Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!sgi!wiltse@oceana.esd.sgi.com
From: wiltse@oceana.esd.sgi.com (Wiltse Carpenter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Telnetd problem in 3.2?
Summary: Details on dial box problem in 3.2
Message-ID: <45885@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 7 Dec 89 02:18:35 GMT
References: <8912010051.AA27187@sgi.sgi.com> <619@voodoo.UUCP>
Sender: wiltse@oceana.esd.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 22

In article <619@voodoo.UUCP>, zombie@voodoo.UUCP (Mike York) writes:
> 
> 	1.  The dial & button box does not work properly under 3.2, rendering
> 	our application next to useless for production (it doesn't impact us
> 	too much for developmenmt).  The hotline says this problem is fixed for
> 	3.3, but they haven't gotten back to us yet on what to do to fix the
> 	problem for 3.2.  Is the fix in 3.2.1?
> 
The problem with the dial box in 3.2 has to do with the dbtext() function.
If a program repeatedly calls dbtext() at a rate higher than the serial
link to the dial box can sustain, dbtext() will leave a file descriptor
open.  This bug has been fixed internally.  A work around for the problem
would be stat(2) the file ``/dev/dialwarp'' which is a FIFO used to
pass data from the application program to the dial daemon and check to
see if it contains more than say 8K of data.  If the FIFO is this full,
then the application should pause until it empties.  Note that each call
to dbtext() results in only 12 bytes of data and the dial box serial
line runs at 9600 baud so one needs to be calling dbtext() rapidly to
see the failure.

We will of course be fixing this bug in the next possible release, but
it is not fixed in 3.2.1.