Thread View: arpa.info-3b2
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Started by Hurf Sheldon
Thu, 23 Feb 1989 15:30
3b2 Questions - Answers Appreciated
Author: Hurf Sheldon
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1989 15:30
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1989 15:30
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We have several 3b2/310's running System 5 version 3.1
with WinTCP 1.1, net card, 30meg drive, floppy and a
4serial/1parallel card. All systems were originally
3b2/300's that were upgraded by ATT technicians at our
site. We have a list of questions that we can't, as yet*,
find answers to, so if anyone can help in all or in part,
please respond by reply, e-mail direct to me or phone,
which ever is easiest for you.
* We have asked our resident ATT expert, ATT sales reps
and perused the manuals rather thoroughly (we think)
trying to answer the questions posed.
Questions:
1; Is there a way to make a bootable floppy system
so we can try to salvage systems that are having a problem
without doing the 'Essential utilities, partial restore'
route? Essentially a kernal with mount, fsck, makedev
etc so we can boot, fsck the hard drive and mount it.
2; "WARNING: niwrite: ni_send failed - ret code=8"
We keep getting this network error repeated about every
thirty seconds that we can't track down and
after swapping several boards it is still there so I see it
as a software or protocol problem. We have one system
directly on the net (h4000 xcvr---->3b2) that doesn't
ever show it but any system on our delnii does;
(h4000------->DELNII------>3b2) - other systems on the DELNII
show no problems (uVaxII, Kinetics FastPath)
Network performance and connections don't seem to be affected.
Routed and tftpd are turned off. It is vexing.
What are the proper diagnostics to run on the net interface
and where is the info on them?
3; Hard drive questions;
a; Do the 3B2's use a standard configuration hard drive?
ie: What will fit and how much is it?
b; What does it take to mount a second hard drive either
in the 3b2 chassis or outside. We have a couple of
spare 30meg drives that we would like to put in
place of the floppies on a couple of systems. Can that
be done? - It looks like the cables to the hard drive
port in the back could just be pulled off and connected
to another drive, except for the little 2 wire cable
from the port to the internal drive. Also what drive
selects to use?
c; Is there a place that rebuilds the drives at an effective
cost?
4; Maintenence Questions;
a; Does ATT have a mail in program analogous to DEC's
DECMAILER program?
b; Is there an independent repair facility for 3b2
board level repairs?
c; Are there any hardware manuals available for the 3b2/310?
5; Software questions;
a; Is there an 'rdump' around that will allow you to dump
to a remote (Ultrix) system.
b; Is NFS available?
c; Is there a csh or csh like environment available?
--
Hurf Sheldon Network: hurf@ionvax.tn.cornell.edu
Lab of Plasma Studies Bitnet: hurf@CRNLION
369 Upson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853 ph:607 255 7267
I sold my Elan, got a job in science; Now, no one takes me seriously.
Re: 3b2 Questions - Answers Appreciated
Author: Philip A. Gross
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 1989 05:17
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 1989 05:17
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In article <7455@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, hurf@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Hurf Sheldon) writes:
[...stuff deleted...]
>
> Questions:
>
> 1; Is there a way to make a bootable floppy system
> so we can try to salvage systems that are having a problem
> without doing the 'Essential utilities, partial restore'
> route? Essentially a kernal with mount, fsck, makedev
> etc so we can boot, fsck the hard drive and mount it.
While the answer to this question is "yes" you can create a diskette
with a bootable file system, there is essentially (pardon the pun)
an easier way to approach this problem without going to the trouble
of making one.
The Essential Utilities Diskette 1 for your AT&T Sysv3.1 is a mountable
filesystem. Now there is a little known way in which to gain access
to a somewhat restricted shell when you boot on this floppy. What you
need to do is to bring your maching to FIRMWARE MODE and enter unix
as the program to execute and indicate device 0, the floppy diskette
as your boot device. This you are probably familiar with. After much
twitling (sp) of thumbs, you will finally be presented with the
familiar menu where you have the option to do an upgrade, full restore,
partial restore, or quit. Well instead of typing any of the suggested
options, type:
magic mode
the computer will then respond:
POOF!
(I kid you not) and you will note that you now have an additional
option "shell". Enter:
shell
and you will be presented with a '#' sign prompt. There also exist
other hidden options which can be found by examining the installation
program. I believe it is /etc/rc on the floppy, you can double check
this by examining the /etc/inittab file on the floppy to see what it
runs on bootup. Nevertheless, you will be working in a restricted
environment. For example, you will not have 'vi'. 'Ed' and 'cat'
will have to do (I can't even recall if ed is even supplied). Also
you will find that you don't even have 'ls', for this you will have
to use 'echo *' in order to get directory listings. In order to
find out what devices, etc are available to you, you can type 'set'
to list the environment variables which have been defined. Several
things such as 'mount' have been defined as functions and are not
available in the normal format. You may want to hack with this on
a system when you are not under a pressure situation.
[...stuff deleted...]
> 3; Hard drive questions;
> a; Do the 3B2's use a standard configuration hard drive?
> ie: What will fit and how much is it?
The older 3B2's, generally 300s, 310s and most 400s use the ST506
interface. The more recent models of the 400 and on up now use ESDI
drives. As for size, for one in order to use a non-AT&T supplied
drive, you need to have access to the low level formatting programs.
These are found on releases of what is called DEVTOOLS and more
recently IDTOOLS diskettes. These diskettes, like the Essential
Utilities Diskette 1 are bootable filesystems on the floppy.
If you use the DEVTOOLS diskette, the largest I have ever been able
to format is to ~72Mb. Now with the IDTOOLS I have been able to
coerce a couple of PRIAM's and MAXTOR's to format to ~190Mb (1224
cylinders).
>
> b; What does it take to mount a second hard drive either
> in the 3b2 chassis or outside. We have a couple of
> spare 30meg drives that we would like to put in
> place of the floppies on a couple of systems. Can that
> be done? - It looks like the cables to the hard drive
> port in the back could just be pulled off and connected
> to another drive, except for the little 2 wire cable
> from the port to the internal drive. Also what drive
> selects to use?
To mount a drive externally, not a great deal except money. You will
need an external cabinet of sorts one out of a PC magazine works with
one of our machines (don't plan on AT&T supporting it) or you can
purchase an XM with the appropriate cables in order to connect the
drive externally. As far as cables go for the external disk, we use
a simple PC hard disk ribbon cable, but you must keep the distance to
a minimum or you will have problems with the hdelogger reporting
hd errors that do not really exist. AT&T does sell special cables for
running externally which are shielded, but the price is mucho $$$.
I believe the 20 pin external cable is about $80.00 and the 34 pin
external is ~$175.00. As far as installing a hard disk in place of a
floppy, you may be able to get away with that but you will have to
reconfigure the ends of the data and control cables to have card
edge connectors instead of what is supplied. The 'little 2 wire'
cable that you speak of is simply having the internal drive make
use of the resistor pack which is on the external port "board".
The internal drive, the root drive, is selected as drive 0 and the
other drive is selected as drive 1. You will need to remove the
2-wire cable and install the resistor pack on whichever drive is
at the end of the "chain".
>
> c; Is there a place that rebuilds the drives at an effective
> cost?
Don't know, but please let me know if you find one. We have a
72Mb CDC Wren II that has lost its mind and needs a bit of
"psychological" help in order to get it to work again.
>
> b; Is there an independent repair facility for 3b2
> board level repairs?
>
> c; Are there any hardware manuals available for the 3b2/310?
Again, let me know if you find these answers. I have learned what I have
through 3 years of trial & error & intense hardware/software hacking.
> c; Is there a csh or csh like environment available?
Ksh sources can always be purchased from the AT&T Toolchest at about
$3000.00 a pop. That's what we did a couple of years ago and have not
regretted it a bit. It was well worth the investment by increasing
productivity. Alas, you could wait till SysV 4.0 is released in which
case ksh will be the standard shell.
===================================+===========================================
Philip A. Gross |INTERNET: pag%tcsc3b2@wb3ffv.ampr.org
The Computer Solution Co., Inc. |USENET: ...!wb3ffv!tcsc3b2!pag
1009 Sycamore Square, P.O. Box 716 |UUCP: tcsc3b2!pag (804)794-1514
Midlothian, VA 23113-0716 |ATTMAIL: attmail!tcsc3b2!pag
Voice: (804)794-3491 |
The opinions expressed here are strictly mine and nobody elses.
<< I haven't heard what I have to say about that yet. >> :-)
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