Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Solaris 2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 1.46
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and
answers) about Sun Microsystem's Solaris 2.x system in general.
See also the FAQs archived as Solaris2/Porting and Solaris2/x86.
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Reply-To: Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.COM
Followup-To: comp.unix.solaris
Archive-name: Solaris2/FAQ
Version: 1.46
Last-Modified: 1995/05/08 14:04:55
Maintained-by: Casper Dik
The following is a list of questions that are frequently asked about
Solaris 2.x. You can help make it an even better-quality FAQ by writing a
short contribution or update and sending it BY EMAIL ONLY to me.
Thanks!
As you may have noted, I have switched employers and work for Sun as of
April 1st 1995. Sun is in no way responsible for the contents
of this FAQ. (I haven't really asked).
The latest Solaris 2 FAQ, including an HTML version, and some other goodies
can be obtained through ftp from ftp.fwi.uva.nl:/pub/solaris.
The HTML (URL: ftp://ftp.fwi.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html) version
of the FAQ contains references to most FTP sites and files mentioned
in the FAQ. The references to ftp sites are always to either HTML
files or directories, never to binary files.
I've added an index of questions and marked changed(*) and added
questions(+). The FAQ is being reorganized, time permitting.
The index is generated automatically, so there may be errors there.
Not all questions are in the section they belong in. Suggestions on
how best to subdivide/order the FAQ are welcome.
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's a Solaris anyway?
1.2) Why should I care? Why should I upgrade?
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
1.7) Will my old applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/x86?
1.8) Where has the XXX command gone now?
1.9) When I upgrade, should I use SunInstall "upgrade", or start over?
1.10) Is Solaris 2.x reliable/stable enough to use?
1.11) Why do some people dislike Solaris2?
*1.12) Why do some people *like* Solaris2?
+1.13) What is Sun doing to help me migrate?
2. MORE INFO
2.1) How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?
2.2) Why is "man -k" so confused?
2.3) What Software is available for Solaris 2.x?
2.4) What FTP/WWW sites do I need to know about?
2.5) What other FAQ's do I need to know about?
2.6) What mailing lists should I get?
2.7) What books should I read?
2.8) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel?
2.9) What is Wabi?
3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?
3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the
years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
3.3) What are "packages"?
3.4) Why can't I write in /home?
3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
3.8) How can I have a user without a password?
3.9) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
3.10) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system
to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
3.11) What if I'd rather use the BSD line printer system?
3.12) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
*3.13) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
3.14) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
3.15) Speaking of that, why are there two versions of shutdown?
3.16) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2)
"init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life
in the good old days?
3.17) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
*3.18) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
3.19) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
3.20) Where did etherfind go?
3.21) Can I run SunOS4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000?
3.22) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
3.23) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial
ports. What should I do?
3.24) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
3.25) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host,
contact administrator to install server change."?
3.26) How do I make Solaris2 use my Toshiba MK538FB and other
older SCSI disks?
3.27) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and
Emulex MD-21 diskcontrollers?
3.28) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
3.29) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
3.30) Where do I get patches from?
3.31) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
3.32) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
3.33) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
3.34) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
3.35) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
3.36) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
3.37) Hoe can I increase the number of filedescriptors per process?
3.38) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine,
and choose between them at boot time?
3.39) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
4. NETWORKING
4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
4.2) Speaking of nsswitch.conf, what is it?
4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
*4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
4.9) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX?
4.10) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from
4.x clients?
+4.11) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
5.2) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
5.3) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
5.4) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps?
5.5) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
5.6) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
5.7) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
5.8) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
5.9) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
5.10) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on
Solaris client from non-Sun fileserver.
+5.11) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
+5.12) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping)
5.13) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
5.14) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
5.15) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
*5.16) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
5.17) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail
server, or with non-Solaris mail readers, some messages get split
into multiple messages.
+5.18) Mailx/Mail often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
5.19) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
5.20) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
5.21) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
5.22) I have a lot of processes. How do I get rid of them?
5.23) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when logging in.
5.24) ld bails out with msync errors.
5.25) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
*5.26) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so wth 2.3?
5.27) ifconfig can't find my network interface
5.28) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get:
fatal: libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2
5.29) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
+5.30) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed"
+5.31) thr_create and other thread functions always return -1
+5.32) Solaris 2.4 seems to have a kernel memory leak.
6. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
6.1) Where is the C compiler or where can I get one?
6.2) What about the linker, the assembler and make?
6.3) Where has ranlib gone?
6.4) What do I need to compile X11R5?
6.5) I can't compile X11R6 on Solaris 2.4
6.6) X11R6 on Solaris 2.4 won't run. Xinit dies with "User Signal 1".
Xterms won't die.
6.7) I get undefined symbols when compiling R6 in Solaris 2.2.
6.8) I can't get perl 4.036 to compile or run.
6.9) I can't get sockets to work with perl.
6.10) I have problems compiling MH 6.8.3
6.11) I can't get XV 3.x to compile or run correctly.
6.12) What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level
network access?
6.13) Where are all the functions gone that used to be in libc?
6.14) I'm still missing some functions: bcopy, bzero and friends.
6.15) Can I use the source compatibility package to postpone porting?
6.16) Why doesn't readdir work? It chops the first two characters of
all filenames.
6.17) Why do I get undefined symbols when linking with curses/termcap?
*6.18) Where are the Motif includes and libraries?
+6.19) Traceroute to Solaris 2.x machines gives many timeouts.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's a Solaris anyway?
Solaris(tm) is Sun's name for their UNIX-based user environment,
including the UNIX(tm) operating system, window system (X11-based),
and other stuff too.
Solaris 1.x is a retroactive (marketing?) name for SunOS4.1.x (x>=1),
a version of UNIX that is BSD-like with some SVR4 features,
along with OpenWindows 3.0.
Solaris 2.x (which is what most everybody means by "Solaris")
includes SunOS5.x, which is an SVR4-derived UNIX,
along with OpenWindows 3.x, tooltalk, and other stuff.
(See 1.5 for a chart with more info)
1.2) Why should I care? Why should I upgrade?
Solaris 2 is more compatible with the rest of the UNIX industry.
Other major UNIX vendors including IBM, HP, SGI, SCO, and others
are based on System V rather than on BSD (though some of them
are on SVR3, not SVR4). All but one commercial PC-based UNIXes
are System V based (and mostly SVR4); the only commercial exception
is from a small but interesting firm called BSDI.
Solaris 2 is where Sun has been putting almost all its development
for the last few years now. There will be no new development on
SunOS4; already much of Sun's add-on software is only available
for Solaris 2. Solaris 2 is the only supported MP OS on all but
the old 4/6x0-1x0 w/ Ross 605 modules.
Most Sun software is being released first for Solaris 2.x.
Solaris 2.3 features a standard X11R5 release of The X Window
System, a benefit for those who didn't like NeWS or the
V2/V3 OpenWindows server. (It's still called OpenWindows, but
it is the X11R5 server with Adobe DPS added in). It is as fast
or faster than MIT R5 (depending on the platform) and supports
all Sun graphics hardware.
Solaris 2 is more standards-compliant than Solaris 1/SunOS 4.
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
That depends - on you, your situation, your application mix, etc.
Some year SunOS4.1.x will go the way of the 3/50 - it'll still
be around, but Sun will no longer support it.
You don't have to upgrade immediately, but you should be
planning your upgrade path by now.
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
Solaris 2 is an "operating environment" that includes the
SunOS 5.x operating system and the OpenWindows 3.x window
environment.
SunOS 5.x are based on USL's SVR4.0. SVR4.0, in turn, was
developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0,
which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc.,
are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView
are in SVR4.0. (RFS, by the way, is being dropped effective
with Solaris 2.3).
1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
Solaris 2.0 only ran on desktop SPARCstations and a few other Sun
machines.
Solaris 2.1 and 2.4 and later come in two flavors, SPARC and "x86".
Solaris 2.1 (and 2.2, ...) for SPARC run on all SPARCstations and
clones, as well as all models of the Sun-4 family. The old FPU
on the 4/110 and 260/280 is not supported, so floating point
will be SLOW, but it does work.
All version of the Openboot PROMs should work under Solaris 2.x.
A Solaris port for the PowerPC is underway. It is expected
to be completed first half '95. IBM will be selling systems
with Solaris pre-installed and shrink-wrapped for people who
bought a different OS with their PowerPC. The first systems
are expected to be 66MHz 601s and 603s. (SunExpert 11/94)
Solaris 2.1 and 2.4 for x86 has been released to end users.
It runs on a wide range of high-end PC-architecture machines.
"High-end" means: 16MB of RAM and an 80486 (or 33MHz or faster
80386DX). It will not run on your 4 MB 16MHz 386SX, so don't
bother trying! Also, floating point hardware (80387-style) is
absolutely required in 2.1. Starting with Solaris 2.4 for
x86, a fp CO-processor is no-longer required, though still
recommended. All three buses are supported: ISA, EISA, MCA.
Some PCI devices are supported, though full bus nexus support
for PCI is not there. See also 3.31.
To summarize all this, Jim Prescott gave this chart, which I've
updated:
Solaris SunOS OpenWin Comments
1.0 4.1.1B 2.0
4.1.1_U1 2.0 sun3 EOL release (not named Solaris)
1.0.1 4.1.2 2.0 6[379]0-1[24]0 MP
1.1 4.1.3 3.0 SP Viking support
1.1C 4.1.3C 3.0 Classic/LX
1.1.1 4.1.3_U1 3.0_U1 4.1.3 + fixes + Classic/LX support
1.1.1 B 4.1.3_U1B 3.0_U1 1.1.1B + SS5/SS20 support
1.1.2 4.1.4 3_414 The "final" 4.x release (SS20 HS11)
2.0 5.0 3.0.1 sun4c only
2.1SPARC 5.1 3.1 Dec '92
2.1 x86 5.1 3.1 May '93
2.2SPARC 5.2 3.2 May '93
2.3SPARC 5.3 3.3 Nov '93
OpenWin 3.3 is X11R5 based: Display
PostScript instead of NeWS, no SunView.
It is still primarily OPEN LOOK.
The Spring 1995 OpenWin will be Motif
and COSE-based.
2.3 edition II SPARC Special Solaris 2.3 distribution for
Voyager and SparcStation 5
2.3 hardware 5/94 SPARC ??
2.3 hardware 8/94 SPARC Supports S24 (24 bits color for SS5),
POSIX 1003.2, Energy Start power management
and SunFastEthernet + patches.
2.4 5.4 3.4 From this moment on, the SPARC and x86
releases are in sync. Q3 '94
Adds motif runtime and headers (not mwm).
2.4 hardware 11/94 First SMCC release of 2.4
2.4 hardware 3/95 Second SMCC release of 2.4 (includes support
for booting from SSA)
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
There is quite a bit of support in SunOS 5.x for running 4.1.x
binaries in an emulation mode called "Binary Compatibility"
(BCP). This works by dynamically linking the 4.1.x binaries
with a shared library that emulates the 4.1.x binary interface
on top of 5.x, so there is some overhead. Programs will only
work if they were dynamically linked (statically linked
binaries run in 2.3, but with some extra restrictions),
and if they meet certain other criteria. Best bet:
try it and see.
Be aware, though, that Sun WILL drop the binary compatibility
package some year. Try to wean yourself and your users from
depending on it, even if it means beating on your software
vendors to offer "native" Solaris2 applications.
1.7) Will my old applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/x86?
As with SPARC, there is an emulation mode that should run the
majority of well-behaved SVR3 and Xenix binaries. Most
SVR3 stuff appears to work under Solaris 2.4.
Applications from any other vendor's standards-conforming
386/486 SVR4 should also run.
However, some vendors have made incompatible changes to their
SVR4 release and programs linked on those versions may not work.
Future versions of Solaris 2.x for Intel will address some/most
of those incompatibilities. Unixware is one of the offenders.
1.8) Where has the XXX command gone now?
There are too many of these changes to include in this FAQ, but
here are some key ones:
a. locations are often different
hostid /usr/ucb/hostid
whoami /usr/ucb/whoami
hostname /usr/ucb/hostname (or use uname -n)
b. some old commands don't exist or have replacements
4.1.X Solaris 2.X
pstat -s swap -s (how much swap space?)
dkinfo /usr/sbin/prtvtoc raw_dev_name
trace truss
mount -a mountall
exportfs share
bar cpio -H bar (read only)
This information can be found in the Solaris 2.x Transition Guide -
Appendix A (commands), Appendix B (system calls), Appendix C (files).
This guide has undergone some changes from 2.0 -> 2.1 and beyond.
Several manuals have ended up being combined into this single
manual. This manual discusses administrative transition and
developer transition issues.
The command "whatnow" (for Solaris 2.x) is included in the
"Admigration Toolkit" package (see below). The Admigration
toolkit can be obtained from:
opcom.sun.ca:/pub/AMToolkit-2.3.*
Admigration toolkit HTML documentation/code
[URL: http://www.sun.com/smcc/solaris-migration/products/product-search-form.html]
Sample output:
% whatnow hostname
hostname 4.x command only
hostname /usr/ucb/hostname part of SCP package
hostname /usr/bin/uname -n alternate command
The whatnow command is limited in that it may point to
one command which may only implement a subset of the old
command (e.g., pstat points to sar, while pstat -s is identical
to swap -s)
1.9) When I upgrade, should I use SunInstall "upgrade", or start over?
You can't do a SunInstall "upgrade" from 4.1.x to Solaris2.
You can use the Admigration toolkit (q.v.) to help you move
from SunOS 4.1.x (Solaris 1, actually) to Solaris 2.
If you're moving from Solaris 2.1 to 2.2, or 2.2 to 2.3, ...,
then you can use "upgrade" to preserve your existing partitions
and local changes (including pkgadd!!), though it runs very
slowly (about 1.5-2x the time for a reinstall) and does require
that you have enough free space in / and /usr - make these big
when you first install! If you run out of space in one of
your partitions, you can always remove some components. Those
will not be upgraded and can be installed elsewhere after
initial upgrade (e.g., you can remove OW, Xil, Dxlib, manual
pages, etc)
There is no need to backout patches before upgrading.
In 2.2, the system would back them out for you, in 2.3 it
won't back out the patches but removes them without a trace.
The upgrade doesn't work as well as a full install.
E.g., the upgrade from 2.x (x<3) to 2.3 will leave
aliases for all your ptys in /devices/pseudo.
1.10) Is Solaris 2.x reliable/stable enough to use?
The consensus seems to be that yes, it is, for many applications
and most users. Your mileage may vary.
Binary compatibility was much improved in 2.3. That will help
transition somewhat. The performance of 2.3 is adequate, though
some parts of the system are still slower than SunOS 4.1.x.
Solaris 2.3 is much more stable on MP machines than 2.2.
The Solaris 2.3 version of OpenWindows is much faster and much
more stable than the versions shipped with SunOS 4.1.x.
Solaris 2.1 and earlier should really be avoided. Solaris 2.2
should be avoided too, but some people need to stick to it
until some applications get ported (2.2 is the last release
with NeWS)
Solaris 2.3 still has some problems on high-end MP systems with
large numbers of interactive users. Solaris 2.4 promises much
more scalable multi-processing.
1.11) Why do some people dislike Solaris2?
There is a number of reasons why people dislike Solaris.
1) Change. In general people dislike change. Change requires
re-learning and retraining. Old system administration practices
no longer work. Commands have been replaced by other commands,
some commands behave differently. And they ask why the change was
necessary. SunOS 4.x worked for them.
2) Lack of migration support. Sun did not provide a lot of
tools to ease migration. Many applications wouldn't run in the
binary compatibility mode. The source compatibility mode was
probably compatible with some OS, but it certainly wasn't SunOS.
Lot of public domain and third party stuff needed wasn't
immediately available for Solaris. NIS+, buggy, resource hungry
and instable replaced NIS in incompatible ways.
3) Missing functionality. When people migrate, they at first
don't tend to notice new functionality. Instead, they stumble
upon missing functionality such as screenblank, clear_colormap
and the like (but see 3.18). And perhaps worst of
all, no C compiler, not even a crippled one.
4) Slow and buggy. The initial Solaris releases didn't perform
at all well and were extremely instable. This is improving
rapidly, but SuperSPARC MP machines need a heavily patched 2.3
to work reliably.
*1.12) Why do some people *like* Solaris2?
There are improvements in Solaris 2.x.
1) OpenWindows 3.3 (in Solaris 2.3). Includes X11R5 and
Display PostScript.
2) ANSI-C and POSIX development environment.
3) Multi-threaded kernel and real threads.
4) True multi-processing.
5) Goodies: vold, admintool and Wabi.
6) Easy patch installation/administration through installpatch.
7) all software in easy to manage "packages"
+1.13) What is Sun doing to help me migrate?
Sun has recently started several projects to aid in the transition.
Their WWW starting point is:
Solaris Migration Initiative home page
[URL: http://www.sun.com/smcc/solaris-migration/index.html]
The project is a combination of new and existing efforts and includes:
1) Porting PD software to Solaris 2.x
2) Solaris Migration Tool: (formerly known as Pipeline tool) a tool
to help you port your code.
3) Admigration Toolset. Tools to help you convert your SunOS 4
environment and to help you adjust to the new Solaris 2.x envrionment.
4) Appmap: a tool to simplify application administration in a mixed
SunOS 4.x/Solaris 2.x envrionment
5) Solaris Transition CD (June '95)
6) Native Solaris NIS (July '95)
7) LP tools (simplified LP administration through NIS) (July '95)
2. MORE INFO
2.1) How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?
"RTFM" is an old saying: Read The "Fine" Manual. Sun still
sell printed manuals, but doesn't automatically distribute
them. As with all real UNIX systems, you do get a full set of
online "man" pages. A smaller, lighter, bookshelf-friendly :-)
CD-ROM called "The AnswerBook"(tm) contains all the printed
documents in machine-readable (PostScript) form, with hypertext
capabilities and a keyword search engine. 90% of your
introductory questions are answered therein!
In Solaris 2.x the Answerbook set gets increasingly more
divided into pieces. It is currently (2.3) split over 4 CDs
Solaris 2.x CD:
Solaris 2.x User AnswerBook
Solaris 2.x administrator answerbook
Solaris 2.x System Administrator AnswerBook
Solaris 2.x on Sun Hardware AnswerBook
Solaris 2.x Reference Manual AnswerBook
Solaris 2.x Software Developer Kit
All programming manuals.
Solaris 2.x Driver Developer Kit
Device driver developer manuals.
There is some overlap between CDs.
As distributed with 2.1 and 2.2, the Answerbook search engine
runs only with the OpenWindows ("xnews") server, not with MIT
X11. This changed in 2.3. If you are using the MIT server
instead of what Sun provides, you'll have to use one of several
"answerbook workaround" scripts that are in circulation. The
AnswerBook distributed with 2.3 and later runs with the OW3.3
X11R5+DPS server, so it should display on any X11+DPS server,
such as on DEC, IBM and SGI workstations.
You should buy (or print from within Answerbook) at least the
reference manual and the System and Network Administration
books, because if your system becomes disabled you won't be
able to run the Answerbook to find out how to fix it...
2.2) Why is "man -k" so confused?
Solaris man uses a manual page index file called "windex" in
place of the old "whatis" file. You can build this index with
cd ; catman -w -M .
But, in 2.1, this will result in numerous "line too long" messages
and a bogus windex file in /usr/share/man, and a core dump in
/usr/openwin/man. (In 2.2, catman works in /usr/share/man, but
says "line too long" in /usr/openwin/man). To add injury to
insult, "man" normally won't show you a man page if it can't find
the windex entry, even though the man page exists.
There's a "makewhatis" script in /usr/openwin/man that works
better than catman. But watch it - by default it searches files
in /usr/man, not in openwin, and it only looks in some predefined
man subdirectories. Try changing its "for ..." command to
"for i in man*", then use it like this:
cd /usr/share/man; /usr/openwin/man/makewhatis .
cd /usr/openwin/man; /usr/openwin/man/makewhatis .
Still (!), the openwin windex file is somewhat hosed (try "man
answerbook" :-(. You can always delete the bogus lines manually...
or, you can alias man to "man -F", forcing it to look for the
bloody file like you asked.
But wait, there's more! To see the read(2) man page, you can't
just type "man 2 read" anymore - it has to be "man -s 2 read".
Or, alias man to this little script:
#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -gt 1 -a "$1" -gt "0" ]; then
/bin/man -F -s $*
else
/bin/man -F $*
fi
2.3) What Software is available for Solaris 2.x?
Most commercial software that ran on 4.x either will run in BCP
mode, or is available for Solaris 2.x, or is being ported now.
Solaris 2.3 BCP mode finally supports statically-linked executables.
You can obtain a list of official 3rd party porting
commitments, maintained by Sun's "Solaris Demand Center"
(whatever that is), by sending electronic mail to
"sparc_products@thegift.sun.com" -- this is an automatic reply
server. The list shows what third party applications are currently
available for Solaris, and lists expected dates for many more.
A list of freeware (some "public domain", but mostly copyright-
but-freely-distributable) [as well as commercial software??]
that has been ported to Solaris 2.x
is posted monthly to the newsgroup comp.unix.solaris by
ric@updike.sri.com (Richard Steinberger). Look for this:
Subject: Solaris SW list. Monthly Post.
If you can't wait, the list is also available via anonymous FTP
from updike.sri.com.
2.4) What FTP/WWW sites do I need to know about?
www.sun.com [URL: http://www.sun.com]
Sun's own WWW site, contains pointers to Sunsites, patches
and has lots of info, press releases etc, etc.
Solaris transition home page
[URL: http://www.sun.com/smcc/solaris-migration/index.html]
Sun's Solaris 2.x migration support
SunSites - Sun sponsored sites. Lots of good stuff here:
SunSITE USA at UNC - Chapel Hill (sunsite.unc.edu)
[URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/newhome.html]
SunSITE Japan at Science University - Tokyo (sunsite.sut.ac.jp)
[URL: http://sunsite.sut.ac.jp/homepage.html]
SunSITE North Europe at Imperial College - London (src.doc.ic.ac.uk)
[URL: http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/public]
Sun SITE Russia at Moscow State University - Moscow
[URL: "http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/"]
Sun SITE Singapore at National University of Singapore - Singapore
[URL: "http://sunsite.nus.sg/"]
Sun SITE South Africa at University of the Witwatersrand - Johannesburg
[URL: "http://sunsite.wits.ac.za/"]
Solaris at UMBC - Solaris tips & tricks by Vijay Gill
[URL: http://umbc8.umbc.edu/~vijay/solaris/solaris.html]
ftp.x.org - the master X11 site
camus.quintus.com:/pub/GNU - GNU binaries
ftp.uu.net - UuNet communication archives
(mirrors abovementioned GNU binaries in systems/gnu/solaris2.3)
[URL: ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/gnu/solaris2.3]
OpCom. (opcom.sun.ca) - run by Sun Microsystems' OpCom group - lots
of stuff. Here is some of the stuff that's online:
pub/AMToolkit.* - the Administration Migration (4.1.x to Solaris 2)
Toolkit
pub/binaries - binaries/man pages for Solaris 2.0 native binaries.
pub/newsletter - issues of the monthly OpCom newsletter.
pub/docs - assorted documentation, papers, and other information.
- all of the RFCs
pub/drivers - information related to device driver writing under
under Solaris 2.0 as well as a skeleton SCSI driver.
ls-lR.Z - compressed recursive listing of files available
on the server.
pub/tars - compressed tars.
pub/tmp - place for uploading things to the server.
pub/R5 - the unadultered MIT x11r5 distribution.
pub/x11r5 - port of X11r5 to Solaris 2.0, binaries, libraries
and headers. A compressed tar of this tree can
be found in tars.
prep.ai.mit.edu and the GNU mirrors
pub/gnu/sparc-sun-solaris2 - recent gcc binaries for SPARC
pub/gnu/i486-sun-solaris2 - recent gcc binaries for i486
ftp.fwi.uva.nl
pub/solaris
- where the Solaris FAQ is kept, including an html
version.
Accompanied by versions of the wabi1.0 FAQ and
x86 hw-config as send out by Sun's autoreply daemons.
pub/solaris/auto-install
- fully automated auto-install scripts, including
an explanation of exactly what a machine needs when
booting the installation, automated patch installation
and even post-install updates from your install tree,
which gives you an easy way to keep all your Solaris
machines in sync.
2.5) What other FAQ's do I need to know about?
All of them :-). But in particular you should see these FAQ's:
1) Sun Computer Administration Frequently Asked Questions
[URL: "http://aurora.latech.edu:80/sunadminfaq.html"]
2) The "Solaris 2 Porting FAQ"
[URL: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/Solaris2/porting-FAQ/faq.html]
3) comp.windows.open-look - Anything related to OpenWindows or the
OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface.
4) The Sun-Managers mailing list (see below) has its own FAQ,
maintained by John DiMarco .
FTP from ra.mcs.anl.gov in the sun-managers directory.
5) See also the "Solaris SW list. Monthly Post" above and the
"whatlist" file.
2.6) What mailing lists should I get?
First, read all the USENET newsgroups with "sun" in their name :-)
1) The Florida SunFlash is a "closed" mailing list for Sun owners.
It contains mostly press releases from Sun and third-party
vendors. This list contains information on conferences such as
the Solaris Developer's Conference as well. It is normally
distributed regionally - to find out about a mail point in your
area, or for other information send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM.
Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM.
Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu,
src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au
2) The Sun Managers list is an unmoderated mailing list for
*emergency-only* requests. Subscribe and listen for a while,
and read the regularly-posted Policy statement BEFORE sending
mail to it, and to get a feel for what kinds of traffic it carries.
Write to sun-managers-request@eecs.nwu.edu.
2.7) What books should I read?
O'Reilly & Associates specializes in UNIX books. Their "UNIX
[URL: http://www.ora.com]
In A Nutshell" has been updated for SVR4 and Solaris 2.0. Get
their catalog by calling 800-998-9938 (1-707-829-0515) 7AM to
5PM PST.
SunSoft Press carries books specific to Solaris 2. Look for the
inset with your End User Media Kit that lists the most relevant ones.
Prentice-Hall has reprints of much of the AT&T documentation.
I'm not sure how much of this you need - a lot of the same
material is in the Answerbook (see above).
2.8) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel?
The complete and often updated list Solaris x86 hardware options
can be obtained by sending an email message without subject/body
to:
x86hcl@sun.com (ascii)
x86hcl.ps@sun.com (postscript)
or
x86-hwconfig@Cypress.West.Sun.Com
This address currently sends out info on Solaris 2.4.
2.9) What is Wabi?
Wabi is Sun's new MS-Windows-under-unix emulator.
The Wabi faqs can be obtained by sending an empty message to:
wabi1.0-questions@East.Sun.com
wabi1.1-questions@East.Sun.com
The list of current Wabi (and future :-) apps can be obtained by
mailing:
wabi1.0-apps@East.Sun.COM
wabi1.1-apps@East.Sun.COM
wabi2.0-apps@East.Sun.COM
Applications that execute a lot of X86 code, run fastest on
Solaris 2.x_86, as no x86 emulation needs to be done.
Applications that are more windows intensive will run
better on machines with faster graphics hardware.
The currently shipping version of Wabi is Wabi 2.0.
Wabi will not be made available for SunOS 4.1.x.
3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?
A full install of 2.2 is supposed to be 164 MB, but that doesn't
include swap. Here is a net exchange between Casper Dik and Gil Tene:
In article <1993Apr2.083549.19177@fwi.uva.nl>, Casper writes:
|> >How much disc space does SOLARIS take up ? That is should we buy a
|> >424MB disc or get a 1Gb disc to put it on :-)
|>
|> Solaris 2.x takes about as much diskspace as SunOS 4.x:
|>
|> Partition/Slice Solaris SunOS
|> / 10MB 8MB
|> /usr 78MB 90MB
|> /var 10MB 10MB
|> /usr/openwin 83MB 83MB
|>
Gil replies:
On my system, with a full Solaris installation (EVERYTHING selected)
+ gnu's binary stuff for solaris (off of the Catalyst CD) installed
in /opt I see a similar situation to the above plus :
16852 /opt/SUNWabe
19 /opt/SUNWcg12
7968 /opt/SUNWdiag
721 /opt/SUNWgt
7740 /opt/SUNWits
14609 /opt/cygnus-sol2-1.0
(output from "du -k -s /du/*")
- SUNWabe is the end user answerbook stuff. (vi, mail, Deskset tools
etc, etc)
- SUNWcg12 is (obviously) cg12 support.
- SUNWdiag is obvious too.
- SUNWgt is support for gt boards.
- SUNWits is the xgl3.0 library (it has libPEX5.so.1 in there too).
- cygnus-sol2-1.0 is the gcc2.0+tools stuff. I have gcc2.3.3 on
another partition and that takes about the same space as 2.0 does.
Another important note : The full Solaris 2.1 answerbook takes up 164MB
on disk. I highly recommend installing it and not using it off the
CDROM drive. It's much more usable (faster) this way. And it always
stays around -- even when you have something else in the CDROm drive.
3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the
years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
1) Do it by hand. You did document every single change and
check it into RCS, didn't you?
2) Automate it, using the AMToolkit (Administration Migration
Toolkit) from the OpCom FTP server (q.v.)!
3.3) What are "packages"?
A SVR4 mechanism for "standardizing" the installation of
optional software. Most vendors are expected to use this
format for distributing add-on software for Solaris 2.x.
Packages can be installed/deinstalled with pkgadd/pkgrm which
are standard SVR4 items, or with swm (CRT) or swmtool (GUI-based)
which are provided only in Solaris 2.
Note that the "pkg" system keeps lots of files in /var/sadm/install,
and in particular the file "contents", which is hundreds of KB,
and that there are two copies of it while pkgadd is running, so you
needs lots of free space where /var is, typically the root.
This file must be kept around if you want, for example, to use
pkgrm to remove a package, or pkgchk to verify months later that
all of a a package's files are still intact.
Summary of pkg* commands:
pkginfo - test for presents of package.
pkgadd -d //Solaris_2.3
- add missing packages
pkgrm - remove packages.
pkgchk -q - test for existence of package
pkgchk [pkg] - check installed packages for
integrity.
3.4) Why can't I write in /home?
This is a common one! SunOS is delivered with the "automounter"
enabled. The automounter is designed for NFS sites, to
simplify maintenance of the list of filesystems that need
mounting. However it is a burden for standalone sites.
The automounter takes over /home and in effect becomes the NFS
server for it, so it no longer behaves like a normal directory.
This is normally a Good Thing as it simplifies administration if
everybody's home directory is /home/.
To kill it off for standalone or small networks, you can comment out
the three lines in /etc/init.d/nfs.client that start "if" (from the if
to the fi!!), and reboot (Solaris 2.2) or remove the file
/etc/rc2.d/S73autofs (Solaris 2.3). You can always relink
that file with /etc/init.d/autofs if you change your mind.
To learn about it, read the O'Reilly book "Managing NFS and
NIS", or ftp the white paper 'The Art of Automounting". from
sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/sun-info/white-papers.
3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
Solaris 2.2 introduces a new scheme for automatically mounting
removable media. It consists of a program "vold" (volume daemon) which
sits around watching for insertions of floppies and CD's,
handles ejects, talks to the file manager, and invokes a second
program called "rmmount" (removable media mounter) to mount the disk.
Note that on most SPARCstations, you must run "volcheck"
whenever you insert a floppy, as the floppy hardware
doesn't tell SunOS that a floppy was inserted.
Advantages of this scheme:
- no longer need root; users can mount and unmount at will.
- can do neat tricks like automagically start "workman" or
other Audio CD player when audio CD inserted.
- extensible - developers can write their own actions
Drawbacks:
- can no longer access /dev/rfd0 to get at floppy; must use
longer name like /vol/dev/rdsk/floppy0
- similarly, CD's get mounted on /cdrom/VOLNAME/SLICE, e.g.,
/cdrom/solaris_2_2/s0 is slice 0 of the Solaris 2 CD
(nice that it does mount all the partitions, though!).
To read or write a non-filesystem floppy (tar, cpio, etc),
put in the diskette and run "volcheck" from the commandline or
click "Check for Floppy" in the filemgr to get it noticed; then access
/vol/dev/rfd0/unlabeled (e.g. "tar tvf /vol/dev/rfd0/unlabeled").
[Solaris 2.3: /vol/dev/rdiskette0/unlabeled, or
/vol/dev/aliases/floppy0.]
If you want the old behavior, it's been suggested that you
can comment out the vold startup in /etc/init.d/volmgt and
then reboot; an easier way is # /etc/init.d/volmgt stop.
3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
System V Release 4 includes a feature called "shadow passwords".
The encrypted passwords are moved out into a shadow password file
(called /etc/shadow in this release) that is NOT publicly readable.
The passwd file has always been readable so that, for example, ls -l
could figure out who owns what. But having the passwd encryptions
readable is a security risk (they can't be decrypted but the bad guy
can encrypt common words and names &c and compare them with the
encryptions).
The Shadow Password feature is mostly transparent, but if you
do any passwd hacking you have to know about it! And DO make
sure that /etc/shadow is not publicly readable!
3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
>... when I try to rlogin as root ...
>it gives me the message "Not on system console
>Connection closed.". What have I left out?
Solaris 2 comes out of the box a heck of a lot more secure than
Solaris 1. There is no '+' in the hosts.equiv. root logins are not
allowed anywhere except the console. All accounts require passwords.
In order to allow root logins over the net, you need to edit the
/etc/default/login file and comment out or otherwise change the
CONSOLE= line.
/etc/hosts.equiv is still supported, but there is no default.
This file's CONSOLE entry can actually be used in a variety of ways:
1) CONSOLE=/dev/console (default) - direct root logins only on console
2) CONSOLE=/dev/ttya - direct root logins only on /dev/ttya
3) CONSOLE= - direct root logins disallowed everywhere
4) #CONSOLE (or delete the line) - root logins allowed everywhere
3.8) How can I have a user without a password?
There are basically two ways to achieve this:
Edit /etc/default/login and comment out PASSREQ=YES or change it
to PASSREQ=NO.
The second way is to give a particular use no password with the
following entry in /etc/shadow:
user::9092:9999:9999::::
3.9) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
If you need help, ftp the file "solaris2.ftpsetup" from
ftp.cs.toronto.edu:/pub/darwin/solaris2.
ftpd(1M) is nearly complete when it comes to setting
up anonymous ftp. It only leaves out /etc/nsswitch.conf. [S2.3]
Additionally, you must make sure that the filesystem ~ftp resides
on is not mounted with the nosuid option.
3.10) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system
to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
Hmmm, the lp system is totally different than what you're used to.
The System V Line Printer System is a lot more, well, flexible.
A cynic might say "complicated". Here's a very quick guide --
see the man pages for each of these commands for the details.
Let's say your Solaris2 workstation is called "sol" and the
4.1.x server is called "bertha" and you want the printer name
to be "printer" (imaginative, eh?).
sol# lpsystem -t bsd bertha # says bertha is a bsd system
sol# lpadmin -p printer -s bertha # creates "printer" on "sol"
# to be printed on "bertha"
sol# accept printer # allow queuing
sol# enable printer # allow printing
sol# lpstat -t # check the status
Finally, if that's your only printer, make it the default:
sol# lpadmin -d printer
On some systems you may have to turn on the port monitor.
I did that. Why does it now complain about invalid content types?
I said it was complicated!
For better or for worse, you need to know about printer content types.
See the man page for "lpadmin".
To get transparent mode, try this:
lpadmin -I any -p printer
Isn't there any easier way?
The GUI-based Admintool has a Printer Manager that is supposed to
be able to do all this and more. Try it; Sun hopes you'll like it.
Now my jobs print but they stay in the queue after!?
It's a known bug, and probably get fixed in 2.3.
There's also a number of lpsched patches out for
Solaris: 101025-xx (2.2) and 101317-xx (2.3).
Make sure you install those.
3.11) What if I'd rather use the BSD line printer system?
The 4.3BSD-reno lpr system for Solaris 2, file
lpr-sol2-p3.tar.gz or lpr-sol2-p3.tar.Z
is available from the following FTP site:
get ftp.nus.sg:/pub/NUS/ISCS/misc/lpr-sol2-p3.tar.gz
And don't despair. Someday the System V print spooler will be
replaced by something new. (See the Solaris 2.3/2.4 Open
Issues & Late Breaking News For System Administrators)
3.12) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
Device drivers are linked in dynamically. When you add new
devices, just shutdown the system and do
boot -r # use drive spec if not default disk
to *r*ebuild the /devices and /dev directories.
If you're just adding a SCSI disk, you don't need to reboot. Run the
following script (as root):
#!/bin/sh
#
# add-disk
#
# Runs the commands to make Solaris locate a new disk that
# has been plugged in after the system was booted.
#
/usr/sbin/drvconfig
/usr/sbin/devlinks
/usr/sbin/disks # or /usr/sbin/tapes for tapes
/usr/ucb/ucblinks # Compatibility links
exit 0
Note that this only works if you already have at least one SCSI disk on
the system. (This is because the above just makes symbolic links and
things, it does not load up the SCSI driver kernel modules, etc.)
*3.13) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
Devices must be turned on and present when you configure
the system. After adding devices you must boot -r with all
the devices turned on. See also 3.12
3.14) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
They're now fragmented into 12 million tiny little pieces. Look in
the following files to get oriented:
/etc/inittab - starting point for init
/sbin/rcS, /etc/rcS.d/* - booting stuff
/sbin/rc2, /etc/rc2.d/*,
/sbin/rc3, /etc/rc3.d/* - stuff for multi-user startup.
Note that all files in /etc/rc*.d/* are hardlinked from
/etc/init.d (with better names), so you should grep in there.
There are many "run levels" to the System V init; the run
level 3 is normally used for "multi user with networking."
I can't understand that stuff; can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
I just want to keep all my local changes in one place.
No. You can never have rc.local back the way it was. But then, it
never really *was* purely a "local" rc file. To have a real
"local" rc file with just your changes in it, copy this file
into /etc/init.d/rc.local, and ln it to /etc/rc3.d/S99rc.local.
Put your startup stuff in the "start" section.
----- Cut here -----
#!/sbin/sh
# /etc/init.d/rc.local - to be linked into /etc/rc3.d as
# S99rc.local -- a place to hang local startup stuff.
# started after everything else when going multi-user.
# Ian Darwin, Toronto, November, 1992
# As with all system changes, use at own risk!
case "$1" in
'start')
echo "Starting local services...\c"
if [ -f /usr/sbin/mydaemon ]; then
/usr/sbin/mydaemon 1>/dev/console 2>&1
fi
echo ""
;;
'stop')
echo "$0: Not stopping any services."
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
;;
esac
------ End of Cut Here -----
3.15) Speaking of that, why are there two versions of shutdown?
SVR4 (hence SunOS 5.x) tries to make everybody happy. The
traditional (slow) System V "shutdown" runs all the rc?.d/*
shell scripts with "stop" as the argument; many of them run
ps(!) to look for processes to kill. The UCB "shutdown" tells
init to kill all non-single-user processes, which is about two
orders of magnitude faster. Unfortunately, the UCB version does
everything it should *except* actually halt or reboot in
SunOS5.1 (and some other SVR4 implementations).
This is fixed in Solaris 2.3.
If you run a database (like oracle) or INN, you should
install a special /etc/rc?.d/K* script and make sure you
always shutdown the long way.
3.16) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2)
"init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life
in the good old days?
Getty should be easy and was reportedly done at a number of
sites. The port monitor isn't everyones favorite. But given
that you can do much more with the SVR4 init, why would
you want to change back? It would be much more trouble than
it's worth.
3.17) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
I was hoping you wouldn't ask. PMadm stands for Port Monitor Admin,
and it's part of a ridiculously complicated bit of software
over-engineering that is destined to make everybody an expert.
Best advice for workstations: don't touch it! It works out of the box.
For servers, you'll have to read the manual.
This should be in admintool in Solaris2.3.
For now, here are some basic instructions from Davy Curry.
"Not guaranteed, but they worked for me."
To add a terminal to a Solaris system:
1. Do a "pmadm -l" to see what's running. The serial ports on the
CPU board are probably already being monitored by "zsmon".
PMTAG PMTYPE SVCTAG FLGS ID
zsmon ttymon ttya u root \
/dev/term/a I - /usr/bin/login - 9600 ldterm,ttcompat ttya \
login: - tvi925 y #
2. If the port you want is not being monitored, you need to create a
new port monitor with the command
sacadm -a -p PMTAG -t ttymon -c /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -v VERSION
where PMTAG is the name of the port monitor, e.g. "zsmon" or "alm1mon",
and VERSION is the output of "ttyadm -V".
3. If the port you want is already being monitored, and you want to
change something, you need to delete the current instance of the port
monitor. To do this, use the command
pmadm -r -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
where PMTAG and SVCTAG are as given in the output from "pmadm -l". Note
that if the "I" is present in the field (as it is above),
you need to get rid of it.
4. Now, to create a specific instance of ttymon for a port, issue the
command:
pmadm -a -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG -i root -fu -v 1 -m \
"`ttyadm -m ldterm,ttcompat -p 'PROMPT' -S YORN -T TERMTYPE \
-d DEVICE -l TTYID -s /usr/bin/login`"
Note the assorted quotes; Bourne shell (sh) and Korn (ksh) users
leave off the second backslash!
In the above:
PMTAG is the port monitor name you made with "sacadm", e.g. "zsmon".
SVCTAG is the service tag, which can be the name of the port, e.g.,
"ttya" or "tty21".
PROMPT is the prompt you want to print, e.g. "login: ".
YORN is "y" to turn software carrier on (you want this for directly
connected terminals" and "n" to leave it off (you want this
for modems).
TERMTYPE is the value you want in $TERM.
DEVICE is the name of the device, e.g. "/dev/term/a" or "/dev/term/21".
TTYID is the line you want from /etc/ttydefs that sets the baud rate
and stuff. I suggest you use one of the "contty" ones for
directly connected terminals.
5. To disable ("turn off") a terminal, run
pmadm -d -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
To enable ("turn on") a terminal, run
pmadm -e -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
Ports are enabled by default when you "create" them as above.
For more details, see the article:
SUMMARY: Solaris modem/terminal how-to: Rev xx.xx.xx
posted periodically to comp.unix.solaris by
celeste@xs.com (Celeste Stokely).
*3.18) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
Under 4.1.x you invoke screenblank in /etc/rc.local, but there's no
screenblank in Solaris 2.1. Sun recommends that you
have everybody put `xset s on' in their .xinitrc, but this
may be hard to police, and in any event it won't work when nobody is
logged in. The simplest workaround is to copy /usr/bin/screenblank
from 4.1.x and run it in binary compatibility mode. See ``What
happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?'' for how to invoke it.
Another possibility is to use xdm, but you'll have to use your own,
since the xdm shipped with Solaris 2.1 doesn't work.
The 4.1.x screenblank didn't work for us; We use Jef Poskanzer's
freeware screenblank. His version is available from
ftp.netcom.com:/pub/jef/screenblank_21dec93.tar.Z.
Because of a bug in Solaris 2.3, you'll need to
specify -DHAVE_POLL=0 when compiling this version.
Solaris 2.4 comes with power management software for those systems
with a soft-switchable power supply. That may suit your needs
better than screenblank.
The powermanagement software can be used to switch off just the
screen, by putting thw folliwng in the power.conf file:
# Name Theshold(s) Logical Dependent(s)
/dev/kbd 600
/dev/mouse 600
/dev/fb 0 0 /dev/kbd /dev/mouse
Make sure you comment out the "autoshutdown" line if you want to
keep your machine running.
3.19) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
You can FTP Jef's screenload, screendump, etc., if you need that
functionality, and for free you get a pixrect (clone) library.
Get one of these:
ftp.netcom.com:/pub/jef/raster-pixrect_30dec93.tar.Z
ee.lbl.gov:/raster-pixrect_30dec93.tar.Z
The 4.1.x versions of these programs will not run under
Solaris 2.2 or later. The pixrect BCP library is no
longer supported.
3.20) Where did etherfind go?
There is a replacement for etherfind, but it has changed name;
in fact it's a whole new program. It IS better. To find it,
though, you would have to realize that network snooping is not
really Ethernet-specific. To end the suspense :-), here it is:
% man -k snoop
snoop snoop (1m) - capture network packets and inspect them
%
It works differently - it has an immediate mode, a
capture-to-disk mode, and a playback-from-disk mode. Read the
man page for details.
3.21) Can I run SunOS4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000?
The Classic, LX and the single processor models of the SS20
are still supported under some version of SunOS 4.1.x.
A lot of people wanted these machines but only if they ran
SunOS 4.1.x. When the Classic/LX came out, clone manufacturers
were able to provide SunOS 4.1.x with it, Sun came out with
SunOS 4.1.3C some time later.
The Classic, LX and SS5 and SS20 are supported in the most recent
Solaris 1.x release, SunOS 4.1.3_U1 rev B (Solaris 1.1.1B). The
Classic and LX are supported since 4.1.3C (release for LX & Classic
only), the SS20/SS5 since release 4.1.3_U1 rev B (Solaris 1.1.1B).
Note that none of these OS versions support SuperSPARC MP or any of
the new graphics hardware (ZX, SX, S24).
The Voyager is not supported under SunOS 4.1.x, too many new device
drivers have been added plus the suspend resume feature.
The XDbus machines SS1000/SC2000 are also not supported under
SunOS 4.1.x. Support for the kernel architecture and XDBus is
missing in 4.x.
3.22) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
Yes! Actually, messages like
find : cannot open /: No such file or directory.
are due to a bug in the tree walking function (nftw(3)).
Fixed in 2.4 and in the 2.3 kernel jumbo patch 101318 (-41 or later)
3.23) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial
ports. What should I do?
Try using UUCP. The Solaris 2.x sparc serial driver has
trouble receiving data at or above 9600 bps. Symptoms include
sluggish response, `NOTICE: zs0: silo overflow' console
messages, sending spurious control-Gs to the serial port, and
applications that cannot be killed even with `kill -9'. This
problem surfaces in many applications, including Kermit and
tip. UUCP seems immune, though, because its protocol throttles
input sufficiently.
3.24) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
Root's shell is /sbin/sh, which is statically linked.
Don't just insert a 'c' before "sh" as previously, as that would
look for /sbin/csh, which doesn't exist. Don't just change it to
/bin/csh, since that's really /usr/bin/csh, which is dynamically
linked, because:
a) /usr may not be mounted initially, and then
you're in deep (the shared libraries are in /usr!), and
b) There is code in the startup scripts that assumes that
everything critical is in /etc/lib, not /usr/lib.
Approach with caution!
Safer bet - have an alternate root account, like "rootcsh",
with uid 0, and /bin/csh as its shell. Put it after root's entry in
the passwd file. Only drawback: you now have to remember to
change all of root's passwords at the same time.
Third bet - in root's .profile, check if /usr is mounted and, if so,
exec /bin/ksh or whatever.
3.25) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host,
contact administrator to install server change."?
The other machine (an NFS server) is running 4.1.x and needs a
patch from Sun to update its network lock daemon (lockd). If
you don't install the patch on the server, file locking will
not work on files mounted from "thathost". The lockd jumbo patch
fixes a bunch of other lock manager problems, so it may be a
Good Thing To Get; however, it may also cause the machine on
which the patch is installed to have trouble talking to servers
with no patch or older patches, so Be Warned.
The lockd patches are: 100075 (now 4.1.3 only), 101817 (4.1-4.1.2)
and 101784 (4.1.3_U1), 100518 (for Online: Disksuite).
3.26) How do I make Solaris2 use my Toshiba MK538FB and other
older SCSI disks?
Append this line to /etc/system and reboot:
set scsi_options & ~0x80
This turns off Command Queuing, which upsets the Toshiba
and some other drives.
3.27) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and
Emulex MD-21 diskcontrollers?
As with any hardware addition, first try the obvious (boot -r
after installing and power-cycling everything).
The adaptec is no longer supported; man -s7 sd no longer even
lists it! So I guess they go over the cliff. Either that, or
take the drives out and put them on a PC, where ST506 MFM
drives are still supported.
The MD21 should work, though some people report that SCSI
doesn't work in 4/260 boxes (bug-id #11187521).
3.28) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
Solaris 2.x releases are essentially frozen TWO months before
their general release date. During the early access/beta test
period bugs are found both in the beta and in the previous
release. That's why at the moment a new release comes out a
number of patches is ready. Some of those are on the Solaris
2.x CD. Others were released almost at the same time as 2.x,
or even before 2.x becomes generally available.
Some bugs are found in the previous release that can't be fixed
in the time for the next release. And bugs get added to new
code.
3.29) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
The mandatory patches weren't mandatory, so they've been relabeled.
They're now called ``recommended'' patches.
The recommended patches are those patches Sun recommends for
trouble free system operation. With those patches installed,
your chances on trouble free operation are higher. That doesn't
mean you will run into trouble without them.
These recommended patches can be anonymously ftp'ed from
official Sun ftp sites.
3.30) Where do I get patches from?
ugle.unit.no:/pub/unix/sun-fixes
SunSites (carry recommended and security patches):
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/sun-patches
sunsite.sut.ac.jp:/pub/sun-info/sun-us/sun-patches
sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk:/sun/sunsite-sun-info/sun-patches
Sunsolve:
sunsolve1.sun.com:/pub/patches
http://sunsolve1.sun.com/
This Sun's own site, it has the recommended patches up for
anonymous ftp, packaged as one huge 2.x_Recommended.tar.Z file
and as individual patches.
Starting with SunSolve CD 2.1.2 ALL Sun patches are shipped
on the SunSolve CD.
Contract customers can get all patches by ftp from Sunsolve
or via e-mail and query one of the online sunsolve-databases
on the internet.
3.31) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
The Solaris x86 driver updates can be obtained by anonymous ftp from:
ftp.uu.net:/vendor/sun/sun-doc/x-86-driver
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/solaris-x86/sunsoft-drivers
3.32) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
All the files that are replaced by a patch are stored under
/var/sadm/patch//save so the patch can be backed
out safely.
You can remove the /save directory provided you also
remove the /.oldfilessaved file.
Alternatively, you can install a patch w/o saving the old
files by using the "-d" flag to installpatch.
3.33) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
No, unless otherwise stated in the patch README.
If the previous patch installation saved the old
files, you may want to reclaim that space.
Patches can be backed out with:
/var/sadm/patch//backoutpatch
Backoutpatch can take an awful long time, especially when the
patch contained a lot of files.
3.34) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
Edit /etc/system and add the following line:
* System V pseudo terminals
set pt_cnt =
* BSD pseudo ttys
set npty =
Halt the system and boot -r.
3.35) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
Prior to Solaris 2.4, the OS didn't do the bookkeeping
necessary to obtain these values. In Solaris 2.4 the code
was added to kernel and /usr/ucb/ps can now show these values.
3.36) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
After installation, run the command /usr/sbin/rtc -z $TZ,
where $TZ is your timezone. The default root crontab runs
/usr/sbin/rtc -c once everyday.
That way your clock will give the proper time whether you boot
Solaris or DOS/Windows.
3.37) Hoe can I increase the number of filedescriptors per process?
In 2.3 in earlier this requires poking the kernel.
In Solaris 2.4, this can be accomplished by adding the
following lines to /etc/system:
* set hard limit on filedescriptors
set rlim_fd_max = 4096
* set soft limit on filedescriptors
set rlim_fd_cur = 1024
3.38) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine,
and choose between them at boot time?
Yes, that is possible. All partitions other than the system
partitions (typically /, /usr, /var and /opt) can be shared by the
two OSes. All partitions, including the system partitions, can be
mounted and accessed by either OS.
The easiest way to set this up is to do separate suninstalls on two
different disks. Then just choose the appropriate disk at boot
time with the PROM's "boot" command.
Setting up both OSes on one disk is a little harder, but not much.
You need to partition the disk to allow for both OSes. Almost any
partition layout is possible, but one common setup might be:
a: / for Solaris 2
b: swap (shared)
c: The usual (whole disk)
d: / for Solaris 1
e: /usr for Solaris 1
g: /usr for Solaris 2
Again, it's most reliable to use suninstall to do the installations.
If for some reason you choose not to use suninstall, make sure you run
installboot for both bootable partitions.
With this setup, you choose between the two OSes in the PROM's "boot"
command as follows:
To boot Solaris 2: boot
To boot Solaris 1: boot disk:d
NOTE: In boot PROM versions <= 2.5, the "disk:d" syntax is not supported,
and the PROM cannot boot from root partitions that begin or end beyond 1GB.
3.39) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
As root, go to directory /etc/lp/interfaces. Edit the file that
corresponds to the printer name. Change the line that reads
'nobanner="no"' to 'nobanner="yes"'.
4. NETWORKING
4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
Under SunOS 4.1 it was next to impossible to run DNS name resolution
without either a kludge fix or the NIS (V2 I guess). Under Solaris
2.1 it is incredibly simple, but you must ignore what the manual
(SunOS 5.1 Administering NIS+ and DNS) says (the manual is fixed
in Solaris 2.2). All that is required to make a non-NIS host
use the DNS for name resolution is to change the host: line in
the /etc/nsswitch.conf file to the following:
hosts: files dns
(i.e., when looking for hosts, look in /etc/hosts first, if not
found there, try DNS, if still not found then give up) and set
up a correct version of /etc/resolv.conf to tell the resolver
routines (like gethostbyname) how to contact the DNS
nameserver. You must have the names of machines which are
somehow contacted during boot in the files in /etc and files
must appear first in the hosts: line, otherwise the machine
will hang during boot (at least ours did). Make sure that
/etc/netconfig is using switch.so. (It does from the factory.)
4.2) Speaking of nsswitch.conf, what is it?
An idea whose time has come (it came to Ultrix a few years
ago). You can control which of the "resolver" services are
read from NIS (formerly YP), which from NIS+, which from the
files in /etc, and which are from DNS (but only "hosts" can
come from DNS).
A common example would be:
hosts: nis files
which means ask NIS for host info and, if it's not found, try
the local machine's host table as a fall back.
Advice: if you're not using NIS or DNS, SunInstall probably put
the right version in. If you are, ensure that hosts and passwd
come from the network. However, many of the other services
seldom if ever change. When was that last time *you*
added a line in /etc/protocols? If your workstation has a local
disk, it may be better to have programs on your machine look up
these services locally, so use "files".
Terminology: Sun worried over the term "resolver", which
technically means any "get info" routine (getpwent(3),
gethostbyname(3), etc), but is also specifically attached to
the DNS resolver. Therefore they used the term "source" to
mean the things after the colon (files/DNS/NIS/NIS+) and
"database" to mean the thing before the colon
(passwd/group/hosts/services/netgroup etc).
A complete discussion can be found in nsswitch.conf(4).
4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
Type "man nsswitch.conf" for more info. There is too much
detail to summarize here. Briefly, [NOTFOUND=return] means
that the name service whose entry it *follows* should be
considered authoritative (so that if it's up and it says such a
name doesn't exist, believe it and return instead of continuing
to hunt for an answer).
*4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
Yes, you need the Solaris network transition kit available from
Sun. However, his kit does not include the securenets patch.
Patch 101363-08 supposedly fixes this. This patch includes
*all* of the nskit, so there's no need to get more than just the
patch.
4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
Sort of, with the NIS+ server implementation for Solaris 1.x
that comes on the Solaris 2.x CD. This is a server side only
implementation and requires NIS+ to run in YP compatibility
mode.
4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
Nis+ clients do not hard bind to nis+ servers in the same
way that nis clients bind to nis servers. The clients have a
list of nis+ servers within the cold-start file. When they need
to do a lookup they do a type of broadcast called a "manycast"
and talk to the first server that responds. This way they can
be sure to use the lightest loaded server for the request.
4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
Yes, that is a known problem. The only operations allowed from
a NIS client side on the netgroup table are the ypmatches, but
not ypcat (i.e. no support for yp_first(), yp_next() or
yp_all() calls). The netgroup table is kind of unique in
this. The reason for this is that the netgroup table format
changed quite significantly in NIS+ and the NIS+ server would
take a big performance hit in converting the netgroups table to
YP (key-value) format.
4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
The good news is that it's not memory OR swap space you're
being shown by 'ps'. Instead it's showing you the process
ADDRESS space which includes 256 MB of address space reserved
for the NIS+ transaction log. Given the cost of moving things
around in memory and the fact that we have 4 GB of address
space to play with it, this is a good idea. You've just got to
stop thinking small. THINK BIG. It's only 1/16th of the total
process address space being used. And if you ever exceed the
256 MB size of the transaction log you're doing something VERY
wrong.
4.9) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX?
Ps counts the mappings for the framebuffer as memory.
Especially on the SX where a number of different mappings
of the device address space is used to optimize
access this can cause large amounts of memory, but not
physical memory, to be mapped and shown by ps.
4.10) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from
4.x clients?
Start rpc.nisd with the -B switch. This can be done editing
the server's /etc/init.d/rpc file and change 'EMULYP="-Y"' to
EMULYP="-Y -B"
+4.11) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
Solaris 2.x provides an undocumented feature in ifcofnig that
allows having more than one IP address per interfaces.
Syntax:
ifconfig IF:N ip-address up
where "IF" is an interface (e.g., le0) and N is a number between 1 and
255. Removing the pseudo interface and associated address is done
with "ifconfig IF:N 0.0.0.0 down".
5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
Try truss(1). truss -f -o file cmd args ...
will put a trace of all system calls in "file".
This often helps as a first step in diagnosing certain
failure modes, such as insufficient permissions on file etc.
5.2) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
This is a bug in openwindows. Using xhost + or starting
openwin -noauth works around this problem. This is
only recommended for stand-alone machines with no dial-in
users. [ S 2.3 ]
5.3) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
This is a symptom of a bug in filemgr in Solaris 2.3
Either apply patch #101514 or run the following commands
at system start-up:
mkdir /tmp/.removable
chmod a+rwxt /tmp/.removable
5.4) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps?
That's a bug in libdps. Sun compiles and links its software
with its own compilers. The isinf() function is shipped with
the SunPRO compilers, but not defined in any Solaris 2.x library.
A workaround exists, and consists of adding the following to
your program:
#include
int isinf(double x) { return !finite(x) && x==x; }
5.5) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
The PPP shipped with Solaris 2.3 doesn't interoperate with
other PPP implementations. Patch #101425 fixes this.
5.6) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
You need patch #101448.
5.7) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
You're using gcc without properly installing the gcc fixed
include files. Or you ran fixincludes after installing gcc
w/o moving the gcc supplied varargs.h and stdarg.h files
out of the way and moving them back again later. This often
happens when people install gcc from a binary distribution.
If there's a tmp directory in gcc's include directory, fixincludes
didn't complete. This can happen when you run fixincludes in
the background w/o redirecting I/O.
Another possible cause is using ``gcc -I/usr/include.''
5.8) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
When the system boots, the first invocation of ps will try to
recreate /tmp/ps_data. To this end ps scans the /dev tree.
Under some circumstances, a loop exists in /dev and ps will
run forever. Most of the time this loop is caused by the symbolic
link /dev/bd.off. While this link usually points to /dev/term/b,
it sometimes get truncated and points to /dev instead.
Fix: rm -f /dev/bd.off; ln -s /dev/term/b /dev/bd.off
Use truss(1) to determine whether this is real the cause of your
problem.
5.9) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
Make sure you have /usr/ccs/bin/m4 installed. It's in
package SUNWbtool.
Other causes are bugs in Solaris 2.3 and various revisions of
patches. E.g., syslogd is broken in all 101318 patches
between level -42 and -50. It works again in 101318-54.
5.10) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on
Solaris client from non-Sun fileserver.
Some vendors still ship a version of RPC/NFS that allows at
most 8 groups in the client credentials. Root on Solaris is by
default in 10 groups. As a result, the Solaris 2.x mount
command will send AUTH_UNIX credentials that are too big to
cope with for the remote mount daemon resulting in the ``Invalid
client credential'' error.
Workaround: put root and all your users in 8 or less groups.
NOTE: You must logout and login again for changes in the number
of groups to take effect. (or exit root's shell and re-su)
+5.11) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
In starting with Solaris 2.4, a kernel workaround to limit
NFS readdir requests to 1024 bytes was disabled by default.
This breaks interoperability with buggy old NFS implementations
(such as SunOS 3.2, Ultrix and possibly NeXT)
There are two workarounds. The first one works and is:
mount all filesystems from such servers with rsize=1024.
The second one, which requires a patch for bugid #1193696 is:
Edit /etc/system and add:
set nfs:nfs_shrinkreaddir = 1
and reboot.
+5.12) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping)
Patch 101945-17 introduced an bug in the NFS client code that makes
that programs using NFS locking will sometimes go in an
interruptable read. (I.e., you can kill the program that hangs)
Truss will show the program sleeping in read(2) while top
will show it eating CPU. The ksh seems to have this quite
a lot. There's also a lot of network traffic.
Workaround: mount NFS filesystems with "noac", but this costs
performance.
5.13) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
Boot with -as. The kernel will ask you all sorts of questions,
including the name of the system file. Use the previous
/etc/system file or specify /dev/null.
5.14) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
Boot with -a and specify /dev/null as path_to_inst file.
5.15) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
The tcp/ip abort interval in Solaris 2.x is too short,
the default value is 2 minutes. The result is that when an
ACK isn't received in *2* minutes, the connection is closed.
This is most often seen by sendmail, which will log
sendmail: SYSERR: collect: read timeout on connection from ...
You can fix this by running following command which increases
the timeout to 8 minutes (unit is millisec), which is the
Solaris 2.4 (and patched 2.3 default)
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_ip_abort_interval 480000
This command should be placed in a script rc2.d script. (See 3.14)
(See 5.16 for another possible cause)
*5.16) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
Solaris 2.x sets the don't fragment bit on all packets it send
as part of MTU path discovery. The Solaris 2.x implementation
is RFC compliant, but the MTU path discovery protocol will
fail when there are broken routers in the path.
Typical symptom is not being able to connect from a
Solaris 2.x hosts but having no trouble from other hosts or
being able to start a TCP/IP connection but not move any
significant amount of data.
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_path_mtu_discovery 0
(See also 5.15)
Please note that Solaris 2.x will still send large packets over
such links but without the don't fragment bit set. On a number of
occasions, I've come accross links that don't properly handle
such packets. They're not fragmented, they're dropped instead.
So if the above fix doesn't work you can resort to the following
drastic measure which negatively impacts network performance:
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_mss_max 536
536 is the standard packet size that is guaranteed to work by virtue
of the fact that most system will communicate outside the local
net with packets that big. If the connection then starts to work,
it's time to find the largest value that works.
It's also worth mentioning that the "ip_path_mtu_discovery" needs
to be applied at both sides of a connection to fully work, applied
at one side it will only affect outgoing large packets. (I.e.,
downloads from the site will succeed but uploads from a other
Solaris 2.x machine w/o the workarounf applied may still fail). The
"tcp_mss_max" workaround need only be applied at one side.
If you need the "tcp_mss_max" workaround for some sites,
there a problem on the link between you and those sites.
Get it fixed.
5.17) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail
server, or with non-Solaris mail readers, some messages get split
into multiple messages.
Solaris 2.x uses the "Content-Length:" header to tell the MUAs
where messages should be split. Unfortunately, no-one else
understands this convention. Instead, the old convention, ``split
on "From " lines'' is used most of the time. Those mail readers
expect extra lines with "From" to be escaped with ">".
Workaround: add "E" to the mailerflags of the local mailer.
Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf on your Solaris machines, add E to
F= on the line that reads:
Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=flsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
so that it becomes:
Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=EflsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
+5.18) Mailx/Mail often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
Mailx/Mail use UUCP from line to determine sender, it should use
the From: header only. To achieve this you can use the undocumented
"from" mail variable in your .mailrc: "set from".
To make this the default behaviour, add "set from" to
/etc/mail/mailx.rc.
5.19) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
In the shadow table/file/map there is a field that indicates how
long an account may be inactive before it is expired. On login,
the entry in /var/adm/lastlog, the inactive expire time and the
current date are compared. If the system determines that the user
is expired, he will get "Login incorrect", indiscernible from a
normal incorrect login. The fix is changing the user's shadow
entry.
5.20) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
Remote, but unshared filesystems, such as /, /var, /var/adm, etc
should be mounted with the llock option. Solaris 2.x does this
automatically for remote /, but not for remote /var or /var/adm.
If you don't specify llock, the system will hang when it tries
to do stuff to the *[wu]tmp files, early in the boot process.
Workaround: Add the (undocumented) llock option to the mount
options for /var and/or /var/adm. (It should be fixed in
/etc/rcS.d/S70buildmnttab.sh)
5.21) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
Vacation was moved from /usr/ucb (in SunOS 4.x) to /usr/bin.
Unfortunately, the full pathname must be specified in your .forward.
Workaround: add a link to /usr/ucb/vacation in /usr/bin on SunOS 4
machines, and add a link to /usr/bin/vacation in /usr/ucb on SunOS 5
machines.
5.22) I have a lot of processes. How do I get rid of them?
In Solaris 2.3 (and presumably earlier) there is a bug in the
pseudo tty modules that makes them hang in close. This causes
processes to hang forever while exiting.
Fix: Apply patch 101415-02 (for 2.3).
5.23) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when logging in.
You need to increase the number of pseudo ttys.
If you also have a lot of processes, you may
be hit by a bug in the OS. (See 5.22)
5.24) ld bails out with msync errors.
You probably use a Cray as fileserver. It doesn't support all
NFS operations ld want to perform. Install the folowing patch:
101409-04: SunOS 5.3: Jumbo linker patch
[ Solaris 2.3 ]
5.25) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
Su won't run under a shell compiled under SunOS 4.1.x.
Recompile your shell (tcsh/bash) under Solaris 2.x.
*5.26) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so wth 2.3?
Several changes were made to the "sd" driver between 2.3 and 2.4.
In particular, the code that resets the drive to the 512 blocksize
is no longer called in the case of a data overrun. Accordingly, it
is not currently possible to install 2.4 from a local non- Sun
CDROM drive. Your best bet for the short term may be to either
borrow a SunCD (locally or maybe from your Sun Rep) or to mount the
CD remotely on a machine that is already up and running and can
handle your non-Sun CD-ROM, and perform a network installation.
This is not a problem for non-SPARC versions of Solaris 2.x
CDROMs that have been modified to use a 512 byte blocksize by default
will work fine.
5.27) ifconfig can't find my network interface
Only network devices configured with an address at boot
are visible to ifconfig (i.e., if /etc/hostname.IFN exists).
To make a interface visible to ifconfig do:
ifconfig ifN plumb
5.28) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get:
fatal: libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2
You need to add -R to the link command line.
E.g.,:
cc -L/usr/openwin/lib -R/usr/openwin/lib xprog.c -lX11
5.29) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
You must specify the motif library on the command line before other
X libraries.
WRONG:
cc .... -lXt -lXm
RIGHT:
cc .... -lXm -lXt
+5.30) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed"
There is no C compiler included in Solaris 2.x. The /usr/ucb/cc script
you are executing is a wrapper for the SunSoft C compiler which
calls the native C compiler with the /usr/ucb includes and libraries.
You need to get yourself a C compiler. Alternatively,
you may have forgotten to put the proper link from /usr/ccs/bin/ucbcc
to /opt/SUNWspro/SCxxxx/cc in place. See also 6.1.
+5.31) thr_create and other thread functions always return -1
You must put -lthread on the link command line. If you also
put -lc on the link command line, -lthread should go before
-lc.
+5.32) Solaris 2.4 seems to have a kernel memory leak.
There are two possible causes for this kernel memory leak.
There's a bug in the volume management device driver that when
unloaded leaks memory: fix with patch 101907-05.
The NFS client cache will cache to much. A simple workaround is to
add ``set nrnode = 1000'' to /etc/system and reboot.
You may want to make this larger or smaller depending on how much
memory you have. About 20-30 rnodes per MB of memory is a good
starting point.
A good rule of thumb is about 20-30 rnodes per MB of memory.
6. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
6.1) Where is the C compiler or where can I get one?
Where have you been? :-) Sun has dropped their old K&R C
compiler, supposedly to create a market for multiple compiler
suppliers to provide better performance and features. Here
are some of the contenders:
1) SunPro C: [URL: http://www.sun.com/sunsoft/index.html]
SunPro, SMCC, and various distributors sell a new
ANSI-standard C compiler on the unbundled (extra cost)
SPARCcompiler/SPARCworks CD-ROM. There are some other nice
tools there too, like a "make tool" and a visual diff
(interactive diff).
You have to license and pay per concurrent user.
2) Cygnus GCC: [URL: http://www.cygnus.com/]
Cygnus Support and the Free Software Foundation make the GNU C
compiler for Solaris, a free software product. Source code
and ready-to-run binaries can be installed from the CDware CD
(Volume 4 or 5).
Like all GNU software, there are no restrictions on who can
use it, how many people can use it at a time, what machines it
can be run on, or how many copies you can install, run, give
away, or sell.
Cygnus sells technical support for these tools, under annual
support contracts.
The Cygnus distribution includes:
gcc (ansi C compiler), gdb (good debugger), byacc (yacc repl),
flex (lex repl), gprof, makeinfo, texindex, info, patch,
cc (a link to gcc)
The Cygnus compiler on uunet is starting to show its age a
bit. If you want to compile X11R5, you can get the latest
version of GCC in source code, from the usual places
(prep.ai.mit.edu or one of the many mirrored copies of it).
Build and install that compiler using the Cygnus gcc binaries.
Or get tech support from Cygnus; they produce a new version
for their customers every three months, and will fix any
bug you find.
3) Gcc.
Gcc is available from the GNU archives in source and binary
form. Look in a directory called sparc-sun-solaris2 for
binaries. You need gcc 2.3.3 or later. You should not use
GNU as or GNU ld. Make sure you run just-fixinc if you use
a binary distribution. Better is to get a binary version and
use that to bootstrap gcc from source.
GNU software is available from:
prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/GNU
ftp.uu.net:/systems/gnu
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/gnu
nic.funet.fi:/pub/gnu
4) Info on Apogee, Lucid C, etc will be added if you send us some.
6.2) What about the linker, the assembler and make?
Solaris ships with everything you need, except for the compiler.
All this stuff lives in /usr/ccs/bin and /usr/ccs/lib.
If you still can't find it, make sure you have the following
packages installed on your system:
for tools (sccs, lex, yacc, make, nm, truss, ld, as):
SUNWbtool, SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo
for libraries & headers:
SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms
for ucb compat:
SUNWsra, SUNWsrh
6.3) Where has ranlib gone?
The functionality provided by ranlib in SunOS 4.1.x is now
merged into ar. It is no longer necessary to run ranlib
on archive libraries. Fix makefiles that require ranlib
by replacing it with "/bin/true".
6.4) What do I need to compile X11R5?
There are several "patch kits" for X11R5 under Solaris 2.1.
Most of them require gcc 2.3.3 or later and you must have
run "fixincludes" when you install the gcc software.
The recommended patchkit is R5.SunOS5.patch.tar.Z available
from ftp.x.org:/R5contrib. It works with gcc (2.3.3 or later)
and SunPRO C.
X11R6 compiles out-of-the-box on Solaris 2.3.
6.5) I can't compile X11R6 on Solaris 2.4
There are several possible problems when compiling X11R6 on Solaris 2.4:
The compilation of xc/programs/Xserver/Xext/shm.c will fail with
a redefinition of shmat(). Comment out the offending defintion
near line 66 in that file.
If you use SC 2.0, you'll have to add -D__sparc to the
StandardDefines in sun.cf line 146.
See also 6.6
6.6) X11R6 on Solaris 2.4 won't run. Xinit dies with "User Signal 1".
Xterms won't die.
Some changes in libc.so and libthread.so break the way libthread is
linked with libX11.so. Apply the following patch and rebuild
libX11.so. Remember to change OSMinorVersion to 4 as well.
Another symptom is xterms staying around in a frozen state after
exiting the inferior shell process.
Note that you must reinstall the X libraries with "make install"
before xterm works right.
For multithreaded X to work it necessary to install patch
101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
patch.
*** xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl.org Sat Apr 9 01:15:25 1994
--- xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl Wed Jan 11 10:59:03 1995
***************
*** 37,44 ****
--- 37,46 ----
#else /* else it's Solaris */
+ #if OSMinorVersion < 4
#if ThreadedX
#define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
+ #endif
#endif
#define SharedXmuReqs $(LDPRELIB) $(XTOOLLIB) $(XLIB)
#define FixupLibReferences() /**/
6.7) I get undefined symbols when compiling R6 in Solaris 2.2.
Solaris 2.2 doesn't have the full thread support required
by X11R6. Compile R6 without multi-thread support or
upgrade to 2.3 or later.
6.8) I can't get perl 4.036 to compile or run.
Run Configure, and use the solaris_2_0 hints, *don't* use
the solaris_2_1 hints and don't use the config.sh you may
already have. First you must make sure Configure and make
don't find /usr/ucb/cc. (It must use gcc or the native C
compiler: /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc)
Some questions need a special answer.
Are your system (especially dbm) libraries compiled with gcc? [y] y
yes: gcc 2.3.3 or later uses the standard calling
conventions, same as Sun's C.
Any additional cc flags? [ -traditional -Dvolatile=__volatile__
-I/usr/ucbinclude] -traditional -Dvolatile=__volatile__
Remove /usr/ucbinclude.
Any additional libraries? [-lsocket -lnsl -ldbm -lmalloc -lm
-lucb] -lsocket -lnsl -lm
Don't include -ldbm, -lmalloc and -lucb.
Perl 5 compiled out of the box.
6.9) I can't get sockets to work with perl.
Some of the socket constants have changed. E.g., SOCK_STREAM
now has a value of 2, whereas SunOS 4.x uses a value of 1.
6.10) I have problems compiling MH 6.8.3
The MH config file for Solaris that comes with MH 6.8.3 should work
OK, but there's some other problems: One of the Solaris 2.x headers
conflicts with mhn.c and inc doesn't know how to seperate messages
based on the Content-Length header. A fix for both problems can be found
in:
ftp.fwi.uva.nl:/pub/solaris/mh-6.8.3-diff
6.11) I can't get XV 3.x to compile or run correctly.
You need to get xv-3.x from ftp.cis.upenn.edu:/pub/xv.
Don't use xv-3.01 from ftp.x.org. The latest version, xv-3.10,
compiles fine w/o any of the ucb stuff.
6.12) What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level
network access?
See man page DLPI(7). Try NFSWATCH 4.1 for sample code using DLPI.
It is available by ftp from:
harbor.ecn.purdue.edu:/pub/davy/nfswatch4.1.tar.Z
and
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/net/ip/nfs/nfswatch4.1.tar.Z
Better yet, FTP the paper "How to Use DLPI in Solaris 2.x" by
Neal Nuckolls of Sun Internet Engineering. Look in
these FTP directories:
opcom.sun.ca:/pub/drivers/dlpi
ftp.ui.org:/pub/osi/{dlpi,npi,tpi}.ps
[ It appears that this site no longer exists, where did it move to? ]
[ someone has found these, ill put a reference in later ]
6.13) Where are all the functions gone that used to be in libc?
The C library has exploded. The manual page may give an
indication where to find a specific function.
Those libraries are essentially split over two directories:
/usr/lib /usr/ccs/lib.
Important libraries:
/usr/lib:
libsocket - socket functions
libnsl - network services library
/usr/ccs/lib:
libgen - regular expression functions
libcurses - the SysVR4 curses/terminfo library.
See Intro(3) for more details.
6.14) I'm still missing some functions: bcopy, bzero and friends.
They are in /usr/ucblib/libucb.so. The b* functions
are replaced with the ANSI-C equivalents. Look
in the Solaris porting FAQ for more details.
6.15) Can I use the source compatibility package to postpone porting?
Not really. The Source code compatibility package is
compatible with BSD 4.2, not SunOS 4.1.x. The consensus
is that the library is broken beyond usability.
If you use libucb to pick up some functions you need, it
is often best to specify it *after* all other libraries and
after libc with:
-lc -L/usr/ucblib -R/usr/ucblib -lucb
or preferrably:
-lc /usr/ucblib/libucb.a
6.16) Why doesn't readdir work? It chops the first two characters of
all filenames.
You're probably linking with libucb and didn't read question
6.15. (Readdir in libucb.so wants you to include sys/dir.h,
but many SunOS 4.1.x programs included , consequently,
you're mixing native struct dirent with libucb
readdir(). The symptom of this mixup is that the first two
characters of each filename are missing. Make sure you use the
native compiler (default /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc, which may not be in
your PATH), and not /usr/ucb/cc.
6.17) Why do I get undefined symbols when linking with curses/termcap?
It is easy to mixup the BSD libcurses and the SVR4 libcurses.
One lives in /usr/ucblib, the other in /usr/ccs/lib, when
you've installed SUNWarc. Note that when you specify:
-L/usr/ucblib -lucb -L/usr/ccs/lib -lcurses
you will pick the *ucb* version of libcurses, not the SVR4
version. If you always put libucb last, as recommended in the
previous question, you will have no such problem.
*6.18) Where are the Motif includes and libraries?
Starting with Solaris 2.4, the package SUNWmfrun is included with
the base OS. It is installed under the directory /usr/dt,
where all the CDE stuff will appear (dt stands for desktop).
There are no Motif imake templates nor is mwm shipped with the
base OS yet.
Remember that you must link with -R/usr/dt/lib.
+6.19) Traceroute to Solaris 2.x machines gives many timeouts.
Solaris 2.4 and later (and Solaris 2.3 w/ high rev kernel jumbo
patches) limit the number of ICMP error message to one
per 500 milliseconds. To switch off this feature, use:
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_icmp_err_interval 0
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most of this material is either written by me or sent to me
directly. Some of it is cribbed shamelessly from USENET postings
in several groups.
Thanks to all people who contributed to this FAQ,
you know who you are. The list is too long to be included
in this FAQ.
--- End of Solaris 2.x FAQ -- Maintained by Casper Dik ---