To: "Gary Brown" , "Lloyd Onyett" , "Dave Johnston" , "Dane Jasper" , "Peter Crayne" , "Scott Doty" , "Rich Abrahams" , "Jay Field" , "John Hemenway" , "Andrea " From: "Scott Doty" Organization: Santa Rosa Junior College Date: 16 Oct 92 03:50:00 PDT Subject: Nermal: report for 16 Oct - 26 Oct 92. Reply-To: scott@cs.santarosa.edu X-Pmrqc: 1 X-Pmlist: Project nermal This message is archived on nermal under: /usr/adm/nermal/worklog.7 ____________________________________________________________________ Objective 2: User application installation (from source) (6 Nov) Objective 3: Management under user loading, campus-wide message base. (11 Dec) Task Status ----------------------------------------------------- Software installation (system/user binaries) Pending Mail system (1) Software installation (user apps fm/sources) Pending (2) ----------------------------------------------------- (1) New System binaries: ("*" denotes compiled on site.) KERNEL: Linux 0.98 patch-level 1 (*) [See Remarks (a)] gcc 2.2.2d7 [See Remarks (a)] gdb (GNU adb, the debugger) smtpout (*), [r]mail(*) [See Remarks (b)] clock (*) Active network services: smtp, ECHO, telnet, ftp, finger, discard, daytime, chargen. (note: echo works with the new kernel) (2) New Application binaries: rn (*) [See Remarks (c)] hytelnet (*) [ditto] bin4+usrbin4 application packages [See Remarks (a)] Remarks: (A) Linux 0.98 patch level 1 /online!/ While assisting the gentleman from Oregon State (Gary Moyer) with the installation of my smtpd+mail system, he pointed out the advantages of using the new 4.1 libraries for Linux -- hopefully, the reader will recall how much "fun" I had with my last library install: 2.2, which came with the gcc 2.2.2d compiler. The advantages are that BSD/USG/POSIX sources will work with very little modification, and that everything simply works better. The 4.1 libraries require a 0.97p4 kernel or later. Remember that we've been using 0.97 patch 2 since it was released, and my earlier tries with 0.98p1 did odd things (like, delete the ethernet node! :) During a recent "ttylink" with Mr. Moyer (ttylink: sort of a text telephone call), he pointed out that he was running .98p1 with no problems, and the _only_ reported problem was with /usr/etc/inet/config, which I had suspected had caused our problems. So, I've upgraded, and everything appears to work fine. We now have the following: gcc 2.2.2d7 (essentially the same one we had before...but uses 4.1 libs) 4.1 libraries (including shared libraries and jump tables) bin4 app package (new system binaries to work with the new libraries) usrbin4 app package (new user binaries for the new libraries, including some stuff we didn't have before, e.g., lexx, zsh) POSIX timezone database clock (works with the timezone database and date(1) ) Nermal's timezone has been set to GMT-0800. Speaking of POSIX, and as I mentioned before, the new libraries are supposed to be ultra-compatible with everything. While I've had my doubts, I must admit they work quite well -- see Remarks (c) for more on this. Finally ... all together now ... RELINK! I'll keep the 2.2 libraries online for a couple of weeks -- but after that, if you expect an app that you've built to work, it must be linked with the new libraries. I'll be relinking the kernel next chance I get. Note that things that didn't work via telnet before should work fine after a relink (e.g., mille borne, gopher.) (B) (and yet more) Fun with mail /bin/mail has been improved in the following ways: 1) incoming mail is properly parsed (yes, nermal can receive mail! yay!) 2) outgoing mail is passed to /bin/smtpout (my rinky-dink smtp mailer.) It's real close, folks. There are still a few artifacts from uucp -- interestingly, these are the _same_ gliches that manifested themselves with *incoming* mail. The secret: /bin/[r]mail, when invoked as "rmail," should trust the user application to provide all smtp header lines. This is my current project, during which I have managed to download almost all of the mail system's sources to my home computer -- I have most of the change-points marked, but I'm adding them carefully, one-at-a-time, to ensure I don't break anything. Ed Carp, the author of Linux's /bin/mail, is now porting Sendmail to Linux. If he finishes before I do, and if the docs are clear, then I'll try Sendmail again (and if it works, I'll consider this smtpd business a nifty learning experience) Incidentally, I've added both "postmaster" and "news-admin" mailboxes -- both point to "root." (C) rn revisited. (and Curses! :) For those who weren't around -- rn is a network news reader which has been on nermal for quite a while. It barely works. That is, until now. I make a few configuration changes (to take advantage of some new features in the new libraries), rebuilt rn, and voila! It runs without a hitch. Yes, I did click my heels together. :) A Word to the Wise: If you try rn on nermal, don't do anything related to mail (including posting to moderated newsgroups). Pnews is OK -- you can post to unmoderated newsgroups with no problem. By the way, joe is rn's default editor. Curses appears to be fixed -- or maybe it's the new tcpip? Whatever the reason -- hytelnet builds "right out of the box" (as advertised). (D) General admin. All of nermal's ordinary users fall into two categories: user and vendor. I will be adding a "wheel" category, and moving all current "user" users to "wheel" prior to Nov 7th. This is to make security easier to manage. ("user" members will be your average Jane Doe student/faculty/whathaveyou. "wheel" members will have access to administrative logs and write access to the executable directories, for example.) Speaking of security, I have pointers to a public-domain login suite that handles shadow-passwords, as well as session timing, and an option to kick users off after a certain time (so nobody hogs the lines all day :). I also have the admin-utilites package with "adduser" -- this should make adding many users trivial, rather than the chore it would be now. Coming up next: Mail system modifications: /bin/mail: will work better with smtpd (using Sendmail-style error codes from sysexits.h) /bin/[r]mail: will stop its uucp nonsense ...which will conclude the mail system. Manual system augmentation (groff to replace nroff) Minor patches to file transfer system (ftpd) Relink of anything that wasn't updated from bin4 and usrbin4. Nermal's Big Day: November 7th! Mark your calendars! _____________________________________________________________________ = Scott Doty, KB6ZLX Santa Rosa Junior College = = Technician, Campus Data & Hardware 1501 Mendocino Ave. = = Internet: Scott@cs.santarosa.edu Santa Rosa, CA 95401 =