assorted questions

assorted questions

[guenther]

We've been trying to get plan9 setup in some form here at St Olaf for
awhile now, and I've finally got it to the point were I could go
through and recompile the kernels, fix the permissions on /adm, etc.
Throughout this I've been aquiring a list of questions/problems.
Well, yesterday when I fired up the cpu server and terminal (both Sun
SLC's that run SunOS normally.  Dang machine shortage.) into plan9, I
couldn't use the cpu command to get from the terminal to the cpu server,
so I figured I might as well flush my list and see if I'm totally confused.

Setup
------
fileserver: "the_ruler" SPARCstation 2 with 1G drive
cpu server: "tanna" SPARCstation SLC, diskless (also serves authentication)
terminal:   "eros"  same as cpu server

The fileserver + drive are our spares, so I've backing up my changes via
u9fs. :-|  The cpu server and terminal are in the CS lab, and run SunOS
normally.  When I want to work with plan9 I halt them and use the boot
rom's "dload" command to snarf the proper kernel via tftp (saves having
to change the ether's database or /tftpboot on the server).  Thus they
can't run plan9 continuously (just not enough computer to spare right
now).

Okay, here's the list.  Most of these have implict "why?" or "anybody
see this?" attached.

1)	The fileserver is supposed to rerequest the password when
you type control-D on it's console.  I do that, and it halts.  I've
added a new command "exit" which just calls conslock() to get around
this, but I'm not sure why it doesn't work correctly.

2)	Every so often, the filesever will just stop accepting connections.
You can see the allocation message, but the remote machine never gets a
nop, auth or attach through apparently.  This appears to have some
connection with ethernet errors (from statl).  Rebooting the fileserver
fixes the problem.

3)	Speaking of rebooting the fileserver, whenever I do so I have to
reenter all the info.  Why?  If I don't, the ip address is incorrect!  I
can type:
	service the_ruler.plan9.stolaf.edu
	ip 130.71.8.48
	ipgw 130.71.8.1
	ipmask 255.255.255.0
	ipauth 0.0.0.0
	config w1
	filsys main w1
and it works fine.  I halt it, reboot, not enter config mode, but watch
the config messages go by, and the ip address becomes something like
135.104.9.122.  Everything else is fine (ipgw, service, etc).

4)	DNS.  Does *anybody* know how to get plan9 to use DNS?  I've added
ns lines to /lib/ndb/local, both for the DNS root as well as stolaf.edu.

dom=stolaf.edu
        ns=nic.stolaf.edu
        ns=mari.acc.stolaf.edu
        ns=news.stolaf.edu
dom=nic.stolaf.edu ip=130.71.128.8
dom=mari.acc.stolaf.edu ip=130.71.192.16
dom=news.stolaf.edu ip=130.71.128.9

And our cpu server starts "ndb/dns -s" from /bin/cpurc.  Sure enough,
I can point nslookup at the cpuserver and it does proper forwarding.
How can I get cs to use it?  "echo 'add dns' >/net/cs"?  I looked at
the dns and cs source, but got lost very quickly.

5)	BOOTP.  Due to the difficulties of getting authentication running
without machines getting their info from BOOTP (as opposed to just typing
it in each time), I hacked the plan9 kernel to do roughly rfc1048 & 1533
BOOTP.  That is, the vendor field turns into options with the rfc specified
magic cookie (99.130.83.99), it extracts the fields to do ipmask and ipgw,
and options 209, 210 and 211 are site-specific options to specify
fileserver, authentication server, and ip number.  ip number?  Yeah.  Since
these machines run SunOS normally, the ip number in the BOOTP header goes
with the name under SunOS, and this other BOOTP option gives their plan9
IP.  Feel free to vomit.  Anyway, is there someway this can be shared with
any interested parties?  Do I have to see a copy of their plan9 license
before I can email them diffs to 9/boot/ip.c and 9/port/bootp.h?

6)	Okay, now the biggy: authentication.  First of all, the
documentation isn't at all clear on what actually have to be in the
keys database to make it work.  Reading the source of libauth yielded
the following as far as I can tell undocumented fact:

	Each cpu server needs to entered as a host in the plan9 auth
	database with the machine password under the system's name.

The installation guide mentions machine login's, but doesn't say how to
make them (that's easy), what they're for, or that cpu server "tanna"
needs auth entry "tanna".  This is after 3 hours of tracing libauth when
I just had a host entry for "bootes" (still haven't changed that).
Anyway, I got it working.

Yesterday, I fired up plan9 again.  Ha.  cpu decided it doesn't like me,
and proceeds to return "challenge mismatch".  Okay, maybe a password was
incorrectly entered somehow.  So I reenter the machine password in the
auth database for both bootes and tanna (the cpu/auth server's name).
Bzzt.  I reenter mine.  Still no go.  I remove /adm/keys from the file
server console, recreate it, and restock it with users.  Still no go.
Worked fine a week ago.  Maybe it's because the moon is now waning...

So this last one is really a plea to someone in the know to explain
the practicals of setting up authentication under plan9.  I've read
the manpages too much.  How do the commands reflect the theory in
auth(6)?

Much preresponse appreciation.

Philip Guenther

guenther@stolaf.edu (Philip Guenther) St Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057
(defun sig-hook () (insert-disclaimer 'my-opinion-only 'powerless-student))
"To go outside the mythos is to become insane..." -Robert Pirsig