[9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Robby]

Hi,

I am wondering if it is worthwhile to boot a VMWare Plan 9 at work
from my home network or if using drawterm is better.

I have a CPU/Auth server sitting in my home network behind a NAT
router with port forwarding (Netgear RT311). At the moment I am
forwarding ports 567 and 17013 to the CPU/Auth server and I can use
drawterm on my NT box at work to connect.

I have also started playing with VMWare. Would it be sensible to boot
a proper terminal across the long wires of the internet? Which ports
would I need to forward and how much does that open my local home
network up to the world?

As far as I can see, two options are available for running the
terminal under VMWare: 1. Boot a VMWare local 9pc kernel, but take the
root from il. 2. Get the kernel from my home server as well.

With just the two ports 567 and 17013 forwarded, I can't get the
VMWare kernel to connect to my home server. At the question "root is
from (il, local):" I type "il", and then get asked about my filesystem
and auth server IP addresses, to which I provide the IP address to my
router. I then get a "boot: can't connect to file server: protocol
unreachable" error.

Thanks for any help,
Robby

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Russ Cox]

It depends on the details of your network, and on
personal preferences.  If drawterm works well then
VMware might be overkill, but if it doesn't then
VMware might save you.  Drawterm requires a
lower-latency network to feel good than a real
Plan 9 terminal typically does, because drawterm
only displays graphics while a real Plan 9 terminal
runs at least rio and perhaps your other apps locally.

You need to recompile your kernel to get tcp support.
In the section that says


boot boot #S/sdC0/
	il
	local

you should change it to say


boot boot #S/sdC0/
	il
	tcp
	local

and then you can choose "tcp" as the boot method.
In addition to 567, you need to open port 564, which is
the 9fs tcp port.  You also need to make sure your kfs
is listening, with

	disk/kfscmd 'listen tcp!*!564'

Then you should be able to boot.

Another consideration is that using drawterm will
encrypt your sessions.  Using a terminal will encrypt
your cpu sessions but not your file system traffic.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Dan Cross]

> you should change it to say
>
> boot boot #S/sdC0/
> 	il
> 	tcp
> 	local
>
> and then you can choose "tcp" as the boot method.

Just out of curiousity; why isn't this built into the kernel by
default?  It strikes me as useful for phasing out il.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Russ Cox]

> Just out of curiousity; why isn't this built into the kernel by
> default?  It strikes me as useful for phasing out il.

since we're not there yet, it hasn't been necessary for us.
we have not switched the main bell labs file server to
fossil yet.

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Dan Cross]

> > Just out of curiousity; why isn't this built into the kernel by
> > default?  It strikes me as useful for phasing out il.
>
> since we're not there yet, it hasn't been necessary for us.
> we have not switched the main bell labs file server to
> fossil yet.

Granted, but it wouldn't hurt to add it now, would it?  It strikes me
that it'd be useful for, e.g., people trying to talk to fileservers
through firewalls or trampolining through CPU servers.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Russ Cox]

> Granted, but it wouldn't hurt to add it now, would it?  It strikes me
> that it'd be useful for, e.g., people trying to talk to fileservers
> through firewalls or trampolining through CPU servers.

You originally asked "why isn't it there?" not "why not add it?".
They are different questions.  I wasn't arguing against adding it.
I was explaining why it wasn't there.

I have now added tcp to the pc, pccpu, pcauth, and pcdisk config files.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Dan Cross]

> > Granted, but it wouldn't hurt to add it now, would it?  It strikes me
> > that it'd be useful for, e.g., people trying to talk to fileservers
> > through firewalls or trampolining through CPU servers.
>
> You originally asked "why isn't it there?" not "why not add it?".
> They are different questions.  I wasn't arguing against adding it.
> I was explaining why it wasn't there.

True.  I assumed the first implied the second.  You what they say
about assuming.

> I have now added tcp to the pc, pccpu, pcauth, and pcdisk config files.

Cool, thanks.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[rob pike, esq.]

> You know what they say about assuming.

That when you assume, you make 'assume' out of 'ass' and 'ume'?
I've heard a variant that makes no sense; this one at least is
consistent.

-rob

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Dan Cross]

> > You know what they say about assuming.
>
> That when you assume, you make 'assume' out of 'ass' and 'ume'?
> I've heard a variant that makes no sense; this one at least is
> consistent.

No, the other one.  It's assumed you know what it means.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Drawterm or VMWare terminal?

[Boyd Roberts]

Dan Cross wrote:
 > No, the other one. It's assumed you know what it means.

You mean 'the mother of all cluster...'?