Re: [9fans] New to Plan9

["James A. Robinson" <jim.robinson@stanford.edu>]

> Also, I can't seem to get the boot disk to work with any system I have
> (except my laptop.) It fr eezes right after it detects the hdds (or at
> least I think that's what it did.) 

Yes, I'm having the same problem. Jim McKie has been so kind as to offer
his help, and we plan to figure out what's going on in the next week or
so. I'll send updates if something is discovered.


> I'm new to Plan 9 and would like to know where to get some
> information. I've already downloaded the boot disk and distribution
> package, but I can't figure out how to configure it. I can't get rc to use
> a smaller font, I can't figure out to use ftp or nfs. I can't even figure
> out how to give my system a name.

I'm a bit confused about your message. In your message you say you
can't get the boot disk to work with any system you have. So what are
you trying to configure?

If your questions are about how to do such things on an installed system,
most answers can be found in the man pages. You can see an online version
at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/. The papers also give a good high
level overview: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/.

You normally could edit your $home/lib/profile file to change the font
that rio(1) uses. You would use ftpfs(1) to mount a remote ftp site on
your local partition (mounted at /n/ftp, unless that's changed from the
2nd ed.). I don't about getting access to remote NFS --  I don't recall
seeing any such support.  I do know that you use u9fs(4) to serve files
off a unix box to the plan 9 machines.

For system name, DNS, etc., you need to edit the /lib/ndb/local file.  There
are lots of instructions given in the man pages and in "Getting Started With
Plan 9" http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/start.html. Basically you'll
need to write out what your network is, and then specify the hosts. For
example (and note that while I have DNS working, there may be an error in
this since I have a questionable problem with ipconfig(1)), if I have the
machine spensa on a network in the building galvez on stanford campus,
what I've written is

ipnet=stanford-net ip=171.64.0.0 ipmask=255.255.0.0 ipsubmask=255.255.255.0
	dns=171.64.7.55
	dns=171.64.7.77
	dns=171.64.7.99
	ntp=time-a.stanford.edu
	ntp=time-b.stanford.edu
	ntp=time-c.stanford.edu
	dnsdomain=stanford.edu

ipnet=galvez-net ip=171.64.31.0 ipmask=255.255.255.0
	ipgw=171.64.31.1
	dns=171.64.249.100
	dns=171.64.31.74
	smtp=highwire.stanford.edu

ip=171.64.31.213 sys=spensa ether=00d0b7927b17
	dom=spensa.stanford.edu

I'm not positive of my logic for this configuration, but my reasoning
follows.  As you know, networks are assigned in the following ranges:
	0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255 are in Class A
	128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255 are in Class B
	192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255 are in Class C
Since networks starting with 171.64 are class B, I have to specify that
171.64.0.0 (stanford-net) should be split into class C subnets. The subnet
I'm on is 171.64.31.0 (galvez-net), and it has a gateway, dns, and smtp
servers that should be used. Under galvez-net is an actual host, in this
case spensa. I just specify the ip address, name, and ethernet address.
And the dom=spensa.stanford.edu tells it that stanford.edu is the domain.

Setting my ip address and stuff was more difficult. You use the program
ipconfig(1) (located in your path as ip/ipconfig), and if you have a DHCP
server you should be set.  I would swear that I had read in one of the
docs that ipconfig looked up one's ethernet address in /lib/ndb/local
and used that to set the network if it could find it. It may be that my
/lib/ndb/local is flawed, but ipconfig could not set my ip. I ended up
writing a small hack to set the ip, and I posted it a day or so ago.


Jim