Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CS.NIU.EDU!rickert
From: rickert@CS.NIU.EDU (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.encore
Subject: Installing Umax 4.3.
Message-ID: <9006081439.AA01527@cs.niu.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 90 14:39:42 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 82


 Well we finally received the Umax 4.3 software about two weeks ago.  I eagerly
opened the box, and pulled out the INSTALLATION NOTES so that I could begin
my planning.  I particularly wanted to do some preparation before partitioning
the disk.

 Unfortunately there was no such information.  All the INSTALLATION NOTES said
was to run a script which would do it all automatically.

   Thanks a whole bunch, Encore.

 Well not to be daunted, I did the best I could, and used there installation
script.  What an incredible pain.

 I had to do some partitioning by hand, after running the script, just to
have big enough user partitions.  But, as I feared, the non-selectable
choices of the install script were all wrong for me.  It means that some
time in the new few weeks I will need to repartition the disk, and again
restore all the file systems.

 The trouble didn't end with the partitioning problems.  (I had anticipated
them at least).

 Here is a catalog of problems to watch out for.

 1.  When the system first boots, the 'sendmail' daemon is started.
     Fortunately I anticipated this, and immediately killed it, and
     renamed 'sendmail' so it would happen again.  I can imagine the
     next time a neighbouring machine runs its queue and all the mail
     starts coming in to a system with only 'root' in the password file,
     so all mail is rejected.

 2.  The system started 'inetd', which means that anyone could probably
     login while the non-password protected 'root' is the only user.
     Fortunately we did not have any problems.

 3.  After following all the instructions to recover old password files,
     group files, etc, I naturally tried rebooting the system.  With
     great amazement I discover that it boots from the 'bkuproot' partition
     instead of the 'root' partition.  (Of course the 'bkuproot' partition
     still has only 'root' in the passwd file.)

 4.  When, because of the preceding problem, you boot from 'bkuproot' instead
     of from 'root', the 'fstab' file says that '/dev/root' is mounted on '/'
     whereas actually '/dev/bkuproot' is mounted.  I don't know whether this
     is why 'fsck' kept complaining about the root partition.

 5.  Trying to correct the boot problem, I tried running 'devconfig'.  This
     software turns out to be brain dead.  You basically can't run it (in
     interactive mode) from a printing terminal.  It generates a line feed
     after every input character.

     Worse still, 'devconfig' can get you hopelessly stuck.  When creating
     a new device definition for a partition you built by hand, if you
     accidently accept the default '0' for the slot number, it doesn't
     complain till you enter a partition number.  Then it gets into an
     endless loop of demanding a correct partition number, and rejecting
     everthing you enter.  You can't get out with ^C or ^Z.  You have to
     login to another terminal and kill the job to escape from this disaster.
     If you shut down the network daemons because you didn't want any logins
     till you had finished configuring, and the console was all you had, this
     meant hitting ^P, and rebooting the system.

     Basically I had to do raw boots only until I had the system running
     well enough that I could login at a video terminal and run devconfig
     to fix up the bad DCT entries.

     All this would not have happened if I had been able to install by hand
     instead of running that automatic script.

 Well good luck to anyone who hasn't yet installed 4.3.  I hope this helps
 you prepare.

--------------

 And thanks a whole bunch, Encore.  Next time can you just give us the
 information we need to do the installation by hand if we want to.

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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Sci Dept, Northern Illinois U., DeKalb IL 60115
  InterNet, unix: rickert@cs.niu.edu              Bitnet, VM: T90NWR1@NIUCS
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