Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!yale!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!arisia!sgi!shinobu!odin!ramoth.esd.sgi.com!msc From: msc@ramoth.esd.sgi.com (Mark Callow) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: elementary problems Message-ID: <2961@odin.SGI.COM> Date: 18 Jan 90 22:46:40 GMT References: <6094@alvin.mcnc.org> <310@nbivax.nbi.dk> <2919@odin.SGI.COM> Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM Reply-To: msc@sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Entry Systems Division Lines: 68 In article <6094@alvin.mcnc.org>, spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont) writes: > Our machine goes graphically catatonic when the nameserver dies on us. If a > person is already logged on and has several windows open, everything still > works in the already opened windows, but no new windows may be created. It > seems that every time a new wsh is spawned, the wsh has to look up who it is > running on so that it can talk to the window manager. Both wsh and the NeWS server use the host database access routines documented in section 3 of the manual. These routines go to the nameserver if you have a /usr/etc/resolv.conf file. There is nothing that wsh or NeWS can do to prevent this. wsh looks up localhost and probably doesn't have a problem as long as you have software loopback correctly configured. But when NeWS receives the connection request is does a getpeername(3) followed by a gethostbyaddress(3) to determine the name of the host attempting to make the connection. This is almost certainly the lookup that fails. > > If you are not logged on and attempt to do so, the screen will blank, a white > cursor arrow will appear for a moment or two, and then the screen returns to > the login prompt with a message to the effect that the window manager has > exited with an error (or status, I don't recall the precise wording) code of > 1. Effectively, the machine become useless, graphically, until the nameserver > returns from the dead. The NeWS server looks up its own hostname using gethostbyname to find its official name. This status message means that the lookup failed. (There is an fprintf right before the exit that explains the problem. For reasons I don't yet understand the message fails to appear.) > > Is there any easy (or not so easy) way to make the machine default back to > host tables or in some other manner figure out who it is so that it can open a > graphic window? I don't know of any in release 3.2. In the next release there is a new call sethostresorder which essentially lets you define a search path for resolving host database queries. You can be sure I will modify the NeWS server to use this call. It will then try the /etc/hosts file when the nameserver fails. > > BTW, we have a 4D/280GTX running 3.2. We have the idiot pandora stuff turned > off at login and don't use WorkSpace if we can avoid it (I could rant at > length about turning a powerful computer into a Macintosh, but I'll leave it > at for an experienced UNIX user; e.g., one with more than five minutes > experience, silly graphical interfaces are more of a hinderance than a help). Personally I love pandora but then I hate typing. I also like using WorkSpace but we all know it leaves something to be desired when doing software development. The first release was only ever intended to support users running applications. Future releases will have features to support software developers. I also find the visual adminstration tools very helpful especially the printer tool. Before that I was always seeking out our printer expert to ask him how to do what I needed. Now I can do it myself. I was a system adminstrator for several years but that system V lp stuff is simply awful and my brain refused to learn it. I'm so glad we've hidden it. Do you hate all graphical tools? We have some really neat ones coming. Don't miss out. -- From the TARDIS of Mark Callow msc@ramoth.sgi.com, ...{ames,decwrl}!sgi!msc "There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play. It strongly defines its content."