experiences with SunOS4.0.1

[Bob Cunningham]

We received SunOS4.0.1 on Thursday, 1 December;  I'm in the process of
installing it on a series of various-model Sun3s here.

It basically just a collection of bug fixes for SunOS4.0.  It does not
require a complete re-install of SunOS, but does require taking your
machine down to single-user mode, running the tape and selecting which
fixes you want (no, you cannot simply apply them all, the documentation
says "this is for your protection"), rebuilding your kernal (including
client kernals if you're installing on a server), and rebooting.  One fix
require sinstalling a new disk boot block before you reboot.

In addition to reading the "READ ME FIRST" document that comes along with
the tape, you will almost certainly want to use tar to copy off the README
file on the tape itself and go through that carefully before you start the
actual installation.  It describes exactly what files are changed, and
what each change fixes.

If you run SunOS4.0 you definitely will want to install at least some of
the fixes, especially the ones that fix "interesting" potential security
loopholes.  I'm installing all the fixes on all of our machines here.

Here is a quick overview of most of the fixes for Sun3s:

	assertion failure panics
	some simple automount fixes
	bus eror watchdog resets
	several fixes to dbx
	format [also see note in READ ME FIRST about using this with
		MUNIX or from the miniroot!]
	fpaload
	fix for infinite loops in graph
	kernal crashes with streams NIT and IPC board
	kbdriver fixes fixing kadb
	ldcore fixes [this requires installing new boot block BEFORE reboot]
	fix for using kernals larger than 1MB
	various libc patches
	fix for security problem in login [you want this]
	lwp library linking fixes
	mb/mbugo fixes [kernal stuff]
	mmpeekio [more kernal stuff]
	various useful nfs fixes
	opreg [C float-to-double conversions]
	several rpclockd fixes
	an obscure fix to sa
	sdsci device driver fixes
	lots of serial driver fixes, including some ALM-II fixes
	sky fixes
	sysdiagp fixes
	TARGET fixes
	udpcksum/nfs fix
	uuxqt fix
	winlibs fixes
	ypbind fixes
	yppasswd fixs [security stuff you want]
	yppush

Notable omissions include:

	None of the sendmail, fingerd, etc. patches that were broadcast
	in response to problems from last month's Internet "worm".

	No fixes to ypserv for the problems it has with nameservers,
	timing out, and single-character hosts (we're on our 2nd or
	3rd round of such patches for ypserv from Sun, and it's likely
	that these fixes aren't yet complete).

The only problem I had related to some diskless Sun 3/50s that we were
running non-standard kernal configurations with.  They wouldn't boot
completely after installing SunOS4.0.1 on the server.  Turns out there was
no reason to actually run the unusual kernal configurations, and going
back to an essentially vanilla DL50 configuration gave us kernals that
booted quite nicely.