Sun-Spots Digest, v6n142
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at RICE.EDU
Tue Jul 19 12:29:32 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Monday, 18 July 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 142
Today's Topics:
Re: MacPaint=>SunRaster
Re: Centronics Parallel Port
Re: calctool funny
Contool version 1.1
Egregious Ciprico Warranty Policy
Investigation of viruses on VAX-11 and Sun
Strange Network Traffic (Booting a Sun)
wanted: cable info
Converting files to Sun: MacPaint, GIF, TIFF?
Exabyte buying tips?
A question regarding setting subnet masks
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 14:39:20 EDT
From: @zorac.arpa:tim at dretor (Tim Pointing)
Subject: Re: MacPaint=>SunRaster
Reference: v6n129
In v6n129, esosun!kobryn at seismo.css.gov (Cris Kobryn) writes:
> We need to convert MacPaint (or MacDraw) formatted bitmaps to Sun raster
> files. Any information regarding available utilities to accomplish this
> would be appreciated.
The Portable Bit-Map software package by Jef Paskanzer includes programs
for converting MacPaint bitmaps into PBM files and from PBM files into Sun
Raster files. The package (quite small and very useful) is available for
anonymous FTP from lbl-rtsg.arpa (I think that's the right machine -
that's where Jef's account is (jef at lbl-rtsg.arpa). It also includes
programs for converting PBM files to/from X-bitmaps, X11 window-dumps,
Sun icons (and a few others), and a dozen programs for doing some simple
bitmap manipulations (all deal with PBM files.)
Jef can be reached at:
jef at lbl-rtsg.arpa
{ucbvax, lll-crg, sun!pacbell, apple, hplabs}!well!pokey
sun!pacbell!sybase!jef
Tim Pointing, DCIEM
tim at zorac.arpa, uunet!dciem!tim
[[ A program that converts MacPaint files to sunraster format will be
appearing in one of the digests later this week. Watch for it. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 10:12:36 PDT
From: vsi1!lmb at sun.com (Larry Blair)
Subject: Re: Centronics Parallel Port
I've used both Sun's VPC board (actually a multibus board by Systech) and
the ALM-2 to drive a Dataproducts lineprinter. To do so, I needed to
write a filter. I've used this program successfully for over three years
now (in fact, a Sun engineer took a copy from me to give to other
customers). There may be a small bug with having a backspace at the
beginning of a line, but I've never bothered with it. If anyone
"improves" this code, I'd be happy to get a copy.
Larry Blair
VICOM Systems Inc. pyramid--------\
2520 Junction Ave. uunet!ubvax-----!vsi1!lmb
San Jose, CA 95134 sun------------/
+1-408-432-8660
____________________
/* Quick and possibly dirty program to print to a Dataproducts lineprinter */
#include <stdio.h>
#define LINESIZE 132
char outbuf[LINESIZE+3];
char osbuf[LINESIZE+3];
char inbuf[512];
char *iptr, *optr, *osptr;
int col, ncol, osflg, oscnt;
char c;
main()
{
optr = outbuf;
col = 0;
osflg = 0;
oscnt = 0;
insert('\f');
while((iptr = fgets(inbuf, sizeof(inbuf), stdin)) != NULL)
{
while(c = *iptr++)
{
switch(c)
{
case '\n':
print();
break;
case '\t':
do
{
insert(' ');
} while(col%8);
break;
case '\b':
ncol = col - 1;
oscnt++;
if(!osflg)
{
osptr = osbuf;
while(osptr - osbuf < LINESIZE)
*osptr++ = ' ';
osflg = 1;
}
while(*iptr == '\b')
{
ncol--;
iptr++;
oscnt++;
}
if(ncol < 0)
ncol = 0;
osptr = &osbuf[ncol];
break;
default:
insert(c);
break;
}
}
}
exit(0);
}
insert(ch)
char ch;
{
if(oscnt)
{
*osptr++ = ch;
oscnt--;
} else
{
*optr++ = ch;
col++;
}
if(optr - outbuf >= LINESIZE)
print();
}
print()
{
if(osflg)
{
*osptr++ = '\r';
*osptr++ = '\0';
fputs(osbuf, stdout);
osflg = 0;
}
*optr++ = '\r';
*optr++ = '\n';
*optr++ = '\0';
fputs(optr = outbuf, stdout);
col = 0;
oscnt = 0;
}
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 14:01:20 PDT
From: ultra!ted at ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ted Schroeder)
Subject: Re: calctool funny
Sorry to post this to the list, although some may be interested, but I
can't get mail through to Chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com.
A few weeks ago I asked for help on getting calctool up and working, the
boxes were in the wrong spots. It turns out that it was a problem with
the default font I use ( a non-standard default). One of the win_create
calls in the program used WIN_COLUMNS which is based on the default font
and so I was getting a wrong sized box. If you replace the
"WIN_COLUMNS,n" parms with "WIN_WIDTH,350" you get the right sized box no
matter what your default font is. That's because WIN_WIDTH works in
pixels and WIN_COLUMNS works in columns of width based on default font.
In general, if you want a specific sized box, it's probably a good idea to
use WIN_WIDTH instead of WIN_COLUMNS.
Cheers,
Ted Schroeder ultra!ted at Ames.arc.nasa.GOV
Ultra Network Technologies
2140 Bering drive with a domain server:
San Jose, CA 95131 ted at Ultra.COM
408-922-0100
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 08:55:27 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: Contool version 1.1
After several user suggestions, I have upgraded contool to version 1.1.
This version includes a new "pop open" feature, a new icon set, and a
better makefile. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.
Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
[[ The source has been placed in the archives under "sun-source" as
"contool.shar" (replacing the old version). It can be retrieved via
anonymous FTP from the host "titan.rice.edu" or via the archive server.
For more information about the archive server, send a mail message
containing the word "help" to the address "archive-server at rice.edu".
--wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jul 88 20:18:13 GMT
From: ron at topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie)
Subject: Egregious Ciprico Warranty Policy
I've been going round and round with Ciprico over the past few days and I
should point out a warranty policy that they have that was never brought
to our attention when we ordered the boards. All users and prospective
users should call Ciprico Sales and complain about this.
I have a Rimfire 3200 controller driving an Eagle on a Sun 3/180 (actually
I have nearly a dozen of these boards in various Sun 3's). We had
evaulated these boards and decided on them because they provide a
substantial performance gain over the Xylogics controllers that sun
provides with their Sun 3 disk systems. The board gave up the ghost after
three months, but as we have a year warranty (we thought) we swapped in
our spare board and called Ciprico for an RMA number to ship the defective
board back.
When one of my employees called, they told us that their return policy was
that I had to issue them a $200 purchase order to cover a penalty that
they would like to charge me if the board turns out not to be defective.
Well pulling purchase orders, that may or may not get used, out of thin
air is not something we like to do in the university. In ten years of
working with second-source peripherals for DEC, SUN, and IBM computers,
I've never come accross such a unconscionable policy on defective
merchandise.
The real problem is that Ciprico makes a complete line of very fine
products. I've spent a great deal of time with beta releases of drivers
and preliminary copies of manuals for some of their newer products and
they are technical department is as good as they come. I'd hate to have
to stop purchasing their equipment because I'm going to get screwed
everytime I get one that fails in the first year. (DOA's are a little
easier to handle, the University will not pay invoices for defective
merchandise). I urge everyone who is using or is contemplating using
Ciprico equipment to call their sales office. The number is (612)
559-2034.
-Ron
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jul 88 11:57:30 GMT
From: tmpspa at eua4.ericsson.se (Stefan Parmark)
Subject: Investigation of viruses on VAX-11 and Sun
I am investigating the possibilities to improve the security in Ellemtel's
internal computer networks. Previously department TE was connected to
Usenet via a phone modem. When they became aware of the danger with
viruses and trojan horses they 'cut' that connection. To reach Usenet, I
had to use a VAX from another department here.
TE has at its disposal a VAX 11/750 with 4.3 BSD Unix and two Sun 3's with
Sun Unix 4.2, which all are connected through an Ethernet.
In order to investigate the dangers of viruses, I tried to write one
myself, thereby being able to study its behaviour under controlled
conditions (of course !!). Unfortunately my efforts have not been very
successful yet.
If anyone has any experience with this, either on VAX or Sun, I would be
grateful for anything you could contribute with. Any source codes,
preferably in C or Assembler, are highly appreciated.
If you consider the information to delicate to spread on Usenet, you are
welcome to send me a private mail instead. After all, my job is not to
spread the knowledge of viruses to everyone, but to find a cure for them.
tmpspa at eua4.ericsson.se
Stefan Parmark
Ellemtel
[lvsj|
Sweden
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 14:07:43 PDT
From: pwl at tc.fluke.com (Paul Lutt)
Subject: Strange Network Traffic (Booting a Sun)
We recently purchased an Excelan LANalyzer board and Compaq PC for
analyzing our local ethernet. While familiarizing myself with this test
instrument, I decided to watch my Sun workstation (a diskless Sun-3/60)
boot single user. I'm seeing some interesting behavior that I hope
someone out in netland can explain. Here is the scenario:
======================================================================
1) The client workstation uses TFTP to boot the "boot" program.
(Everything looks reasonable so far.)
2) The boot program loads in vmunix through "nd" calls to the
server. (Still looks reasonable.)
3) Vmunix starts up. One of the first things it does is send out
a very strange looking ARP request:
Packet #1172: client -> ether-broadcast
ARP request (0.0.38.80 -> 0.0.38.80)
The source and destination internet addresses are totally bogus.
As expected, no ARP reply is ever received for this bogus request.
4) The client then sends a reverse ARP request to find out its own
internet address. The server replies with the correct information.
5) Now another funny packet. The client sends out a strange ARP
request:
Packet #1175 client -> ether-broadcast
ARP request (client -> client)
The client has just asked what its own ethernet address is! This
same request appears at least twice during the booting process.
======================================================================
Note that the workstation boots normally. I'm just curious why such
strange requests are being made.
As a side note, there was a recent posting in comp.sys.sun stating that
some nd error messages seen during booting are due to net mask traffic
directed at the booting workstation. I can confirm that this is probably
true.
During the booting sequence, the client sends a ICMP request for the local
net mask. In our case, all the systems on the network using TCP/IP try to
respond. Most systems start out by sending an ARP request to the client
to get its ethernet address so that they can then send the mask. During
the trace I ran, upwards of sixty systems sent ARP requests, followed by
ICMP replies containing the net mask. It seems likely that such volumes
of traffic directed at a workstation might indeed exhaust the buffer pool.
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this. I sometimes think we
were better off NOT knowing what was going on deep in the bowels of the
network. :-)
Paul Lutt
Domain: pwl at tc.fluke.COM
Voice: +1 206 356 5059
UUCP: {uw-beaver,microsof,sun}!fluke!pwl
Snail: John Fluke Mfg. Co. / P.O. Box C9090 / Everett WA 98206
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jul 88 22:03:32 GMT
From: horne at cs.utexas.edu (Patrick J. Horne)
Subject: wanted: cable info
We have some 300Mb washing machine sized disk drives that we are
interested in hooking up to our Sun computers using Xylogics 451 SMD
controllers.
The drives are currently connected to an AT&T 3B20 that we are not using.
The drives are made by Magnetic Peripherals Inc. (MPI) a division of CDC.
The AT&T model number is KS-22707 L6. I found an assembly number inside
the drive on an MPI sticker that said 77447026. I don't have any idea if
this number refers to the panel that it was on, or the whole drive. The
Control cable connector is a large rectangular 75 pin connector made by
Winchester and Amp. The mating AMP connector is part number 201311-1.
In the past I remember that someone else was using these drives on a Sun
system, but I could not find that message.
If anyone has the pinout of the disk drive it would be greatly appreciated
if you could send it to me via email.
Thanks.
Pat Horne CS Dept, Network Manager/Shop Supervisor
(512)471-9517 Univ of Texas, Austin TX 78712 UUCP:ut-sally!horne
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 12:04:02 EDT
From: mnetor!utgpu!utas1!utas!russ at uunet.uu.net
Subject: Converting files to Sun: MacPaint, GIF, TIFF?
Does anyone have public domain source to convert from of the following
bitmap image formats to SUN rasterfile?
MacPaint
GIF
TIFF
Any other so called standard...
Also I cannot seem to get the "touchup" utility to run on a SUN2/120
(SUNOS 3.0, 2Mb memory). Compiles fine but dumps core on execution. The
"fig" program works fine. Both programs were obtained from the sun library
archive server.
It may be useful to know ahead of time whether or not some of the sources
need some minimum harware or software requirements.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 88 15:29:39 EDT
From: Eric Ho <eho%reason.Princeton.EDU at princeton.edu>
Subject: Exabyte buying tips?
Does anyone has any buying tips for the Exabyte tape drives? I heard from
some people that they had difficulty in installing the drive - mostly with
the device driver. I wonder if anyone has any experience with the
following companies in terms of competence, delivery and maintenance
related to these kind of drives.
* Peripheral Devices Corporation. (of Paoli, PA)
* Total Tec Systems, Inc. (of Edison, NJ)
* Artecon, Inc. (of Carlsbad, CA).
* Apunix Computer Services. (of San Diego, CA)
* Eakins Associate Inc. (of Mountain View, CA)
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
[ eho at mind.princeton.edu ]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 88 17:08:42 CDT
From: "R. Wayne Little, Sci. Pgmr/Analyst" <C0018 at UMRVMB.BITNET>
Subject: A question regarding setting subnet masks
How does one set a subnet mask on a SUN?
Briefly, a subnet mask says to treat the masked portion as the network
address, and the unmasked portion as a host address.
In vanilla 4.3 BSD from Berkeley it is a parameter to ifconfig, e.g.
ifconfig ix0 inet -trailers netmask 255.255.255.0 inet_address
It doesn't appear in the ifconfig(8) man page in the SUN doc. Is it just
undocumented, or truly not there? If not there, how do I do it?
In case you're curious (& for general interest) here's a brief overview of
why we want to set the subnet mask. We have a class B internet address,
and are assigning the 3rd octet to departmental nets, and using the 4th
for host addresses (we're small enough that 254 per department is fine).
i.e. 128.256.Dept_net.Host
We want to use a 2 octet mask temporarily (255.255.0.0) to hook some
subnets together as a single network via repeaters until we get a router.
If we can set the subnet mask, we can use our official internet addresses
without having to change them when we get our router - i.e. we'll just
change the netmask to a 3 octet mask, making the host portion the last
octet, instead of the last 2 octets.
p.s. This is working between between a couple ethernets right now with
miscellaneous cpus & UNIX OS's, but we need to add in the suns & stir
well...
Thanks in advance,
Wayne Little
Computer Center, University of Missouri - Rolla
c0018 at umrvmb.bitnet
rwl at umree.uucp
------------------------------
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