Return-Path: Received: from gs69.sp.cs.cmu.edu by K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa16083; 21 Jul 92 18:52:36 EDT Received: from gs69.sp.cs.cmu.edu by GS69.SP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa05682; 21 Jul 92 18:52:10 EDT To: bovik@CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Setting Up SLIP On A Sun-3 Cc: elf@CS.CMU.EDU, gripe@CS.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 18:52:03 -0400 Message-ID: <5680.711759123@GS69.SP.CS.CMU.EDU> From: Jonathan_Hardwick@GS69.SP.CS.CMU.EDU A few months back I asked cmu.cs.unix-forum for advice on how to set up a Sun-3 at home and hook it into the net via SLIP over an MCN connection. Here is the distilled wisdom resulting from that question. I'm cc-ing gripe because Paul Parker reckoned they might want to keep a copy of this for future reference, and/or take bits of it to incorporate into the current slip.help file. ------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------ Setting Up SLIP On A Sun-3 -------------------------- Jonathan Hardwick, jch@cs INTRODUCTION: This file details my experiences setting up a Sun-3/50 workstation to use from home as a glorified X terminal. It is intended to help those wishing to pursue the same (or similar) route in the future, and to take some of the load off all the people who had to answer my dumb questions. WHY DO YOU WANT X11 AT HOME?: I assume that you are fed up with 80x24 dumb terminals. This is a personal thing; I know that I can write better code, and faster, if I have lots of big windows open at once, with full mouse support. Some applications (ie previewing .dvi or .ps output) are impossible to do without X. But be warned that graphics-intensive stuff will run slowly over a phone line. X was built with 10Mbps ethernets in mind, and it doesn't take too kindly to being throttled back to just 2% of this. PREREQUISITES: 1) 19.2kbps MCN connection and DOV modem, *or* a standard high-speed (eg V.32bis) modem. The second option saves $25/month in MCN charges, but means that you have to compete with everyone else for the high-speed SCS modems, as opposed to keeping SLIP up indefinitely over MCN. This document assumes the use of MCN. 2) Sun-3 workstation with SunOS, X11 and a hard disk. GETTING A NAME: Tell gripe what you want to do. They'll tell you to run the netregister program, which adds your chosen machine name to the database. In a couple of days, hostq will recognize your machine name. You're in business. GETTING THE SOFTWARE: Next, you want to hook your machine up to the Ethernet at school to get the software you need. Ask gripe's permission first. You'll probably need to do something like ifconfig le0 up to configure your ethernet interface once you're plugged in Now you have two choices: Solution 1: Facilities has built a Sun-3 MACH kernel with SLIP support. Talk to Paul Parker; he'll point you in the direction of the kernel and other goodies. Install-and-go, using the slip.help file. Solution 2: If you're short of memory (ie a standard 4 Meg Sun-3/50) the MACH kernel may be too big -- you'd spend all your time swapping between MACH, X11, and whichever xterm you were in at the time. Instead, you can get the standard SLIP distribution and build it into your SunOS kernel. The prime archive site is ftp.cs.toronto.edu. There are different versions for SunOS 3.5 and SunOS 4.0. Doug DeJulio has built the 3.5 version; I built the 4.0 version. They are significantly different, and the rest of this text is oriented towards the 4.0 version. Note: you *still* want to talk to Paul Parker and get a copy of the slip.help file. INSTALLATION: Just follow the instructions for your SLIP software. Even building a kernel for the first time is easy on a SunOS system, since they supply a hand-holding README file. Things can get a little more tricky if you are anal-retentive about building the smallest kernel possible. For people wanting to build sub-500k-size kernels, I recommend the nutshell book "System Performance Tuning", by Mike Loukides, published by O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 0-937175-60-9, $24.95, or I have a copy you can borrow. I can also give you the config file I used. BOOTING: When you have a SLIP-capable kernel, and have verified (whilst still within easy reach of an ethernet tap) that you haven't broken anything, disable the ethernet stuff, take the machine home, and hook everything up, connecting the serial line from the modem to eg serial port A. First priority is to check that you can make a normal connection, using either tip or kermit. Kermit is less intimidating and needs no startup file, but doesn't want to go above 9600 bps. This is only important for the SunOS 4.0 SLIP software, which can't change the line speed of the SLIP connection by itself. Tip needs more effort, but handles 19200 bps and is available in a SLIP-specific version (see later). The slip.help file explains the use of kermit, so I'll concentrate on explaining tip. Add an entry to /etc/remote that looks something like this: annex:\ :dv=/dev/ttya:br=#19200:nt: Then type eg: tip annex and you should be connected. If tip complains that you don't have permission to access /dev/ttya, check two things: 1) any lock files in /usr/spool/uucp? Remove them. 2) the owner of tip; mine was setuid uucp. Make a root-owned copy of it, and try again. See tip(1) for more information about tip's commands -- the three important things to remember are that ~ at the start of a line is the escape character, and you can then hit Ctrl-D to quit tip, or ! to escape to a subshell. From inside tip, hit RETURN until you're at an "annex:" prompt. Type the command "slip". The annex box should tell you its server IP address and the local IP address which you have been assigned. It will then wait for you to start up SLIP. Get back to a root prompt without leaving tip (the easiest way to do this is to escape to a subshell). Start up SLIP. With the SunOS 4.0 version, I type: sliplogin < /dev/ttya & The MACH and SunOS 3.5 versions need: slattach ttya 19200 sliplogin/slipattach should now take over the /dev/ttya connection, so you can quit out of tip/kermit. MACH/SunOS 3.5 versions also require: ifconfig sl0 -trailers up After all this, you should be able to ping the server IP address. To do anything more useful, you need to tell your machine to forward all IP traffic through the server, ie: route add 0 1 Now you should be in business, and able to telnet/ftp/xhost/etc to any internet-connected machine. One problem is that each time you connect up to annex, you'll get a different server and local IP address. To get something more permanent, type "slip" at the "SERVICE?" prompt of MCN, then enter eg your andrew id and password when prompted. After you answer a series of questions about what machine you're using, who you are, etc, Data Communications (dc0m+@andrew) should get back to you the next day with an assigned local IP address. FINE-TUNING: You probably want to start up an xterm with the -C option, which redirects all console output to that xterm. Otherwise the console messages produced whenever SLIP goes up or down get splatted across your X display. The SLIP for SunOS 4.0 occasionally produces "sz0: silo overflow" errors on the console, presumably because the Sun's serial interface chip is overflowing. These can be reduced by configuring the straight-line path in tty_slip.c to be as short as possible (#undef SLIP_FASTECHO, #define SLIP_UCACHE, #undef SLIP_STATS). In the slipware.tar.Z file (from the archive site) is a version of tip with SLIP support. This tip can start up SLIP as soon as the connection goes through, and adds limited scripting support, so that you can automate the whole process. However, since it expects to find the server and local IP addresses in /etc/remote, you really need an assigned local IP address before you start playing. THANKS TO: Paul Parker, Karl Kleinpaste, Doug DeJulio, Tom Holodnik, Bennet Yee, Randy Dean, and David Eckhardt.