comp.answers,news.answersPath: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!howland.erols.net!torn!enews.sgi.com!coop.net!world!aplFrom:apl@world.std.com (Tony Lawrence)Subject:comp.unix.sco Technical FAQ (1/7)Message-ID: <G2CBuJ.Jo3@world.std.com>Approved: scoannmod@xenitec.on.caDate: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 23:27:55 GMTOrganization: http://www.aplawrence.comKeywords: FAQ SCO Xenix Unix Frequently Asked QuestionsFollowup-To:comp.unix.sco.miscLines: 936Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.unix.sco.announce:2477 comp.answers:42684 news.answers:193878http://aplawrence.com/search.html to find what you   are looking for.      Are there any screen savers?   Unix (and Xenix 2.3.4) have a built-in screen saver for VGA only. You   have to reconfigure the kernel for this to work. It doesn't work with   all hardware, but try it first. Also, it has been reported that VP/ix   may not be compatible with this screen saver. To enable the   screensaver, set the kernel variable TBLNK to the number of seconds of   inactivity which should trigger the screensaver, relink, and reboot.      Unixware users may use "vtblank" to dynamically set and adjust the   screen saver time      Roberto Zini:      If you're operating under X-windows you can use the PD program   xscreensaver; it comes with dozens of very nice screen savers you can   install on your system. You can find the 'xscreensaver' program on the   Skunkware CD-ROM; alternatively you can use the xlockmore program,   also available on the same CD-ROM.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      Is tar/cpio a good backup program?   tar is not; cpio is, to some degree. tar will not back up things like   device nodes (and, prior to OpenServer Release 5, it will also not   back up empty directories), so a tar backup will not catch anything in   /dev, for example, and you will find your device nodes missing when   you do your restore. cpio will catch these things.      Neither one is very good at verification. You can dd the tape to make   sure you can read the whole thing, and run it through tar or cpio ...   but they'll just check the file headers to make sure they make some   sense. If you need better verification, try one of the products listed   below. Most third-party backup programs do many things better than the   standard utilities included with the OS, including things like making   much better emergency recovery diskettes, byte-for-byte verification   (if you want), compression, more options for things like   nondestructive restore, etc. Many of us swear by them.      gnu tar is a significantly better backup utility, and is available on   many archive sites listed in the Administrative FAQ. There is also a   shareware tar/cpio archive checker called tapechk, written by Nigel   Horne <njh@smsltd.demon.co.uk>. A demonstration version is available   atftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/util/tapechk.sco.tar.Z      Commercial programs provide better solutions. The following vendors   offer backup programs for SCO, Linux and many other platforms:        * CTAR     * Lone Tar     * Microlite Edge          Also seehttp://aplawrence.com/Reviews/supertars.html      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I compress my backups?   Well, you could just run the output of tar, cpio, or whatever through   compress, but if even one bit of your tape or diskette goes bad,   you'll lose the rest of the backup. Not recommended at all, unless of   course you don't actually care if your backups work - but if you   didn't care, you wouldn't be doing any, right?      A better solution would be a third-party product. The next answer   lists a few ... if you produce, market, or use one that's not listed   below but which you feel should be, please send me the information.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      What are some third-party backup/recovery products?   There are a couple of categories here - products which are mostly   aimed at one or a small number of Unix machines, and those which are   aimed at enterprise-wide, multiplatform backup. The following two   lists are NOT meant to be all-inclusive, but merely a sample of some   of the better-known products.      First, the ones aimed at one or a few Unix machines:     * BackupEDGE (Microlite Corp., 2315 Mill Street, Aliquippa, PA       15001-2228;info@microlite.com; (888) BKP-EDGE or (724) 375-6711;http://www.microlite.com/)     * BRU (Enhanced Software Technologies Inc., 5016 S. Ash Avenue Suite       109, Tempe, AZ 85282;swinfo@estinc.com; (800) 998-8649 or (602)       820-0042;http://www.estinc.com/)     * Lone-Tar (Lone Star Software Inc., 13987 W. Annapolis Court, Mt.       Airy, MD 21771;sales@cactus.com; (301) 829-1622 or (800)       LONE-TAR;http://www.cactus.com/)     * Ctar (Unitrends Software Corp., 1601 Oak Street, Suite 201, Myrtle       Beach, SC 29677;sales@unitrends.com; (800) 648-2827 or (803)       626-2878;http://www.unitrends.com/)          These products tend to be fast and robust, generally offer data   compression, and tend to be able to handle errors on the backup media.   Many also include, or can optionally be purchased with, utilities to   create automated emergency recovery diskettes which are much   friendlier and easier to use than the ones you can produce with   standard SCO utilities.      Now, a few for those with more ambitious backup plans ... this section   is under construction and hopefully I'll have some more contact info   shortly.        * The Backup Professional (Lone Star Software Inc., 13987 W.       Annapolis Court, Mt. Airy, MD 21771; sales@cactus.com; (301)       829-1622 or (800) LONE-TAR;http://www.cactus.com/bp.html)     * ARCserve/Open (The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., 400 Encinal Street,       Santa Cruz, CA 95061;info@sco.com; (800) SCO-UNIX or (408)       425-7222;http://www.sco.com/)     * Legato (415) 812-6000          A variety of backup products was reviewed in the September 1997 issue   of SCO World Magazine.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      I don't like being restricted to 14 character filenames   If you're running Xenix, or a version of Unix prior to 3.2v4, I'm   afraid you're stuck. Unix 3.2v4, however, includes long filename   support on all EAFS filesystems. OSR5 adds two new filesystems, HTFS   and DTFS, which also support long filenames. Unixware 7 also supports   long file names. More information on long filenames can be found in   the section dealing with Unix.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I get a copy of adb?   If you have the Development System, you already have /bin/adb. If not,   you may need to grab a copy from your distribution, or it may already   have been installed, depending on your OS and version. It could be   called /bin/adb (older Xenix) or /etc/_fst (Unix and recent versions   of Xenix). If you don't have either of these, look through the files   in /etc/perms for them; in Xenix 2.3.4, you will find one of each,   which will be in fact the exact same file but on two different   diskettes. If the volume on which the file you want is mountable (you   can check this in the manual, or use the dtype command), then mount it   and copy the file off. Otherwise, use tar to extract the file, keeping   in mind that the filenames on your diskettes are all written with   relative paths (i.e. ./bin/adb, not /bin/adb). Note that if you look   in the Unix documentation, it may well tell you that you need   /bin/adb, when in fact it's called /etc/_fst.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      I can't find crypt   Most (all?) of SCO's release notes state that due to American   government restrictions aimed at trying to prevent unfriendly nations   from having access to data encryption technology, SCO does not ship   crypt with their products. If you live in the States and would like   crypt(C) and the crypt(S) libraries, contact SCO support. This is also   worth trying in Canada, as the particular regulation in question   permits export of such technology to Canada; however, I don't know if   SCO will honour such requests. There is also an international version   of crypt available from the usual places as lng225b.      Recently, some of the cryptographic restrictions have changed- for the   better, we hope, though plenty of stupidity still remains.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      What do I need to compile programs?   If you have free OpenServer, you already have a license to install the   development system; the Web page on which you license free OpenServer   gave you several keys and codes, including one to license the   development system.      Xenix, Unix and ODT do not ship with program development tools. These   are unbundled into packages known as Development Systems. The   rationale behind this is that many users of SCO systems are using   off-the-shelf software and never need to write a line of C code. If   everyone was forced to buy the development system whether they needed   it or not, some of the customers might get upset. There is a periodic   flame war about this; this is not the place to discuss it.      You can buy the Development System for any of the three environments   listed above as a separate package including the compiler, header   files, libraries, lex, yacc, linker, and other tools. Additionally,   development systems are available for other packages such as TCP/IP;   these development systems add the include files, libraries, etc.   required to program for the package in question. The ODT Dev Sys   includes the development tools for all of the other goodies (e.g.   TCP/IP, X) that are bundled into ODT. Since OSR5 generally bundles the   various runtime packages (e.g. TCP/IP) with the OS, it also bundles   the same development packages, so there are not the same development   system add-ons in OSR5 that there were in previous versions.      The "lxrun" package allows you to run many Linux programs on OSR5 and   Unixware; you could always compile on a Linux machine.      There are versions of gcc (the Gnu C Compiler) freely available for   SCO systems. On older SCO operating systems, however, you will   probably need the development system, as the header and library files   you need are part of it and not part of the operating system itself.   This problem has been alleviated in OpenServer Release 5, as the   headers and libraries are now shipped as part of the base operating   system and are available even if you have not purchased the   development system.      gcc sources and binaries for OpenServer Release 5 only are on the free   Skunkware family of CD-ROMs; for more info, seehttp://www.sco.com/skunkware/faq.html or read the section below   entitled "What is Skunkware?"      gcc sources and binaries are also available on Robert Lipe's home   page:http://www.dgii.com/people/robertl/ orftp://ftp.dgii.com/users/robertl/scods/ These are mirrored by SCO athttp://www.sco.com/skunkware/gds/ andftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/gds/   You can also look at a different version atftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/devtools/gcc/ andhttp://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/devtools/gcc/      For those who want to find this based on a keyword search: programming   programmer library libraries developer source      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      What does the NCALL kernel parameter affect?   NCALL controls the size of the kernel callout table. The kernel has   the ability to schedule some action at a given real time; this is   often used by device drivers and by the nap(S) system call. The size   of this table is set by NCALL. If the system message "timeout table   overflow" appears on your console, NCALL should be increased.      Increasing NCALL is not expensive in terms of memory or CPU overhead,   as the structure is small (16 bytes per entry) and stored sorted, so   it is best to be generous with these entries.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I reset the root password if I forget it? (part 1)   This procedure will work for Xenix, and for Unix as well if you are   using a very relaxed security level (one which stores encrypted   passwords directly in /etc/passwd). If you're using a higher security   level on Unix, look for part 2 below.      Boot the system from your emergency boot diskettes (if you didn't make   these and keep them up to date, shame on you, but you should be able   to use N1/N2 instead, and see the entry on crashing out of these   diskettes below). Next,   mount /dev/hd0root /mnt   ; this will mount your hard drive's root filesystem on /mnt. Edit   /mnt/etc/passwd. The first line will be your root line, such as      root:encryptedpasswordgoeshere:0:0:God,Everywhere:/:/bin/sh      Edit out the encrypted password (don't touch anything else!) so that   the line reads something like      root::0:0:God,Everywhere:/:/bin/sh      Save the file and shut down. Reboot from the hard drive. Your root   password has now been removed, and you can reset it normally.      Also seehttp://aplawrence.com/Boot/defs.html#bootfloppy.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I reset the root password if I forget it? (part 2)   This is another procedure involving manually editing files, and is   specific to SCO Unix 3.2v4.0 through 3.2v4.2. The location of the   encrypted passwords depends on the security settings. Look in   /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /tcb/files/auth/r/root; one or more of   these will be used depending on how you have security configured.   Follow the procedure in part 1 above; instead of editing /etc/passwd,   edit the appropriate file(s) from the above list, and delete the   encrypted password field. Note that formatting is critical; while you   can delete the contents of the field, you must not remove separators,   and making seemingly minor errors such as leaving blank lines can   cause problems. Save, shut down, and reboot. C2 security will complain   about what you've done; to make it happy, run /etc/fixmog. You may   also want to run /tcb/bin/integrity and /etc/tcbck.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I reset the root password if I forget it? (part 3)   This procedure will work for any variant of SCO Xenix or Unix. As   above, boot from your emergency boot diskettes and   mount /dev/hd0root /mnt   to gain access to your hard drive's root filesystem. Now, run   /mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/mnt/bin/passwd root"   (check the chroot man page for more info on how it works). As before,   shut down and reboot. It has been reported that on 3.2v4.2 (and   possibly others), this must be done in two steps:   /mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/bin/su root"   passwd   If it doesn't work with the quotes, try it without.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I crash out of the install script?   On OpenServer Release 5, boot from the boot diskette, and at the Boot:   prompt, type   tools   This is not an undocumented option to the boot command, but rather a   special line in /etc/default/boot on the installation diskette - so   you can't use it from anywhere but your installation boot diskette.      And you can't use it anymore at all. Tom Melvin pointed out:      The 'tools' option broke around 5.0.4 time - I know it does not work   in 5.0.5 or 5.0.6 Don't have a 5.0.4 box around to test it with.       Tom's right: I booted "tools" on a 5.0.6 install disk. Part of the   functionality of "tools" is still there (and in fact "tools" still is   a boot option. If you press F8, you get the same screen that "tools"   gave you directly, and you can do a shell escape. Unfortunately, so   far I haven't been able to see how you can mount the existing hard   drive. The old "hd0root" device is not there, and attempting "mount   /dev/hd0a /mnt" didn't work.      For older SCO Unix/Xenix/ODT releases, wait until the question early   in the process that asks you what your keyboard type is. For   character-mode installations, this is a regular textual prompt; for   ODT, it's a box in a curses-style installation program. How to break   out at this point depends on the OS. Under Xenix, press Del. Under   Unix, type shell and press enter. Under ODT, press Control-A.      Roberto Zini:      See alsohttp://www.sco.com/cgi-bin/ssl_reference?110414      How can I generate and save a debug logfile for an SCO OpenServer 5   installation or upgrade (not strictly related but worth reading :-)      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      Why can't fsck find my lost+found directory?   Because you don't have one. It's possible someone deleted it, but the   more likely cause is that you didn't use mkdev fs to create it.      One of the things that fsck looks for is inodes which are marked as   used (i.e. not in the free list) but do not have a directory entry   pointing to them. fsck will ask if you wish to reconnect these; if you   say yes, it will try to create a file entry in the /lost+found   directory on that filesystem. If there is no free space in   /lost+found, it is not safe to expand it because the rest of the   filesystem may still be corrupt; for information on this one, see   below. If there is not /lost+found directory, fsck will tell you that   it can't reconnect the file and the data in that file will be lost.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      I want more space in my lost+found directory   By default, the mkdev fs script creates 62 empty entries in   lost+found. If you'd like to make more, use a variant of the following   script:      for a in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   do  for b in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  do    > /lost+found/dummy$a$b  done   done   rm -f /lost+found/*   The above will create 100 entries. Season to taste.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I find out serial numbers of my various components?   For the OS itself, you can use uname. For Unix, use uname -X; it will   print (among other items) the serial number. For Xenix (at least   2.3.3, and probably other releases), uname -u will print the numerical   portion (e.g. if your serial number is sco012345, it will print   12345).      Starting in Unix 3.2v4.2/ODT 3.0, SCO added /etc/getserno. To find out   the serial number of a package, first find out what files are   serialized in that package using grep ser= /etc/perms/* (or   /etc/perms/packagename if you know it). Then, run /etc/getserno   filename, where filename is the name of one of the files that is   serialized during installation. Note that not all files listed may   actually contain a textual representation of the serial number (for   example, none of the binaries in the Unix dev sys do).      As a special case, the serial number of the OS itself can be found   simply by watching the kernel ID it displays at boot time (or look   through /usr/adm/messages for it).      Roberto Zini:      If one's interested in finding out the original activation key issued   during the OpenServer 5 installation (eg, widely used here before   submitting a commercial upgrade order), one could retrieve it by using   the following command:   grep IQM_ACTIVATION_KEY /usr/adm/ISL/iqm_file   Alternatively, try with the following:   grep IQM_ACTIVATION_KEY /opt/softmgmt/profiles/standard/SCO/Unix/*/iqm_file   where '*' is the actual OS5 version (eg, 5.0.5Eb)      Under SCO Unix 3.2v4.2:      grep IQM_ACTIVATION_KEY /install/iqm_file   Under SCO UnixWare 7:      grep ActKey /vad/adm/isl/ifile   [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I solve an "arglist too long"?   Wildcard expansion (globbing) is performed by the shell. There is a   limit of 5120 bytes (5k) for the environment and command line   arguments put together, in all versions of SCO Xenix and SCO Unix   versions prior to OpenServer 5; more on OSR5 later. See also TA   480563.      This is particularly likely to be a problem under X, as it has a habit   of using a lot of environment space. It is also a problem when running   a command such as ls *.c in a directory with a large number of files   which match the filespec.      The general solution is to construct your command in such a way that   it does not have to include all of the filenames on the command line.   You can use the echo command, which is built into the shells and   therefore is not subject to the 5k limit. For example, rather than rm   V*, you might try echo V* | xargs rm. A similar, but somewhat more   complex solution, might involve using the ls command to generate a   list of filenames, and then using a command such as grep to filter   them; ls | grep '^V' | xargs rm will perform the same task as the   above example.      You may also find the find command to be useful in this; however, it   works recursively so it may not be appropriate in a directory with   subdirectories. Please consult the man pages for each of these   commands to identify any unexpected side effects they may cause.      Another alternative, in cases where the environment is unnecessarily   large, is to reduce its size. If you have some environment variables   that you never use (be careful with this, as the system or some   commands may use things you don't realize), you can permanently remove   them in your .profile (or .login for C Shell users). You could also   temporarily remove some manually. To run a subshell without any of the   environment being passed to it, try running env - sh -c 'command'      OpenServer Release 5 makes two changes to cure this problem. The   default limit has been increased substantially (to 100k), which should   by itself fix almost all instances of "arglist too long". As well, it   is now a tunable kernel parameter, so if the default isn't adequate,   you can adjust it. One exception: /bin/csh still has a hard-coded   limit to the length of a line. If you are using csh, you may wish to   replace it with tcsh (discussed below).      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      What versions/configurations am I using?   WARNING: Many of these commands have different options under different   versions of different operating systems, and not all of them are   available under all versions of Unix, Xenix, and ODT. I've tried to   note such differences but I'm sure many have escaped my attention.   Take the following with a grain of salt. Unless noted otherwise, these   entries should be applicable to most/all systems.        * Kernel Configuration: configure -x | more (for Xenix, run this       from /usr/sys/conf; for Unix, run it from /etc/conf/cf.d). This       lists the current and default values for tunable kernel       parameters. Under Unix, /etc/sysdef prints information including       BTLDs (Boot Time Loadable Drivers).     * Software Installed: /usr/bin/swconfig -p and /usr/bin/swconfig -a       (both for Unix) print various information on installed software.       You can look at the permissions lists in /etc/perms/* but you       cannot tell from here which parts are installed; use custom for       that. Use /usr/bin/displaypkg to display software installed using       installpkg. Note that swconfig is not a terribly accurate guide.     * Hardware configuration: /etc/hwconfig -h shows most of the       installed hardware but not all of it; generally, things like       multiport cards don't show up here. Use /etc/hwconfig -hc on Unix       3.2v4.x or later and on Xenix 2.3.4     * System name, version, etc.: uname -X (Unix and Xenix 2.3.4) or       uname -a (Xenix 2.3.3 and earlier)     * Printer configuration: lpstat -t          Tom Melvin notes:      A new program with 5.0.6 is /etc/sysinfo      See alsohttp://www.cruzio.com/~jeffl/sco/versions.txt      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      I have a bad block on my hard drive   You will see error messages going by giving you the sector, cylinder,   head, and other nifty information regarding the error. If you can jot   this down, it makes it much easier to find the bad block without   having to scan the entire drive for it.      Shut the system down cleanly (using shutdown). If the error is on the   root filesystem, boot from emergency floppies; otherwise, you can boot   from the hard drive and enter single-user mode. The rule here is that   the filesystem on which the error is located must not be mounted while   you try to fix it.      If you have a SCSI hard drive, use scsibadblk. It ships with Unix   3.2v4.1 and 3.2v4.2, and ODT 2.0 and 3.0. For Unix 3.2v4.0, install   the 4.1 maintenance supplement or upgrade to 4.2 (not a bad idea   anyway). For Unix 3.2.2 or ODT 1.1, install unx347a (no longer   available). For Xenix 2.3.4, install xnx348a. For OSR5, scsibadblk was   rolled into badtrk, so just use badtrk. For older versions of Xenix or   Unix, you're out of luck. One other note about SCSI drives; many of   them will automatically remap bad blocks, so when you go to run   scsibadblk you will not actually find any bad blocks - even if you run   a thorough scan of the area where the bad block was reported. This   capability is called AWR/ARR. If you see a menu option called   something like "Modify target parameters", you can enable and disable   AWR and ARR.      If you're using a standard drive type (MFM, RLL, ATA, ESDI), use   /etc/badtrk. I'd recommend doing a thorough, nondestructive scan of   the area where the error message said there was a bad block.      Before doing this stuff, have a look at the manual for your specific   operating system to see any notes or recommendations made by SCO. If   you're not careful here, you might make things worse than they already   are (such as by doing a destructive scan, which will wipe out all data   on the area you scan).      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      My system is slow   First things first - make sure that somebody didn't accidentally turn   the Turbo switch off. Don't laugh - I have a client who regularly   manages this one. At some sites, it may be wise to disconnect this   switch entirely. It might also be wise to run the system's CMOS setup   program and ensure that primary and secondary cache is turned on,   unless you know for a fact that there's something in your system that   won't work properly that way. Turning on BIOS shadowing will generally   only speed things up at boot time; with the exception of vbiosd (used   to call real-mode video BIOS routines for video mode switching on some   video cards in SCO's X11R5 implementation), the BIOS is not used after   this point. If you gain the use of extra RAM by disabling BIOS   shadowing, you should certainly do so; even if you don't, there may be   cases where BIOS shadowing may lead to weird problems (I've even seen   a host adapter which wouldn't work at all if its BIOS was shadowed or   cached, for example).      Under both Unix and Xenix, you can use vmstat to give you an overview   of system performance. One problem is that it won't show you what   percent of the system's time was spent waiting on I/O devices, and   what percent was spent idle; these are both lumped together as idle   time. vmstat can be helpful in diagnosing excessive swapping, and in   finding if your system is CPU-bound.      Unix also offers sar, which is far more advanced than vmstat. It   reports on a wide range of system statistics including CPU utilization   (system, user, idle, waiting for I/O), memory use, disk cache   effectiveness, swapping/paging, and things you've never even thought   of. Note that under MPX, it may not be reliable; check your MPX   release notes for info (and for information on the mpstat and mpsar   programs). One third-party program which may be useful in conjunction   with sar is sarcheck (Aurora Software Inc., P. O. Box 1033, Plaistow   NH 03865, (603) 382-4200,http://www.sarcheck.com/,74013.1625@compuserve.com), which translates sar's results into   English to identify system performance bottlenecks and suggest   possible resolutions for these problems. sarcheck also works on   multi-processor systems.      There are some other utilities you may wish to use. Some freely-   available ones include u386mon, bcw, and cpuhog/iohog/memhog, all of   which are available in various TLSes (tls518 for OSR5, tls018d for   older versions- but not Xenix). u386mon is a general performance   monitoring utility which watches about as many different things as sar   (but presents the information in a full-screen display format); bcw is   the Buffer Cache Watch, which can help you see how well your cache   buffers are tuned for your system's actual needs; the hog programs   show you processes which are hogging those respective resources.      Another commercial product which may be of use is Olympus Tuneup   (Olympus Software, (408) 426-7582,olympus@olysoft.com), which will   monitor how your system is making use of tunable kernel resources and   can perform tuning for you.      Multiuser/multitasking/etc. operating systems love extra memory. Xenix   will use up to 16 MB; Unix will use much more (how much depends on   what version; check your release notes). There are several ways that   extra memory is used; here are three of the most important. First,   disk buffers; the system uses these for disk cache, and in general,   the more, the better. Second, to avoid swapping; while a virtual   memory system allows you to access more memory than you actually have,   doing so involves the hard drive, which is several orders of magnitude   slower than memory. Third, the system keeps recently-used programs in   memory; if you access one again, it doesn't have to be reloaded from   disk. There are tradeoffs between #1 and #2+#3; the more memory you   have, the more generously each can be configured. Note that adding   more memory will not cure CPU-bound processes, and will only cure   I/O-bound processes if it can be used effectively as a disk cache   (often it can, but not always).      Roberto Zini: I seem to remember that some "old" systems could start   crawling after adding more RAM; if I remember correctly, that was due   to the fact the CPU could not cope with the additional RAM since it   had too little internal cache. I'm not an hardware expert so the above   could be plain wrong nowadays; could you confirm that ?      Yes. CPU cache is still important- Tony Lawrence      Also, double check the "netstat -m" output; we're currently fighting   against a problem under SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 (fully patched) which   causes it to crawl when STREAMS resources get low. If you notice   non-zero values under the "fail" column, it's time to add more STREAMS   buffer by making use of the configure utility under /etc/conf/cf.d   (NSTRPAGES is the parameter to boost).      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      Why did my region table overflow?   Each process generally consists of several (usually, but not always,   three) regions - typically code, data, and stack. Two copies of the   same program running at the same time will often share code, reducing   the number of regions required; however, there's nothing to stop a   program from using more than three regions, either.      There is a tunable kernel parameter, NREGION, which specifies the   maximum number of regions available. This should always be set to at   least three times the number of processes (NPROC), and if you want to   be on the safe side, use four times NPROC. Note that in OSR5, by   default, both NREGION and NPROC are allocated dynamically.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I solve "fork failed: no more processes"?   This is usually one of two things. There is a tunable kernel   parameter, NPROC, which determines the maximum number of processes   that may be running at any time. You may have exceeded this limit. The   usual method of solving this is to increase it a fair bit and see if   the problem goes away. If you are running on OSR5, this is unlikely to   be the reason, as NPROC is allocated dynamically.      There is another tunable kernel parameter, MAXUPRC, which determines   the maximum number of processes any one user may have running at one   time. Under Unix, for example, a large number of mail messages being   processed at once may cause this to be exceeded by MMDF, usually   resulting in "uux failure - pipe broke" or similar messages. Once   again, increase it and see if the problem goes away.      Also, have a look at the console and/or /usr/adm/messages for any   system messages which appeared at the same time the user got this   message. They may point to another potential reason, such as being out   of swap space or exceeding NREGION (see the previous topic).      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How are minor device numbers assigned by mkdev hd?   Basically, they start at 64 (the major device number is 1) and go up   by 64 each time you run mkdev hd. Don't expect them to be in the same   order as your SCSI IDs for the drives unless that's the order you   added them in. Also, if you being running mkdev hd but do not complete   the process, it will generally already have assigned the next number;   the next time you run mkdev hd, it will add another 64 even though you   aren't actually using the last drive you started to create. This isn't   a problem; it just looks weird.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I install a BTLD on a running system?   Mount the floppy and run "btldinstall":   mount /dev/fd0 /mnt   btldinstall /mnt   [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I add a Zip or Jaz drive?   You need to have the SCSI versions- I don't know of any drivers for   the parallel port types. The SCSI versions are added as any SCSI hard   drive is: "mkdev hd". I'd suggest that you name the filesystem   something like "zip" or "jazz".      When you want to mount this, just "mount /dev/jaz /mnt" etc. If you   have enabled Dos filesystem support (on OSR5 "mdev dos" ), you can   mount Dos filesystems on these cartridges.      To create a file system on a blank or Dos cartridge, leave it   unmounted and run "divvy /dev/jaz" (or whatever you called it). Follow   the prompts to create a new filesystem.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      Where can I get older versions of SCO products?   You really should be upgrading. Even if you can find what you need   (usually it's TCP/IP that folks are looking for), it's going to be   very expensive- if you find it at all..      These folks MAY be able to help you: Blue Chip Computer Systems:http://www.bccs.com 310-410-0126.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I capture program screens to a file?   To capture text output, use "script". By default, the file will be   called "typescript", but "script myfile" will use that name instead.   Press CTRL-D when you are finished recording.      To capture X screens, the "xwd" program is simple to use. Open an   xterm, type "xwd > file" and (after pressing ENTER), just click on the   window you want to capture. The resulting file can be printed using   "xpr" or manipulated by graphic programs like "Gimp" and others if you   need to save it as .gif or some other format.      Tom Melvin contributed this:      No idea where I got this from, it's pretty old (Xenix days). Works   only on the console.   :   # Shell script to screen dump   # This will only work at present on the  main console   oldstty=`stty -g`   stty -echo ixon ixoff -ixany   /bin/echo '\033[2i\c'   head -25 > /tmp/screen.$$   stty $oldstty   # Ok now output the file to the printer   echo "\f" >>/tmp/screen.$$   lp /tmp/screen.$$   rm /tmp/screen.$$   Or get Chip Rosenthal's prtscrn from any of the 'comp.sources.misc'   archive sites it's in Volume 22 - This works very well on the console.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How can I increase the number of characters that are significant in passwords?   (This applies to 3.2v4.x and up)      Two factors control passwords: the maximum length that the password   can be, and how much of that is significant.      Both parameters are in /etc/auth/system/default. default:\        :d_name=default:\        :u_pwd=*:\        :u_priority#0:u_cmdpriv=audittrail,su,queryspace,printqueue,mem,termina   l:\        :u_syspriv=execsuid,nopromain,chmodsugid,chown:\        :u_minchg#0:u_maxlen#80:u_exp#0:u_life#0:\        :u_pickpw:u_genpwd:u_restrict@:u_nullpw:\        :u_suclog#0:u_unsuclog#0:u_maxtries#99:u_lock:\        :u_singleuserpswd:u_secclass=c2:u_integrity@:u_tcbpw@:\        :u_pwseg#2:\        :t_logdelay#1:t_maxtries#99:t_login_timeout#60:\        :chkent:   In the above example, u_maxlen#80 means that passwords can be up to 80   characters long, but u_pwseg#2 limits the significance to 2 segments   or 16 bytes (2 * 8). If you wanted 24 characters to be significant,   you'd change it to u_pwseg#3.     _________________________________________________________________      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I mount a CDROM?   Of course you've already run "mkdev cdrom", relinked the kernel and   rebooted.      In most cases, you can just do: mount -r /dev/cd0 /mnt   You may want to add: mount -o lower -r /dev/cd0 /mnt   To avoid getting everything in UPPER CASE.      If you get "No such device", you have not correctly identified the   device. Try "sconf -v" if it's SCSI; if IDE you are probably confused   as to it being master or slave or whether it's primary or secondary.   DO NOT assume that just because your system installed from CD that it   now has a clue where to look- it does not.      See the other CDROM related entries in this FAQ also.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How do I find out who or what halted my system?   First, look in crontab for a call to haltsys or init. Someone may have   added this for silly reasons.      If you think some privileged user or process has run /etc/haltsys, add   these lines to it right after the PATH= line { echo $0 `tty` `id` MYPROC=$$ NEXTPROC=$MYPROC while [ $NEXTPROC != 0 ] do ps -lp $NEXTPROC MYPROC=$NEXTPROC NEXTPROC=`ps -p $MYPROC -o "ppid=" ` done } | mail -s "haltsys was run" root   This will give you a full trace of where it was called from. You can   use a similar technique with /etc/shutdown.      You might also write a "K" script and put it in /etc/rc0.d.   Unfortunately, by that time there isn't as much information to glean   from the system. Adding to /etc/rc0 doesn't gain you much either, but   at least you know it was not a crash and you *might* still see a   suspect process in a ps listing.      [Table of Contents]     _________________________________________________________________      How can I regularly and reliably transfer data to a program running on another   machine?   You could write a client on the sending machine and a server on the   receiving end. Such network programs are not difficult, and you can   find many examples on the web in C, Perl and other languages.      However, consider that there are existing client/server programs   already: mail and remote printing.      A "printer" on the receiving end can instead process the data it   receives: seehttp://aplawrence.com/Unixart/printing.html for more   details on that sort of method.      With mail, you can set up an alias on the receiving end that runs the   program you need. That's done by including an alias that might look   like this: mydata: |/usr/local/bin/myprog   Mail sent to "mydata" gets piped to /usr/local/bin/myprog. If you   don't have access to the alias file on the remote machine, use   "procmail" (available from Skunkware).      The "mail" method has the additional advantage of including mail   header information that might be of use in some circumstances.      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