Problems that I'm having...

[Steve Kotsopoulos steve@ecf.toronto.edu]

"G. David Butler" <gdb@dbSystems.com> wrote:

> I have not gotten any response to my previous message, so I'm just wondering
> if my questions are too general for this list or if I'm just such a novice
> that everybody else knows everything about getting Plan 9 up that they
> would rather not bother with my newbie questions.

It helps if you keep your messages short and to the point.
Longer messages tend to get ignored more on ANY mailing list or newsgroup.

> The Installation instructions hint to some of the things I'm trying to do,
> (like getting a auth server going, getting bootp going, getting an cpu/auth
> server to boot from a local disk, etc.) but provide no help or pointers to
> further information.

For the FAQ, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/plan9faq.html

For a collections of tips, patches and other information that is too
large for the FAQ, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/

> Also, how do you get a simple vga card and monitor to work.  I have a simple
> Paradise VGA controller connected to a simple VGA monitor (color) that "vga"
> doesn't recognize.  I have no idea what "chipset" it uses or that there is
> a "clock" on the board.  I tell every other piece of software in the world
> that it is a color VGA card/monitor and it works!

Simple vga cards and monitors should work at 640x480x[12]
For higher resolutions, you will have to find out more about the card
and do some investigation. See http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/vga
for the vga debugging guide.

> Here is the previous message.
> =============================================
> I have a Plan 9 PC file server up (named p9fs) and have installed the
> CD-ROM to it in "allow" mode.  I then made a PC into a cpu/auth
> server (called p9auth) and rebooted it.  After getting through the
> 0.0.0.0 auth server problem, I used ed on p9auth to edit the
> /lib/ndb/local file to set up my network.  (It is weird that
> /lib/ndb/auth has hostid=authid instead of hostid=p9auth, but that is
> what the installation did, so...)  I also tarred /usr/tor to /usr/none.
> I then reboot p9fs and let it come up from the "nvram" without "allow"
> and reboot p9auth.

The hostid is a user name, not a host name. Try setting 'hostid=bootes'.
That should fix most of your authentication problems (or at least get
you one step closer).

> And who or what is bootes?  (I really don't know.  Is this id somehow
> special?)

bootes is the default name for the authid (aka hostid).
The authid is the user who runs most of the services on cpu servers
(cron, cs, keyfs, arpd, bootp, dns, listen). It is also given the 
power of the 'speaks for' relation in /lib/ndb/auth, so that it 
can authenticate on others' behalf for telnet etc.

> About the diffs in errata and the update directory.  Which should
> we use?  How do we know if there are new ones?
> 
> What is a boddle and what is it good for?

The update area seems to have subsumed the errata area.
They basically have the same purpose, but the boodles (bundle of diffs -
think of them as the plan9 equivalent to 'patch' under unix)
in the update area are easier to apply than the diffs in the errata directory.