[comp.unix.bsd] NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD FAQ (Part 6 of 10)
Dave Burgess
Posted-By: auto-faq 3.1.1.2
Archive-name: 386bsd-faq/part6
Section 5. (Kernel Replacements)
5.0 Introduction
5.1 A replacement curses program/library.
It is generally accepted that the NetBSD curses can be easily
replaced by the ncurses package. It is more complete and offers
much better support for shared libraries and other advanced
features. The current (early 1995 version) is 1.8.5 and is
available from ftp://ftp.netcom.com:/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses/
OpenBSD comes with a different curses package, called XSI
curses and uses the termlib library for user code. The original
curses code is still available in the <ocurses.h> include file
and the -locurses library. The code in the termlib library is
smart enough to recognize and handle both termcap and termlib
database parsing.
(Ed.Note) The X/Open curses standard is becoming the de facto
standard (or perhaps imposed standard) for curses under Unix
systems. XSI implements this X/Open curses completely, and is
being used by lots of folks. FreeBSD and NetBSD will either
develop their own compatible version or will use XSI like
OpenBSD does.
5.2 Floppy Disk problems.
5.2.1 How do I get a bootable floppy?
Several ways, ranging from brain-dead-but-works to simplest.
Classification into categories is left to the reader (is there
really a difference between 'brain-dead' and 'simple'?:')
1) rawrite (or dd) dist.fs (or fixit.fs) to a disk,
mount it, cd to the mount point, and execute:
rm -rf .
you now have a bootable floppy!;^}
2) Take your existing dist.fs or fixit.fs boot disk and
diskcopy it on a DOS machine. Mount and rm as in 1)
above. Again, you have a bootable floppy!;^}
3) Run disklabel on the floppy, e.g.:
disklabel -w -r fd0a floppy5
where 'floppy5' is a 'name' for an entry in the /etc/disktab
file. You'll get a couple of ioctl errors because writing a
label to a floppy isn't supported (yet?), but the boot blocks
have indeed been written.
4) Write the boot blocks to the floppy:
cat /usr/mdec/fdboot /usr/mdec/bootfd | dd of=/dev/rfd0a
or, more simply:
cat /usr/mdec/fdboot /usr/mdec/bootfd > /dev/rfd0a
Methods 3) and 4) require you to run newfs on the floppy, e.g.:
newfs /dev/rfd0a floppy5
If you have a floppy that was originally bootable, but the boot
blocks were somehow damaged, you can use method 3) or 4) to
restore boot-ability (do _NOT_ run newfs). You _could_, through
the convolutions of copying a floppy whose boot blocks are damaged
to a temporary location and then re-copying to a bootable floppy,
use method 1) or 2) (if you really want to!;^})
5) If the disk is already newfs'ed and is otherwise ready to use,
disklabel will write the boot blocks on the disk. Read the man page
for disklabel.
5.2.2 How do I maximize the space on a mountable floppy disk.
As you all know, when you are working with a floppy, it is usually
more important that the floppy have a lot of room, rather than a
lot of other 'stuff'. Here is the magic incantation that will
maximize the amount of free space on the disk.
newfs -Tfloppy[35] -i[4096 | 8192] -c 80 /dev/fd[0|1]a
This leaves the disk with fewer inodes and only one cylinder group.
5.3 Character Device Driver info
These devices are also often referred to as character devices.
5.3.1 Printers
NetBSD and FreeBSD both include both an interrupt and
non-interrupt driven parallel driver in their stock
manifestations.
It is possible to connect a serial printer to either. This brief
tutorial is provided by Daryl Berryhill
(djbe...@b25info.b25.ingr.com)
The way I got my printer to work.
1) connect a 25 pin to 9 pin null modem cable to printer and
computer.
2) set printer to 9600 baud, 7 data bits, even parity.
3) configure /dev/com1 (DOS COM2) port the same way as the printer
4) add a line to /etc/printcap that says:
lp|local line printer:\
:lp=/dev/com2:wq:sd=/var/spool/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\
:br#9600
5) type "lpr <add filename here>"
6) type "lpd"
and it should start printing.
An obvious point, but make sure that you do NOT start a getty on
on the com port. Check the /etc/ttys file and make sure that
the com port you select is not active.
There have been many reports in the past of people not being able
to get their parallel port printer working. One of the problems
seems to be cables. Another problem may be with the hardware.
A seemingly stupid suggestion is to replace your printer card with
the cheapest parallel port card you can find. I am using a $10
single parallel, two serial port card that I got from Altex.
Works great.
In addition, there are people that want to set up multiple printer
queues using the BSD queuing mechanism. Here is a brief tutorial:
Lpf is mainly intended for processing text and nroffed output...it
isn't anything clean...it will do certain games that will mess up
PCL output.
If you're producing straight PCL or PostScript (assuming your LJ
takes it), then you want to print directly to the printer w/o any
processing.
What you really want is a "physical" queue that does no processing,
and several logical queues that map back to the physical queue and
do processing...or one "smart" queue that does file content
recognition and then maps to the raw queue.
I do something like this for my DeskJet. There is one raw queue
and several logical queues (some postscript that do different
resolutions and color depth, some text that do various formatting,
etc). When I get the time I'll be trying to set up a "smarter"
queue using aps and maybe some bits from flexfax.
To map logical to physical queues either use a filter that pipes
back into lpr -P<rawqueue> itself, or just point it at the "raw"
queue using something like:
textlp|Text Printing:\
:lp=/dev/null:\
:if=/usr/libexec/lpr/lpf:\
:rm=localhost:\
:rp=lj.raw:
And other entries as needed, you get the idea...to use an output
filter instead of the rm/rp approach (more efficent), you can get
away with something like:
:of=/usr/local/bin/printraw:
where /usr/local/bin/printraw looks like this:
#!/bin/sh
cat | lpr -h -Plj.raw
5.3.2 Terminals/Keyboards
Terminals are relatively simple to add. It involves making sure
the /etc/ttys file identifies the com port (com0, com00, or tty00
depending on your configuration) as an active port and a getty is
running. The man page for ttys and getty help explain this.
Many people report that there are sometimes problems running some
programs on a remote terminal. There are some known bugs in the
terminal handler where the parity and bits per character are
concerned. They are being worked on.
5.3.3 Modems/FAX Modems
5.3.3.1 How do I add a modem to *BSD:
5.3.3.4 Adding a Dial-in/Dial-out FAX to NetBSD or FreeBSD.
First, here is the known working configuration for these
instructions:
- HylaFAX 3.0 beta 100.
- Zoom VFX V.32bis Faxmodem;
- Rockwell datapump.
1: Start faxq from rc.local, no options on the command line.
Add a line to your /etc/rc.local which starts up the faxq
program. Do not include any options on the command line.
2: Stary faxgetty from init, i.e. a line in /etc/ttys.
I use the non modem control device; however, it's nonstandard
hardware and I've modified the driver to always return sighup
on lost carrier to solve some sticky problems with non modem
control devices never getting SIGHUP's.
Basically, I just did as the directions said to do. I ran
'faxaddmodem' script to configure the type of modem. I did
have to simplify some lines in the script (the ones executed
in a subshell) since I think my version of bash doesn't handle
subshells correctly.
RTFM and you should be OK unless your modem is brain dead and
stupid, not too unlikely to given the current state of Fax
modems... B^(.
5.3.4 What is the trick for getting Kermit to work with rz and sz?
Add these lines to your .kermrc file. They should do the trick.
define sz !sz \%1 \%2 \%3 \%4 \%5 \%6 \%7 \%8 \%9 < \v(line) > \v(line)
define rz !rz \%1 \%2 \%3 \%4 \%5 \%6 \%7 \%8 \%9 < \v(line) > \v(line)
5.4 Tape Drives
This section should help out for those of you that have either
never used tape drives before, or only have experience with them
as non-Unix devices.
5.4.1 Does the tape need to be formatted?
It depends, but I think usually not. And when it is necessary,
I don't know how it would be done. One thing is for certain,
though, first.... NEVER use the block devices.. erase them and
forget you ever saw them. All operations on tape should be to
the character device (rst0).
5.4.2 If I execute the command 'st -f /dev/st0 status', I get:
Archive/Tandberg? tape drive, residual=0, blocksize=512
Density: high = 16 (0x10), medium = 15 (0xf), low = 5 (0x5)
ds=0
er=0
so to write to tape at high-density (QIC-150), presumably I want
to use a device with minor number +4 (in st.c, density is computed as
minor >> 2 & 0x03, where low density == 3 and high == 1):
You have the idea.. density is controlled by bits 2 and 3
00 = default
01 = hi density
10 = medium density
11 = low density,
Unless the driver knows about you kind of drive the density values
may need to be set by hand before they make any sense.
5.4.3 When is erst0 used?
e stands for 'eject' and is bit 1 of the minor..
e.g. eject on close.. many devices can't actually do this.
There is actually a method to this whole thing:
r = raw (rst0)
e = eject (erst0)
n = No rewind (nrst0 or maybe nerst0)
5.4.4 How is density (bpi) computed? I am using 3M DC 6250 cassettes
which have a 250MB capacity on the Viper 150. But computing the
bits/inch based on 250MB/tape-length (1020 ft.), I get a density
of 171335 bpi, which is nowhere near the 10000 bpi associated
with QIC-150 in the st(1) man page. Why the discrepancy?
These cartridge tapes are written in narrow tracks which
alternately begin at opposite ends of the tape. Track 0 starts
at the beginning of the tape, and Track 1 starts at the other
end, etc.
So, how many times does the tape go backwards and forwards? If
there are 17 tracks, your density is 170000 bpi if it is 10000
bpi per track. The more tracks, the lower the bpi/track.
5.4.5 How is an appropriate block size determined (and in what units
are they specified in the st(1) command)?
QIC 150 and below should stick to 512 byte blocks a write of
1024 bytes from the program will be written as 2 512 byte blocks
with no speed penalty. dd will think it's writing a 1024 byte
block but on tape it's 2 x 512.
Stick to 512 on QIC 150 or less if you ever hope to swap data
with anyone else.
5.4.6 From the 4.3BSD mtio(4) man page, it sounds like data is typically
(traditionally?) stored on tape in eof-terminated sequences of
1K records.
5.4.6.1 Is st's notion of "file" the record sequence between two eof marks?
5.4.6.2 What about a "record"?
5.4.6.3 Is a "record" one "block", as determined by st's "blocksize" command?
If not, what is the connection between them?
5.4.6.4 Can I change the "record" size?
5.4.6.5 When would I want a block size that is different from the default?
1KB is the size of writes used by dd or whatever. QIC specifies
512 byte records (well at least its what people use..) Whatever
you write in will be broken into 512 byte sections. They must be
multiples of 512 though.
If you have written to a tape, a close will automatically append a
filemark (eof mark). You may read the 512 byte blocks back as
512 byte records or as 1024 byte records (in which case you'll
get 2 at once). The bigger the unit, the more efficient.
5.4.7.1 How do I write several archives to a single tape? I tried without
success:
$ st -f /dev/rst4 rewind
$ tar cf /dev/nst4 archive1
$ st -f /dev/nrst4 weof
$ tar cf /dev/nst4 archive2
$ st -f /dev/nrst4 weof
First: throw away the block devices.
'n' stands for 'No-Rewind-on-close' and will leave the tape
positioned ready for another file e.g.
tar -cf /dev/nrst0 archive1
tar -cf /dev/nrst0 archive2
5.4.7.2 Later, I would expect to be able to access, say, archive3 via the fsf
directive to skip over the first two archives. What is the correct
sequence?
st -f /dev/nrst0 rewind
st -f /dev/nrst0 fsf 2
tar -xf /dev/rst0 {files}
5.4.8 Since the Viper 150 writes on QIC-150/120, I guess I don't need
to worry about writing variable-length records? How about reading
a tape written with variable-length records. Is this possible
with the Viper? If so, what's involved?
Who would have written it? :-)
Presently you can't. You`re right. Don't worry about it.
The new 'st' changes will change this somewhat, though.
5.4.9 The very scant documentation that came with my drive mentions
a "selectable buffer disconnect size," whose default is 16K.
This is evidently the "maximum number of bytes that can be
sent over the SCSI bus during a single data transfer phase."
What's that? How is it connected st's "blocksize" command?
Do I want to use 16K blocks, or might I even want to set the
disconnect size to a higher value?
This suggests that 32 512 blocks will be written at a time.
This jives with the tape format for some of the lower density
cartridges (QIC-40 and 80, for example). The tape is written
in blocks of 32 512-byte blocks, with the last three being used
for Error Correction Codes.
Use dd or tar with 16 k blocks and 32 x 512 byte blocks will be
written.
Also see 5.4.15 (below) for more information if you are using an
Archive Viper tape drive.
5.4.10 What is "streaming"? When I tar a directory of files to tape,
I notice that the tape often stops. Streaming means it doesn't
stop? How would I get the viper 150 to stream using tar or cpio
or dump?
Use a bigger write size... (more efficient) Try 16k blocks.
5.4.13 My tape drive doesn't work.
OK. There are lots of reasons why it may not. The most obvious is
that there are no devices associated with the device in the kernel.
You can check this through the use of the 'dmesg' command. Look
for tape drives.
If your tape drive is connected to your floppy controller, it may
or may not be supported. Several manufacturers of QIC-40/QIC-80
mini-cartridge drives are supported natively in FreeBSD and
experimentally in NetBSD. Some aren't (mine for example, is not).
5.4.14 I am trying to restore a tape from a FreeBSD machine on a Sun.
What kinds of problems should I expect?
The default blocksize should not be a problem, since they are
both 20K. You may need to use "dd if=/dev/rst0 conv=swab |
<archiver>" instead of extracting directly from tape, just
in case the byte order causes a problem. This is especially
true if you don't use the 'a' and 'c' options in cpio, for
example.
5.4.15 What are the jumper settings for the Archive Viper tape drive?
Vipers can't do auto-detection. You have to create different
devices for different densities. Minor number 8 = 120Mb,
4 = 150Mb and 12 = QIC-24 (60Mb). At least this is the only
way it works for me, and since it do I haven't bothered to
find out why minor 0 doesn't. If you have a 2525 (525Mb)
it uses ST_Q_SENSE_HELP quirk but it might not work.
The cfg0-2 switches is for setting the disconnect size, e.g.
the maximum size transfered before disconnect to allow other
SCSI devices to access the bus. Jumper in sets bit to 1.
0 = 2kb
1 = 4kb
2 = 6kb
3 = 8kb
4 = 12kb
5 = 16kb
6 = 24kb
7 = 32kb
I'm using my viper at id 4 and disconnect size 16k. Works
perfectly.
5.4.16 My Viper-150 auto-detects fine; however, the first attempt to
read a tape fails after a boot due to an "illegal SCSI
command". What could be the problem?
I assume that the driver is trying to use some SCSI-2
command to set the default density -- but after that, the
drive is perfectly happy to do the tedious density check and
off it goes. I've read all three densities on the drive. Once
the drive is set up and the driver realizes there is no density
command, it just brute forces the drive density and off it goes.
5.4.17 Why haven't we changed the defaults in rdump and rrestore to
something that makes sense? I was trying to dump a filesystem
to a remote tape and ran into an error complaining about being
unable to execute /etc/rmt.
Of course, if you get this error, this program doesn't exist.
This information comes from ../src/sbin/dump/pathnames.h. The
reason we still use /etc/rmt and /dev/rmt8 is because the
rdump and rrestore protocol call for those names.
This problem usually won't show up unless the original
installation of the system was done before NetBSD 0.9 *AND* the
etc.tar.gz distribution was never done. This distribution fixes
this problem by creating the symbolic link from where rmt lives
to /etc/rmt. The Makefile for rmt should also create this link
(I'd check before assuming it does.)
5.5 Network Stuff
Network devices for NetBSD and FreeBSD include many types of
Ethernet cards, as well as Serial Line IP and Point to Point
Protocol.
5.5.1 How can I get my system to work as a network router?
The first hurdle to overcome is that the default kernels do not
have the GATEWAY option compiled in. Without this, it is very
nearly impossible to use the kernel as a router.
Once you have the GATEWAY option compiled in, all sorts of things
magically start to work. If you haven't got the GATEWAY option
enabled, you can also use 'sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1'
if you are using FreeBSD or NetBSD versions that support that.
Remember, once you build the new kernel, you will need to
install it in the root directory and reboot.
Once you have the forwarding option set, you will need to make
certain that you have not included the '-q' option to routed.
This should be in the routed_flags keyword in /etc/netstart. If
you are using multiple internal LANs, you may also want to
invest in gated instead (see below).
For those folks that are not using routed, you will need to make
certain that you have a static route to your network provider
established.
To test your network capability, try running the following
command:
traceroute -s YOUR_ETHERNET_ADDRESS 129.186.150.150
Check to see where your packets are hanging up. It might be
that someone upstream from you has something broken instead of
simply assuming it is your fault.
5.5.2 I recently had a problem where I got a message that said "panic:
kmem_malloc: mb_map too small". What is the solution to this
problem?
The second hurdle is that sometimes you run out of cluster
allocation space in the kernel. This is probably network-related
and usually shows up when something is being done using the
network (like NFS). The way to get around this would be to
change the value of NMBCLUSTERS in your config file. NMBCLUSTERS
is set at 256 by default, and increased to 512 when the GATEWAY
option is active. To be very safe, you could add
options NMBCLUSTERS=1024
to your config file, and recompile. This is reported to work
with systems that crashed as soon as a large number of people
(75+) were connected to it.
5.5.3 Does anyone have an example of a working gated.conf file? I
can't figure these instructions out at all.
Here is a sample config file for a machine which has two cards,
one of the cards has an alias created like so:
ifconfig de1 inet 199.232.137.65 mask 255.255.255.192 alias
Gated is running with this config:
interfaces {
interface de0 passive;
interface de1 passive;
};
ospf yes {
backbone {
networks {
199.232.136.0 mask 255.255.255.0;
199.232.137.0 mask 255.255.255.0;
};
interface de0;
};
};
export proto ospfase {
proto direct {
199.232.136.160 mask 255.255.255.224;
199.232.137.0 mask 255.255.255.0;
};
};
All routing and networking is fine right after I start gated.
However, if I leave out the 'interface passive' section, gated
shuts down the two routes on de1 after a couple of minutes.
5.5.4 How do I set up Multicasting on my system?
If you're trying to join the Mbone, you need to find someone
willing to provide you with a "feed", and that person's router
will be at the other end of your tunnel. If you're just trying to
set up your own private little multicast domain, then you need to
set up other such routers on other subnets and interconnect them
with tunnels. If you just want to run a little multicast testbed
on a single subnet, you don't need any multicast routers at all!
See the Mbone FAQ at:
http://www.mediadesign.co.at/newmedia/more/mbone-faq.html
for more detailed information on all of this...
5.6 I want to use my ZIP drive. Are there any weird things I need
to know?
One of the things that "just work" are ZIP drives. The -current
code for both FreeBSD and NetBSD handle ZIP drives very cleanly.
One of the unusual things about ZIP drives is that most people
don't know (and the man page is deliberately vague about) is
once a person has permission to write to the ZIP drive, they can
mount it onto a directory in their space. This is new with the
adoption of BSD 4.4, so it isn't really surprising that it is
new.
--
Dave Burgess Network Engineer - Nebraska On-Ramp, Inc.
*bsd FAQ Maintainer / SysAdmin for the NetBSD system in my spare bedroom
"Just because something is stupid doesn't mean there isn't someone that
doesn't want to do it...."