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Path: nlbbs!jaxsat!pagesat!netsys!agate!howland.reston.ans.ne !europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!organpipe.uug.arizona.edu!news From: rawn@lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Rawn Shah) Newsgroups: comp.answers,news.answers Subject: (PC)NFS & related topics FAQ [part 02/06] Summary: This is the FAQ list about PC & Macintosh based NFS & TCP/IPproduct for readers of comp.protocols.nfs &comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Message-ID: <278263$rgi@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> Date: 15 Sep 1993 21:41:23 GMT Reply-To: rawn@rtd.com (Rawn Shah) Followup-To: poster Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group Lines: 951 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU NNTP-Posting-Host: lead.aichem.arizona.edu Archive-name: pcnfs-faq/part2 Last-modified: 1993/09/06 Version: 1.4 C-4. How can I test NFS performance? The following information does not contain information on LADDIS which is a newer test suite for NFS systems. Please look at C-10 for information on LADDIS. The following is a post from the archives from a while back which answers this directly: As it turns out, there's a surprising amount of software floating around that looks at NFS. Such software includes: nfswatch -- curses-based promiscuous NFS monitor. This program prints out a running tally of how many of each type of request comes in, and of which file systems are the most heavily used. Nfswatch can be used to look at traffic to individual files, too. This is anonymously FTPable from icarus.riacs.edu. server_stat -- a NFS monitor program that runs on Encore Multimaxes. This shows information on hosts, users, and NFS request types performed. This is capable of talking to a rpc.srvstatd process on another machine, though I don't know of other machines that support the Encore srvstatd program. nfsstone -- the Encore NFS benchmark, as presented in: Shein, B., Callahan, M., Woodbury, P., NFSSTONE: A Network File Server Performance Benchmark, Usenix Summer 1989 conference proceedings, pp 269-275. This is a synthetic benchmark load, with an empirically- determined mix of operations. nhfsstone -- the Legato NFS benchmark. This is also a synthetic load generator, based again on a particular observed load mix. You can get this by sending mail like: To: request@legato.com Subject: send nhfsstone path path_back_to_me I had some problems getting this, though I was ultimately successful. NetMetrix (formerly EtherView) -- a Sun-based packet spy that is capable of doing some characterization of NFS load and response times. This is a commercial product. For more information, contact: Hewlett Packard, Network Test Division One Tara Blvd., Suite 403, Nashua NH 03062 (603) 888-7000 LANWatch -- another packet spy, from FTP Software, Inc. This can filter out NFS traffic; I don't know what can be done with the packets though once they're filtered out. For more information, call FTP at (800) 282-4FTP, or send mail to info@ftp.com. [ There's lots of other packet spies, too, and I suspect that most of them can do at least a little bit with NFS packets. ] The problem with most of the programs above (except for the synthetic loads, to which this just doesn't apply, since they're not NFS monitors) is that you don't get raw data points which you can then analyze. You get the data that the authors thought you might want... and which might not be what you really want. There's much to be said for the approach of dumping traces and lots of timestamps into a file, then providing (a) programs that analyze such files, and (b) the format of the files, so that people can write their own analysis programs. On a PC-based packet spy, this is a hard thing to do. There's a fair number of people (at the major NFS server vendors, Sun, DEC, and a few universities) who are also poking around at the problem. Some people are looking at filesystem activity tracers, which (in addition to being interesting research on its own) could provide still more reams of interesting statistics when combined with a NFS tracer. The consensus was that the best way to trace NFS operations is to do so via a promiscuous packet spy. Such an approach has many advantages. First, if you don't have kernel sources, you can still get useful information. Second, because you don't instrument the server kernel, you don't have to worry about influencing the experiment in adverse ways. However, there's some chance (depending on your hardware and on how fast you make your software go) that you'll drop packets. The 'hack the server kernel' approach won't drop any requests, but violates the above constraints. I suspect that the best way to gather statistics is by using *both* methods of measurement, then comparing the results. I was also referred (twice) to the SunOS 4.1 NFS implementation, and in particular the adaptive NFS retransmission code therein. These numbers might be interesting to see, once 4.1 is more easily available. Of course, the usual Unix file access pattern (i.e., lots of short-lived files in /tmp, most of which get written, then read once, then deleted) information applies. This was mentioned by several people; one reference given was: Floyd, Rick, Short-Term File Reference Patterns in a UNIX Environment, University of Rochester Department of Computer Science TR 177, March 1986. Another good paper (with not much data on NFS, though) is: Lazowska et al, "File Access Performance of Diskless Workstations", ACM TOCS, volume 4, number 3, August 1986, pp 238-268. Not a whole lot was said about general models of NFS access. Most places that had any models had derived them from some number of studies and from the output of nfsstat, or so it seemed. It does seem that there's a few general trends, however. There are some sites (including ours, I suspect) that fall into the low-utilization, few write model, where the server rarely satisfies more than one client's NFS requests in some given time slot. There's also the high-utilization, many write model, which is what I'm sure a lot of sites see. One responder said that once one's clients have enough memory, the buffer cache ends up reducing the number of random reads going on, so one is left with the reads that happen to start up a new process, and with writes. Those who talked about models generally said that they think there's almost as many models as there are networks using NFS. I suspect that this is true, but that perhaps some useful information (or at least methods) can be abstracted out, regardless. A number of people also suggested that I talk to Legato and to Auspex and see what they've done in this area. I have a couple of papers from Auspex; at a first glance, I don't think they look too closely at NFS load characterization (at least, not as I define that), but instead concentrate on what Auspex did to get better speed out of their NFS file server. The Auspex paper titled, "Benchmark Methodology and Preliminary Performance Specifications for the Auspex NS5000 Network Server" (Bruce Nelson, Auspex TR #2, October 1989) has more load characterization information than do the other Auspex TRs I have, but it still doesn't have a whole lot. (By the way, I'm not implying that Auspex hasn't looked at load characterization, because they obviously have. I just don't have the fine details of their results.) I also did some talking with people at Legato; their comments and models show up in the nhfsstone benchmark, or are otherwise repeated above. -Steve Spoken: Steve Miller Domain: steve@umiacs.umd.edu UUCP: uunet!mimsy!stev Phone: +1-301-454-1808 USPS: UMIACS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 2074 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- C-5. What is NHFSSTONES? Where can I get it? "Nhfsstone" (pronounced n-f-s-stone, the "h" is silent) is a copyrighted product of Legato Systems, Incorporated and is provided for unrestricted use and distribution of the binary program derived from it. nhfsstone is a NFS load generating program. It is used on an NFS client to generate an artificial load with a particular mix of NFS operations. It reports the average response time of the server in milliseconds per call and the load in calls per second. The program adjusts its calling patterns based on the client's kernel NFS statistics and the elapsed time. Load can be generated over a given time or number of NFS calls. The current version of the program can only be compiled on 4.x BSD based UNIX systems. To obtain the nhfsstone source shar file, send email to "request@Legato.COM" or {sun,uunet}!legato!request. The Subject line and/or body of the message should have contain the command line: send unsupported nhfsstone Note the exact spelling of "nhfsstone". To issue delivery, you should also add a line of the form: path <address> where <address> is the preferred email address to use. Generally, using a domain-style email address works best. A uucp path starting with "sun!" or "uunet!" can also be used. Joseph Moran Legato Systems Inc. 260 Sheridan Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 329-7886 mojo@Legato.COM or {sun,uunet}!legato!mojo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C-7. How many nfsd's & biod's should I run on my server? Default number of nfsd's & biod's is 8 Suggested Equation for nfsd's is: [number of disks exported] + [number of network interfaces] Suggested maximum number of nfsd's runinng on a Sun system (SunOS 4.x) withou any accelerators is 22. Any more does not help in performance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C-8. What is asynchronous I/O? How can I modify my NFS server system to use asynchronous I/O? Asynchronous I/O (ASYNC) means that information comes and leaves at unannounce intervals whereas synchronous I/O (SYNC) has a predetermined interval when I/O can actually pass. NFS has been used both through SYNC and ASYNC communications. The original specification stated that SYNC I/O should be used although did not bind to it. This results in slower communications during transfers. ASYNC creates problems in that, if for some reason communications should fail (eg., your NFS server crashes), there may be inconsistency in the data. The bright side of ASYNC is that performance increases by a great deal. Many implementations of NFS using asynchronous I/O are available. Despite the disadvantage, the number of complaints about data loss due to this are far fewer than the reports of performance increase. However, be warned that asynchronous I/O is a direct violation of the NFS specification from X/Open which states that all procedures of the NFS protocol are synchronous. This makes such a server no longer compliant to X/Open ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C-9. What is a good NFS server? Network Appliances Corp have recently come out with a product which they call an NFS appliance, the FAServer. It is a 486 based system with an EISA bus, 16 MB RAM, 2 MB NVRAM, and a RAID subsystem. The RAID subsystem keeps up to 20 logical copies of the entire file system. They have a proprietory operating system which does only simple management and disk serving. The pricing is about $20,000. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C-10. What is LADDIS? LADDIS is multi-vendor and vendor neutral SPEC NFS Benchmack designed by engineers from Leato, Auspex, Data General, DEC, Interphase and Sun [LADDIS is an abbreviation using their first letters]. This covers local Ethernet or FDDI nets and not WAN. An excerpt from the LADDIS abstract: " The purpose of the LADDIS benchmark is to give users a credible and undisputed test of NFS performance, and to give vendors a publishable standard performance measure that customers can use for load planning, system configuration, and equipment buying decisions. Toward this end, the LADDIS benchmark is being adopted by SPEC (the System Performance Evaluation Cooperative, creators of SPECmarks) as the first member of SPEC's System-level File Server (SFS) benchmark suite." " LADDIS is available directly from SPEC. Here is the contact person: Name: Dianne Dean (SPEC contact person at NCGA) Phone: 703-698-9600 Ext 318 Fax: 703-560-2752 Email: spec-ncga@cup.portal.com Mail: SPEC c/o NCGA 2722 Merrilee Drive, Suite 200 Fairfax, VA 22031-4499 There is about a $1000 charge for the distribution tape. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ C-11. What is XRemote & LBX? These are specifications for running the X11 windows system over lower bandwidth connections like serial lines. XRemote is a private specification developed by NCD. Inc. It is available in commercial packages. LBX (Low-Bandwidth X) is the specification also contributed by NCD to the X11 standard forthcoming next year, ie. X11R6. You can get information on LBX via FTP from: export.lcs.mit.edu:/contrib/LBX-xconf93-paper.ps.Z This is not a formal document only an informative disclosure. Running a low bandwidth X protocol over something like Ethernet would not be useful since the compression algorithms involved would incur additional CPU usage and so you would not get much of a performance advantage at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section D: Applications ======================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-1. Where can I get mail with (PC)NFS? POPmail versions 2 and 3 and SMTP are the most common mail protocols for (PC)NFS and TCP/IP systems for PCs. Please look at the chart G-3 for mail systems. Here are some additional third-party mail packages that work with PC-NFS: a. Open Systems Mail by Pinesoft (US) [pinesoft@netcom.com] b. Mail-It by Unipalm (UK) [tomk@unipalm.co.uk] Tom Kermeen Unipalm Ltd 216 Cambridge Science Park Milton Road Cambridge CB4 4WA UK +44 223 420002 +44 223 426868 [FAX] [Site license is available for L5000 (five-thousand pounds)] Distributed in the US by: Unipress Software 2025 Lincoln Highway, Edison, NJ 08817 USA (800) 222-0550 info@unipress.com c. WinELM was written by Peter Churchyard of Imperial College, London. It is available for winsock systems from the ftp site ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/Mail/winelm.zip lister.cc.ic.ac.uk:/pub/winelm There are also DOS, PC-NFS and WinSock API versions there. d. ECSMail is a commercial package which supports IMAP & MIME contact steve@edm.isac.ca. I also supports Macintosh & Unix You can get a demo version of ECSMail from ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/Mail/ecs.zip [The demo requires an IMAP daemon such as in the Pine mailer] e. Cin'etic Mail Manager works directly with mounted file systems and sends mail via different setups like rsh on PC-NFS. Its publicaly availble via ftp (cmm21f.zip). You can also contact them at: Cinetic@speedy.cam.org 71460,666 (Compuserve) This package currently supports PathWay, PC/TCP, PC-NFS, FSUUCP by Fubar Systems, UUPC/extended by Drew Derbyshire. Its configuarble for other systems as well. In addition, for mail arrival notifiers, there is WinBiff (version 1.6) for MS-Windows 3.x that works with PC-NFS, UUPC, Waffle and FSUUCP. This is available from: ftp.cica.indiana.edu: /pub/pc/win3/mirrors/wnbff16.zip wsmr-simtel20.army.mil: PD1:<MSDOS.WINDOWS> WNBFF16.ZIP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-2. Where can I get a news client for (PC)NFS? USENET News (NNTP) clients are available specifically from: Super-TCP [Z-16] - Windows version WinQVT [Z-22] - Windows version Chameleon [Z-3] - DOS version. There is a public domain program called WinVN which uses the Winsock API. This means that just about any product which has the Winsock.dll should be able to run it. It is available from: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps/winvn.zip Trump and WinTrump are other popular packages for news available from sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps/* A simple news client by Stan Barber and a client by Kjettil Otter Olsen (with source code) are avalable from ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/news WinVN is a newsreader for Windows 3.x systems publically available from: titan.ksc.nasa.gov: [anonymous.pub.win3.winvn] Its a VAX host Macintosh newsreaders include: TheNews Newsreader MacNews Nuntius All are available from: mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/util/comm/* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-3. Where can I get an FTP server for (PC)NFS? The following systems have FTP servers: BW-TCP, PC-NFS, PC/TCP, Chameleon, PathWay, Super-TCP, IBM TCP/IP, Lanera TCP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-4 Where can I get RWALL for my (PC)NFS system? As far as memory serves me there currently are no implementations of the rwall command as in Sun ONC on (PC)NFS systems, except possibly one for the Macintosh NFS/Share product from Intercon. Sorry folks. If anyone has information on this one please mail me, there are people who want to know. Here is what Geoff Arnold had to say about it back in 1989: " One of the questions I am often asked about PC-NFS is "how come there's no way for me to find out when a particular file server is going down? Unix users get notified." I point out that (at least on SunOS) the mechanism used is "rwall", which is an RPC service, and that for size reasons we can't afford to embed a version of rpc.rwalld in PC-NFS. This explanation is reasonable, but unsatisfactory. My reaction was to say "let's ask the NIC for a UDP port so that we can use it to send unsolicited messages to PCs running PC-NFS." That would certainly do the trick. However, a moment's thought reveals that the problem is bigger than just PC-NFS. Surprisingly, there is at present no simple ubiquitous message protocol to fulfil this function. rwall is fine for SunOS and other ONC licensees, but what about other systems? Do I have to rely upon SMTP? That's incompatible with the idea of broadcasting a simple message such as "The backbone will be down for five minutes at 12:00 to replace a bridge." This could be trivially simple or slightly more involved (but still simple). The trivial approach is to dedicate a UDP port for unsolicited system messages. Anyone could send one, in a single datagram, and the listener process would be responsible for delivering it as seemed appropriate for the system (dialog box, console message, etc.) A more complete approach would be to define a formal protocol so that it would be possible to convey information about the coding of the message, message length (so that TCP could be used instead) and so forth. [If the spec exceeds one page, it's too complicated.] Comments? Geoff " ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-5. Where can I get an INT-14 redirector for (PC)NFS? INT-14 redirectors are available with various (PC)NFS products including: BW-NFS [Z-2] PC/TCP [Z-14] Chamelon NFS [Z-3] There is a version for PC-NFS v5.0 (by Geoff Arnold) at: ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/utils/int14/* sorokin.anu.edu.au:/pub/nfs5-addons/int14.zip An INT-14 redirectory for WATTCP is available from: dorm.rutgers.edu:/pub/msdos/wattcp/apps.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-6. Where can I get YPPASSWD for PC-NFS? There is a version of YPPASSWD for PC-NFS v5.0 at: ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/utils/yppasswd/yppasswd.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-7. Where can I get IBM 3270 terminal for (PC)NFS? Please see chart in section G-1 under TN3270. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-8. Where can I get X-Windows for (PC)NFS? The following X-windows products are available: For DOS: Product Cost Company Version ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Xvision $395 VisionWare Soft, Inc X11R5 PC-Xware $545 NCD, Inc. X11R5 PC DECwindows ?? DEC X11R4 PC Xsight ?? Locus Computing X11R4 Micro X-Lite $75 StarNet Comm. Corp. X11R4 X Appeal $350 Xtreme X11R5 Xoftware ?? AGE Logic X11R4 PC X-Kit $249 XLink X11R5 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For MS-Windows: Product Cost Company Version ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ HCL-eXceed ?? Hummingbird Software X11R5 eXcursion ?? DEC X11R5 MultiView/X ?? JSB Corp. X11R4 PC-Xview $445 NCD Inc. X11R5 Xoftware ?? AGE Logic X11R4 eXodus $295 White Pine Software X11R5 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For Macintosh: Product Cost Company Version ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MacX ?? Apple Computer Corp. X11R5 eXodus $295 White Pines Software X11R5 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For OS/2: Product Cost Company Version ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ X Windows $150 IBM X11R5 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-10. Where can I get a database that works with (PC)NFS? Any database would be able to use the NFS mounted drive as long as it recognizes it as a local drive. Most network versions of a database however will not work unless they specifically say they support (PC)NFS & TCP/IP. DBMS's known to work with (PC)NFS include SQL*Net (Oracle), and Sybase for DOS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-11. Where can I get a WAIS client for (PC)NFS? WAIS Manager 3.0 by Kebin Gamiel (representing MCNC CNIDR and UNC-Chapel Hill) has recently been announced which is WinSock compliant. Features include multi-format handling capability, relevance feedback and a new interface with Toolbar for quicker access. You can get this via ftp from: sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps/waisman3.zip ftp.cnidr.org: /pub/NIDR.tools/wais/pc/windows/waisman3.zip There is a WAIS client for PC/TCP at: calvin.sfasu.edu: /pub/dos/network/pc-tcp/wais.zip WinWAIS is another winsock version of WAIS (written in Visual Basic) which is available from: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-12. Where can I get an archie client for (PC)NFS? A ported version of c-archie is available for PC-NFS at the ftp sites: bcm.tmc.edu: /nfs/archie.exe ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/utils/archie.exe This version works for PC-NFS v4.0a There is a version for PC/TCP at: calvin.sfasu.edu:/pub/dos/network/ftp-pctcp/archie.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-13. Where can I get a gopher client for (PC)NFS? nfsgopher is available from bcm.tmc.edu in /nfs which will work with PC-NFS gopher for MS-Windows is available for PC-NFS systems in an alpha release from the ftp site: lister.cc.ic.ac.uk: pub/wingopher/{readme.txt,gopher.exe} ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/utils/gophersfx.exe HGopher (Hampson's Gopher) is a new client for gopher systems. The following version has been tested at ANU: sorokin.anu.edu.au: /pub/nfs5-addons/hgopher.exe It is originally distributed from: lister.cc.ic.ac.uk: /pub/wingopher There is a gopher client for PC/TCP at the following site: calvin.sfasu.edu:/pub/dos/network/ftp-pctcp/goph1_05.exe gophbook from UNC is an Asymetrix Toolbox application which uses winsock.dll and is available from the ftp site: sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps/gophbook.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-14. Where can I get a WWW (World Wide Web) client for (PC)NFS? There is a version of such a client for PC-NFS at ftp.york.ac.uk:/pub/pc-nfs/utils/wwwpcnfs.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-15 Where can I get X25 for (PC)NFS ? The Software Forge developed a PC/TCP-IP adapter for X25, which is a hardware/ software bundle that : - conforms to PDS specification 1.09 - conforms to RFC 877/1356 (TCP-IP over X25) - supports PC/TCP and PC-NFS (probably any PDS-compliant software) - does address resolution of 100 Internet adresses (expandable) - can have up to 20 simultaneous sessions For more information, contact UniPalm (+44(0)223250100) o unipalm@unipalm.co.uk The Software Group Ltd also makes X.25 software for PC systems. They can be contacted at: 2 Director Court, Suite 201 Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada L4L 3Z5 (418) 856-238 (418) 856-0242 or email scott@group.com There is also an X.25 package available with Super-TCP from Frontier Technologies [Z-16]. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D-16 Where can I get NEWGRP.EXE for PC-NFS ? NEWGRP.EXE is a utility written by Geoff Arnold that does the equivalent of the Unix newgrp command. See man newgrp if you are really interested. It can be ftp-ed from some of the ftp sites found in C-2. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D-17 Where can I get AUTOCONF for PC-NFS ? AUTOCONF is a shareware utility designed and implementes by Henk Swaters that allows system administrators to define an NIS map (pcnfs.config) that holds the equivalent of DRIVES.BAT. The NIS map works on a user-basis and th mounting and unmounting of existing resources is performed trough a single .EXE file. AUTOCONF.ZIP is available on ftp.york.ac.uk in /pub/pc-nfs. You do need a least PKUNZIP 2.04G to unzip it. What follows is the README. AUTOCONF 14-06-93 autoconf utility for pcnfs ========================== NAME autoconf.exe - configure PCNFS-client network drives and printers DISCRIPTION This program is made to configure the network drives and printers of a PCNFS-client from the NIS database. The name of the NIS-map is pcnfs.config. Each line of the pcnfs.config file defines user or group information and has the format username/groupname list-of-drives/printdevices where list-of-drives/printdevices is either another username/ groupname, or a network drive/printdevice: (drive:,hostname:/path,/option,option..) or (printdevice:,hostname:printername,/option,option..) example: ---------------------------------------------------------------- all\ (g:,calibra:/export/MSDOS/WinEnv) printer_staff\ (lpt1:,pslw1:lw1,/fmt=raw) smith\ all (f:,calibra:/export/MSDOS/DosEnv)\ printer_staff ---------------------------------------------------------------- When user smith executes autoconf.exe he mounts the following environment: g: calibra:/export/MSDOS/WinEnv f: calibra:/export/MSDOS/DosEnv lpt1: pslw1:lw1 /fmt=raw USAGE A known user has to be logged in, otherwise the program terminates. If the program is executed without any options the username is used as keyvalue. It is possible to give one or more keyvalues as argument of the program. These arguments can be either usernames or groupnames. By Default the program unmounts a drive before mounting a new drive on the same device. The argument /n or /nounmount switches this option off. The argument /h or /help prints out a help screen and terminates the program. There will be no mount or unmount command. example with the same auto.config as above: autoconf printer_staff /n or autoconf /nounmount printer_staff These equivalent commands try to mount: lpt1: pslw1:lw1 /fmt=raw There will be no unmount command and if there is already a network device on lpt1: there are no changes made. AUTHOR Henk Swaters Dept. of Computer Science University of Twente. swaters@cs.utwente.nl HISTORY autoconf.exe ------------- 14-06-1993 verion 1.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-18. Where can I get a remote backup utility for (PC)NFS? WATTCP has a backup utility called "rtar" with its applications distribution. The following commercial packages have similar facilities: PC/TCP, Super-TCP, BW-TCP, Lanera TCPOpen, XLink PC-Link ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-19. Which (PC)NFS packages support DNS [named]? Please see the chart Z-3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-20. Where can I get a traceroute program? BW-TCP [Z-X] has a traceroute program with their package. There is a traceroute program available for WATTCP at: polysla.calpoly.edu:/pub/mdurkin/trtb91b.zip This is for an older version of WATTCP but is being converted to the new version currently. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D-21. Where can I get an LPD program? For commercial and some PD packages which have an LPD program please look at the chart G-4. There's a Winsock-compliant LPD called NLPD available via ftp from: sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps/wslpd.exe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section E: Problems & General Q&A ================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-2. Can I use DNS instead of NIS with PC-NFS? No. PC-NFS currently only supports the Sun ONC NIS product. (Even NIS+ is not fully compatible). DNS is available with other packages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-3. Why do versions of (PC)NFS not follow symbolic links? This is because according to the NFS definition, filenames are handled by the NFS client. In some (PC)NFS if the files in the symbolic links may not be in the same exported directory as the directory the link is in. NFS mounted files appear as drives on the clients and the clients cannot parse any files which appear higher up on the tree or on a different tree segment than that of the NFS exported drive (from the server). Certain versions can be clever enough to counter this problem by their own methods but it is generally accepted that (PC)NFS systems do not support symbolically linked files. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-4. PC-NFS v4.0 has trouble with Cntl-S, Cntl-Q. This has been fixed in release 4.0a and 5.0. For 4.0a please look at the ftp sites [H-5] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-5. PC-NFS v4.0 has trouble with redrawing windows. This has been fixed in release 4.0a and 5.0. For 4.0a please look at the ftp sites [H-5] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-6. PC-NFS v4.0 doesn't allow me to access the local printer when I have network printers. This is because the default setup for printers in PC-NFS v4.0 is as a network printer. In the print manager choose the printer and change the setup. At the bottom of the setup screen for the printer should be a checkbox indicating that it is a network printer. Uncheck this box. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-7. I cannot delete any file that PC-NFS makes with a ~ (tilde) in it. To get rid of the problem, in your config.sys, run pcnfs.sys as: C:\NFS\PCNFS.SYS /c^ where c reassign the immediately following character. [In this case to the character '^'] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-8. PC-NFS says that it cannot open any more files even when the limit in autoexec.bat is set higher. PC-NFS uses its open own file limit and not the DOS system open file limit. To modify this limit use the /f flag as such in the config.sys: C:\NFS\PCNFS.SYS /f50 The limit here is set to 50. The maximum is 64. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-9. Can (PC)NFS mount file systems which are bigger than 2 GB? Most server file systems do not handle such large file systems, but this is possible with various software enhancements like Disk-Suite for Sun systems. NFS clients on the other need not know how big the actual remote file system is. It only receives information on how big the individual files are and not the file system itself. The Network Appliance server has one partition under which all drives can be mounted for NFS exportation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-10. What is NFS/TCP? Will it work with my NFS product? NFS/TCP is a different type of the original NFS protocol which uses the TCP protocol as opposed to the originally specified UDP protocol. NFS over UDP works well over a single LAN but is as not suitable for multiple LANs or WANs as NFS/TCP. TCP's windowing of packets capability and reliability gives it an advantage. In UDP dropped packets are not acknowledged between the two hosts, however, TCP retransmits all dropped packets. One more aspect of TCP (which is more idealistic than real) is the congestion control capacity between routers for TCP which prevents overflooding of a congested network link. In NFS/UDP it is easy to create UDP data which look like NFS requests from other machines. However, TCP makes it much more difficult to add falsified packets which impersonate another machines data. The problem with NFS/TCP is that it is incompatible with NFS/UDP. Therefore all servers running the TCP version will be invisible to clients running a UDP version and vice versa. NFS/TCP is available in PC/TCP and BWNFS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-11. What is PKTD.SYS? Where can I get it? PKTD.SYS is a shim that allows PC-NFS to use packet drivers instead of its native drivers. It is available from: bcm.tmc.edu src.doc.ic.ac.uk ftpserver.massey.ac.nz ftp.york.ac.uk The current version is pktd40a.sys ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-12. How can I run Netware 3.xx at the same time as (PC)NFS using NDIS? You can run the NDIS-over-ODI shim available from Novell that will let you run netware at the same time as any other product running NDIS (ie. many (PC)NFS products. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-14. Is it possible to modify the read & write buffer sizes in (PC)NFS? Different (PC)NFS systems have different sizes with default at 1024 Kbytes for both. The standard maximum is 8 KB. In PC-NFS, read buffer size is fixed (1024KB) but you can modify the write size to any thing below this maximum. Currently anything less than 128 bytes is cached into a 256 byte datagram. Anything more than this is passed as its specific size. PC/TCP, PathWay Client NFS & BWNFS allow modification of read & write buffer sizes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-15. How can I install an Ethernet board not supported by (PC)NFS? Contributed by Farid Rahmi: If you're installing on an IBM PC or compatible, you can use NDIS drivers in general for your Ethernet board. Although I only upgraded to 5.0 after installing a beta version of 5.0 on my 3C509 PC, the procedure should still be the same : 1) Get the NDIS driver, the PROTOCOL.INI and the .NIF file from the LANMAN directory off the floppy that shipped with the 3C509 and copy these three files onto your harddisk (*NOT* in C:\LANMAN !!!, see below) 2) Select NDIS during installation. 3) This should wake up QUIKNDIS, which will transform PROTOCOL.INI for you and put it in C:\LANMAN together with the NDIS driver. Three remarks : - If you have an EISA machine and an ISA 3C509, please RTFM before complaining about lockups. - I noticed that QUIKNDIS would scratch (make zero byte file) the NDIS driver if placed into C:\LANMAN. As mentioned, this was in the beta release. - Too bad SunSelect couldn't ship the drivers with 5.0. Seen most of the other vendors ship these drivers and they are publicly available (ftp.3com.com)... Farid (fr@sunbim.be) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section F: Programming ====================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ F-1. Is there a toolkit for (PC)NFS programming? Where can I get it? Until recently, programming toolkits were developed independently by vendors alongside their products. Due to the efforts of different persons and organizations there is a formal definition of MS-Windows in the Windows Sockets API. The current version is 1.1. This is only a standard and product vendors are allowed to distribute their own programming toolkit. Most are now developing or selling Windoes Sockets API compatible toolkits. Please refer to the chart G-3 for products with Windows Sockets API.