DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX Version 1.00 Release Notes Final Release 20-May-1997 File: LPA100.txt CONTENTS ======== Introduction Hardware and Software Requirements Usage Notes Documentation Errata Known Problems INTRODUCTION ============ DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX V1.0 provides the ability to browse for and connect to InfoServer CD-ROM and hard drive services. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS ================================== Make sure your system meets or exceeds the minimum hardware and software requirements. > All Alpha systems manufactured by DIGITAL Equipment Corporation with ln or tu ethernet adapters. > The DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX is qualified to be installed on DIGITAL UNIX V3.2g and V4.0b. Page 2 USAGE NOTES =========== 1.) Ultrix service class is used to display and create DIGITAL UNIX services. The latest (v3.4) release of the InfoServer kernel software will work properly with this new client. Services and service names created automatically as part of the automount process will contain the word Ultrix in the name and be listed in the Ultrix service class. For example, when the DIGITAL UNIX documentation disc is inserted into a drive on the InfoServer, it shows up as follows: Wolf> show services Service Name Service Class Disk:Partition -------------------- --------------- ---------------------- WOLF_ULTRIX_DK0 [ULTRIX] DK0: To create another service for this disc, specify Ultrix as the service class. Wolf> create service UNIXDOC for dk0: class ultrix %ESS-I-CREATED, Created service UNIXDOC [ULTRIX]. %ESS-I-CREATED, Create service completed successfully. Wolf> show service Service Name Service Class Disk:Partition -------------------- --------------- ---------------------- UNIXDOC [ULTRIX] DK0: WOLF_ULTRIX_DK0 [ULTRIX] DK0: 2.) Mounting Ultrix CD-ROMs served by an InfoServer. The -d switch must be used to mount an Ultrix CD-ROM. If the -d switch is not used, the mount command will return with the error "Dirty file system" and the mount will not succeed. The following example assumes there is an Ultrix CD-ROM in an InfoServer served by service FOX_ULTRIX_DK3. # bindladcunit 0 -serviceName FOX_ULTRIX_DK3 Unit 0 Bound Service FOX_ULTRIX_DK3 /dev/ladc/unit0c Server FOX Drive Name DK3: Service Rating 65016 Device Class CD-ROM Max Read Session 1000 Device Type RRD45 Max Write Session 0 Device Format UNIX Current Read Session 0 Device Size 512088 Current Write Session 0 Partition Sectors Offset a 512088 0 b 0 0 c 512088 0 d 0 0 e 0 0 f 0 0 g 0 0 h 0 0 # mount -dr /dev/ladc/unit0c /mnt Page 3 3.) Initializing InfoServer hard drive partitions. When creating partitions on an InfoServer hard drive, newfs may produce warning messages about unallocated disk sectors. These messages are particularly apparent with partitions that are 2MB or smaller but a partition of any size may cause these warnings to occur. These messages can also be displayed if the -resizeEnabled switch on the bindladcunit command is set to "no" when binding the logical device to an InfoServer service. These warnings can be ignored. The recommended method for initializing a partition under any supported version of DIGITAL UNIX is to use disklabel followed by the newfs commands. The disktype argument for the disklabel command must always be 'lad' regardless of the actual disktype (e.g. RZ28M) on which the InfoServer partition can be found. Using disktype 'lad' will insure that UNIX partition configuration entries in the /etc/disktab will not override the partition size information retrieved by the LAD device driver. The automatic UNIX partition resizing algorithm built into the LAD driver will attempt to create appropriately sized UNIX partitions within the InfoServer partition when devicetype 'lad' is specified. The following is an example of the initialization of a 1000 blk (1/2MB) InfoServer partition and the warning message that can be generated from the newfs command. This example assumes that logical unit 2 has been previously bound to an InfoServer service representing a partition on the hard drive. # disklabel -wr /dev/ladc/runit2c lad # newfs /dev/ladc/runit2c Warning: 80 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated /dev/ladc/runit2c:1200 sectors in 10 cylinders of 2 tracks, 64 sectors 0.6MB in 1 cyl groups (16 c/g, 1.05MB/g, 256 i/g) super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at: 32, # mount /dev/ladc/unit2c /mnt It is also possible that the disklabel command might issue truncation messages and prompts. If this occurs, respond to each truncation question with a "y". A "n" response to any of these questions will result in failure to write the disk label. 4.) Using FSCK to check the UNIX File System on an InfoServer Partition. Should the need arise to check the consistency of the UFS on an InfoServer partition, use the fsck utility with the -y switch. Running fsck might be necessary if mount returns with the message "Dirty file system". The switch will eliminate the need to type 'y' in response to each "CANNOT READ: BLK", "CONTINUE? [yn]" prompt. The reason for these errors is that fsck expects the UNIX partitions to be sized differently than the actual InfoServer partition. 5.) FDDI, ATM, and TOKEN Ring network adapter support. The DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX only supports ethernet network adapters. FDDI, ATM, and TOKEN Ring adapters are not supported at this time. Page 4 6.) CD-ROM discs removed from the InfoServer while mounted. Users will receive "Connection timed out" or "I/O error" messages if they try to access a mounted file system associated with a CD-ROM that was somehow made inaccessible (i.e. removed) from the InfoServer. Using the showladcbind command, the affected logical unit will show the unit state as "Aborted" when it should be "Connected". To recover from this type of situation, the system manager can follow either one of the strategies below. A.) Unmount the file system and unbind the logical unit. Bind the logical unit to the chosen service and mount the file system. B.) Make sure the disc containing the correct service is placed in the exact drive in the InfoServer from which it was previously bound. Unmount the file system to transition the logical unit from the "Aborted" state to the "Discarded" state. Then remount the file system to cause transition to the "Connected" state. Users should now be able to access the service. The "Discarded" state simply means that the logical unit was previously in the "Aborted" state. 7.) Occasionally when attempting to mount a DIGITAL UNIX disc served by the InfoServer, you might receive the message "Dirty file system". To mount the disc, simply use the -d switch on the mount command as follows: mount -dr /dev/ladc/unit1c /mnt 8.) Receiving "No such device or address" when attempting to mount a disc or partition served by the InfoServer. # mount -r /dev/ladc/unit2c /mnt /dev/ladc/unit2c on /mnt: No such device or address The association request sent from the client as the result of the mount command is transmitted four times at 1/2 second intervals before a failure is reported. A response from the InfoServer must be delivered across the LAN within 3 seconds or the mount will fail. Occasional failures may result from an InfoServer and/or network that is experiencing some load. The solution is simply to issue the mount command a second time. If the bind and mount commands are in shell scripts, you might want to use a retry loop as follows: RETRY=true while $RETRY do if mount ... then RETRY=false else sleep 1 echo "mount failed, trying again..." fi done The "No such device or address" and "Error: /dev/ladc/unit0c is an invalid device or cannot be opened" messages are also displayed when attempting to mount a hard drive partition that was opened by another client in an incompatible access mode (read/write). Access mode compatibility is also governed by the type of write access policy enabled on the InfoServer. Page 5 9.) Using the DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX in a high traffic network environment. A switch was added to the bindladcunit command to permit some control over the number of times the LAST protocol will attempt to transmit requests to an InfoServer before timing out the logical device. The default value is set to 20 retry attempts. In a heavily loaded network, it is possible that the InfoServer Client might not receive a response from an InfoServer during the twenty retry window. Logical device (/dev/ladc/unit*) timeouts are reported in the console log as LAD error log: Assoc to unit 0 (2) aborted for reason 0xf43c (errno 60) To alleviate this problem, try setting the timeout value to something between 20 and 100 using the following command: # bindladcunit 0 -servicename WOLF_ULTRIX_DK0 -transmitlimit 25 The transmitlimit applies only to the logical unix specified in the bindladcunit command. All other units are unaffected. 10.) Staging an ISO image file on the InfoServer to publish CD media. The following are the steps that one can follow to stage an ISO image on the InfoServer to publish a CD-ROM. This procedure assumes the InfoServer is equipped with a hard disk, and CD-R drive and that an ISO-9660 CD-R publishing package is available on the DIGITAL UNIX system. The DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX must be loaded and started on the system. a) Create an ISO-9660 image on the DIGITAL UNIX system using an ISO-9660 publishing package. b) Create a partition on the hard drive in the InfoServer slightly larger than the ISO-9660 image. If your ISO-9660 image is 40 megabytes, then you can safely create a partition that is larger by 3 megabytes. A larger partition is necessary to provide for InfoServer file system overhead. InfoServer> CREATE PARTITION DK1:STAGE MEGABYTES 43 ERASE c) Create a service for that partition in the ULTRIX class. InfoServer> CREATE SERVICE STAGE FOR DK1:STAGE CLASS ULTRIX. d) Issue the bindladcunit command on the DIGITAL UNIX system to bind to the STAGE service using any available unit number. For this example, unit number 0 is used. # bindladcunit 0 -servicename STAGE e) Execute the disklabel command twice, once to apply a label and once to zero it out. # disklabel -wr /dev/ladc/runit0c lad # disklabel -z /dev/ladc/runit0c Page 6 10.) (Continued...) f) Copy the image file to the raw InfoServer device using the DIGITAL UNIX dd command. This copy operation might take some time. # dd if=dunix.img of=/dev/ladc/runit0c g) Now mount the logical device unit 0 on an available mount point and check out the files within the image. # mount -r -t cdfs -o noversion /dev/ladc/unit0c /mnt h) If you are satisfied with the information in the ISO-9660 image, unmount and unbind the unit. # umount /mnt # unbindladcunit 0 i) Begin the record process on the InfoServer by verifying that the recorder is in the ready state. If the device is not in the ready state, make sure a blank piece of media has been inserted into the device. InfoServer> SHOW RECORDER Execute the RECORD command in test mode first before performing the actual burn. When the record operation is run in test mode, the CD-R laser operates at read level instead of write. It is very important to include both the ISO and SIZE switches. These switches insure that the InfoServer only records the ISO-9660 image on to the CD and not the surrounding file system. The exact size in bytes of ISO-9660 image must be known in order to use the SIZE switch. Assuming the the CD-R is device DK0:, the record command would look like the following: InfoServer> RECORD DK1:STAGE DK0: ISO SIZE nnn TEST j) If the test proceeds without error, remove the TEST switch and re-execute the record. InfoServer> RECORD DK1:STAGE DK0: ISO SIZE nnn TEST Page 7 Documentation Errata ==================== 1.) Section 5.2 entitled "Enabling Your System as an InfoServer Client for DMS" in the "DIGITAL InfoServer Client for DIGITAL UNIX Installation and User's Guide" states that "some manual setup is required to permit bind and mount operations." Manual intervention is only required if the InfoServer Client software is installed into an environment that one or more DMS clients are already using. The commands below must be executed on each DMS client from which the InfoServer Client is to be used. These commands are to be used in place of the setup instructions described in Section 5.2. # /usr/opt/LPABASE100/ladsetup.sh bblock # /usr/opt/LPABASE100/ladsetup.sh reboot # /usr/opt/LPABASE100/ladsetup.sh driver # /usr/opt/LPABASE100/ladsetup.sh adapter # /usr/opt/LPABASE100/ladc.sh start The setup above is not necessary if the InfoServer Client is installed in an environment prior to adding one or more clients. KNOWN PROBLEMS ============== 1.) If there are no requested services available from InfoServers on the LAN or there are no InfoServers on the LAN, the showladservice command will solicit for approximately 15 minutes before returning. When the showladservice command is executed, it will display "Interrogating network, please wait.." The Client will continually display more dots as solicitation request responses are received. This activity occurs almost immediately when services are available in the service solicitation class (Ultrix by default). If there are no services available, only two dots will be displayed for a long (10 seconds or more) period of time. Simply type Ctrl/c to terminate the command if this problem is encountered. 2.) When the InfoServer Client is removed from a DMS environment, the subsystem names remain in the ./dms/dmsn.alpha/ProdNames file. This file is used by the dmu to display the contents of all software environments after selecting 's', "SHOW software environments" from the menu. To correct this problem, use an editor to open the ProdNames file and delete the following subsystem names: 'InfoServer Client for Digital UNIX LPABASE100' 'InfoServer Client for Digital UNIX LPAMAN100'