problems with AIX (and are they fixed in new loads)

[Russell A. Heise]

 geoff at edm.uucp (Geoff Coleman) writes:

 > ...
 > 1) bi-directional line support
 >         I have tried a number of times to set a getty as being bi-directional
 > but have had no luck in being able to call out on this line. It would appear
 > that getty locks the line as soon as init fires and that cu (or uucico) can
 > then not gain access to the line.
 > ...
 No, this does not appear to be fixed in later releases.  If you enable the
 line with pdelay or pshare, you can use cu or uucico to dial out.  However, if
 the line is not active and getty sees a call-in, getty locks the line and
 then leaves the lock file after the call-in user has logged out.  You may
 want to contact your local IBM representative and have him/her report the
 problem as a Software Defect.

 > 2) cron
 >         We are having a couple of problems with cron. THe first is that
 > it doesn't seem to want to allow other people access to cron.
 > ...
 >         The other problem that we are having is that cron's idea of time
 > is relative to EST or some other Time Zone not the MST that the machine is
 > running under.
 The later releases do not show this behavior:  with proper cron.allow, all
 users can use cron.  The time is also in sync with the machine time.

 > 3) parallel device
 >         How do you configure the printer to accept a line more than 80
 > characters wide. I assume that this is done through smit but in our load
 > the change characteristics command for smit does not work.
 Yes, the later releases of smit properly change the "Number of COLUMNS per
 page" value for the printer.  A wide printer would need some value > 80.

Russ Heise, AIX Technical Support, IBM
rah at ibm.com