Path: alphanet.ch!imp.ch!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.belwue.de!news.ipc.uni-tuebingen.de!seicom.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!hookup!newshost.marcam.com!news.mathworks.com!panix!cmcl2!yale.edu!yale!laplace!nathan From: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.announce Subject: NEXTSTEP-OS-FAQ Followup-To: comp.sys.next.misc Date: 6 Mar 1995 08:39:10 GMT Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT Lines: 257 Approved: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Expires: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <3jehne$c4m@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> Reply-To: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: laplace.csb.yale.edu Summary: Frequently Asked Questions about NEXTSTEP and NeXT machines. Originator: nathan@laplace Archive-name: NEXTSTEP-OS-FAQ Last-modified: Mon Mar 6 03:03:59 EST 1995 Version: 3.1 These FAQs are under significant construction, and may well change form and content over the next weeks. These FAQs focus on various aspects of OpenStep, NEXTSTEP, and NeXT machines. The FAQs are kept on-line at several ftp sites, including: cs.orst.edu sonata.cc.purdue.edu Many FAQs, including these, are available (www, ftp, email) 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. 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. Items that appear within sections are not in any particular order, and get added and removed over time. 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 . Some important NEXTSTEP & OpenStep Information WWW sites: NeXT, Inc. http://www.next.com/ NeXTanswers http://www.next.com/NeXTanswers/ Stepwise NEXTSTEP/OpenStep Information Server http://digifix.digifix.com/ TABLE OF CONTENTS: ------------------ G1. What information is there about NEXTSTEP/FIP (For Intel Processors)? G3. Can I delete /odmach or /sdmach and save 700K? 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: 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: 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 Janette Systems Manager, Axel T. Brönger Lab Internet: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu