NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19

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Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!VANGOGH.CS.BERKELEY.EDU!bostic From: bostic@VANGOGH.CS.BERKELEY.EDU (Keith Bostic) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes Subject: V1.97 (4.4BSD-Alpha Release) Message-ID: <9209032321.AA17257@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 3 Sep 92 23:21:46 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: world Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 572 Approved: ucb-fixes@okeeffe.berkeley.edu Subject: 4.4BSD-Alpha Release We would like to announce the availability of the 4.4BSD-Alpha distribution. The attached is the cover letter from the information packet which has been sent to 4BSD licensees. To request an order form, please contact our distribution office by phone at 415-642-7780, by email at bsd-dist@cs.berkeley.edu, or by U.S. Mail at: CSRG Department of EECS University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Kirk McKusick Keith Bostic =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= July 7, 1992 Dear Colleague: We are happy to send you information about our June 1992 release of 4.4BSD-alpha. This release represents our expectations for the final interfaces that will be present in 4.4BSD. Our goal in making this release available is to get feedback on any problems in the design or implementation of the new facilities, and to allow adventurous sites to gain experience with the new interfaces in 4.4BSD. This distribution is NOT intended to be used on produc- tion systems; nor is it intended for sites without enough local expertise to find and fix any problems that are encountered. It is intended to be used to provide an advance look at some of the facilities and interfaces that we will be distributing in 4.4BSD. We are interested in getting feedback on the problems that you find and also any compatibility problems that you encounter in converting your applications to run on this release. While we hope that the interfaces in this release will not change before the final release of 4.4BSD, we will make changes that we feel are necessary to fix problems that arise during the alpha release period (at least in part based on feedback from this test group). Where possible, we will minimize changes that will break applications ported to this release. The code in this distribution may be redistributed and used in released products. However, you are strongly encouraged to upgrade any code that you use from this distribution to the similarly-licensed distribution of the 4.4BSD code within one year of its release. Only limited support can be provided by our group. Specifically, we cannot provide help with installation of this software on other systems, although we are, of course, interested in hearing of problems that you encounter. We are planning on releasing two versions of the software, 4.4BSD-Encumbered and 4.4BSD-Lite. The 4.4BSD- Encumbered distribution is available only to sites with UNIX/32V, System III, or System V source licenses with USL/AT&T. The 4.4BSD-Encumbered distribution is a complete distribution in the style of 4.3BSD and contains the com- plete source for the Berkeley Distribution. The 4.4BSD-Lite distribution will be a distribution that is copyrighted by the University of California and oth- ers, but may be freely redistributed. It will be available to anyone and requires no previous license, either from USL/AT&T or The Regents of the University of California. Its license agreement and content will be similar to that of the two BSD Networking Releases. The 4.4BSD-Lite distribu- tion will contain only a few additional programs and no additional kernel files from the Second Networking release done in June 1991. However, it will contain support for additional architectures and will have many bug fixes and performance enhancements. The distribution will include both software developed at Berkeley and also much of software contributed by authors outside Berkeley. Only the 4.4BSD-Encumbered distribution is available at this time. The 4.4BSD-Lite distribution is not available at this time; we will send out a mailing to notify you when it is available. The enclosed information is designed to serve two pur- poses. The first purpose is to acquaint you with the details of our distribution so you can decide whether you would like to receive it. The second purpose is to tell you how to obtain our distribution. What is 4.4BSD? This software distribution is provided on one 6250bpi 1/2'' 9-track tape or one 8mm Exabyte cassette only. The 4.4BSD-Encumbered distribution contains complete source as well as binaries for the HP9000/300 series of workstations. The 4.4BSD-Lite distribution will contain only freely redis- tributable sources. As the sources do not comprise a com- plete system, no binaries will be included. The architectures that are supported include: + HP 9000/300 68000-based workstations + Intel 386/486-based machines (ISA/AT or EISA bus only) + Sony News MIPS-based workstations + Omron Luna 68000-based workstations + DECstation 3100 and 5000 MIPS-based workstations + Sparcstation I & II SPARC-based workstations The distribution does not include the machine support for the Tahoe and VAX architectures found in previous BSD dis- tributions. Our primary development is on the HP9000/300 series machines. The other architectures are being developed and supported by people outside the university. Consequently, we are not able to directly test or maintain these other architectures, so cannot comment on their robustness, reliability, or completeness. The major new facilities available in the 4.4BSD release are a new virtual memory system, a log-structured filesystem, enhancement of the local filesystems to support files and filesystems that are up to 2^63 bytes in size, the addition of ISO/OSI networking support, a freely redistri- butable implementation of NFS, and the conversion to and addition of the IEEE Std1003.1 (``POSIX'') facilities and many of the IEEE Std1003.2 facilities. In addition, many new utilities and additions to the C library are present as well. The kernel sources have been reorganized to collect all machine-dependent files for each architecture under one directory, and most of the machine-independent code is now free of code conditional on specific machines. The user structure and process structure have been reorganized to eliminate the statically-mapped user structure and to make most of the process resources shareable by multiple processes. The system and include files have been converted to be compatible with ANSI C, including function prototypes for most of the exported functions. There are numerous other changes throughout the system. The new virtual memory implementation is derived from the MACH operating system developed at Carnegie-Mellon, and was ported to the BSD kernel at the University of Utah. The MACH virtual memory system call interface has been replaced with the ``mmap''-based interface described in the ``Berke- ley Software Architecture Manual'' (see UNIX Programmer's Manual, Supplementary Documents, PS1:6). The interface is similar to the interfaces shipped by several commercial ven- dors such as Sun, Convex Computer Corp. and USL/AT&T. The integration of the new virtual memory is functionally com- plete, but still has serious performance problems under heavy memory load. The internal kernel interfaces have not yet been completed and the memory pool and buffer cache have not yet been merged. Some of these changes are expected before the release of 4.4BSD. The ISO/OSI Networking consists of a kernel implementa- tion of transport class 4 (TP-4), connectionless networking protocol (CLNP), and 802.3-based link-level support (hardware-compatible with Ethernet*). We also include sup- port for ISO Connection-Oriented Network Service, X.25, TP- 0. The session and presentation layers are provided outside the kernel by the ISO development environment (ISODE). Included in this development environment are file transfer and management (FTAM), virtual terminals (VT), a directory services implementation (X.500), and miscellaneous other utilities. A new virtual filesystem interface has been added to the kernel to support multiple filesystems. In comparison with other interfaces, the Berkeley interface has been structured for more efficient support of filesystems that maintain state (such as the local filesystem). The inter- face has been extended with support for stackable filesys- tems done at UCLA. These extensions allow for filesystems to be layered on top of each other and allow new vnode operations to be added without requiring changes to existing filesystem implementations. In addition to the local ``fast filesystem'', we have added an implementation of the network filesystem (NFS) that fully interoperates with the NFS shipped by Sun and its licensees. Because our NFS implementation was implemented using only the publicly available NFS specification, it does not require a license from Sun to use in source or binary form. By default it runs over UDP to be compatible with Sun's implementation. However, it can be configured on a per-mount basis to run over TCP. Using TCP allows it to be used quickly and efficiently through gateways and over long-haul networks. Using an extended protocol, it supports Leases to allow a limited callback mechanism that greatly reduces the network traffic necessary to maintain cache con- sistency between the server and its clients. A new log-structured filesystem has been added that provides near disk-speed output and fast crash recovery. It is still experimental in the alpha release, though we hope to have enough experience with it to recommend it for pro- duction use by the time of the final 4.4BSD release. We have also added a memory-based filesystem that runs in page- able memory, allowing large temporary filesystems without requiring dedicated physical memory. The quota system has been rewritten to support both user and group quotas (simultaneously if desired). Quota expiration is based on time rather than the previous metric of number of logins over quota. This change makes quotas more useful on fileservers onto which users seldom login. The 4.4BSD distribution contains most of the interfaces specified in the IEEE Std1003.1 system interface standard. The biggest area of change is a new terminal driver. The terminal driver is similar to the System V terminal driver with the addition of the necessary extensions to get the functionality previously available in the 4.3BSD terminal driver. 4.4BSD also adds the IEEE Std1003.1 job control interface, which is similar to the 4.3BSD job control inter- face, but adds a security model that was missing in the 4.3BSD job control implementation. Other additions include IEEE Std1003.1 signals, FIFOs, byte-range file locking, and saved user and group identifiers. There are several new tools and utilities included in this release. A new version of make allows much-simplified makefiles for the system software and allows compilation for multiple architectures from the same source tree (which may be mounted read-only). Notable additions to the libraries include functions to traverse a filesystem hierarchy, data- base interfaces to btree and hashing functions, a new, fast implementation of stdio and a radix sort function. The additions to the utility suite include greatly enhanced ver- sions of programs that display system status information, implementations of various traditional tools described in the IEEE Std1003.2 standard, and many others. We have been tracking the IEEE Std1003.2 shell and utility work and have included prototypes of many of the proposed utilities. Because most of the traditional utili- ties have been replaced with implementations conformant to the POSIX standards, you should realize that the utility software may not be as stable, reliable or well documented as in traditional Berkeley releases. In particular, almost the entire manual suite has been rewritten to be freely redistributable and, in many instances, it does not correctly reflect the current state of the software. It is also worth noting that, in rewriting this software, we have generally been rewarded with significant performance improvements. Most of the libraries and header files have been converted to be compliant with ANSI C. The default compiler (gcc) is a superset of ANSI C, but supports tradi- tional C as a command-line option. The system libraries and utilities all compile with either ANSI or traditional C. Work has also progressed in several other areas. Several important enhancements have been added to the TCP/IP protocols including TCP header prediction and serial line IP (SLIP) with header compression. The routing implementation has been completely rewritten to use a hierarchical routing tree with a mask per route to support the arbitrary levels of routing found in the ISO protocols. The routing table also stores and caches route characteristics to speed the adaptation of the throughput and congestion avoidance algo- rithms. The Kerberos (version 4) authentication software has been integrated into much of the system (including NFS) to provide the first real network authentication on BSD. This release includes several important structural ker- nel changes. The kernel uses a new internal system call convention; the use of global (``u-dot'') variables for parameters and error returns has been eliminated, and inter- rupted system calls no longer abort using non-local goto's (longjmp's). A new sleep interface separates signal han- dling from scheduling priority, returning characteristic errors to abort or restart the current system call. This sleep call also passes a string describing the process state, which is used by the ps(1) program. The old sleep interface can be used only for non-interruptible sleeps. The sleep interface (tsleep) can be used at any priority, but is only interruptible if the PCATCH flag is set. When interrupted, tsleep returns EINTR or ERESTART. Many data structures that were previously statically allocated are now allocated dynamically. These structures include mount entries, file entries, user open file descrip- tors, the process entries, the vnode table, the name cache, and the quota structures. The End of BSD from Berkeley As you may already have heard, the CSRG is going to go away after the final release of 4.4BSD. For the following reasons, clearly the CSRG cannot continue in its present form. Funding has become increasingly time-consuming and dif- ficult. We are spending more and more of our time obtaining funding, time that we would prefer to spend working on BSD. As many of you are intimately aware, computer corporations are actively seeking ways to reduce discretionary outlays. Also, as UNIX vendors have developed their own research groups, the work of the CSRG has become less necessary to them. Finally, making BSD freely redistributable has resulted in fewer distributions sold, as other organizations sell our releases for less money. Support within the University of California has declined as BSD has become less widely used internally. Victims of our own success, many of the features once found only in BSD are now available from every vendor. The system has become too large and complex for a group of four to architect and maintain. In particular, losing Mike Karels has made it obvious to us that the group is below critical mass for developing and distributing a com- plete UNIX system. We are making the 4.4BSD-alpha distribution available now. We will spend the summer and some part of the fall cleaning up the release and make the final 4.4BSD release available in the fall. When the final release happens is mostly dependent on when our current funding runs out. At that time we will close down the group. We would really like to have six months to finish up 4.4BSD. The amount of time that we get is largely a function of how many of you purchase the alpha distribution. So, if you are planning to get 4.4BSD when it comes out, please consider buying an alpha distribution with an upgrade option instead. That way your money will go to support the final 4.4BSD release. BSD has always been a community effort, and, as a com- munity effort, does not rely on a small group of people in Berkeley to keep it going. BSD will not go away, but will live on through the free software and commercial efforts of many people. We thank you for your support over the years, your funding, and, of course, the software you've contri- buted to make the BSD system what it is today! How to obtain 4.4BSD-Encumbered To obtain 4.4BSD-Encumbered we require execution of the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92). In addition, foreign licensees must execute Addendum Number One for Foreign Licensees in ordering 4.4BSD-Encumbered. The fee is $2000.00 for 4.4BSD-Encumbered. Because we are a research and development organization and not a commercial organization, we make our research results available for a small license fee. We distribute only the whole system ``As Is'' and cannot send individual pieces of the system. We are required by the University of California to have a formal license arrangement with each organization to which we distribute. All material is con- sidered licensed material regardless of its availability from other sources that make such material publicly avail- able. In addition, for 4.4BSD-Encumbered, we are required to secure a copy of the AT&T Software Agreement with your organization and confirm it with AT&T before the software can be shipped. Specifically, for 4.4BSD-Encumbered, we must receive from your organization the following material before the distribution can be sent: + Two copies of the current Software Agreement between your company or institution and AT&T (Western Electric) that authorize you as a source licensee for UNIX/32V, System III, or System V. Note that a complete copy of the agreement up to the Schedule is required, not just the cover and/or signature page. Letters authorizing additional CPUs are not necessary in this process; however, it is your legal responsibility to obtain an additional CPU authorization from AT&T. + Two original signed and executed copies of the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) between your company or insti- tution and The Regents of the University of California along with Exhibit A properly filled out. For Foreign licensees, there is an Addendum to the License Agree- ment that must also be executed. The name of the organization on the Berkeley License Agreement must be the same as that which appears on the Software Agree- ment with AT&T (or Western Electric). The Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) must be signed by a duly authorized person who holds a position that is at the same level or a higher level of authority as that which appears on the AT&T Software Agreement. Please have this person's name and title typed in the available space in addition to the signature. This license agreement applies to all the CPUs covered by the Software Agreement with AT&T (or Western Electric) that you have provided. One signed copy of the Berkeley License Agreement will be returned to you after it has been executed by The Regents of the University of Cali- fornia. + A check from a U.S. bank for $2000.00 must be received before the distribution can be sent. Checks should be made payable to ``The Regents of the University of Cal- ifornia, Computer Systems Research Group.'' If you must issue a Purchase Order, together with your prepayment, please issue one that is blank-backed. If this is not possible, insert and initial in the body of the Pur- chase Order the following clause: ``The terms and con- ditions of this Purchase Order are not accepted by The Regents of the University of California. The revised Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) prevails.'' Wire transfers are strongly discouraged. + The attached Site Information Form completely filled out. Your copy of the signed 4.4BSD-Encumbered License Agreement will be sent to the person listed as the administrative contact. The distribution itself will be sent to the technical contact. All information is kept confidential; it is for our use in notifying you of important bug fixes and the availability of future BSD distributions. Please note that we cannot ship to post office boxes; therefore, please have the technical contact's address supplied without use of a post office box. A checklist is included to aid you in assembling this material. All the above material must be sent to: Pauline Schwartz, Distribution Coordinator Computer Systems Research Group Computer Science Division, EECS University of California Berkeley, California 94720 Once all these items have been received and are in proper order, the distribution will be sent to the technical address listed on the Site Information Form. We cannot pro- vide delivery dates. Once the material is assembled and packaged, the distribution is shipped by commercial carrier. Order of shipment will be based on time of arrival of the properly completed paperwork and confirmation with AT&T if necessary. Because of the differential in costs of shipping outside the United States, we ask that organizations beyond the North American continent pay the collect shipping charges. If the destination is one where collect shipment cannot be made by the carrier, then advance payment of the shipping charges will be required. The most expedient way to ensure that your full distri- bution is sent as quickly as possible is to include in a single package two original copies of the appropriate Berke- ley License Agreement completed and properly signed (without modification), two complete copies of your AT&T Software Agreement the appropriate check properly made out to ``The Regents of the University of California, Computer Systems Research Group'' and a completely filled out Site Informa- tion Form and to send this single package to the address noted above. Please note that if you modify the Berkeley License Agreement, you may experience a delay of three months or more before receiving an acceptance or denial of the changes. We reserve the right to cancel your application if we have not received the requested paperwork within 60 days from the date it was sent to us. Ordering the Upgrade to 4.4BSD For those who would like to order the upgrade to the present alpha release of 4.4BSD, we offer the opportunity to prepay a fee of $400.00 for such upgrade, scheduled to be released at year's end or soon thereafter. The advantage in ordering the upgrade at the time of ordering the alpha release is that there will not be additional licensing costs. If one wishes to order the 4.4BSD-Encumbered and upgrade, the total fee will be $2,400.00. For those who choose not to order the upgrade now, we will notify you when it is available so that you may order it for whatever fee will be set at that time. Special Cases University of California Sites. If you are a part of the University of California, the following requirements apply: To run 4.4BSD-Encumbered on any CPU, you must have a CPU authorization under The Regents of the University of California Software Agreement with AT&T. This can be obtained by contacting Pam True at (510) 642-6348 in Berke- ley Campus Materiel Management for an application. A copy of this should be sent to us. In addition, the following items must be sent to the Computer Systems Research Group: 1) a letter of authorization signed by the Director or Head of Department requesting 4.4BSD-Encumbered, stating that you have read and understood the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) and that your organization will abide by it; 2) an IOC for $2,000.00; and 3) a Site Information Form. Government Agencies and Government Contractors. + The U.S. Government has a UNIX Source Software Agree- ment with AT&T dated Sept. 1, 1975. If you are a government agency operating under the 1975 Software Agreement, you do not need a copy of the aforementioned Software Agreement; instead you must send a copy of your additional CPU authorization from AT&T. The Berkeley License Agreement for 4.4BSD-Encumbered (6/92) should be signed by the appropriate Contracting Off- icer. + Several government agencies have acquired their own AT&T UNIX Software Agreement. Here, we need a copy of this Software Agreement with AT&T. The Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) must be signed by the same officeholder (or replacement) whose signature appears on the Software Agreement with AT&T. The government agency shall be identified as the Licensee in the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92). + If you are a contractor of the Government and have obtained an additional CPU authorization from AT&T for your contract work, the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) must be signed by the appropriate Contracting Officer for the contract. The contractor should address a letter to the Contracting Officer stating that the contractor agrees to abide by the terms and conditions of the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) for 4.4BSD and ask that the Contracting Officer sign the Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) for 4.4BSD. The Con- tracting Officer should then return the signed Berkeley License Agreement (6/92) directly to the Computer Sys- tems Research Group with a cover letter stating that the contractor is hereby authorized to receive a copy of 4.4BSD-Encumbered. A Special Note The procedures and rules set out in this document are University and AT&T constraints that must be followed for the distribution of software to be possible. The Computer Systems Research Group has no control over these constraints and must reject your application if material submitted is not in order. If You Have Read Everything and Still Need Help If you have questions about the licensing process after reading this letter, you may call Pauline Schwartz at (510) 642-7780, write to her, or contact her via electronic mail at pauline@cs.berkeley.edu. Sincerely yours, Marshall Kirk McKusick Research Computer Scientist Computer Systems Research Group _________________________ UNIX, UNIX/32V, UNIX System III, and UNIX System V are registered trademarks of USL/AT&T in the USA and other countries. Ethernet is a trademark of the Xerox Corporation.