Solaris

This message, is an ever growing document, on the new
operating system on clam and crab....Solaris.  As 
this document grows, I will add information to it in 
clearly separated sections..each dated at the top..thus
you can keep track of which information you read or
not....I will be updating this information throughout the
next month or two with new details (only in Sept, and Oct.,
after that, all the Solaris details/questions/information
should be worked out).

There is no requirement to read this document, but we feel
that providing it will keep our user community better
informed, and perhaps answer some questions that you
may have. 

At times, certain sections of the document will be labeled
non-technical, thus information for everyone, and other
parts technical, for those techie types :-)


This document is easily obtainable via our "help" system
(a WWW based system)..which can be accessed from clam, crab,
or any networked pc/mac/unix workstation on campus.


Send any questions/comments/problems to "staff@camden".  Thank
you.


******************************************************************

NOTE - All users, on both clam and crab:


Camden Computing Services has attempted to identify all feature changes with
all software under the new operating system.  Changes/fixes are 
still being made.  However, we recommend that all faculty who
teach with applications on clam, please test your access
methods and the software, before-hand, to verify that it is
working the same.



******************************************************************


Message 1                                     9/4/95


Non-Technical:


Over the past two weekends we have upgraded both our
main servers/time sharing Unix systems to a new operating system
called Solaris (version 2.4 to be exact).  clam (our student
systems) was upgraded the first weekend (August 18-20), 
and then crab (our faculty/staff system) was upgraded 
the following weekend (August 25-27).  The timeframe for the
upgrades was a bit tight, since we had to wait till the
end of the summer session (mid august), but needed to complete
this before the beginning of the fall school semester...

Solaris is a new Unix operating system, from Sun Microsystems.  With
this move, Camden Computing Services 
attempted to make things stay as much the same as possible
for our users,  in comparison to the previous older
operating system (sunos 4.1.3).  Much pains
(and many months of work) went into porting software over to
this new operating system.  You will find that most
things still work the same, including X windows, the lush
menu system, most unix commands are the same, mm (mail package),
nn (news), and mosaic/lynx/info are all the same.  pico and
emacs are also working correctly.  The help system and WWW
(world wide web) and gopher are all still functioning.
In fact, many users will not even notice that we are running
a new operating system...and that is good, for that is what
we had hoped for..to make things as transparent as possible.

Yet, some things are currently not working.  This includes
the following:
   
   dvitps    -   use the "dvips" command instead.  dvips is
       used by people using tex/latex/amstex to convert dvi
       file to postscript files.

note- dont print out any .dvi files, since they will just
 print out garbage...you need to first convert them to postscript
 before printing, using "dvips"  (see man "dvips" for more info.).
 (something like  "dvips filename.dvi  -o filename.ps" will
  create a postscript version of your .dvi file, and then you
  can print it by just saying "lpr filename.ps")


   ntalk     -   use talk or ytalk instead.  ntalk is no longer
       needed (according to Sun) and is not provided..the 
       problems with talk were fixed, so ntalk is out...talk
       and ytalk are in.

   wordperfect - currently not working.  We are working on
     this.  If it continues to fail, we will upgrade to 
     a new version (6.0) that will work under Solaris.

   play --> the play command, used to play sounds on a sun
     workstation, may no longer function properly.  A
     new command "audioplay" is more reliable.

    finger - although finger is there, it is only semi-working.
      Dont complain.  Another, better working finger command,
      is being searched for.


    spss - under solaris, we are running a newer version
     of spss.  It starts up a bit differently.  Changes to
     the information short sheet on this is being made.
     You need to start up spss with either the 
     +m option (spss +m) to run the character-based version or
     -m option (spss -m) for batch execution.



Default Files:

Everyones account, has a certain set of default files, that
help setup ones environment when one signs on to the system
(like a .login file and a .cshrc file).

To have everyones account functioning properly under Solaris,
it was necessary to give every account a new .login, .cshrc,
.mailrc, and new links for .xinitrc and .xsession.  
If you had made
changes to your .login or .cshrc files, you should put those
changes (if you wish) back into your current ones (like if
you added some aliases or something...most users probably dont
need to worry about this at all).  

With student accounts on clam, your default printer was set
to "rmt07" (the main central printer in the operations
area in BSB) and your default editor was set to "pico".  This
is probably fine for the majority of people.  But if
you want a different default printer, or a different default
editor, you must run "new_defaults" and pick your new
default setup.  (you can run "new_defaults" by typing 
"new_defaults" at the unix prompt or picking "new_defaults"
from the userinfo submenu of the menu system).

For faculty/staff accounts, since they are lower in number, we
hand reset your default PRINTER and default EDITOR as it
was before the conversion..so there is nothing else you need
to do.


But if you ever need to change any of your defaults, 
the command "new_defaults" under solaris is still available.
And if you ever mess up editing any of your special .dot
files (like .login), and you just need a new copy, then the
command "new_files" is available for you to use.






New Commands:

printers  - a new command to list all available printers.  Of
 course, the "print" command is  still available to print to
 any given printer on the network.


lpr and lp  -  all of the normal lpr commands still work, but
 solaris comes with a new set of print commands as well.  
 Thus lpr still works, and now solaris also has an equivalent
  "lp" command.  "lprm" is sill available, and the equivalent
  under solaris "cancel" is also available.  Finally, both the
  lpq command and its new equivalent (lpstat) are available on our
  systems.  Most of these commands have "man" pages. 






New Software:

zmlite - a new mail package that works under any type of
 vt100 connection to clam or crab.  (meaning it works when
 telneting in from a pc or mac, when connecting from home
 over a modem, or directly on a sun workstation or x terminal.
 zmlite is a version of zmail, which is the new mail package
 that is becoming available to all (new wave of the future).

zmail -gui   - typing in zmail -gui, on an X terminal (or
 clicking on the mail icon at the top of the screen), will
 start up zmail in a "gui" mode.  Really nice and slick.
 Works under X windows only, thus you need to be a sun workstation
 running X, or on an X terminal.


netscape - a WWW based reader...and alternative to mosaic.
  (since it is graphical in nature, this will only run
  on clam/crab under X windows).





Some Changes:

floppy access  - under solaris, if you are
 sitting at a workstation that has a floppy disk drive, 
 then access to the floppy drive is now different.
   To access, stick in your floppy disk, and then you have two
 methods to access:
  a. Type in "volcheck" at the prompt, this will mount the
floppy at the directory /floppy.  You can then view files
there and use normal unix commands to copy things back and forth.
or
  b. start up file manager (type "filemgr" at the unix prompt,
or pick the file manager/desktop manager icon on the left of the
screen under X windows).  Once filemanager starts up, pick
volcheck from the pull down menu.  Your floppy disk will then
be mounted and displayed graphically under file manager (much
as you would see on a macintosh microcomputer).


cdrom access  - under solaris, if you are
 sitting at a workstation that has a cdrom drive, 
 then access to the cdrom drive is now different.
   To access, stick in your cdrom, and then do one of the following:
  a. Your cdrom will automatically be mounted under the
/cdrom directory.  You can then view files 
there and use normal unix commands to copy things back and forth.
or
  b. start up file manager (type "filemgr" at the unix prompt,
or pick the file manager/desktop manager icon on the left of the
screen under X windows).  Once filemanager starts up, 
your cdrom will automatically be mounted and 
displayed graphically under file manager (much
as you would see on a macintosh microcomputer).
   Also, if your cdrom is an audio (music) cdrom, an X application
called "workman" will launch automatically and appear on your
screen.



/tmp usage  - the /tmp area, should not be used by users to
store temporary files.  It is a system critical area, and not
to be used by others.  If you dont have enough space in your
account, and you need a temporary area for a few minutes, then
you can use the /usr/tmp area..but please erase your files from
it when you are done.
  Thus, dont use /tmp as a storage area for your files.



vt100 connections -  many users have reported problems with
dialing into clam/crab from home, using a modem, if their software
package is not correctly setup.  Make sure your home software
package is setup to emulate a "vt100" when connecting to clam
or crab.  Other types of emulations may now not work under
solaris.  (this affects home users with modems only).






Changes Under X windows:


xdm-  All the systems in room 133 BSB (28 sun workstations), now
 start up using something called xdm (X display manager).
 This will start off by displaying a nice login name/password
 menu on the screen, as you login.  Once you login, X windows
 will now come up (you can only sign on these systems using X
 now).  Once you are logged into X, it will first show you 
 the message of the day in a special window...please read and
 then click on it when done.  Next, you normal X session starts up,
 it should look the same as before..with the addition of some nice
 new icons, described below.



bricons  - under sunos 4.1.3, the older operating system, we had
 a small set of icons available on the screen, in the lower
left hand corner..these were controlled by a program called
xrun, which no longer works correctly under solaris, thus it
was replaced by a better program called bricons.  You will
now see icons on the lower left of the screen and across the
top.  The normal "LOGOUT" icon is there, which you can
click on to log out of the system, and there are other new
icons, including ones that start up zmail, the "print" command,
man pages, netscape, info/mosaic, file manager, our HELP system,
the editor, calculator, calendar, dictionary, and many
other tools/applications.  
  


One other new item under X windows, when your console
window goes away, a screen appears that asks if you want to
logoff or not.  This is a handy reminder to help people to
remember to log off completely out of X windows, and not just
exit out of the console (or just exit out of the lush menu).
One must completely logout of X.




New Short Sheets.
   
  Many of our short sheets have recently been upgraded
or are in the process of being upgraded, to reflect the 
solaris changes.  The short information sheet on using the
floppy disk drive has been greatly modified, and a new
one about using a CD-rom drive has also been created.

 You can see these unix short sheets in the bins in room 133
BSB, and they are also online via our "help" system.





Why Upgrade?
 
  A user did ask me why upgrade, and they even stated why
fix something if it isnt broken.  And although that old
clique is true in many areas, unfortunately, computers
(software and hardware) change very very rapidly, and to
keep up, one must progress ahead.  Most new hardware and
software that is being developed currently, and all new
hardware/software in the future, for sun/unix systems, are
being made to only work on the new operating system (solaris)
and not the old one.  This is also the operating system that
is running in Newark and New Brunswick on both their faculty/staff
systems and their student systems....so what we are doing is
inline with the rest of the university.
  Plus the new operating system will give faster performance
on a multi-cpu system, like clam...and someday crab will also
have multiple cpus.
  If you think about it, if we stayed where we were 15 years 
ago (when I was a student at this university), when things
were very stable, we would have no internet, no news, no
worldwide electronic mail, no WWW, only 2400 baud modems, etc..
In fact, when I started as a student at rutgers, we were
using punched cards....they were very stable, but I dont think
anyone would want us to stay with them :-)

  




Technical:


Most changes that occur with this new operating system, has
occurred behind the scenes.  Much has changed administratively,
but luckily for most users, they dont see it.  For example, 
the way printers are controlled and also bootup scripts is
dramatically different.

The old sunos 4.1.3 was based primarily on Berkeley Unix
(from the Univ. of Cal at Berkeley), with a slight smattering
of System V unix.  The New Solaris 2.4, is just about
opposite, a mostly System V unix (from AT&T), with a blend
of Berkeley Unix features and Rutgers features thrown in also.
A very interesting mix.


The new operating system truly is a  multi-threaded kernel.
Many operating systems claim to be multi-threaded, and the old
sunos 4.x was in some respect, but the new Solaris is a more
full multi-threaded kernel.  This comes in very handy with
machines that have multiple cpu's (like clam, which has 2 cpus),
since this means that the operating system code itself can
run in parallel.   This should produce a more reliable system
(the previous sunos 4.x operating system would crash from
time to time, since its use on a multi-cpu system was not
really supported), and also a faster system.


One new feature of solaris, is the way the floppy disk drives
and cdroms are now managed, by a special daemon (system job)
called vold.  It is a volume manager daemon, that will
automatically mount and unmount these media as necessary.
Makes things alot easier to use.






End Message 1.                                9/4/95

*************************************************************



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The  below are 3 announcements, posted to the newsgroup 
ru.comp.services.camden, viewable via "msg".  These messages
are concerning the solaris operating system upgrade on
clam and crab, and also about the failed hard drive on crab.
These messages are repeated here, in case they were
missed.... a repository of information....skip if you have
read everything via "msg".


--------------------------------------------------------------

Announcement 1 (msg):


Newsgroups: ru.comp.services.camden
Subject: Clam Users Please Read - Solaris Upgrade
Date: 21 Aug 1995 17:22:33 -0400

                                                           8/21/95

Clam Users:


Over this weekend, Friday thru Sunday, a new operating system version
was installed on clam, it is called Solaris 2.4 .  It was important
to upgrade to this new operating system, to be able to take full
advantage of current and future hardware and software.

With the upgrade, we have tried to keep things the same, as much
as possible, as before.  So the lush menu is still there and working,
X windows is still available, and most (but not all) software 
applications/commands are available also.

One thing we did have to do, to have your accounts work correctly
under solaris, is give every user 4 new files in their accounts.  We
copied over a new .login, a new .cshrc  and a new .xinitrc/.xsession file
into your account.   The old copies were not erased, but were
saved into your account under the names  .login.old.895  and
.cshrc.old.895, etc...    (you can see these files by doing a 
ls -al in your home directory).  With these files, your default printer
is rmt07 (the central laser printer in room 113 bsb) and your default
editor is pico.   For most users, this is fine and they have nothing
more to do.

But if your default editor was not pico, or your default printer was
not rmt07, you need to set them again.  This is very easy.  You can
just run the script "new_defaults".   (just type "new_defaults"
at the unix prompt, or if using the lush menu system...go into the
userinfo submenu and pick "new_defaults".   

If you are one of the few users (the more technical types), who made
changes to their own .login or .cshrc, like adding some local aliases,
then you need to re-edit these files and add your changes back in.
But that should be easy for you, and that is why your original
.login and .cshrc files were saved as a backup.  If you had
made changes to your .xinitrc or .xsession files, like using
a new window manager or something, I would recommend staying with
the new setup for a while and try it out and see how well you like it.
If you do want to go back to your own setup, you can, and that is
why your original .xinitrc and .xsession files were also saved.


We are still testing and fixing some minor bugs.  If you notice
any problems, feel free to send email to "staff".  We thank you
for your patience.


More information about the solaris conversion, will "soon" be posted via
our help system, including some more technical info.  You will
find this information under the "help" system under the
"sun/unix" category.   If you have never used our help system
before, its a real easy WWW (world wide web) base of information
for our user community...easy to use.  You can access the help
system by typing "help" at the unix prompt, or picking "help"
and then "general help" from the lush menu.  If you are using X windows,
there is also a "help ?" icon you can click on.......or if using
a pc or a mac on campus you will see a "help ?" icon under the
communications folder.  All of these choices will take you to the
same help system.  Please read that for more information on this
new operating system.


Thank you.



------------------------------------------------------------



Announcement 2 (msg):


                                                           8/28/95

Crab Users:

Two major events happened recently on crab.


1. On friday, august 25th, we had a major hard drive failure on
crab in the morning (around 7:30 am).  This was the day we
had planned to start to move to solaris in the evening.  Thus crab
was down a day earlier than we had planned.  The drive vendor
shipped up a new disk drive, via fedex, saturday morning.  
Work was done all day friday and all weekend, both saturday
and sunday, to attempt to recover from the drive failure and
also move the system over to a new operating system, called
solaris, as scheduled.

  By mid-afternoon saturday, the replacement drive was installed
and most files were correctly re-installed.  Some files could
not be recreated, so we went back to our full tape dumps from
the previous friday, august 18 to do a full restore on 
some partitions.  In particular users who have home directories
on /crab/u1, /crab/u2, /crab/u3, /crab/u4 had their files
restored from august 18th, and the files after that date have
not yet been recovered.  All new mail was not affected, since
it is on a different system partition (all new incoming mail).
[If you are not sure where your home directory is located,
use the "pwd" (print working directory) command, at the unix
prompt.]  All other partitions, including mail, were not
affected.

  I still have the bad drive and will try to recapture any
missing files from it.  News of this will be reported via
msg or our help system.



2.  Even though we had a major drive crash, it was important
to keep on our posted schedule and continue with the upgrade
to the new operating system.  This continued all of saturday
and all day sunday.  At 7:30 pm sunday, crab was openned up
to the public use again.  There are still some fixes going
on and some changes.

The new operating system version
installed on crab,  is called Solaris 2.4 .  It was important
to upgrade to this new operating system, to be able to take full
advantage of current and future hardware and software.

With the upgrade, we have tried to keep things the same, as much
as possible, as before.  So the lush menu is still there and working,
X windows is still available, and most (but not all) software 
applications/commands are available also.  Things like mm (mail),
nn (news), pico, emacs, etc.. should all be working fine.

One thing we did have to do, to have your accounts work correctly
under solaris, is give every user 4 new files in their accounts.  We
copied over a new .login, a new .cshrc  and a new .xinitrc/.xsession file
into your account.   The old copies were not erased, but were
saved into your account under the names  .login.old.895  and
.cshrc.old.895, etc...    (you can see these files by doing a 
ls -al in your home directory).  With these files, your default printer
is rmt07 (the central laser printer in room 113 bsb) and your default
editor is pico.   For most users, this is fine and they have nothing
more to do.  For other users who had other default settings for
their PRINTER and EDITOR, we are in the process up upgrading
your .login and .cshrc files by hand.  If you are in a hurry,
and want to do this yourself, you can simply
just run the script "new_defaults".   (just type "new_defaults"
at the unix prompt, or if using the lush menu system...go into the
userinfo submenu and pick "new_defaults").   

If you are one of the few users (the more technical types), who made
major changes to their own .login or .cshrc, like adding some local aliases,
then you need to re-edit these files and add your changes back in.
But that should be easy for you, and that is why your original
.login and .cshrc files were saved as a backup.  


We are still testing and fixing some minor bugs.  If you notice
any problems, feel free to send email to "staff".  We thank you
for your patience.


More information about the solaris conversion, will "soon" be posted via
our help system, including some more technical info.  You will
find this information under the "help" system under the
"sun/unix" category.   If you have never used our help system
before, its a real easy WWW (world wide web) base of information
for our user community...easy to use.  You can access the help
system by typing "help" at the unix prompt, or picking "help"
and then "general help" from the lush menu.  If you are using X windows,
there is also a "help ?" icon you can click on.......or if using
a pc or a mac on campus you will see a "help ?" icon under the
communications folder.  All of these choices will take you to the
same help system.  Please read that for more information on this
new operating system.


Thank you.




-------------------------------------------------------------


Announcement 3 (msg):



Crab Users Only - Please Read                        9/2/95

Good News!


Before we upgraded to solaris, one of our disk drives on
crab crashed (this was on August 25th, a Friday).
...and we lost some files.  Since we had to
wait for a replacement drive and were scheduled to upgrade
our operating system to Solaris, we continued to do so
that weekend.  A new disk drive was fedex to us on Saturday
the 26th, and was installed.  Then, we restored the affected 
partitions, from the failed drive, using a full tape dump
we had from the previous friday (august 18th).

This meant, that "some" users on crab may have lost files, if
those files were created between Friday (august 18th), and
Friday (august 25th).  If you had modified any pre-existing
files during this time period, what was restored to your
account was what we had on tape as of august 18th, so you
may have lost some changes.

This ONLY affected people on crab, and ONLY on the following
partitions:

/crab/u1 
/crab/u2
/crab/u3
/crab/u4

and only if you created some new file or made modification to
a file between the above dates.  The majority of people were
NOT affected.

[Of course, you may ask, how do I know what disk partition my
account is on.  Well, just sign on to crab as normal, and
either:
  a. if you use the lush menu, go into the "file" submenu and
pick "pwd" to see where you account is located (print working
directory)
or
  b. go to the unix prompt (crab%) and type "pwd" (print 
working directory).  This will tell you where you account
is located on the system.]


The good news, is that over the labor day weekend, with a little
bit of effort, I was able to coax the failed drive temporarily
back to life.  As soon as I got it running again, I dumped
everything on it, every single file, to tape (I did this
twice as a precaution).  Thus, if you had lost any files, I
have them on tape.

I didnt want to automatically restore everything to all users
accounts, because I would then run the risk of overlaying files
in your account that already exist.  I think a better procedure,
since this affected a small group of users, is that if you
need some files restored, to contact us (instructions below).
We will then restore the file (or group of files) directly to
your account using the same name, if it doesnt exists already
in your account....otherwise, we will restore the file(s) with
the extension  ".restore", like  "filename.restore"  .  
We will send you mail when the restoration is done.

Some users may be concerned about email, well if you had
any new incoming email during that week, that you didnt
attempt to read, you have nothing to worry about.  All new
incoming mail is stored in a system area (it doesnt go into
your account until you start up "mm" or "mail" and read it).
And the mail area on the system was not affected by the crash.
On the other hand, if you had read your email during that week
in question, and had saved an important mail message into
your normal mail folder (mail.txt or mbox), or into another
folder, you may want that retrieved.


Thus, if you are a crab user, in one of the above partitions,
and lost an important file(s), that was created or modified
between august 18 and august 25th, please do the following:

1. send mail to "operator"  (not to me, not to staff, but 
to the name "operator"..that will send mail to the person
in charge of the restores). 

2. in the mail message, state the name of the file or files
that you need recovered.   If you dont know the exact name
of the file(s), tell us as close as possible.
If the file(s) existed in a subdirectory, tell us the name
of the subdirectory so we know where to restore them to.

3. If you are missing some mail, that you read that week, that
you saved in your normal mail folder, then the name of
the file to retrieve will be "mail.txt" if you use "mm", and
"mbox" if you using "mail".   Specify this when asking for
a restore.  This will be retrieved into
your account under the name "mail.txt.restore" or 
"mbox.restore", since we dont want to overwrite your current
mail folder.


When the restoration is complete, we will send you individual
email notifying you that your files are back.


Note - if you need to see a list of all files that were in
your account at the time the hard drive crashed (on august 25th),
a list will be made available to our operator, bill cornwell, 
and you will have to see him in person (he is in the operations
area in BSB).


Thank you for your patience...we aim to serve as best as
possible (with our limited staff size).