Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/faqs/faq/solaris2/x.faq

Text File | 1995-07-25 | 28.5 KB | 748 lines

-----    Solaris 2.x Frequently Answered Questions
    Maintained by Ian Darwin, [e-mail]
    $Id: solaris2.faq,v 1.14 1993/05/15 17:11:08 ian Exp $ -----

[This is a rush job - I am getting sent out of the country for a week so this
posting is incomplete - better partial than nothing. If you sent me updates
and they're not here, please do not despair, I will get them in next time, I
hope.  -- ian]

The following is a list of questions that are frequently asked about
Solaris 2.x.  You can help make it an even better-quality FAQ by writing a
few lines on one topic that burned you while moving to Solaris 2.1 and
sending it BY EMAIL ONLY to me, [e-mail]. Thanks!

CONTENTS
    GENERAL
    1) A real list of questions will be here someday)
    FOR MORE INFO
    1) ditto
    SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
    1) ditto
    NETWORKING
    1) ditto
    SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
    1) ditto

PART ONE - GENERAL

What's a Solaris anyway?

    Solaris(tm) is Sun's name for their UNIX-based user environment,
    including the UNIX(tm) operating system, window system (X11-based),
    and other stuff too.

    Solaris 1.x is based on SunOS4.1.x (x>=1), a version of UNIX that
        is BSD-like with some SVR4 features.
    Solaris 2.x is based on SunOS5.x, which is an SVR4-derived UNIX.
    For more details, see the chart in the next-to-next question.

What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
    Solaris 2.1 is an "operating environment" that includes the
    SunOS 5.1 operating system and the OpenWindows 3.1 window environment.

    SunOS 5.0 and 5.1 are based on USL's SVR4.0. SVR4.0, in turn, was
    developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0,
    which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc.,
    are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView
    are in SVR4.0.

What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?

    Solaris 2.0 only ran on desktop SPARCstations and a few other Sun
    machines.

    Solaris 2.1 and later comes in two flavors, SPARC and "x86".

    Solaris 2.1 for SPARC runs on all desktop SPARCstations and
    clones, as well as all models of the Sun-4 family. Thee old FPU
    on the 4/110 (and 260??) is not supported, so floating point
    will be SLOW, but it does work.

    Solaris 2.1 for x86 is as of this writing still in the "OEM
    release".  That means that it is available to developers but
    isn't released to end users yet. It runs on a wide range of
    high-end PC-architecture machines. "High-end" means: 16MB of
    RAM and an 80486 (or 33MHz or faster 80386DX).  It will not run
    on your 4 MB 16MHz 386SX, so don't bother trying!

    To summarize all this, Jim Prescott gave this chart, which I've updated:
    Solaris    SunOS    OpenWin        Other    Comments
    1.0    4.1.1B    2.0            (sun3 EOL)
    1.0.1    4.1.2    2.0            (6[379]0-1[24]0 MP)
    1.1    4.1.3    3.0            SP Viking support
    2.0    5.0    3.0.1        ONC+    sun4c only
       2.1SPARC    5.1    3.1         ONC+
    2.1x86    5.1    3.1         ONC+    Available "soon" (OEM now)
    2.2    5.2    3.2        ONC+    Avail in May(?)
    2.?    5.?    4.0            Fall 1993??
                        OpenWin 4 is X11R5 based: no
                        NeWS, no SunView.

Will my XXX applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?

    There is quite a bit of support in SunOS 5.x for running 4.1.x
    binaries in an emulation mode called "Binary Compatibility"
    (BCP).  This works by dynamically linking the 4.1.x binaries
    with a shared library that emulates the 4.1.x binary interface
    on top of 5.x, so there is some overhead. Programs will only
    work if they were dynamically linked, and if they meet certain
    other criteria. Best bet: try it and see.

    Be aware, though, that Sun WILL drop the binary compatibility
    package someday soon.  Try to wean yourself and your users from
    depending on it, even if it means beating on your software
    vendors to offer "native" Solaris2 applications.

Where is the XXX command gone now?

    There are too many of these changes to include in this FAQ.
    The file "whatlist" is included in the "Admigration" package
    (see below), was posted to Newsgroups comp.unix.solaris and
    comp.sys.sun.admin by [e-mail] (frederick.d.true)
    with the subject line

    Subject: INFO: Command summary, SunOS 4.x --> 5.x

    You can also FTP this file from ftp.cs.toronto.edu in
    /pub/darwin/solaris2/whatlist.

Should I upgrade?

    That depends - on you, your situation, your application mix, etc.
    Eventually SunOS4.1.x will go the way of the 3/50 - it'll still
    be around, but Sun will no longer support it.

Is Solaris 2.1 reliable/stable enough to use?

    The concensus seems to be that yes, it is, for many applications
    and most users. Your mileage may vary.

    As far as stability meaning "does it crash often?" then the
    answer is that it is fairly stable.  There are a few patches
    available, patch ids 100884 and 100858 that are supposed to fix
    all of the bugs that I've seen crashes for.  There may be other
    patches for fixing various bits and pieces: check with your
    patch supplier for more details.

    Solaris 2.2 is expected in May '93, and should lay the last
    major batch of instabilities to rest -- we hope.

PART TWO - FOR MORE INFO

How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?

    "RTFM" is an old saying: Read The Manual.  Sun still sells
    printed manuals, but don't automatically distribute them. A
    smaller, lighter, bookshelf-friendly :-) CD-ROM called "The
    AnswerBook"(tm) contains all the printed documents in
    machine-readable (PostScript) form, and a keyword search
    engine. 90% of your introductory questions are answered therein!

    Note there are (at least) two answerbooks. The Solaris 2.1 CD itself
    includes the "OpenWindows Answerbook", which has a few
    OpenWindows book. There is also the "Solaris 2.1 System Software
    AnswerBook" (SUNWabsso) which has almost *ALL* of the documents
    (including another copy of /usr/man, but indexed for searching).

    As distributed, the Answerbook search engine runs only with the
    OpenWindows server, not with MIT X11. This will change; for now,
    if you insist on using the MIT server instead of what Sun provides,
    you'll have to use one of several "answerbook workaround" scripts
    that are in circulation.

    You should buy (or print from within Answerbook) at least the
    reference manual and the System and Network Administration books,
    because if your system becomes disabled you won't be able to
    run the Answerbook to find out how to fix it...

What Software is available for Solaris 2.1?

    Most commercial software that ran on 4.x either will run in BCP
    mode, or is available for Solaris 2.1, or is being ported now.

    A list of freeware (some "public domain", but mostly copyright-
    but-freely-distributable) [as well as commercial software??]
    that has been ported to Solaris 2.1
    is posted monthly to the newsgroup comp.unix.solaris by
    [e-mail] (Richard Steinberger). Look for this:

        Subject: Solaris SW list.  Monthly Post.

    If you can't wait, the list is also available via anonymous FTP
    from updike.sri.com.

What FTP sites do I need to know about?

    SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) - Sun sponsors an FTP site at the
    University of North Carolina. Lots of good stuff here.

    OpCom. (opcom.sun.ca) - run by Sun Microsystems' OpCom group
    (I don't think the acronym is public :-)) - lots of stuff. Here
    is an extract from their README:

    pub/binaries    - binaries/man pages for Solaris 2.0 native binaries.

    pub/Cygnus      - the Cygnus port of gcc

    pub/newsletter  - issues of the monthly OpCom newsletter.

    pub/docs        - assorted documentation, papers, and other information.
            - all of the RFCs

    pub/drivers     - information related to device driver writing under
              under Solaris 2.0 as well as a skeleton SCSI driver.

    ls-lR.Z         - compressed recursive listing of files available
              on the server.

    pub/tars        - compressed tars.

    pub/tmp         - place for uploading things to the server.

    pub/R5          - the unadultered MIT x11r5 distribution.

    pub/x11r5       - port of X11r5 to Solaris 2.0, binaries, libraries
              and headers.  A compressed tar of this tree can
              be found in tars.

    export.lcs.mit.edu - the master X11 site

    ftp.uu.net    - UuNet communication archives

What other FAQ's do I need to know about?

    All of them :-). But in particular you should see the FAQ's
    in these newsgroups:
    comp.windows.open-look - Anything related to OpenWindows or the
        OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface.

    The Sun-Managers mailing list (see below) has its own FAQ,
        maintained by John DiMarco <[e-mail]>.
        FTP from ra.mcs.anl.gov in the sun-managers directory.

    [others...]

What mailing lists should I get?

    First, read all the USENET newsgroups with "sun" in their name :-)

    1) The Florida SunFlash is a "closed" mailing list for Sun owners.
    It contains mostly press releases from Sun and third-party
    vendors.  This list contains information on conferences such as
    the Solaris Developer's Conference as well.  It is normally
    distributed regionally - to find out about a mail point in your
    area, or for other information send mail to [e-mail].

    Subscription requests should be sent to [e-mail].
    Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu,
    src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au

    2) The Sun Managers list is an unmoderated mailing list for
    *emergency-only* requests. Subscribe and listen for a while,
    and read the regularly-posted Policy statement BEFORE sending
    mail to it, and to get a feel for what kinds of traffic it carries.
    Write to [e-mail].

What books should I read?

    O'Reilly & Associates specializes in UNIX books.  Their "UNIX
    In A Nutshell" has been updated for SVR4 and Solaris 2.0.  Get
    their catalog by calling 800-998-9938 (1-707-829-0515) 7AM to
    5PM PST.

    Prentice-Hall has reprints of much of the AT&T documentation.
    I'm not sure how much of this you need - a lot of the same
    material is in the Answerbook (see above).

PART THREE - SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the years
into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?

    1) Do it by hand. You did document every single change and
    check it into RCS, didn't you?

    2) Automate it, using the AMToolkit (Administration Migration
    Toolkit) from the OpCom FTP server (q.v.)!

What are "packages"?

    A SVR4 mechanism for "standardizing" the installation of
    optional software. Most vendors are expected to use this
    format for distributing add-on software for Solaris 2.x.

    Packages can be installed/deinstalled with pkgadd/pkgrm which
    are standard SVR4 items, or with swm (CRT) or swmtool (GUI-based)
    which are provided only in Solaris 2.

Why can't I write in /home?

    This is a common one! SunOS is delivered with the "automounter"
    enabled. The automounter is designed for NFS sites, to
    simplify maintenance of the list of filesystems that need
    mounting. However it is a burden for standalone sites.

    The automounter takes over /home and in effect becomes the NFS
    server for it, so it no longer behaves like a normal directory.
    This is normally a Good Thing as it simplifies administration if
    everybody's home directory is under /home.

    To kill it off for standalone or small networks, you can comment out
    the three lines in /etc/init.d/nfs.client that start "if" (from the if
    to the fi!!), and reboot.

    To learn about it, read the O'Reilly book
    Managing NFS and NIS, or ftp the white paper 'The Art of Automounting".
    from sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/sun-info/white-papers.

What is this junk mail about an error in the crontab entry?

    Solaris 2.1 (FCS on SPARC and OEM on Intel) shipped with a
    blank line at the end of root's crontab file. The result is
    that root gets mail at boot time and nightly thereafter,
    complaining about an error in the crontab file and that it has
    "ignored the entry".  Pretty hard work ignoring that blank
    line, eh?  If the messages bug you (they should), su to root
    and use "crontab -e" to edit root's crontab and delete the
    blank line at the end of the file. Fixed in FCS on Intel
    and 2.2 on SPARC.

Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?

    System V Release 4 includes a feature called "shadow passwords".
    The encrypted passwords are moved out into a shadow password file
    (called /etc/shadow in this release) that is NOT publicly readable.
    The passwd file has always been readable so that, for example, ls -l
    could figure out who owns what. But having the passwd encryptions
    readable is a security risk (they can't be decrypted but the bad guy
    can encrypt common words and names &c and compare them with the
    encryptions).

    The Shadow Password feature is mostly transparent, but if you
    do any passwd hacking you have to know about it!  And DO make
    sure that /etc/shadow is not publicly readable!

Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?

    >... when I try to rlogin as root ...
    >it gives me the message "Not on system console
    >Connection closed.".  What have I left out?

    Solaris 2 comes out of the box a heck of a lot more secure than
    Solaris 1.  There is no '+' in the hosts.equiv.  root logins are not
    allowed anywhere except the console.  All accounts require passwords.
    In order to allow root logins over the net, you need to edit the
    /etc/default/login file and comment out or otherwise change the
    CONSOLE= line.

How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system to
a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?

    Hmmm, the lp system is totally different than what you're used to.
    The System V Line Printer System is a lot more, well, flexible.
    A cynic might say "complicated".  Here's a very quick guide --
    see the man pages for each of these commands for the details.

    Let's say your Solaris2 workstation is called "sol" and the
    4.1.x server is called "bertha" and you want the printer name
    to be "printer" (imaginative, eh?).

    sol# lpsystem -t bsd bertha        # says bertha is a bsd system
    sol# lpadmin -p printer -s bertha    # creates "printer" on "sol"
                        # to be printed on "bertha"
    sol# accept printer            # allow queueing
    sol# enable printer            # allow printing
    sol# lpstat -t                # check the status

    Finally, if that's your only printer, make it the default:

    sol# lpadmin -d printer

    On some systems you may have to turn on the port monitor.

I did that. Why does it now complain about invalid content types?

    I said it was complicated!

    For better or for worse, you need to know about printer content types.
    See the man page for "lpadmin".

    To get transparent mode, try this:

    lpadmin -I any -p printer

Isn't there any easier way?

    The GUI-based Admintool has a Printer Manager that is supposed to
    be able to do all this and more. Try it; Sun hopes you'll like it.

Now my jobs print but they stay in the queue after!?

    It's a known bug, and will probably get fixed in 2.3, since
    2.2 is too close to being frozen.

    [Now you want to set up Solaris 2 as a print server?
    You're on your own.]

What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV?

    Device drivers are linked in dynamically. When you add new
    devices, just shutdown the system and do
        boot ... -r    # use correct drive spec for "..."
    to *r*ebuild the /devices and /dev directories.

What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?

    They're now fragmented into 12 million tiny little pieces. Look in
    the following files to get oriented:
        /etc/inittab - starting point for init
        /sbin/rcS, /etc/rcS.d/* - booting stuff
        /sbin/rc2, /etc/rc2.d/*,
            /sbin/rc3, /etc/rc3.d/* - stuff for multi-user startup.
    Note that all files in /etc/rc*.d/* are hardlinked from
    /etc/init.d (with better names), so you should grep in there.

    There are many "run levels" to the System V init; the run
    level 3 is normally used for "multi user with networking."

I can't understand that stuff; can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
I just want to keep all my local changes in one place.

    No. You can never have rc.local back the way it was. But then, it
    never really *was* purely a "local" rc file. To have a real
    "local" rc file with just your changes in it, copy this file
    into /etc/init.d/rc.local, and ln it to /etc/rc3.d/S99rc.local.
    Put your startup stuff in the "start" section.

    ----- Cut here -----
    # /etc/init.d/rc.local - to be linked into /etc/rc3.d as
    # S99rc.local -- a place to hang local startup stuff.
    # started after everything else when going multi-user.

    # Ian Darwin, Toronto, November, 1992
    # As with all system changes, use at own risk!

    case "$1" in
    'start')
        echo "Starting local services...\c"

        if [ -f /usr/sbin/mydaemon ]; then
            /usr/sbin/mydaemon 1>/dev/console 2>&1
        fi
        echo ""
        ;;
    'stop')
        echo "$0: Not stopping any service - use ucb shutdown for that."
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
        ;;
    esac
    ------ End of Cut Here -----

Speaking of that, why are there two versions of shutdown?
    SVR4 (hence SunOS 5.x) tries to make everybody happy. The
    traditional (slow) System V "shutdown" runs all the rc?.d/*
    shell scripts with "stop" as the argument; many of them run
    ps(!) to look for processes to kill. The UCB "shutdown" tells
    init to kill all non-single-user processes, which is about two
    orders of magnitude faster. Unfortunately, the UCB version does
    everything it should *except* actually halt or reboot in
    SunOS5.1 (and some other SVR4 implementations).

When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2) "init",
    "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life in the
    good old days?

    I dunno. It should be doable. Wanna fund me to develop it?
    Don't try this at home, kids!!!!! Experienced UNIX hackers only.

    If you get it working reliably and securely, let me know so I
    can mention it in this FAQ!

Speaking of what, what have they done to our old friend getty? What is this
damn pmadm thing that keeps cropping up?

    I was hoping you wouldn't ask. PMadm stands for Port Monitor Admin,
    and it's part of a ridiculously complicated bit of software
    over-engineering that is destined to make everybody an expert.

    Best advice for workstations: don't touch it! It works out of the box.
    For servers, you'll have to read the manual [anybody done this yet?]
    This should be in admintool in Solaris2.2 or 2.3, I hope.

How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?

    Under 4.1.x you invoke screenblank in /etc/rc.local, but there's no
    screenblank in Solaris 2.1.  Sun recommends that you
    have everybody put `xset s on' in their .xinitrc, but this
    may be hard to police, and in any event it won't work when nobody is
    logged in.  The simplest workaround is to copy /usr/bin/screenblank
    from 4.1.x and run it in binary compatibility mode.  See ``What
    happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?'' for how to invoke it.

    Another possibility is to use xdm, but you'll have to use your own,
    since the xdm shipped with Solaris 2.1 doesn't work.

    The 4.1.x screenblank didn't work for me; I use Jef Poskanzer's
    freeware screenblank (FTP source from XXX various archive sites).

And what about screendump and screenload?

    They're gone too. Screendump from 4.1.1 works, at least for some
    frame buffers.

So how about etherfind?

    There is a replacement for etherfind, but it has changed name;
    in fact it's a whole new program. It IS better. To find it,
    though, you would have to realize that network snooping is not
    really ethernet-specific.  To end the suspense :-), here it is:

    % man -k snoop
    snoop    snoop (1m)    - capture network packets and inspect them
    %

    It works differently - it has an immediate mode, a capture-to-disk mode,
    and a playback-from-disk mode.  Read the man page for details.

The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist - is it mad?

    Yes! Actually, messages like

    find : cannot open /: No such file or directory.

    are due to a bug in the tree walking function (nftw(3)).  If it
    runs into problems traversing the tree, it gives up and
    incorrectly complains about the top level directory of the
    tree.  [The submitter seems] to recall that the most common
    case which caused trouble was a directory somewhere in the
    directory hierarchy which was readable but not executable.
    With the fix it will just complain about the directory to which
    it couldn't chdir and skip descending that subtree.


I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial ports.
What should I do?

    Try using UUCP.  The Solaris 2.x sparc serial driver has trouble
    receiving data at or above 9600 bps.  Symptoms include sluggish
    response, `NOTICE: zs0: silo overflow' console messages, sending
    spurious control-Gs to the serial port, and applications that cannot be
    killed even with `kill -9'.  This problem surfaces in many
    applications, including Kermit and tip.  UUCP seems immune, though,
    because its protocol throttles input sufficiently.

How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?

    Root's shell is /sbin/sh, which is statically linked.
    Don't just insert a 'c' before "sh" as previously, as that would
    look for /sbin/csh, which doesn't exist.  Don't just change it to
    /bin/csh, since that's really /usr/bin/csh, which is dynamically
    linked, because:
        a) /usr may not be mounted initially, and then
           you're in deep (the shared libraries are in /usr!), and
        b) There is code in the startup scripts that assumes that
           everything critical is in /etc/lib, not /usr/lib.
    Approach with caution!

    Safer bet - have an alternate root account, like "rootcsh",
    with uid 0, and /bin/csh as its shell. Put it after root's entry in
    the passwd file.  Only drawback: you now have to remember to
    change all of root's passwds at the same time.

    Third bet - in root's .profile, check if /usr is mounted and, if so,
    exec /bin/ksh or whatever.

What is this message: "automount: No network locking on thathost,
    contact administrator to install server change."?

    The other machine (an NFS server) is running 4.1.x and needs a
    patch from Sun to update its network lock daemon (lockd). If
    you don't install the patch on the server, file locking will
    not work on files mounted from "thathost". The 100075-09 patch
    fixes a bunch of other lock manager problems, so it may be a
    Good Thing To Get; however, it may also cause the machine on
    which the patch is installed to have trouble talking to servers
    with no patch or older patches, so Be Warned.

How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and Emulex MD-21 disks?

    As with any hardware addition, first try the obvious (boot -r
    after installing and power-cycling everything).

    The adaptec is no longer supported; man -s7 sd no longer even
    lists it!  So I guess they go over the cliff. Either that, or
    take the drives out and put them on a PC, where ST506 MFM
    drives are still supported.

    The MD21 is more important (read, bigger disk on it). It shows
    up in probe-scsi as two ESDI targets, but Solaris 2 won't touch
    them; boot -r does not make devices for them. It is claimed
    that the MD21+drive combo worked in its previous life,
    something I can't too easily verify.

    The config:
    ok probe-scsi | (transcribe to paper) | (transcribe from paper)
    Target 0
        Unit 0    Disk    EMULEX    MD21/S2    ESDIA00
        Unit 1    Disk    EMULEX    MD21/S2    ESDIA00
    Target 1
        Unit 0    Disk    CDC    ... <-- this is what I'm booted from
    Target 5
        Unit 0    Tape    Removable
    ok

    [Any clues? -- ian]

PART FOUR - NETWORKING

Can I use DNS with Solaris 2.1?

    1) Instability of in.named on Solaris 2.1.

    It seems that the in.named included in the Solaris 2.1 distribution
    is terribly unstable. The easiest solution for now I have discovered
    is to use the OLD (SunOS 4.1.2 in my case) in binary compatibility
    mode. This works just fine. If it's slower I can't tell.
    There's also a patch (100902-01) available now for 2.1.

    2) Using a Solaris 2.1 host and the DNS for name resolution.

    Under SunOS 4.1 it was next to impossible to run DNS name resolution
    without either a kludge fix or the NIS (V2 I guess). Under Solaris
    2.1 it is incredibly simple, but you must ignore what the manual
    (SunOS 5.1 Administering NIS+ and DNS) says (it should be fixed
    in Solaris 2.2). All that is required to make a non-NIS host
    use the DNS for name resolution is to change the host: line in
    the /etc/nsswitch.conf file to the following:

    hosts:    files dns

    (i.e., when looking for hosts, look in /etc/hosts first, if not
    found there, try DNS, if still not found then give up) and set
    up a correct version of /etc/resolv.conf to tell the resolver
    routines (like gethostbyname) how to contact the DNS
    nameserver. You must have the names of machines which are
    somehow contacted during boot in the files in /etc and files
    must appear first in the hosts: line, otherwise the machine
    will hang during boot (at least ours did). Make sure that
    /etc/netconfig is using switch.so. (It does from the factory.)


Speaking of nsswitch.conf, what is it?

    An idea whose time has come (it came to Ultrix a few years
    ago).  You can control which of the "resolver" services are
    read from NIS (formerly YP), which from NIS+, which from the
    files in /etc, and which are from DNS (but only "hosts" can
    come from DNS).

    A common example would be:

    hosts: nis files

    which means ask NIS for host info and, if it's not found, try
    the local machine's host table as a fallback.

    Advice: if you're not using NIS or DNS, suninstall probably put the
    right version in. If you are, ensure that hosts and passwd come from
    the network. However, many of the other services seldom if ever change.
    When was that last time *you* added a line in /etc/protocols? If your
    workstation has a local disk, it may be better to have programs
    on your machine look up these services locally, so use "files".

    Terminology: Sun worried over the term "resolver", which
    technically means any "get info" routine (getpwent(3),
    gethostbyname(3), etc), but is also specifically attached to
    the DNS resolver.  Therefore they used the term "source" to
    mean the things after the colon (files/DNS/NIS/NIS+) and
    "database" to mean the thing before the colon
    (passwd/group/hosts/services/netgroup etc).

So what does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean, and where does it go?

    Type "man nsswitch.conf" for more info.  There is too much
    detail to summarize here.  Briefly, [NOTFOUND=return] means
    that the name service whose entry it *follows* should be
    considered authoritative (so that if it's up and it says such a
    name doesn't exist, believe it and return instead of continuing
    to hunt for an answer).

PART FIVE - SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Where is the C compiler?

    Where have you been? :-) Sun has dropped their old K&R C compiler.
    Their new ANSI-standard C compiler is on the unbundled (extra cost)
    SPARCcompiler/SPARCworks CD-ROM, which you have to license.
    There are some other nice tools there too, like a "make tool" and
    a visual idiff (interactive diff). One misfeature is that these tools
    use a floating license manager that grants license usage in 15-minute
    chunks, so you can't really share the compiler as you could with
    a simpler floating license scheme.

    If you don't want to buy that, a free-software C compiler, gcc,
    has been made available (source AND ready-to-run binaries) by
    Cygnus Support for Solaris 2.  FTP it from ftp.uu.net:/vendor/cygnus,
    or install it from the CDware CD (Volume 4).

    The Cygnus distribution includes:
    byacc (yacc repl) gcc (ansi C compiler)    info patch
    cc (ln to gcc)    gdb (good debugger)
    flex (lex repl)    gprof    makeinfo texindex

    Another version is gcc 2.3.3 from prep.ai.mit.edu, which
    includes binaries and the source if you want to compile it
    yourself but is more said to be more likely to work if you want
    to compile X11R5.

Speaking of that, what else do I need to compile X11R5?

    There are several "patch kits" for X11R5 under Solaris 2.1.
    Most of them require gcc 2.3.3 and you must have
    run "fixincludes" when you install the gcc software.

What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level network access?

    See man page DLPI(7). Try NFSWATCH 4.0 for sample code using DLPI.
        FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu (128.46.128.76, 128.46.154.76):
                pub/davy/nfswatch4.0.tar.Z
        or gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2):
                pub/net/ip/nfs/nfswatch4.0.tar.Z

[Other questions as they get summarized.]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Most of this material is either written by me or sent to me
    directly. Some of it is cribbed shamelessly (with collective
    credit below) from USENET postings in several groups.

Thanks to:
    Guy Harris <[e-mail]>
    Lee Quin <[e-mail]>
    Dean Kemp at Sun Canada
    Jim Prescott
    Warren Strange, Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc., Vancouver.
    Dave Miner  <[e-mail]>
    Pete Hartman <[e-mail]>
    [e-mail] (Paul Eggert)
    [e-mail] (Geert Jan de Groot)
    Steve Bellenot <[e-mail]>
    Jennine Townsend <[e-mail]>
    [e-mail] (Bill Hunter)
    Dave Miner <[e-mail]>
    [e-mail] (Richard Elling)
    [e-mail] (Jens Petersohn)
    [e-mail] (Carl Smith)
    [e-mail] (Thomas Maslen)
    [e-mail] (Chin-Tang Chang)
    Casper H.S. Dik, FWI, University of Amsterdam
    [e-mail]
    Mike Kupfer  <[e-mail]>

----- End of Solaris 2.x FAQ -- Maintained by Ian Darwin, [e-mail] -----