Date: Sun, 14 Nov 99 15:51:10 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #33 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Sun, 14 Nov 99 Volume 12 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Ethernet interfaces and PPP framebuffer for sparc 1+ IPX ethernet fails test PC monitor on SPARCstation Possible submission ppp-2.3.10 pppd PPP on Solaris 7 (4 msgs) Sun Monitor--Making me Dizzy Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #32 (3 msgs) Used Sun Equipment Site +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com | | Requests: suns-at-home-request@net-kitchen.com | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 15:00:31 -0800 From: "Brian P. Costello" Subject: Ethernet interfaces and PPP To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > > > On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Jan Steinman wrote: > > > I just got a used SparcStation 20. It has both a 10-base-T and a AUI > > ethernet interface connectors, and doing "test network" at the ok > > prompt shows two different ethernet tests. > > > > However, I just installed Solaris 7, and it only configures one: le0. > > If there were two separate ports, I would have expected an "le1" or > > similar to show up configured. > You can have multiple network interfaces / addresses associated with one physical ethernet port. Use #ifconfig le0:1 to set up a logical interface. Check out the man page for ifconfig and look for where it show you how to set it up. I am not sure however how ipfilter works with logical interfaces. I am using a SS20 as my router using le0 for the connection to the DSL bridge and hme0 for the local LAN with ipfilter. Back in the slow days (before I had DSL, and before ISDN) I used my old SS10 to connect to my ISP. I was using a 33.6 modem and set /dev/term/a to 38400. The SS10 and prior machines have fixed serial port speeds. All modems (that I have ever used) can be configured to allow the terminal port to run at fixed speed using an AT command. I used aspppd with no real problems. It did take some work to get the chat script working properly but after that it worked very well. There seems to be a real disdain for aspppd but it worked great for me. - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 13:13:00 -1000 From: gasp@lava.net Subject: framebuffer for sparc 1+ To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com hi. could anyone point me in some direction as to which frame buffer would be the best one to put in a sparc 1+? i bought one for a "toy" and it didn't have a card in it. (teach me do impulse buys). tia brian - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 13:01:55 +0100 (MET) From: Gert Cuypers Subject: IPX ethernet fails test To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com Hello, at startup, when testing the 'net' (ethernet port I guess), my IPX says 'internal loopback test failed'. Does this mean that I can completely forget about using this machine in a (ether)network, or is it a configuration issue ? The battery of the IDprom is dead, so the ethernet ID is set to (I believe...) ff.ff.ff.ff or so. Will replacing the idprom (and reprogramming) solve my problem ? Does this sound familiar to anyone ? Bye, Gert - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 10:03:55 +0100 From: The Finn Subject: PC monitor on SPARCstation To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Hello all. Is it possible to connect a SPARCstation IPX to a PC monitor? I know that the 13W3 connector on the Sun only supplies the "Composite Sync" signal but my monitor requires separate Horizontal and Vertical Sync. Is there a way to build an adapter? I searched the Web for such a circuit but it seems that people is only interested in the opposite problem (IE: Connecting a Sun monitor to a PC!). Obviously my monitor supports all the freqs required by the IPX. Thanks. - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 22:26:54 -0500 From: ocsys@sover.net Subject: Possible submission To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com Hi, I have a few sets of older Sun FE handbooks I would like to sell. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to list these in the Suns-at- Home digest. Both sets are complete, in good condition and include volumes I and II. Thanks. Gerry Murphy Otter Creek Systems, Inc. ocsys@sover.net 802-352-9835 www.ottersun.com - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 13:04:08 +1100 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: ppp-2.3.10 To: Dwight McKay > Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 20:14:52 -0800 > From: "jc bernardo" > Subject: ppp-2.3.10 > To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com > > Hello All, > > I'm trying to configure ppp-2.3.10 on my ss4 running 2.5.1 ... > If anybody can help, I'd truly appreciate it. I can't move on without > ppp working properly. If you have used the default device configurations, the motherboard serial ports should be /dev/cua/a and /dev/cua/b on a Sparc machine. Are you sure that you've correctly set up all the scripts, config files, etc. with the right device names? Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 08:12:12 PST From: "v bender" Subject: pppd To: jcb@gurlmail.com JC, try /dev/cua/a. This is the clean and proper way of doing it. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 13:14:22 +1100 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 To: Dwight McKay > Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 08:14:29 PST > From: "v bender" > Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 > To: raypfaff@erols.com > > 1. Is there a way to achieve at least 2-3KB/s transfer rate on a Sun > SPARCStation 1+, and if so, what is it??? Assuming you mean how can you boost the serial port speed enough so it's not the limiting factor on your PPP link, you will need to buy a serial port multiplexer card from Magma (at "http://www.magma.com"), but the cheapest one (the LC 2+1 Sp, which provides two 128 kbps capable serial ports and a parallel port) will set you back US$275 to buy new (assuming the price hasn't dropped). I use one of these in my Sparc LX which acts as the gateway machine for my local network. > 2. Do the serial ports on a Sun SPARCStation 1+ in fact support variable > transfer rates between the modem and the serial port, or does it have to be > a fixed rate, and if so, what is the max. speed supported??? I spent weeks > on this and could not get it to work properly!!! You can probably vary the rate, but a fixed rate is always better, and the configuration of your modem and the Sparc hardware and software is *much* easier if you decide to stick with a fixed rate. On a Sparc 1+ you are really pushing it to do anything more than 19200 bps reliably with the on-board serial ports though. SunOS 5.6 and above has provision to use faster rates, but older machines don't have anywhere near enough CPU grunt to keep up... That's why Sun coded in the 38400 bps limit. > If you really want to do dynamic PPP or dialup to your ISP, I suggest buying > at least a Sun Ultra1, because they have modern hardware that will support > 56K and all the jazz. It's only on the very recent Ultra's than Sun decided to drop the old Zilog Z8530-based core and move to a different serial engine. The major problem with the Z8530-based SCC cores was the tiny FIFO buffer which requires far too much intervention from the CPU to stop it over-running at faster serial port speeds. However, I am very happy with the Magma boards, although they are fairly pricey if bought new. As well as the LC 2+1 Sp in the LX, I've also got a 4 Sp in my dial-in server machine (a Sparc 10 currently - soon to be replaced with an Axil 420 [SS-20 clone]). Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 17:56:20 -0500 From: adh@an.bradford.ma.us (Sandwich Maker) Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com "From: "v bender" " "(both SPARC and x86). My strong recommendation is not to waste your time on "aspppd as I've spent countless hours trying to get it to work and got zilch "out of it. Compiling pppd was a breeze and I got it up in running in 30 "minutes on Sun SPARCStation 1+. i had little trouble getting aspppd to work - but then, i already had a lot of uucp experience. "HOWEVER, older Sun hardware, namely SPARCStation 1, 1+, 2, IPC, IPX have a "38600 baud limitation on the serial ports. There is no way to achieve "56KBPS speeds on these machines. This means that if you hook up a 56K modem not true. if you have solaris 2, you can set them to 76800. "1. Is there a way to achieve at least 2-3KB/s transfer rate on a Sun "SPARCStation 1+, and if so, what is it??? i get 2-3k and sometimes even a little over on my ss2/weitek. this is with a moto 33.6 modem and the port set to 76800. "2. Do the serial ports on a Sun SPARCStation 1+ in fact support variable "transfer rates between the modem and the serial port, or does it have to be "a fixed rate, and if so, what is the max. speed supported??? I spent weeks "on this and could not get it to work properly!!! unix serial ports don't gracefully handle variable rates, but all modern modems can do automatic speed-buffering between port and line. the max speed supported with solaris 2 is 76800; 38400 with sunos4 - though there is a hack to allow 76800. whether a ss1+ could handle the interrupt rate... i can see it go over 16k/s on perfmeter on my machine. it would be soo easy to 'chip' the motherboard with an 85230 serial chip instead of the 8530, but we'd need a driver tweak to take advantage of the fifo mode. maybe if/when sun goes to open source... "If you really want to do dynamic PPP or dialup to your ISP, I suggest buying "at least a Sun Ultra1, because they have modern hardware that will support "56K and all the jazz. this here 'puter [ss2] does dialup static ip to my isp... yes, the ultras have better serial hardware. __________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay Rubber on the wheel is faster than internet rambler rubber on the heel - Lightnin' adh@an.bradford.ma.us Hopkins, Big Black Cadillac Blues - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 99 21:20:32 CST From: robert@bonomi.com (robert bonomi) Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 08:14:29 PST > From: "v bender" > Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 > To: raypfaff@erols.com > > HOWEVER, older Sun hardware, namely SPARCStation 1, 1+, 2, IPC, IPX have a > 38600 baud limitation on the serial ports. true. SORT-OF. see below > There is no way to achieve > 56KBPS speeds on these machines. This means that if you hook up a 56K modem > the best speed you'll get is 33.6, if you're lucky. FALSE TO FACT. modem will connect at 'whatever' rate. possibly even with compression. if the through-put on the analog side is higher, then the serial port, at 38.4k will be the limiting factor. ===== > Also, I am not sure if > the Sun serial ports support variable connection rates. > Some say you have > to have a fixed rate between the port and the modem, some say you can make > it variable; One way or the other, I have NOT BEEN ABLE to achieve more > than 1.02KB/s transfer rate, even though I made serial port transfer rate > modification in the PROM. EEPROM setting is essentially *irrelevant*, ASSUMING your software sets baud rate itself. > My answer to you is also a question to all the > Sun box users @ home out there: > > 1. Is there a way to achieve at least 2-3KB/s transfer rate on a Sun > SPARCStation 1+, and if so, what is it??? plenty of RAM, and an efficient O/S. SunOS 4.1.3/4, or one of the *BSDs that has efficient serial support. Solaris 2.x has too much overhead load, > 2. Do the serial ports on a Sun SPARCStation 1+ in fact support variable > transfer rates between the modem and the serial port, or does it have to be > a fixed rate, and if so, what is the max. speed supported??? I spent weeks > on this and could not get it to work properly!!! it is essentially a SOFTWARE issue, not hardware. thus it depends on dial-in vs dial-out, *and* the software you're running. HOWEVER, _if_ the *modem* will do baud-rate conversion, then there's *NO* reason to try to run 'variable' baud rate between the modem and the CPU. let the modem do the work for you. lock the cpu-modem data rate as high as possible, and let the modem worry about the rest of the details. As for speed settings, 38.4k is the highest _standard_ speed supported by the hardware *or* SunOS. The hardware supports 51.2K, and 76.8k. There are O/S hacks (trivial ones) for SunOS 4.x (at least) to support those speeds. useful *IF* you have the right 'weird" hardware to use those speeds. the hacks work reasonably well, on an *UNLOADED* machine (in the SS1+ class, that is -- on a faster machine they're 'no problem'). > > If you really want to do dynamic PPP or dialup to your ISP, I suggest buying > at least a Sun Ultra1, because they have modern hardware that will support > 56K and all the jazz. An Aurora serial SBUS card, or CENTRAL DATA (now DIGI) SCSI-based ports box will also do it. for a whole lot less than a U1. :) A SS10 with an Aurora card will do wonderfully. - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 23:40:29 -0600 From: "John E. Petty" Subject: PPP on Solaris 7 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com, v bender [I clipped out the message this refers to as it is the same pppd] [question that several people are responding to. --ddm ] I use the bundled asppp in Solaris 7 on my Sparc-2 with no problem. Netscape regularly shows transfer speeds in the 2.0-2.5KB/s neighborhood. Yes, that is with the hardware imposed speed limit of 38,400 bps. -- John E. Petty ~ 1983 R100RT and 1996 R1100RT-P ~ New Orleans, Louisiana ~ Secretary - Gulf South BMW Owners Club http://www.acadiacom.net/jepetty/la_ride.htm IBMWR Non-Anonymous Elf ~ http://www.ibmwr.org/ - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 17:40:14 -0800 From: "jc bernardo" Subject: Sun Monitor--Making me Dizzy To: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com Hello again, My ss4 running 2.5.1 with Sun Color Monitor NDP Model 4472 is flickering and giving me a headache. In Windows, that's adjusted by the refresh rate. Is there something similar for Sun? Thanks again, JC get your free gURLmAIL at http://www.gURLmAIL.com - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 22:38:32 +0000 (GMT) From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #32 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > If you really want to do dynamic PPP or dialup to your ISP, I suggest buying > at least a Sun Ultra1, because they have modern hardware that will support > 56K and all the jazz. There were a couple of fast serial port cards around a while back -- I can't remember who/where/what though. Apparently had a couple of decent UARTS (so probably not 16550s :)) on them and could do 115 and even 230kbit/s reliably (probably sufficient to even drive an external ISDN TA if that's your bag). Just the ticket for modern modem work, but I can't remember what to look for! It's probably cheaper in terms of investment and effort to use an old x86 box running a free Unix clone as a modem host/router/cache/proxy anyway -- that's the current state of affairs on my LAN. > yes; both will run late-model solarii. the 670 can have up to four > cpus, like a sparc-10 or -20. the ipx is about the speed of a sparc-2 > - slow by current expectations but adequate for quite a lot, > especially if you have only a dial-up internet connection. An IPX makes a fine X terminal, fileserver and general Solaris portability tester for me. Add a Weitek 80MHz CPU and you've got something that starts to rival low-end 10s, 20s and SS4/5s. (No, I haven't yet got a Weitek; if anyone in the UK has them at a sensible price...) pete - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 18:22:55 -0500 From: "Clarence W. Wilkerson" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #32 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Faster PPP on Sun Sparc 1+: There is one thing you can do - a) disable compression in the two modems b) enable compression before the modems in the the two ppp setups. a) may seem counter-productive. But the bottleneck is the speed into and out of the modems. No matterwhat, you're not (without hardware/rom changes) going to get better than 38kbits into the modem or out at the other end. So the perhaps better rate produced by the modems in compressed mode is invisible to the outside. b) allows with at least some data an effectively higher transfer speed into and out of the serial ports. For some highly redundant date, the gain can be quite striking. I did an "iozone" benchmark on a remotely mount drive attached via a ppp link with the compression turned on, using a 28.8kbd modem and go a speed of over 50kbytes/second reported by "iozone". No one should that this is typical. But I did get 3-3.4 kbytes/second out of a pair of 28.8kBd this way. I suspect that even if you could set the serial port baud rate to 56k or 112kbd, that the interrupts would prevent a lot better thoughput. Good luck, Clarence Wilkerson - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 19:12:53 -0800 From: Lyle Bickley Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #32 To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com > I have an SS1 at home, and was trying to find out what the pinout is for the > audio connector. I have looked at the FAQ which says to look at the hardware > reference. No information in there. Does anyone know what pins are used for > what? As I recollect, the SS1 uses a 3/6x motherboard. Here's the info you need: The serial ports conform to both RS-232-C and RS-423 and are wired DTE. The pinout of the serial ports is: 2 TxD (transmit data) 8 DCD (Data Carrier Detect) 3 RxD (receive data) 15 DB (transmit clock from DCE) 4 RTS (Request To Send) 17 DD (receive clock from DCE) 5 CTS (Clear To Send) 20 DTR (Data Terminal Ready) 6 DSR (Data Set Ready) 24 DA (transmit clock from DTE) 7 GND 25 VERR (-5V) Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley | Bickley Consulting West Inc. lpb@cerfnet.com | http://www.cerfnet.com/lpb/ V 650-428-0621 | F 650-428-0599 "Black holes exist where GOD is dividing by zero" - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 14:14:02 -0500 From: "Don Woodward" Subject: Used Sun Equipment Site To: I would like to invite everyone to come and browse our website at = www.sunsunsun.net - we want to be a resource for your Sun needs at home. Don Woodward www.sunsunsun.net - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************