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20000207: solaris for intel, SHMMAX

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200002072008.NAA25577 McIDAS-X Solarisx86

Alan,

>Have hit a snag while installing solaris for intel on another
>Gateway machine.  Already have done this a few times, on identical
>machines, so know it can work.
>
>During the install, there were no statements about any part of the disk
>being bad, and I chose the install type as Initial which is supposed to 
>overwrite earlier files on the disk.

OK.

>After completing an install that showed no problems, I continued with
>the segment under the title 'preparing the workstation' and the 
>section dealing with shared memory.  

OK.

>Edited the /etc/system file with the forceload and set statements as directed.
>Rebooted.

Are you sure that there were not typos?

>The command /usr/sbin/sysdef | grep SHMMAX  still came back empty, 

It should look something like:

 268435456      max shared memory segment size (SHMMAX)

>so I looked at the output of 'sysdef'.  Found quite a few lines, but
>very little after the labeled section 'Tunable Parameters'.  Only about
>2 or 3 blank lines after that point, with the last one reading
>       Segmentation Fault

I would drop back and do the following:

o remove (or comment out) the lines you added to /etc/system
o reboot
o refun sysdef and see if you still get the Segmentation Fault

>Checking another twin machine, sysdef returns lots of stuff after the 
>Tunable Parameter section, including lines about shared memory and 
>the SHMMAX statement.

This is as it should be.

>So, what is the line  Segmentation Fault telling me ?

It is like sysdef is dying, but I can't be sure.  Is this machine accessible
over the net?

>This was the 2nd install of solaris on this machine, as we had a failed 
>make when trying to build mcidas.

What was the indication for the failed make?  What prompted you to reinstall
the operating system?

>I suspect that the  SHMMAX statement
>had not been checked after the initial edit of /etc/system, so we thought
>we had set the shared memory, but it had not worked, just as at present. 

On the previous installation of Solaris?  Shared memory is not needed to
build McIDAS-X.  It is only needed to run McIDAS-X sessions with more
than one image window.

>Thats all I can think of for background on this machine for now.

Would it be possible to get a login to this box (and get root privilege)?
Perhaps there is something wrong with the sysdef program; perhaps something
else.

>Thanks

Tom

>From address@hidden  Tue Feb  8 07:40:32 2000

>I am sure I had the forceload and set commands typed correct when I 
>edited etc/system.

>I do not recall why the make failed, pretty sure we had the gcc and f2c 
>all in the right places.

>At any rate, the machine is met56D,  199.17.31.14,
>but I did not finish the network configuration stuff after the install.
>I will work on this today, but won't be done right away as I have a class.
>Will  try and have network config done by 1 pm our time.

Alan 

>From address@hidden  Tue Feb  8 10:26:10 2000

Hi Tom

>I finished the network configuration items and met56D can 
>connect to the outside world 

alan

>From address@hidden  Tue Feb  8 17:12:03 2000
>To: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>cc: address@hidden,
>        "Mike Schmidt" <address@hidden>
>Subject: 20000208: sysdef core dumps on St. Cloud State Solarisx86 box (cont.)

Alan,

After thrashing around on your machine, I called in an expert, Mike Schmidt.
Here is what he had to say/did:

>This is a known problem on some installations.  I have applied patch
>107129-01 to Alan's system and sysdef seems to work.  The description
>contained in the patch is as follows;
>
>> Patch-ID# 107129-01
>> Keywords: sysdef SEGV modctl MODGETPATHLEN
>> Synopsis: SunOS 5.7_x86: /usr/sbin/i86/sysdef patch
>> Date: Jan/08/99
>>
>> ...
>> Problem Description:
>>
>> 4187740 sysdef command causes SEGV in x86 machine
>
>mike

Mike,

just rebooted Alan's machine and have verified that sysdef works as you
indicated:

/usr/sbin/sysdef | grep SHMMAX
 536870912      max shared memory segment size (SHMMAX)

and that shared memory is setup correctly.

Thanks!

Tom

>From address@hidden  Wed Feb  9 09:41:33 2000

Alan,

>Thank you for providing the patch on our machine.  
>
>One more question.  Do you have any idea as to why 
>this problem occured, especially since we have installed 
>the same software (from the same CD) on several other
>machines, some identical in terms of hardware to this last.

It is likely that the machines are not 100% identical.  Like Mike said
in his earlier not, the sysdef problem was experienced on certain
hardware configurations and not others.

>Again, thanks for the great service.

You are welcom.

Tom