Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.announce Path: textlitho.nl!sun4nl!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!de stroyer!gumby!yale!cs.yale.edu!jacobi!nathan From: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Subject: NEXTSTEP-OS-FAQ Message-ID: <1994Feb7.201409.27690@cs.yale.edu> Followup-To: comp.sys.next.misc Summary: Frequently Asked Questions about NEXTSTEP and NeXT machines. Originator: nathan@jacobi Sender: news@cs.yale.edu (Usenet News) Nntp-Posting-Host: jacobi.csb.yale.edu Reply-To: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 20:14:09 GMT Approved: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Expires: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 00:00:00 GMT Lines: 326 Archive-name: NEXTSTEP-OS-FAQ Last-modified: Mon Feb 7 14:17:40 EST 1994 Version: 3.01 Every four weeks (depending on the phase of the moon) a number of postings are made to comp.sys.next.announce which are a compilation of answers to frequently asked questions in the comp.sys.next.* Usenet newsgroups. The FAQ list is broken into sections and posted separately. These sections focus on various aspects of NEXTSTEP and NeXT machines. Items that appear within sections are not in any particular order, and get added and removed over time. Posting the sections separately allows people to find the sections interesting to them quickly. Within each section each question will be preceded by a "Subject:" field, allowing news readers to break up the file into separate questions. Each question has its own unique number. The FAQ is kept on-line at several ftp sites, including: cs.orst.edu sonata.cc.purdue.edu Many FAQs, including this one, are available via FTP on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which this FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-nameline above. Questions marked with a "+" are new to this issue, and questions with changes since the last issue are marked by a "!". Submissions, corrections, comments, input, etc., should be directed to Nathan Janette . Disclaimer: We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this posting. If you have any corrections, additions, questions, or answers to add to this list, please send email to: This compilation is meant primarily as a service to the comp.sys.next community. Newsletter editors wishing to excerpt from this work for publication should consider using local electronic bulletin boards to disseminate this information rather than preparing hardcopies. This allows for readers to access the most recent information, and perhaps save a couple of trees. We do not collect any royalties, charge any fees, or compensate anyone in connection with this endeavor. TABLE OF CONTENTS: ------------------ G1. What information is there about NEXTSTEP/FIP (For Intel Processors)? G2. Why does NEXTSTEP 1.0 hang a few seconds after attempting to boot? G3. Can I delete /odmach or /sdmach and save 700K? G4. NEXTSTEP 2.0 systems report an error on the console: "loginwindow: netinfo problem - No such directory." Is this a problem? G5. Under NEXTSTEP 2.0 running UUCP and other incoming connections hangs the mo dem serial line: what can I do? G6. Applications installed in /LocalApps are not being found on my NEXTSTEP 2.0 system. G7. Why can't root login onto client machines? G8. How to boot NEXTSTEP from the second (higher SCSI ID) HD? G9. How to make swapfile shrink to the "normal" size? G10. Does netinfo work between machines running NEXTSTEP 2.n and 3.n? G11. Why does the console user "own" the external disk filesystem? G12. How to limit coredump sizes? G13. Will a 68030 NeXT Computer run NEXTSTEP 3.0? !G14. What happens to the OD drive in NeXTcubes under NEXTSTEP 3.0? G15. What equipment do I need to load 3.0? G16. What is the maximum value of nbuf that I can specify on bootup? ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G1. What information is there about NEXTSTEP/FIP (For Intel Processors)? See the separate FAQ files. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G2. Why does NEXTSTEP 1.0 hang a few seconds after attempting to boot? Release 1.0 contains a bug that can corrupt the kernel /odmach if a user attempts to launch /odmach from the browser. The solution is to copy a clean /odmach from another NeXT system. Be sure to change the permissions of the newly installed /odmach to remove execute permissions to prevent future occurrences of the same problem. Release 1.0a and beyond do not have this problem. It is possible for the sdmach to get corrupted in the same way. Boot from the OD, copy an uncorrupted version of the kernel to the hard disk, and remove the execute bits from sdmach. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G3. Can I delete /odmach or /sdmach and save 700K? Go ahead and delete it if you want. However, you might as well leave it there since sdmach and odmach are links to the same file (i.e. you won't save much space by deleting it). Better to look for random core files. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G4. NEXTSTEP 2.0 systems report an error on the console: "loginwindow: netinfo problem - No such directory." Is this a problem? The netinfo problem is because the /keyboard directory is missing. It's benign... [EPS adds] "But annoying. niutil -create . /keyboard" Fixed in 2.1. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G5. Under NEXTSTEP 2.0 running UUCP and other incoming connections han gs the modem serial line: what can I do? There is a bug in the serial driver which causes getty to get stuck. The situation arises after a successful uucico connection, subsequent connections via modem will get a connection with the modem, but no login prompt. This is caused by getty hanging. A simple work around is to have a process run in cron to reset the getty every 15 minutes: #! /bin/sh -u PIDS=`ps -ax | bm getty | grep -v bm | awk '{print $1}'` kill -TERM $PIDS Of course trying to connect when the script is running will not allow you to connect, try again a minute later. This fix will not affect on-going UUCP or interactive connections. This will probably be fixed in the next kernel release. This bug is corrected in NEXTSTEP 2.1 and later releases. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G6. Applications installed in /LocalApps are not being found on my NEX TSTEP 2.0 system. Workspace has its own internal application path. In 2.0 /LocalApps was omitted. Improv needs to have /LocalApps in the Workspace path if you have Improve installed in /LocalApps. The work around in 2.0 only is: dwrite Workspace ApplicationPaths "~/Apps:/LocalApps:/NextApps:/NextDevel oper/ Apps:/NextAdmin:/NextDeveloper/Demos (one continuous line! - pasc) This bug is corrected in NEXTSTEP 2.1 and later releases. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G7. Why can't root login onto client machines? A number of people have complained about the situation where root can log onto the configuration server, but not its clients. Login proceeds normally, then a window with "Workspace error Internal error (signal 10)" pops up. Other users are not affected. This scenario occurs with NetBooted clients that are not permitted root access to / via the server's /etc/exports file, either via an explicit root= option or [the most heinous] anon=0. For security reasons many sites will NOT want to permit such access. Note that what you're up against is only a Workspace Manager misfeature; there's no problem logging in as root on the real UNIX console, or logging in as a non-root user and then using "su" to obtain root privileges. Root access is needed to: - Log in a root Workspace. - Perform BuildDisk on a client. - Run the GuidedTour demo for the first time subsequent invocations will not autologin, but they will run just fine if you log in as NextTour (no password). It is not required to perform updates on the local NetInfo database, for any normal user operations, nor to run programs requiring root access on the server using -NXHost. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G8. How to boot NEXTSTEP from the second (higher SCSI ID) HD? bsd(1,0,0) -a which will then ask you for the drive to use as the root disk, or still easier, bsd(1,0,0)sdmach rootdev=sd1 [Carl Edman ] adds: In the boot command the name of the bootfile can be replaced by '-'. This is very useful as the length of the bootcommand which can be stored in the permanent memory is very limited. So the only way to eg. increase the number of buffers permanently to 128 in the boot command is to use the following boot command: sd- nbu=128 (sdsdmach nbu=128 would have been too long). ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G9. How to make swapfile shrink to the "normal" size? The swapfile is located in /private/vm. The only current way to make it shrink is to reboot the machine. Putting a space after the comma in /etc/swaptab (lowat=###,hiwat=###) makes swapon ignore the hiwat entry. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G10. Does netinfo work between machines running NEXTSTEP 2.n and 3.n? Yes. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G11. Why does the console user "own" the external disk filesystem? You need an entry in /etc/fstab so the disk will be mounted at boot time, rather than being "automounted" when somebody logs in. Automounted disks are owned by whoever logged in, fstab-mounted disks are owned by root. Something like this: /dev/sd0a / 4.3 rw,noquota,noauto 0 1 /dev/sd1a /Disk 4.3 rw,noquota 0 2 (assuming the external disk is to be mounted as /Disk) fstab should be niloaded into the Netinfo database if it contains any NFS mounts. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G12. How to limit coredump sizes? [dylan@midiline.la.ca.us (Comrade D)]: This will work for apps running from a shell. limit coredumpsize 0 If your dock or workspace apps are dumping core, there's also: dwrite Workspace CoreLimit 0 [or whatever byte limit you want] ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G13. Will a 68030 NeXT Computer run NEXTSTEP 3.0? Yes, but note that NeXTstep 3.0 will be optimized for the 68040 CPUs. NeXTstep 1.0 and 2.x were optimized for the 68030 CPU, 68882 FPU machines. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G14. What happens to the OD drive in NeXTcubes under NEXTSTEP 3.0? Release 3.0 will work fine with the OD that you have. You cannot buy release 3.0 on optical disk (you can only get it on CD-ROM. Release 3.0 will not require that you drop the optical, but if you want to upgrade to the latest 68040 board (the 33-MHz Turbo), then you lose hardware support for the optical. There is a company which offers hardware (extra CPU boards) and software support solutions for the OD with Turbo NeXTcubes. For more information: Sam Goldberger Spherical Solutions smg@orb.com 415-383-7512 ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G15. What equipment do I need to load 3.0? A CDrom drive and a means of getting an upgrade-prep app onto your disk. This means having your own floppy drive, being on the net, having someone with a floppy drive put it onto OD, kermitting it over with a serial line... you get the idea. You do not need a special boot ROM for 3.0. [From: Jimmie_Quan@NeXT.COM (Jimmie Quan)] There's actually 3 levels of upgrades. a) For early NeXT Computers, you'll need an external Floppy drive (PLI) and the upgrade-prep floppy disk. b) For 040 machines with ROMs v58-v66, you'll need the upgrade-prep floppy. c) For all 040's with v70-v74 ROM. The CD ROM is directly bootable. ____________________________________________________________________________ Subject: G16. What is the maximum value of nbuf that I can specify on bootup? I know the ROM monitor only allows twelve characters, but I use something like this: bsd sdmach nbuf=xxx Is there a way to make it default? [Charles William Swiger infidel@cmu.edu] Enter the hardware monitor. Hit 'p' to adjust the configuration parameters. It will respond "Boot command: ? " Enter "sd- nbu=xxx", where xxx is a number less than 256. ____________________________________________________________________________ Editor: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu -- Nathan JanetteVoice: 203 432 5065 Systems ManagerFax: 203 432 3923 Brunger LabInternet: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Yale Univ Dept MB&B/HHMI"I'm a NeXTstep Man, I'm a NeXTcube Guy"Press [RE