly matters what these parameters are, so long as they convince dump that the (remainder of the) tape is bigger than your filesystem so that it doesn't decide to ask you for a new tape part-way through, you can tell it the tape is big enough for a 2GB filesystem, by using 16000 for both the size and density parameters. This will be large enough for all standard SunOS 4.x filesystems. If you're using Online Disk Suite or something similar to overcome the 2GB SunOS filesystem size limit, these parameters will need adjusting. For example, if you need to dump a 4 Gbyte filesystem, simply double the tape size. In Solaris 2.x, ufsdump can detect the end of media for all modern tape drives, and will automatically prompt for new tapes when needed. Thanks to Niall O Broin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.15) My 8mm tape drive is reporting write errors. What do I do? If you are not using data quality tapes (eg. Sony D8), you may need to. Also, 8mm drives need to be cleaned regularly. Finally, your tape drive may need to be replaced. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.16) My floppy/cdrom device says "device busy". What do I do? If you are running a version of Solaris 2.x, the Volume Manager (vold) is probably holding the device open. You can access a floppy through the volume manager by typing "volcheck" and looking in /floppy/*. CD-ROMs don't require volcheck; just insert one and the volume manager should automatically notice, and mount it under /cdrom/*. Unmount by typing "eject floppy" or "eject cdrom", respectively. The Volume Manager can be configured by editing /etc/vold.conf. If you need to access a floppy or CD-ROM special device, however, you may need to turn off the volume manager. As root, type "/etc/init.d/volmgt stop". To turn it back on, type "/etc/init.d/volmgt start". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.17) What software is available for recording CD-ROMS? Commercial Software: GEAR by Elektoson - http://www.elektroson.com/ Young Minds - http://www.ymi.com/ - High-end integrated hardware/software solution Creative Digital Research - http://www.cdr1.com/ Free Software: Joerg Schilling has developed an excellent cd recording package called cdrecord. This package should meet most needs. See http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html for much more information, including supported hardware. Information: Andy McFadden has an excellent CD-Recordable FAQ at: http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq Joerg Schilling has a lot of information and links at: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/ Thanks to Mark Belanger ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 5.18) + Where is my disk space? The "du" and "df" commands disagree. If a process is holding open a file, and that file is removed, the space belonging to the file is not freed until the process either exits or closes the file. This space is counted by "df" but not by "du". This often happens in /var/log or /var/adm when a long-running process (e.g. syslog) is holding open a file. In the case of syslog, send it a HUP (e.g. kill -HUP ). You can use LSOF (ftp://coast.cs.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix/lsof) to find which processes are holding open a particular file. Thanks to Stefan Voss and Michael R. Zika ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Resource Management and Performance Tuning ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.1) 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. Type the following: cd /var/crash/`hostname` echo '$c' | adb -k vmunix.0 vmcore.0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.2) 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 occasionally can get 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. Another useful approach is to run vmstat to pin down what resource(s) your machine is running out of. You can tell vmstat to give ongoing reports by specifying a report interval as its first argument. The programs "top" and "sps" are good for finding processes that are loading your system. "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. Top is available for anonymous ftp at eecs.nwu.edu in /pub/top. A version of Sps that runs on Solaris 2.x is available at ftp.csv.warwick.ac.uk in /pub/solaris2/sps-sol2.tar.gz. For Solaris 2.x, Doug Hughes has written a small, quick PS workalike called "qps", available from his web page at "http://www.eng.auburn.edu/users/doug/second.html". 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". Note that "out of memory" refers to virtual memory, not physical memory. On a 4.x system (or earlier), the size of a machine's virtual memory is equal to the amount of swap space it has. On a 5.x system, it is generally equal to the sum of the swap space and the amount of physical memory (less a roughly constant amount for the kernel) on the machine. The commands "pstat -s" (for 4.x) or "swap -s" (for Solaris 2.x) will tell you how much virtual memory is available. You can sync the disks to minimize filesystem corruption if you have to crash the system: Use the L1-A sequence to crash the 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". Sometimes a system hang or similar slowdown can be caused by an OS bug. In particular, patch 100330-03 or later fixes some OS bugs in SunOS 4.1.1 that can cause system hangs in certain circumstances. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.3) How do I find out how much physical memory a machine has? For machines running SunOS 5.x, use /usr/sbin/prtconf. If the machine is running an earlier version of SunOS, one of the following techniques can be used: Try "/etc/dmesg | grep mem". This takes advantage of the fact that the kernel writes the amount of physical memory on the machine to the console on reboot. /etc/dmesg reports the most recent messages written to the console. If many messages have been written to the console since the machine was rebooted, the message reporting the amount of physical memory may no longer be in the buffer. If you save console messages to /var/adm/messages (usually true by default), you can try "grep mem /var/adm/messages*". If the message is no longer in the buffer, it still may be in the messages log file. "/usr/etc/devinfo -v" is informative on some machines. The banner message on reboot (or type "banner" in the monitor on machines with Openboot proms) will usually report the amount of physical memory. Alternatively, you can poke around in /dev/mem and /vmunix (or equivalent), or open up the case and count SIMMS and/or memory boards. To make poking around in /dev/mem and /vmunix a little easier, a little C program that uses /dev/mem and /vmunix to report the amount of physical memory is available for anonymous ftp on "ra.mcs.anl.gov" in the file "/sun-managers/mem.shar". Or, far better, grab Michael Cooper's "sysinfo" program, which provides all sorts of information about a given system, including how much physical memory it has. sysinfo is available at http://www.magnicomp.com, although it is now a commercial product that is free only for educational and non-profit organizations. A perl script "memconf" is also available that identifies the sizes and locations of SIMM/DIMM memory modules installed in a Sun system. It is maintained by Tom Schmidt (tschmidt@micron.com). Download memconf from http://netnow.micron.net/~tschmidt/unix.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.4) How do I find out what my machine's memory is being used for? How can I tell if I need more memory? To discover how much virtual memory (i.e. swap) is free, for SunOS 3.x and 4.x, run "pstat -s", and for SunOS 5.x, run "swap -s" or "vmstat". If you're using tmpfs for /tmp, "df /tmp" will also work. Discovering how physical memory is being used can be more difficult, however. For SunOS 3.x, vmstat will tell you how much physical memory is free. This doesn't work under SunOS 4.x and 5.x, since the kernel's memory subsystem is completely different. Memory pages that are not being used by processes are used as a sort of extended cache, storing pages of memory-mapped files for possible later use. The kernel keeps only a small set of pages free for short-term use, and frees up more on demand. Hence the free memory reported by vmstat is not an accurate reflection, for example, of the amount of memory available for user processes. For SunOS 4.x, a small C program is available which indicates how the system has allocated memory pages. Its output looks like the following: vmpage: all results in decimal pages physmem 16298, startup 839, maxmem 15459, pageable 14853 scanned 15469, locked 4, kept 612, cached 8124, free 6729 vmpage is available for anonymous ftp from ra.mcs.anl.gov as /sun-managers/vmpage.tar.Z An easy way to determine whether or not your machine needs more memory is to run vmstat and examine the po (page out) column and the sr (scan rate) column. If these columns consistently show large numbers, this suggests that your machine does not have enough memory to support its current workload, and frequently needs to write pages belonging to active processes to disk in order to free up enough memory to run the current job. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.5) Why do some files take up more disk space after being copied? Why are the sizes reported by ls -l and du different? Some files -- core files being one common example -- contain "holes", areas which were seeked over without being written. These files are called "sparse". When read back, these areas appear to contain zeros; however they do not occupy disk space. The "length" of such a file (as reported by "ls -l") will exceed its "size" (as reported by "ls -s" and reflected in the results of du or df). cp, cpio, and tar do not detect holes; they read and copy the zeros, and the resulting files will contain all-zero blocks (which occupy space) where the input files contained holes (which do not). dump will detect holes in the dumped files, and restore will reproduce them. GNU tar has an "-S" option which preserves holes. Thanks to Perry Hutchison ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 6.6) How do I add more PTYs? In Solaris 2.x, add a line in /etc/system that says set pt_cnt = where is the number of PTYs you want. Halt the system, and do a "boot -r". Solaris 2.x supports more than 3000 ptys. The default is 48. In SunOS 4.x, edit /usr/sys//conf/ and change the line that says pseudo-device pty # pseudo-tty's, also needed for SunView to pseudo-device pty # pseudo-tty's, also needed for SunView where is the number of ptys you want. Then recompile and reinstall your kernel in the usual way. For SunOS 4.x, you will have to create more pty special devices in /dev. These are created by /dev/MAKEDEV in sets of 16, numbered 0-15. For example, to create 96 ptys (6 sets of 16), run: /dev/MAKEDEV pty0 pty1 pty2 pty3 pty4 pty5 SunOS 4.x is limited to a maximum of 256 ptys. The default is 48. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Anonymous FTP Service ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 7.1) 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. For Solaris 2.x, see the ftpd(1m) man page, and follow its instructions. You will also need to set up nsswitch.conf in etc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 7.2) Where can I get a version of ftp that does logging? These are many versions that have enhanced logging or can be modified to enable logging: http://www.wu-ftpd.org 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 (147.31.254.132) /pub/src/widener/ftpd-wid.tar.Z Solaris "pkg" versions of proftpd and wuftpd are available at: http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/packages/solaris/sparc/ 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 Warning: it will log passwords of ordinary users. Also enable syslogd by adding: daemon.info /var/adm/syslog to "/etc/syslog.conf". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Consoles, Keyboards and Key Remapping ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 8.1) How do I make the numeric keypad on a type 5 keyboard work with xterm? You need to patch the /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm and $OPENWINHOME/lib/app-defaults/XTerm files as described in sun patch 100713-01 or later. Thanks to Margarita Suarez ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 8.2) How do I swap the CAPS LOCK and CONTROL keys on a type 5 keyboard under Openwindows 3.x? There are two ways to do it, one with xmodmap (for X11 only), and the other using keytables. Margarita Suarez suggests editing $OPENWINHOME/etc/keytables/US5.kt. There are two places where keys 119 (CapsLock) and 76 (Control) should be swapped: the MODMAP section and the KEYSYMMAP section. The latter is most important, because that's where the "Pseudo-Lock" function (which controls the locking behaviour of the key) is defined. Doug Hughes suggests using xmodmap with the following: remove Lock = Caps_Lock remove Control = Control_L keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L add Lock = Caps_Lock add Control = Control_L In X11, you can change your keyboard layout as you please using the xkeycaps application, which allows you to edit and remap your keyboard on the fly, as well as save configurations to be sourced by xmodmap. xkeycaps is available from http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/ and in the contrib section of your friendly X11 source archive. Thanks to Dan Pritts for the info on xkeycaps. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 8.3) How do I use the keyboard and display when the console is on ttya? This technique is usable only on SunOS 4.x: /dev/mouse and /dev/kbd are disabled when you use ttya or ttyb for a console. You need to make new ones, which you can use with xdm to support the keyboard and display while the console is on the serial port. Here's how: 1. Make new special files corresponding to the "raw" kbd and mouse: mknod /dev/zs2 c 12 2 # The keyboard mknod /dev/zs3 c 12 3 # The mouse These are just serial ports and will need some "special treatment" in order to behave as /dev/kbd and /dev/mouse. 2. Shutdown your machine and tell the monitor to use ttya (or ttyb) setenv input-device ttya setenv output-device ttya (or use the eeprom command to do this) 3. Reset and reboot. /dev/fb, /dev/kbd and /dev/mouse are now useless. /dev/bwtwo0 (or whatever your framebuffer device is) works as a substitute for /dev/fb. Also /dev/ttya (or ttyb) is useless - if you have an entry in ttytab for it, comment it out. 4. Modify the StartOW file in the xdm directory ($OPENWINHOME/lib/xdm) and add the following lines: KEYBOARD=/dev/zs2 MOUSE=/dev/zs3 FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/bwtwo0 # or whatever your framebuffer is export MOUSE KEYBOARD FRAMEBUFFER This file is only used by xdm to control the local display (see the Xservers file). So setting these variables will not affect xdm running on any other foreign display (i.e. xterminal). 5. Set the OPENWINHOME environment variable, then start xdm with the config option, for example in /etc/rc: OPENWINHOME=/usr/openwin; export OPENWINHOME if [ -f $OPENWINHOME/lib/xdm/xdm-config ]; then $OPENWINHOME/bin/xdm -config $OPENWINHOME/lib/xdm/xdm-config & echo "Starting XDM..." fi Thanks to "John D. Barlow" and David Moline for these instructions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Sun models and OS Versions ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.1) Which Sun models run which versions of SunOS? SunOS 5.x = Solaris 2.x Sun2: SunOS 4.0.3 or earlier. Sun386i: SunOS 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2 only. Sun3: SunOS 4.1.1 or earlier. 4/100, 4/200 series: SunOS 3.2, SunOS 4.0 through 5.4 4/300 series: SunOS 4.0.3 through 5.4 4/400 series: SunOS 4.1PSR_A through 5.4 600 models 120, 140: SunOS 4.1.2 through 5.5.1 600 model 41, 51: SunOS 4.1.3 through 5.5.1 SPARCstation 1, 1+, SLC, IPC: SunOS 4.0.3 or later. SPARCstation 2, ELC, IPX: SunOS 4.1.1 or later. SPARCstation 4: SunOS 4.1.4 or later. SPARCstation 5: SunOS 4.1.3_U1B or later. SPARCstation 10 models 20, 30, 40, 41, 51, 61, 71: SunOS 4.1.3 or later. SPARCstation 20 models 50, 51, 61, 71: SunOS 4.1.3_U1B or later. SPARCstation 20 model HS11, HS21, 151: SunOS 4.1.4 or later. SPARCclassic, SPARCstation LX: SunOS 4.1.3C or later. SPARCstation Voyager: Solaris 2.3 edition II or later. Ultra 1 model 140, 170: Solaris 2.5 or later. Ultra 1 model 140E, 170E, 200E: Solaris 2.5.1 or later. Ultra 2: Solaris 2.5.1 or later. Ultra 5,10,30,60,250,450: Solaris 2.5.1HW1297 or Solaris 2.6HW0398 or later. Ultra Enterprise: Solaris 2.5.1 or later. The SX framebuffer on the SS10 and 20 is only supported under Solaris 2.x. SunOS 4.1.3 and later has been reported to run on multiprocessor SuperSPARC configurations of the SS10, SS20, and 600, but this configuration is not supported by Sun. Anyone who tries this is on their own. The (unofficial) word from inside Sun about whether or not it actually works is as follows: Little testing of the SuperSPARC MP configurations under 4.1.3 have been done by Sun. What little was done showed that under heavy loads the system was prone to crash (What it really did was hang, so badly that even an L1-A would not work). ... We suspect, but do not know, that as the SuperSPARC chips get faster that the problems will manifest themselves more quickly. Caveat Emptor. However, multiprocessor HyperSPARC systems are supported by Ross under both SunOS 4.1.4 and Solaris 2.x. SunOS 5.0 runs only on SS1,1+,2,SLC,IPC,ELC,IPX. While SunOS 5.x does run on the 4/100 and 4/200 systems, the FPU (if present) is disabled, and floating point is emulated in software. The latest version of SunOS 5.x (Solaris 2.x) that runs on the 4/100, 4/200, 4/300, and 4/400 systems is 5.4 (Solaris 2.4). SunOS 5.3 (aka Solaris 2.3) is said to run on the SS5, but without support for the audio device. Solaris 2.3 Edition II, Solaris 2.3 Hardware 5/94, and later versions include audio support. Not all peripherals supported under SunOS 4.x are supported under SunOS 5.x and vice versa. Check with Sun or the peripheral manufacturer. Explanatory note: In general, Solaris = SunOS + Open Windows. Solaris 1.0 = SunOS 4.1.1 + Open Windows 2.0 Solaris 1.0.1 = SunOS 4.1.2 + Open Windows 2.0 Solaris 1.1 = SunOS 4.1.3 + Open Windows 3.0 Solaris 1.1C = SunOS 4.1.3C + Open Windows 3.0 (Classic/LX only) Solaris 1.1.1 = SunOS 4.1.3_U1 + Open Windows 3.0_U1 Solaris 1.1.1revB = SunOS 4.1.3_U1revB + Open Windows 3.0_U1revB Solaris 1.1.2 = SunOS 4.1.4 + Open Windows 3.0_414 Solaris 2.0 = SunOS 5.0 + Open Windows 3.0.1 Solaris 2.1 = SunOS 5.1 + Open Windows 3.1 Solaris 2.2 = SunOS 5.2 + Open Windows 3.2 Solaris 2.3 = SunOS 5.3 + Open Windows 3.3 Solaris 2.4 = SunOS 5.4 + Open Windows 3.4 Solaris 2.5 = SunOS 5.5 + Open Windows 3.5 Solaris 2.5.1 = SunOS 5.5.1 + Open Windows 3.5 Solaris 2.6 = SunOS 5.6 + Open Windows 3.6 Solaris 7 = SunOS 5.7 + Open Windows 3.6.1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.2) How can my program tell what model Sun it is running on? On older suns, the model type is encoded in the hostid. For suns with the "Openboot" prom (All sparcstations and the 600 series), /usr/etc/devinfo (SunOS 4.x) or /usr/sbin/prtconf (Solaris 2.x) will reveal the model type. "Suntype", written by John DiMarco (jdd@cs.toronto.edu) is a shell script which does the appropriate thing on all suns. It is available for anonymous ftp at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun-managers/suntype Alternatively, grab Michael Cooper's "sysinfo" program, which provides all sorts of information about a given system, including the machine type. sysinfo is available on the web at http://www.magnicomp.com/, although it is now a commercial product that is free only for educational and non-profit organizations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.3) What MBUS CPU modules are available? How can I tell what module(s) is/are in what model of SS10/SS20/SS600? Three sun models, the SS10, SS20 and the SparcServer 600 series, support Sun's MBUS. All these machines have two MBUS slots. Both modules must be of the same type. SuperSPARC/w cache modules of different speeds are said to work, as are three-processor systems (by combining a single and a dual module of the same type), but such configurations are not supported by Sun. Modules without external cache are not separately clocked, and run at the clock rate of the MBUS. Modules with external cache are separately clocked, and must run at a clock rate higher than that of the MBUS. The SS20 has a switchable 40/50MHz MBUS, the SS600 has a 40MHz mbus, and the SS10 has a switchable 33/36/40MHz MBUS. Ross sells an SS20 derivitive called the Hyperstation 30, which has a 66Mhz MBUS. Warning: different module revisions may or may not work in different systems. Check the Sun part number. Further, newer modules may require that the machine have a sufficiently recent PROM revision to work. Module #CPUS Processor Clck Ex.Cache Comments ------- ------ ---------- ---- -------- ------------------------------- RT601 2 RT601/CY601 40 64k Rev 8 required for SunOS 5.x SM20 1 SuperSPARC 33 - SS10 only SM21 1 SuperSPARC 33 1M Not sold by Sun SM30 1 SuperSPARC 36 - SS10 only SM40 1 SuperSPARC 40 - SS10 or SS600 only SM41 1 SuperSPARC 40.3 1M SS10 or SS600 only SM50 1 SuperSPARC 50 - SS20 only SM51 1 SuperSPARC 50 1M SM51-2 1 SuperSPARC 50 2M SC2000 only SM52 2 SuperSPARC 45 1M Announced, never sold. SM512(?) 2 SuperSPARC 50 1M Dbl-width: 1 SBUS + 1 MBUS slot SM61 1 SuperSPARC 60 1M SM61-2 1 SuperSPARC 60 2M SC2000 only SM71 1 SuperSPARC2 75 1M SM81 1 SuperSPARC2 85 1M SS1000 only SM81-2 1 SuperSPARC2 85 2M SC2000 only RTS55 1 HyperSPARC 55 256k Non-Sun, SS10 or SS600 only RTD55 2 HyperSPARC 55 256k Non-Sun, SS10 or SS600 only RTS66 1 HyperSPARC 66 256k Non-Sun RTD66 2 HyperSPARC 66 256k Non-Sun RTS72 1 HyperSPARC 72 256k Non-Sun RTD72 2 HyperSPARC 72 256k Non-Sun RTS90 1 HyperSPARC 90 256k Non-Sun RTD90 1 HyperSPARC 90 256k Non-Sun RTS100 1 HyperSPARC 100 256k Non-Sun RTD110 1 HyperSPARC 110 256k Non-Sun RTS110/1024 1 HyperSPARC 110 1M Non-Sun RTD110/1024 2 HyperSPARC 110 1M Non-Sun RTS125 1 HyperSPARC 125 256k Non-Sun RTD125 2 HyperSPARC 125 256k Non-Sun RTS125/512 1 HyperSPARC 125 512k Non-Sun RTD125/512 2 HyperSPARC 125 512k Non-Sun RTS125/1024 1 HyperSPARC 125 1M Non-Sun RTD125/1024 2 HyperSPARC 125 1M Non-Sun RTS133/512 1 HyperSPARC 133 512k Non-Sun RTD133/512 2 HyperSPARC 133 512k Non-Sun RTS142/1024 1 HyperSPARC 142 1M Non-Sun RTD142/1024 2 HyperSPARC 142 1M Non-Sun RTS150/512 1 HyperSPARC 150 512k RTS166/512 1 HyperSPARC 166 512k Non-Sun RTS180/512 1 HyperSPARC 180 512k Non-Sun RTS200/512 1 HyperSPARC 200 512k Non-Sun RTD200/512 2 HyperSPARC 200 512k Non-Sun SMHS11 1 HyperSPARC 100 256k SS20 only SMHS12 2 HyperSPARC 100 256k Double-width: SS20 only SMHS21 1 HyperSPARC 125 256k SS20 only SM151 1 HyperSPARC 150 512k SS20 only Key to SS600/SS10/SS20 model numbers: RT601 (40Mhz SS2-class Ross) systems: Model "1n0", n=number of CPUs (2 or 4) Examples: 120, 140 SuperSPARC systems: Uniprocessor: Model "sc", s=clock speed, c=MBs of external cache Examples: 20, 30, 40, 41, 50, 51, 61, 71 Multiprocessor: Model "scn", s=clock speed, c=MBs of external cache (0 or 1), n=number of CPUs Examples: 402, 412, 502, 512, 612, 712 Speeds: 2=33Mhz, 3=36MHz, 4=40MHz, 5=50MHz, 6=60Mhz, 7=75Mhz, 8=85Mhz HyperSPARC systems: Model "HSsn", s=clock speed, n=number of CPUs Speeds: 1=100Mhz, 2=125Mhz Examples: HS11, HS12, HS14, HS21, HS22 Exception: SparcStation 151 is 1x150Mhz HyperSPARC, 152 is 2x150Mhz ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.4) Which versions of SunOS/Solaris are Y2000 compliant? Are there patches for older versions of SunOS/Solaris? Sun's Y2000 efforts are documented on their web page, at http://www.sun.com/y2000 Solaris 2.6 with the recommended patch cluster is Y2000 compliant (no separate Y2000 patch kit is required). Solaris 2.3 through 2.5.1, SunOS 4.1.3U1B, and SunOS 4.1.4 are all Y2000 compliant after the appropriate Y2000 patch kit is installed. The Y2000 patch kit for Solaris 2.5.1 is available for anonymous ftp download from ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/2.5.1_y2000.tar.Z and ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/2.5.1_x86_y2000.tar.Z. Y2000 patch kits for Solaris 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5, and for SunOS 4.1.3U1B and 4.1.4 are available to support contract customers only, from http://sunsolve.sun.com/sunsolve ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.5) What is the Y2000 compliance status of Sun hardware? Sun's Y2000 efforts are documented on their web page, at http://www.sun.com/y2000 For all Sun hardware that runs a Y2000-compliant version of SunOS/Solaris, the following also need PROM upgrades and/or special patches to be Y2000 compliant: SPARCserver 1000, 1000E, SPARCcenter 2000, 2000E: - requires Prom revision 2.31 or later All Ultra Enterprise X000 machines: - patch ID 103346-08 or later required for systems with Prom revision 3.2.9 or earlier. Enterprise Tape Library 4/1000,1800,3500, StorEdge L1800,L1000,L3500: - Requires LibMON 2.0, available September 1998. Newsprint Printers: - requires Newsprint 2.5b and patch 101941-03 or later. Sun does not test older hardware for Y2000 compliance if it does not run one of the versions of Solaris/SunOS listed in question 9.4. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 9.6) How do I find out a Sun's boot prom revision? Type "banner" at the prom, or type "/usr/sbin/prtconf -V" (Solaris 2.5.1 or later) to determine the prom revision of a particular machine. Alternatively, grab Michael Cooper's "sysinfo" program, which provides all sorts of information about a given system, including the prom revision. sysinfo is available on the web at http://www.magnicomp.com, although it is now a commercial product that is free only for educational and non-profit organizations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Miscellaneous Software ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 10.1) My rdump is failing with a "Protocol botched" message. What do I do? The problem produces output like the following: DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Wed Jan 6 08:50:01 1993 DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch DUMP: Dumping /dev/rsd0a (/) to /dev/nrst8 on host foo DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files] DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories] DUMP: estimated 8232 blocks (4.02MB) on 0.00 tape(s). DUMP: Protocol to remote tape server botched (in rmtgets). rdump: Lost connection to remote host. DUMP: Bad return code from dump: 1 This occurs when something in .cshrc on the remote machine prints something to stdout or stderr (eg. stty, echo). The rdump command doesn't expect this, and chokes. Other commands which use the rsh protocol (eg. rdist, rtar) may also be affected. The way to get around this is to add the following line near the beginning of .cshrc, before any command that might send something to stdout or stderr: if ( ! $?prompt ) exit This causes .cshrc to exit when prompt isn't set, which distinguishes between remote commands (eg. rdump, rsh) where these variables are not set, and interactive sessions (eg. rlogin) where they are. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 10.2) My rpc.etherd keeps reporting "bad lnth" messages. Why? There is a bug in the ethernet driver for SunOS 4.x which causes short requests (eg arp, ICMP, loopback) sent by the host to be forwarded to rpc.etherd with incorrect padding. The message is harmless, and can be safely ignored. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 10.3) Various daemons report "unknown service" messages. Why? In SunOS 4.x, this is usually caused by a blank line in /etc/services or in the services map on the NIS server. Remove all blank lines from /etc/services, and the problem should be resolved. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 10.4) Solaris 2.x does not have a C compiler. Where can I get one? You can buy one from Sun and various third-party vendors. Recent GCC binaries (for SPARC and, in some cases, i386) can be retrieved from the following FTP sites: 1) ftp://ftp.lanet.lv/pub/unix/solaris2/ 2) ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/solaris-binaries This site contains various programs/libraries for Solaris2.x (both SPARC and x86 binaries) 3) ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/packages/solaris/sparc/ 4) http://smc.vnet.net/solaris_2.5.html 5) http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html 6) http://gamma.magnet.fsu.edu/download/gnu 7) http://sunfreeware.com 8) http://www.freeware4sun.com More information on this topic is available at http://www.inscoe.org/compilesun Thanks to Kevin Inscoe ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 10.5) How do I read Microsoft Word documents on my Sun? It is possible to run Microsoft Word on your Sun, using WABI, SoftWindows, WinCenter, WinDD, or some other Windows integration product. You can use a word-processor that can import the various MS Word formats. For example, Word Perfect from Corel Corporation is capable of reading and saving in various MS Word formats. Word Perfect is available for several versions of UNIX, including SPARC/Solaris 2.x. Sun's StarOffice Personal Edition is freely available for various operating systems, including Solaris/SPARC, from http://www.sun.com/staroffice From a PC/Mac, you can print postscript output to a file, and view the postscript on the Sun using docviewer or ghostscript/ghostview. Rachel Polanskis suggests word2x by Duncan Simpson , which translates a Word 6.x document into text or LaTeX. She ported it to Solaris; it's available at ftp://ftp.zeta.org.au/home/grove/stuff/word2x-sol.2.5.1.tar.gz Sun produces the PC File Viewer software, which is free to Solaris 2.6 SPARC customers. It allows MS Word files and other common PC application files (e.g. Word Perfect) to be viewed on the Solaris desktop. It's at: http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/software/pcviewer.html Thomas Anders points out that LAOLA (a Perl4 package that can read Word6 and Word7 format is available on the web at http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~schwartz/pmh/, MSWordView (which can read Word 8) is available at http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/docs/MSWordView.html, and "wordview" is available at http://www.fe.msk.ru/~vitus/catdoc/. Finally, Bryan Blackburn suggests AbiWord, an open source word processor which can be found at http://www.abisource.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Miscellaneous Hardware ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.1) How come my mouse occasionally doesn't work? If it is a mechanical mouse, it may need cleaning. The following assumes it is an optical mouse. Eugene Kramer points out that type 3 and type 4 optical mouse pads only work in one orientation (long side in the width); if the pad has been rotated, the mouse will only move in one axis, and will appear to be broken. It may not be; just rotate the pad 90 degrees. 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. Alternatively, you may have an old mouse. martin@gea.hsr.it (Martin Achilli) writes: Sun optical mice P/N 370-1170-01 have two LEDs on the underside. One is a normal red LED, the other is an infrared LED. Old mice (4+ years) can have trouble tracking horizontal motion. Cleaning the mouse pad with a solvent may improve things slightly but not completely. I have replaced the red LED on the mouse PCB for eight of my twelve optical mice and the problem has gone. All you need to do is purchase a red LED of the type than focus the beam, NOT the unfocused type that are normally found as indicator lights on equipment. Open the mouse and remove the PCB by unplugging the small black connector. Be careful with the two small spherical lenses which can fall out and easily be lost. Mark the PCB and one of the LED's leads to note the orientation, then desolder the LED marked L1. Pull out the leads from above and pull the LED out of the black plastic mounting. Be careful since the mounting is only glued to the PCB. Check for polarity before inserting the new LED, I noticed that for all the LEDs that I installed, the longer lead must go into the PCB hole close to the letters L1. First fold the LED leads like the ones of the one you are replacing, and then insert it into the mounting, solder the leads and close the mouse. After this, horizontal motion should be much smoother. Disclaimer: I will not take any responsibility for any failure or damage arising from the above procedure Thanks to Martin Achilli . Finally, the wire inside the mouse cable may be suffering from fatigue, usually where the cable is attached to the mouse. If you turn the mouse over, and wiggle the cable where it is attached to the mouse, and if you see the visibly lit LED flickering while you do this, this is your problem. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.2) How can I turn my old sun into an X-Terminal? You can simply replace the getty entry for the console in /etc/ttytab (if you're running SunOS 4.x) or the ttymon entry for the console in /etc/inittab (if you're running Solaris 2.x) with a command that starts up an X server. Alternatively, 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 older sun platforms, as moving most of the processing off the sun3 cpu makes it tolerable to use. The price of a used old sun is competitive with low-end X Terminals. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.3) How do I do hardware flow control on an ALM-2? Hardware flow control is only supported on the first four ports (0-3) of the ALM-2. The other ports do not support hardware flow control. So just use one of ports 0-3. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.4) How can I use a VGA monitor on my Sun? A simple adapter will connect a Sun to a VGA multi-sync monitor, providing the monitor (like most better monitors these days) will accept composite sync and operate in 1152x900 66 Hz (or whatever output your sun produces) mode. (Check the manufacturer's data sheets, usually on the Web.) Adapters are available from: Ultraspec Cables, Inc., Lakewood, NJ, USA (voice) (NA) 1-800-622-2537 (int'l) 1-908-901-0200 (fax) (NA) 1-800-222-5337 (int'l) 1-908-901-0240 (e-mail) sales@ultraspec.com The Sun -> VGA adapter is part number 1395 Nudata (908-842-1161, fax 908-905-5708) part number DA1152 Thanks to Randolph Fritz for the above. Bert N. Shure points out that Integrix sells a VGA SBUS framebuffer, the HD15, which permits ordinary VGA monitors to be used on Suns. Integrix also sells various SVGA framebuffers. For more information, consult http://www.integrix.com This and many other interesting facts about Sun Framebuffers are answered in the Framebuffer FAQ, at one of: http://www.uark.edu/sunfaq/FrameBuffer.html http://bul.eecs.umich.edu/~crowej/sunfaq/FrameBuffer.html A related FAQ by the same person is the Colormap FAQ at one of: http://www.uark.edu/sunfaq/ColormapFAQ.html http://bul.eecs.umich.edu/~crowej/sunfaq/ColormapFAQ.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.5) Where can I find alternate pointing devices for my Sun? Bert N. Sure claims that Mousetrak makes an excellent line of pointing devices. The url is "http://www.mousetrak.com". SunExpress ("http://sunexpress.usec.sun.com") and Qualix ("http://www.qualix.com") distribute them. Bert uses the top-of-the-line "Evolution" trackball, which has six user-definable buttons and a large ball which is manufactured by a billiard ball company in Belgium. For 3-D input, SunExpress ("http://sunexpress.usec.sun.com") sells the SpaceBall 3003, in addition to the standard Sun "SunDials" product. Dan Pritts indicates that one can buy a box from sun called the sun interface converter for $75 that allows you to use a ps/2-style keyboard or pointing device, or both, and still use your sun keyboard or mouse. In particular, the sun interface converter supports the Microsoft "natural keyboard". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 11.6) What should I do about my Ultra-1's CPU cooling fan? The small five or seven-blade fan that sits on the Ultra-1 CPU heat sink fails over time. Only the Ultra-1 is affected. This known problem is fixed by Field Change Order FCO #A0089-1, which replaces the CPU cooling fan with a better one. Call Sun (in the US, 800-872-4786, and in Canada, 800-722-4786) with the Ultra-1's serial number and Sun will ship a fan free. If you have more than one Ultra-1, ask for several fans. The CPU cooling fan part number is 540-2761. Note that some Sun Spares Reference Guides indicate that it is the fan for the front of the cabinet, which is incorrect. Replacement Technique: 1. Move Power Supply. (a) loosen 2 screws near power connection (b) slide power supply forward and lift out of way. 2 Loosen 4 screws around fan and slide fan out into space that was occupied by power supply. Be sure to open the connector latch. If you pull too hard, the socket comes off the motherboard too. Thanks to Greg Polanski ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Networking ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 12.1) Why do both my net interfaces have the same ethernet address? The Ethernet version 2.0 specification (November 1982) states: The physical address of each station is set by network management to a unique value associated with the station, and distinct from the address of any other station on any Ethernet. The setting of the station's physical address by network management allows multiple multiple data link controllers connected to a single station to respond to the same physical address. This doesn't normally constitute a problem because each interface will typically be on a different subnet. If, for some reason, different ethernet addresses are required on different interfaces (for example, to attach two interfaces to the same subnet), a new one may be assigned using the ifconfig command. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 12.2) How do I find out the hardware vendor from an ethernet address? The first three octets of a six-octet ethernet address typically uniquely identifies the hardware vendor of the particular network interface card. This is called the "Organizationally Unique Identifier" (OUI). OUI information, including the most recent list of public OUIs can be found at "http://standards.ieee.org/db/oui/index.html" Note that it is possible that an unidentified OUI could be used, since vendors are not required to make their OUIs public, and many network interfaces, including Suns, can be configured to use a custom ethernet address, so there is no guarantee that the OUI will correctly identify the vendor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 12.3) How do I set my hme interface to e.g. 100Mb full duplex? This applies only to Solaris 2.5 or later; hme interfaces are not supported under SunOS 4.x or earlier versions of Solaris. Sun's 10/100 network interface on the Ultra systems and on the SunSWIFT network cards are capable of negotiating with a network switch; if this is working, and if the other end is capable of 100Mb full duplex (FD) operation, the hme card will automatically set itself properly. However, this may not necessarily work with some networking gear. If the two ends have different ideas about what mode the link is, you may see "late collision" messages, dropped packets, or complete failure. To force a particular mode, e.g. 100Mb FD, you can use ndd as follows: # turn off autonegotiation ndd -set /dev/hme adv_autoneg_cap 0 # turn on 100Mb full-duplex capability ndd -set /dev/hme adv_100fdx_cap 1 # turn off 100Mb half-duplex capability ndd -set /dev/hme adv_100hdx_cap 0 # turn off 10Mb full-duplex capability ndd -set /dev/hme adv_10fdx_cap 0 # turn off 10Mb half-duplex capability ndd -set /dev/hme adv_10hdx_cap 0 You may have to force the other end (e.g. switch) to use the same mode. Consult the manual for your switch. NB: Fast ethernet hubs are always 100Mb half-duplex, and ethernet hubs are always 10Mb half-duplex. If you have more than one hme card in your system, before issuing the above ndd commands, you need to first select the specific hme card you want to set. For example, to select hme2, type: ndd -set /dev/hme instance 2 Subsequent ndd commands to /dev/hme will only apply to hme2. If you want to force all the hme cards on your system to a specific mode at machine boot, you can set hme driver variables in /etc/system. For example, to force all hme cards on the system to use 100Mbit FD, put the following in /etc/system: set hme:hme_adv_autoneg_cap=0 set hme:hme_adv_100fdx_cap=1 set hme:hme_adv_100hdx_cap=0 set hme:hme_adv_10hdx_cap=0 set hme:hme_adv_10fdx_cap=0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. Electronic Mail ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 13.1) Where can I get a POP or IMAP server for my sun? The PINE email package comes with both a POP and an IMAP server. PINE can be found at ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/. An old, unmaintained Berkeley popd can be found at ftp://ftp.cc.berkeley.edu/pub/pop (not recommended), and Casper Dik's enhanced version for Solaris is found at ftp://ftp.fwi.uva.nl/pub/solaris/. A POP server can also be found as part of the Eudora ftp repository, at ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/unix/servers/ Finally, the CMU Cyrus IMAP server can be used. It can be found at ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/cyrus-mail. If a commercial package is desired, Sun's new SIMS (Solstice Internet Mail Server) supports POP3 and IMAP4. See http://www.sun.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. Printing ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 14.1) Is there a third-party source for SPARCprinter consumables? Yes, there is. The SPARCprinter is OEM'ed by Xerox, and uses the same consumables as the Xerox 4030 laserprinter. The appropriate part numbers are: Toner cartridge: 365-1124-01 Sun 6R281 Xerox Drum cartridge: 365-1125-01 Sun 13R32 Xerox Fuser Lubricant/oil: 370-1371-01 Sun 94E95090 Xerox Fuser wick: 811-1687 Sun (Sun Express) These parts are available from various resellers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 14.2) How do I configure a non-postscript printer for postscript? If a ghostscript driver is available for that printer, you can use ghostscript to translate the postscript to something the printer can understand. To do this for SunOS, use the APSfilter package. APSfilter was posted to comp.sources.misc as part of volume 42, and is available from your favourite comp.sources.misc archive site (eg. ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/comp.sources.misc/volume42/apsfilter). If you are using Solaris, follow Alexander V. Panasyuk's instructions in http://cfauvcs5.harvard.edu/SetGSprinter4Solaris.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. Misc System Administration ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 15.1) I've forgotten the root password; how can I recover? You need to have access to the machine's console. 1. Note the root partition (e.g. /dev/sd0a or /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0) 2. Hit STOP-A or L1-A (or, on an ASCII terminal or emulator, send a ) to halt the operating system, if it's running. 3. Boot single-user from CD-ROM (boot cdrom -s) or network install/jumpstart server (boot net -s) (NB: if it asks you for a prom password, see below.) 4. Mount the root partition (e.g. /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0) on "/a". "/a" is an empty mount point that exists at this stage of the installation procedure. (mount /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 /a) 5. Set your terminal type so you can use a full-screen editor, e.g. vi. (you can skip this step if you know how to use "ex" or "vi" from open mode). If you're on a sun console, type "TERM=sun; export TERM"; if you're using an ascii terminal (or terminal emulator on a PC) for your console, set TERM to the terminal type (e.g. TERM=vt100; export TERM). 6. Edit the passwd file (/a/etc/passwd for SunOS 4.x, /a/etc/passwd.adjunct for SunOS 4.x with shadow passwords/C2 security), /a/etc/shadow for Solaris 2.x and remove the encrypted password entry for root 7. cd to /; Type "umount /a" 8. reboot as normal in single-user mode ("boot -s"). The root account will not have a password. Give it a new one using the passwd command. Thanks to Stefan Voss PROM passwords: Naturally, you may not want anyone with physical access to the machine to be able to do the above to erase the root password. Suns have a security password mechanism in the PROM which can be set (this is turned off by default). The man page for the eeprom command describes this feature. If security-mode is set to "command", the machine only be booted without the prom password from the default device (i.e. booting from CD-ROM or install server will require the prom password). Changing the root password in this case requires moving the default device (e.g. the boot disk) to a different SCSI target (or equivalent), and replacing it with a similarly bootable device for which the root password is known. If security-mode is set to full, the machine cannot be booted without the prom password, even from the default device; defeating this requires replacing the NVRAM on the motherboard. "Full" security has its drawbacks -- if, during normal operations, the machine is power-cycled (e.g. by a power outage) or halted (e.g. by STOP-A), it cannot reboot without the intervention of someone who knows the prom password. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 15.2) * How do I disable/remap STOP-A/L1-A? First, be sure you want to do this. If the problem is that users are halting and rebooting the machine, note that disabling STOP-A will merely prompt them to powercycle the machine (or remove and re-insert the keyboard plug) instead. This is actually worse. But if you're sure you want to do this, compile and run this little program. /* Enable or disable abort sequence. John DiMarco */ #include #include #include #include #ifdef FILENAME_MAX #include #include #else /* !FILENAME_MAX */ #include #include #endif /* !FILENAME_MAX */ #define ERR -1 #define DISABLE 0 #define ENABLE 1 #define KEYBOARD "/dev/kbd" main(argc,argv) int argc; char *argv[]; { static struct kiockey k; int fd, mode=ERR; if(2==argc){ switch(*(argv[1])){ case 'e': mode=ENABLE; break; case 'd': mode=DISABLE; break; } } if(ERR==mode){ printf("Usage: %s [enable|disable]\n", argv[0]); exit(1); } if(0>(fd=open(KEYBOARD, O_RDWR))){ perror(KEYBOARD); exit(1); } k.kio_tablemask = KIOCABORT1; k.kio_station=mode; (void)ioctl(fd, KIOCSETKEY, &k); printf("Abort sequence is now %s.\n", mode?"enabled":"disabled"); } Stefan Voss points out that in Solaris 2.6 or later, you can type "kbd -a enable|disable" or put "KEYBOARD_ABORT=enable|disable" in /etc/default/kbd.