The Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F software replaces earlier versions of the operating system software and provides new or additional support for the following:
atom
command's programmable interfaces
syslog
facility
For more information about some of these features, see the following sections. You should also refer to Chapter 8, which describes features and interfaces scheduled to be retired in future versions of the operating system.
The following sections provide more information on the major new features included in Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F.
Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F adds support for the following systems:
Tru64 UNIX now contains support for Fibre Channel (FC) based storage. Initially, device support is limited to the KGPSA adapters and HSG80 disk arrays interconnected via FC switches. The FC devices appear to the system as normal SCSI devices. As such, Fibre Channel configurations are bounded by the SCSI-2 namespace exported via the standard SCSI disk (rz) and tape (tz) drivers. Many of the configuration restrictions will be removed in a future release.
As the Fibre Channel address space is much larger and more sparsely-populated
than parallel SCSI, a persistent translation of SCSI target IDs to FC
addresses is necessitated in the device driver for the FC adapter.
Refer to the
emx(7)
and
emx_data.c(4)
reference pages for further information on how this is performed.
For the Version 4.0F release, support for Fibre Channel storage is limited to data devices only. A Fibre Channel disk device cannot be used for boot, swap, or dump. Support for these features will appear in a later release.
Cautions
The Version 4.0F installation software does not discern between Fibre Channel and Parallel SCSI disks. All are presented as potential install-to devices. If a Fibre Channel disk is selected, a portion of the installation process will succeed before an ultimate failure is encountered. This issue will be resolved in an upcoming release.
Fibre Channel disk devices can be added as secondary swap devices
via
fstab(4)
or
swapon(8).
However, doing so usually places the FC
device into the list of potential dump devices for the system.
In the event of a system panic, the FC disk can be selected as a
dump target. If so, the system will encounter a fatal error and will
abort the dump process. This issue will be resolved in an upcoming
release.
The logical partitioning feature allows a single AlphaServer GS140 system to be partitioned into as many as three logical partitions. Each partition runs a separate instance of the operating system. For a complete description of logical partitions, refer to the System Adminstration guide.
The minimum AlphaServer GS140 firmware revision for logical partitions support is Version 5.4.
At the time of Version 4.0F release, the AlphaServer GS140 Model 6-525 is the only system supported for logical partitioning. Refer to the Systems and Options Catalog for information on newly-supported systems.
This version of Tru64 UNIX includes an upgraded and improved Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) database. The new database supports a new database format. Therefore, if you are currently using DHCP from a prior version of Tru64 UNIX, you must convert the database to the new format.
The improvements to DHCP include:
For more information on DHCP, see
the
Network Administration
guide, the
Technical Overview,
and the
joind(8)
reference page.
In this release, the bandwidth used by pacing virtual circuits (VCs) is not deducted from the total bandwidth in the constant bit rate (CBR) reserved resource pool. Therefore, ATM drivers can now overbook the driver's bandwidth. In addition, reserved resources can be applied to CBR VCs only.
In previous releases of the operating system, the bandwidth used by pacing VCs was deducted from the total bandwidth in the constant bit rate (CBR) reserved resource pool. This prevented ATM drivers that supported paced unspecified bit rate (UBR) traffic from allowing paced VCs to overbook the driver's bandwidth.
The
atom
command has been enhanced. It now provides a
-pthread
flag and RTL routines to help tool-writers develop thread safe
program analysis tools, including
support for deferred (but not asynchronous) thread cancellation.
The cancellation support has some impact on the
performance of thread-safe tools.
See the
atom(1),
Thread(5),
and
pthread_setcanceltype(3)
reference pages.
The
atom
command's
AddCallProto(5)
instrumentation RTL routine now provides the
FREGV
argument type, to let tool writers pass floating-point register
values to analysis routines.
The
atom
command's
-gp
flag now retains all debug information in
applications that were compiled with the
-g
option.
The
atom
command's new
-w2
switch suppresses warnings regarding analysis routines.
You can now view the user stack of a program that precipitated a kernel crash dump. For more information, see Section 5.5.
The Compaq Analyze utility enables you to analyze binary error log files
(located in
/var/adm/binary.errlog).
Refer to the
System Administration
guide for information on using this new tool.
Compaq Analyze supports selected EV6-class processors in this release.
To function on a supported system, Compaq Analyze
requires a modified Common Error Log Header, which
is created automatically if
binlogd
detects that the value of
rpb_proctype
is equivalent to
ST_DEC_6600
(EV6-series processors).
This modified header is supported by DECevent.
The AlphaServer 8400 (with EV6 processors) is not supported by Compaq Analyze. This system is supported by DECevent using the older error log format.
The security of the
syslog
facility has been enhanced in this release. Unless the domain host name of a
remote host is entered in the local file,
/etc/syslog.auth,
the local system will not log any
syslog
messages from that remote host.
If you are installing the secure version of
syslogd
on a system, and you have configured or intend to configure other
hosts to forward
syslog
messages to the system, refer to the
syslogd(8)
and
syslog.auth(4)
reference pages.
The default value of the Virtual File System (VFS)
vfs
subsystem attribute
name-cache-hash-size
has changed from 256 to a dynamically calculated value.
The new value is
name-cache-size
divided by 8 and rounded up to the next power of
2, or 8192, whichever is less.
On systems where the
nchsz
configuration variable in
/sys/conf/param.c
has been modified by the customer, the customer-provided value will be used.
Compaq recommends that any previous customization of
nchsz
in the
param.c
file be changed to:
int nchsz;
Compaq also recommends that you use the default dynamic calculation of the
size of the
namei
cache hash change table.
If a customer specified value is still desired, Compaq recommends
modifying the value of
name-cache-hash-size
in
/etc/sysconfigtab,
instead of modifying
nchsz
in
/sys/conf/param.c.
See
sysconfigdb(8)
for more information.
The default value of the AdvFS subsystem attribute
AdvfsMaxDevQLen
has changed from 80 to 24 (number of I/O requests).
The new default of 24 reduces the number of I/O
requests queued to a device. A lower value favors
response time by reducing the number of I/O requests
that may be already queued ahead of synchronous read
and write requests.
A new AdvFS subsystem attribute,
AdvfsCacheHashSize
is added.
AdvfsCacheHashSize
determines the size of the hash table for the
buffers of the AdvFS buffer cache. The minimum
value is 1024. The maximum value is 65536.
The default value is the size of the AdvFS buffer cache
(AdvfsCacheMaxPercent)
divided by 10 and rounded up to the next power of
2, or 8192, whichever is less.
To save a small amount of space in the kernel at the
expense of longer hash queue search time, the
AdvfsCacheHashSize
can be set to a smaller value.
For more information about VFS and AdvFS tuning, refer to the System Configuration and Tuning guide.
Visual Threads is a new tool available on the Tru64 UNIX Associated Products Volume 2 CD-ROM that lets you analyze your multithreaded applications for potential logic and performance problems. It is licensed as part of the Developer's Toolkit for Tru64 UNIX.
You can use Visual Threads with DECthreads applications that use POSIX threads (Pthreads) and with Java applications.
Visual Threads features include the following:
This release adds new functionality to the bootable tape facility. For more information, refer to the System Administration guide.
This release includes Compaq Advanced Printing Software Version 1.0 for Tru64 UNIX. The software subsets and documentation are located on the Tru64 UNIX Associated Products Volume 2 CD-ROM.
Advanced Printing Software, an implementation of Xerox Corporation's PrintXchange technology, is a flexible, distributed, client/server printing system based on ISO and POSIX standards.
This implementation supports a wide variety of popular printer devices and the common printer connection methods. The software subsets include server processes, command line utilities, and graphical user interface (GUI) tools that cater to the needs of end users and system administrators. The system can be configured as the primary print system, or it can work together with existing lpr/lpd based printing systems.
Documentation includes a System Administration and Operation Guide, a Command Reference Guide, a User Guide, an Installation Guide, CDE Help, and Release Notes.
This release of Tru64 UNIX contains Version 4.5 of Netscape Communicator. For information about how to install, configure, and invoke Communicator, see the Tru64 UNIX Installation Guide.
This release provides Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) capabilities by integrating the Compaq Insight Manager Agents into Tru64 UNIX. Insight Manager enables Web-based browsing and monitoring of local and remote system hardware. You can activate these Web browsing features from a dedicated HTTP port, or from the Compaq Insight Manager CIM32 or CIMXE Management Consoles running on Compaq Windows NT servers.
Refer to Section 4.3.9 for more information.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a communications architecture that gives a computer system the ability to interconnect a variety of devices using a simple four-wire cable. The USB is actually a two-wire serial communication (receive and transmit) link that runs at either 1.5 or 12 megabits per second (mbs). The remaining two wires are used for power and ground. USB protocols can configure devices at startup or when they are plugged in at run time. These devices are broken into various device classes. Each device class defines the common behavior and protocols for devices that serve similar functions.
Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F provides limited USB support for keyboard and mouse devices only. For proper usage of USB keyboards and mice with Version 4.0F, the following guidelines and restrictions apply:
The Tru64 UNIX Documentation CD-ROM now includes AltaVista CD-ROM Search software, with a complete index of the HTML documentation set. The AltaVista software runs on an x86-based PC with Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT Version 4.0 or higher.
Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F includes preliminary support for the native DVD file system, called DVDFS, together with documentation. This preliminary implementation is not fully functional. See Section 4.3.14 for a description of the restrictions.
COM for Tru64 UNIX is available for downloading from Compaq.
COM for Tru64 UNIX implements the Microsoft Common Object Model (COM) as well as required underlying Windows capabilities on the Compaq Tru64 UNIX platform.
Using COM for Tru64 UNIX, you can:
COM for Tru64 UNIX will be incorporated in the Tru64 UNIX operating system kit in a future release. It is licensed as an extension of the Tru64 UNIX product; no additional license is required to use the COM for Tru64 UNIX software on a system running the Tru64 UNIX operating system. It is available via download at no charge from the following URL: