Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[forsyth]

>>That's awful neat, although it smacks of taking most of the functionality
>>out of the loader and placing it in plan9.ini - nothing wrong with that

nearly all of that was in the original source.  it's mainly useful on networks
such as most of mine where a plan 9 cpu server provides dhcp for the network
but must configure its network interface somehow, and PCs haven't
got a standard way of putting parameters in NVRAM (when they've got NVRAM).
the arguments are passed to /sys/src/9/boot and the loader doesn't
do much more than preserve them for /boot.
i added two lines to bootip.c to set the file server address.

[9fans] Auth & cron

[Fco. J. Ballesteros]

Regarding the discussion before about auth & cron, 
what about using a cpu server with a cron process running per user w/
cron entries?  

What's wrong w/ this approach?

Perhaps I'm missing something.

-- 
    ()    ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail 
    /\                          - against microsoft attachments

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 06:37:45PM +0900, okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> 
> I don't know exactly.  I wrote just my successfull route for you.  ^_^
> This is a temporal way untli the 3rd release will have all the capability
> which now my 2nd release have, then, I think it's enough if it works.
> 
Well, as it stands, 3ed has some way to go before it is ready for
shrink-wrap.  But this is the exciting stage, when the path ahead is
still being established.

> In our setting, we rarely experience the confusion by which file server
> responds, only once for a PC terminal.  Therefore, I suppose something
> very tricky conditions must be there.
> 
I'm sticking to the 2ed fileserver, because I have only 1542CP
adapters and only one host to run it on.  It seems to work just fine,
now that I've figured out most of the ins and outs.

What I can't quite decide is whether I need a second CPU server, or I
should update the 2ed one to 3ed.  I'm very keen to check out the new
mailer facilities of ACME and upas/fs.  My present facility is
adequate but ready to be improved on.

And I really need to grasp the DHCP/BOOTP aspects of the boot
procedure properly, both in 2nd and 3rd edition.

> Your network texture beyonds my understanding!   What are you doing
> on that network, anyway?  :-)
> 
Learning, mostly.  It takes me a long time to understand things to my
satisfaction, and I have far too many interests.  Occasionally, a
client will need something I learnt and will pay me for it :-)

The confusion is much greater when one looks at the NAT and IP filter
rules and the multihoming in place at the client whose Internet
services I'm privileged to share.

++L

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[okamoto]

>I wonder what the actual capabilities are.  I'd like a middle path
>between my understanding (or lack thereof) of b.com and 9load. 

I don't know exactly.  I wrote just my successfull route for you.  ^_^
This is a temporal way untli the 3rd release will have all the capability
which now my 2nd release have, then, I think it's enough if it works.

In our setting, we rarely experience the confusion by which file server
responds, only once for a PC terminal.  Therefore, I suppose something
very tricky conditions must be there.

Your network texture beyonds my understanding!   What are you doing
on that network, anyway?  :-)

cheers.

Kenji 
from 2nd Plan9 terminal on Sparc.

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 04:49:39PM +0900, okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> 
> Anyway, probably Lucio may have two different auth/cpu servers for relase
> 2 and 3.  In that case, he should change the auth ID for those two servers.
> In our site, original Auth server has the ID of bootes, it was named when
> I was not fully understand the network nechanism of Plan 9(about 5 years ago,
> wah, time passes so quickly).  :-)
> 
That makes perfect sense.  Do you think two AUTH servers are necessary?
I'm tempted to run everything off the 2ed CPU server, but install a
second CPU server - without AUTH - for drawterm's benefit (yes, you
may call me a philistine :-)

I've also successfully installed the 3ed release on the 2ed file
server and it seems capable of supporting a 3ed nearly diskless
workstation quite reasonably (it did reboot without explanation,
except that it was doing that regularly as late as day before
yesterday because of power problems, so I'll leave panicking till
later).

> I also recommend Lucio that for release 2 you may have only b.com in
> your boot floppy and use bootp for downloading its kernel from release 2 
> file server.  On the other hand, for release 3, you should have the kernel 
> in your boot floppy.  This is somewhat tricky though.
> 
I wonder what the actual capabilities are.  I'd like a middle path
between my understanding (or lack thereof) of b.com and 9load.  I'd
like the kernel to be booted off the net, but the necessary
information to come from the DHCP server, ISC's until I have a really
stable, self-initiating Plan 9 network.  At this point, the fileserver
can boot first, but then I need BOOTP on my NetBSD server to kickstart
the 2ed CPU/AUTH server.  This clashes with needing DHCP for the
workstation as well as other machines on the network.  It is a little
galling, because I'm sure it would not be hard to tidy all this up.
But I am making some progress.

> I'm not sure this may work for Lucio, because I don't know his network.
> 
I run two NetBSD servers, a WinNT server on a multiboot machine
shared with MS-DOS and Win95, my workstation is a diskless (RARP
and BOOTPARAMS eventually providing NFS) NetBSD X-server, but nearly
ready to run as a 9-term if I get daring.

I have a machine on which I installed Plan 9 3ed, then a 2ed CPU/AUTH
server with a small IDE disk drive (I mean small, 40Meg) and a 2ed FS
with two disks: main is 2ed jumbled up variously, other is 3ed,
already not so pristine.

A last NetBSD box is my gateway to the Internet (slow analogue leased
line to a client with a faster link) and, last, I have a Netware
server, version 3.11 which I have not used since Y2K for various
reasons.  Altogether a rather confused research laboratory.

Oh, I also have a soldering iron, and I _do_ know which side is hot
:-)

++L

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[okamoto]

I lost the original post from L++.   Flow rate of this mailing-list is too high
to maintain those in a file these days...

Anyway, probably Lucio may have two different auth/cpu servers for relase
2 and 3.  In that case, he should change the auth ID for those two servers.
In our site, original Auth server has the ID of bootes, it was named when
I was not fully understand the network nechanism of Plan 9(about 5 years ago,
wah, time passes so quickly).  :-)

I also recommend Lucio that for release 2 you may have only b.com in
your boot floppy and use bootp for downloading its kernel from release 2 
file server.  On the other hand, for release 3, you should have the kernel 
in your boot floppy.  This is somewhat tricky though.

I'm not sure this may work for Lucio, because I don't know his network.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 12:35:03PM +0000, forsyth@vitanuova.com wrote:
> 
> >> the prompt times out in 15 seconds and accepts the default.
> > 
> >I don't believe you, but I'll try anyway.  But before I do, let me argue
> 
> i was referring to the third edition.
> 
I did my faithful bit and got the result I expected :-)  Now I have
to decide whether to toss the 2ed CPU server, update its boot procedure
so I can select (via TFTP) one of 2ed or 3ed CPU kernels (that would
mean making sure either kernel inherits the essential plan9.ini entries)
or stick to 2ed and manual startup for a while longer.

> > 	bootargs=il!144.32.112.69 -g 144.32.112.75 ether /net/ether0 144.32.112.70 255.255.254.0
> 
> i've also just realised that i changed something to make that work.
> you might find that the file server address isn't set by the il!...

That's awful neat, although it smacks of taking most of the functionality
out of the loader and placing it in plan9.ini - nothing wrong with that
in my book.  In fact, I really wish one could draw a neat border between
loader and kernel and stop all the duplication that keeps occurring, with
novel approaches ever other day, on each operating system and often
every other release, too.

My dream is a pull down menu of OSes to choose from, with emulations
for all the others (Windows excluded :-) built in.  The OS to end all
OSes?  :-)  Or just a boot shell?  :-)  :-)  :-)

++L

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[forsyth]

>> the prompt times out in 15 seconds and accepts the default.
> 
>I don't believe you, but I'll try anyway.  But before I do, let me argue

i was referring to the third edition.

> 	bootargs=il!144.32.112.69 -g 144.32.112.75 ether /net/ether0 144.32.112.70 255.255.254.0

i've also just realised that i changed something to make that work.
you might find that the file server address isn't set by the il!...

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 09:27:29AM +0000, forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >>  the CPU identification (i486DX-4/100) and reboots.  It takes keen
> 
> just a thought: try curbing its memory probe in memory.c.  it tries 768Mbytes.
> different 486 chipsets did different peculiar things.  set *maxmem=memsizeinbytes
> (note the *) in plan9.ini

Well done, Dr Forsyth.  Made a BIG difference.  Many thanks.

++L

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 09:27:29AM +0000, forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
>  >> it in the plan9.ini file, but I have to accept each entry before
>  >> the server can start.  That's a pain.  I tried destroying the
> 
> the prompt times out in 15 seconds and accepts the default.
> 
I don't believe you, but I'll try anyway.  But before I do, let me argue
that it's not the (il, local) prompt, it's the five or six prompts
for local IP address, mask, gateway, fileserver and auth server
addresses.  You (I remember) encouraged me to put them in the
plan9.ini file, to save me having to type them, but I do wish "b"
or the kernel would find them in a better place.

> 	bootargs=il!144.32.112.69 -g 144.32.112.75 ether /net/ether0 144.32.112.70 255.255.254.0
> 
3ed.  But well worth knowing.

> >>  My problem is that I can't create files at the root of "other", I
> 
> did you mount -c?
> 
<blush, again>

> >>  the CPU identification (i486DX-4/100) and reboots.  It takes keen
> 
> just a thought: try curbing its memory probe in memory.c.  it tries 768Mbytes.
> different 486 chipsets did different peculiar things.  set *maxmem=memsizeinbytes
> (note the *) in plan9.ini

Will do.  It's precisely 64Meg, so that may be significant.  Much
appreciated, now which one shall I try first?  Hm, the other
possibility may be the floppy drive, I know some of them are
dicky, but I can never remember which, or how :-(

++L

Re: [9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[forsyth]

 >> it in the plan9.ini file, but I have to accept each entry before
 >> the server can start.  That's a pain.  I tried destroying the

the prompt times out in 15 seconds and accepts the default.

	bootargs=il!144.32.112.69 -g 144.32.112.75 ether /net/ether0 144.32.112.70 255.255.254.0

>>  My problem is that I can't create files at the root of "other", I

did you mount -c?

>>  the CPU identification (i486DX-4/100) and reboots.  It takes keen

just a thought: try curbing its memory probe in memory.c.  it tries 768Mbytes.
different 486 chipsets did different peculiar things.  set *maxmem=memsizeinbytes
(note the *) in plan9.ini

[9fans] AUTH, FS, etc.

[Lucio De Re]

I have encountered a few seemingly unrelated problems, some are
leftovers from a 2nd edition installation I am not yet ready to
sacrifice.

- A long time ago, I lost the AUTH/CPU server's ability to figure
  out or retain the IP information.  Today, I presume it would
  obtain the info using DHCP.  I'd like to know, however, where
  a PC-based CPU server saves this information.  Currently, I have
  it in the plan9.ini file, but I have to accept each entry before
  the server can start.  That's a pain.  I tried destroying the
  NVRAM partition, but that only prompted me for the authentication
  information.  From the 2ed manual:

    If you've just done the installation, the installer will already
    know the pertinent IP addresses for this machine; if not, you'll
    have to provide them. ...

  Nowhere can I find where the installer would have put them in the
  first place :-(

- My 2ed file server is also being obstructive (and, once again, it is
  quite likely that I'm missing a significant bit of information).  I
  have an "other" filesystem I created long ago on a separate drive
  and would now be very useful to hold the 3ed stuff until I can
  migrate everything.

  My problem is that I can't create files at the root of "other", I
  had to "create" a directory "3ed" in which I then unwrapped the
  various bits of distribution.  This would be quite acceptable,
  except that mounting il!muddle!other/3ed seems much more difficult
  than just il!muddle!other (or is it just me?  I'll come back to
  that, anyway) and in any case I would like to know _why_ I can
  write to the hierarchy from 3ed down, only.

  I used "ream" to drop restrictions on "other" but they really
  seemed to apply only a level below the root.

- Coming back to CPU servers, I'm sticking to the 2ed one because it
  works.  Just trying to boot a 3ed kernel on it goes no further than
  the CPU identification (i486DX-4/100) and reboots.  It takes keen
  observation to catch the CPU id line, as the machine seems to reset
  immediately.

  Now, all I would want, is to bootp a different CPU kernel on the
  same hardware, but I can't determine what's causing the immediate
  reboot.  As you can imagine, the 2ed kernels seem perfectly at home
  with the hardware.  I think it's a motherboard thing, having swapped
  out a few adapters, but I'm willing to try a few other tricks if
  anyone can suggest them.

- I also tried to boot a workstation nearly diskless by pointing its
  plan9.ini along the lines of

	bootfile=sdC0/9fat/9pcdisk
	rootdir=3ed
	rootspec=other
	bootdisk=il!192.96.32.134

  I hadn't set my heart on success here, the man page for plan9.ini is
  a little unconvincing; the pain was to get the system restarted so
  I could restore the plan9.ini file to the point where the system
  would reboot correctly (and without a panic about not finding the
  file server or the specified file).

  I presume I should rather change the plan9.ini file on a floppy in
  future, I seem to recall someone pointing out that it would get
  priority in some fashion (someone care to expand on that?).

  I think it is moderately clear from the above that I was trying to
  bypass the problems with my 2ed file server, and I presume that with
  a little bit of hacking it can be done, but it must be easier to
  work with some help from the experts :-)

  The section on the root* and boot* entries in plan9.ini(8) can use
  some corrections, too.

- Another point I'd like some help with is getting DHCP and BOOTP to
  cooperate - presently, to boot the 2ed CPU server, I have to switch
  off Ted Lemon's DHCPd and start the hacked version of CMU's BOOTPd
  which understands the P9 vendor extensions.  I know it is none of
  this forum's business to deal with DHCP, but I wonder if it is
  possible, while I'm still stuck with limited boot capabilities, to
  persuade ISC DHCPd to handle the 2ed boot requirements.  I'm caught
  in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, here.

Thank, everyone, for your patience.

++L