Hello Brian,
I encountered a similar issue with running AFS on AIX 4.3.
Transarc's release for AIX 4.3 has the sysname "rs_aix42".
We knew AIX 4.2 and AIX 4.3 are different and we wanted
an "rs_aix43" sysname (to distinguish code built for rs_aix43
rather than rs_aix42).
The official advice was to use "fs sysname -newsys rs_aix43"
in /etc/rc.afs.
However, since we computed a sysname during our AFS client
install process this was not a complete solution. So we explored
AFS binaries to locate where "rs_aix42" was defined and changed
it to "rs_aix43" for a new set of install images.
This turned out to be a simple and elegant solution for us.
Some things to consider:
a) How to select a new sysname?
It must be different from existing ones and potential new ones
from Transarc.
b) Better to stick with official sysname changing methods
unless you are very sure about how (and whether) to do this.
Hmmm...maybe it would be useful if there was a second variable like @sys.
Perhaps "@ver" which is null in the normal distribution
and intended for local site use to define their own value.
This would finesse the problem of overloading @sys.
It would also "preserve" @sys for "Transarc only" defined values.
On the other hand, /afs/@cell/@sys/@ver/local/bin is a bit of a mouthful.
Thoughts?
--
cheers
paul http://acm.org/~mpb
Q: Why a penguin? A: http://www.linux.org/info/penguin.html
Brian Biswas wrote:
>Here at UNC we have solaris machines running OS 5.7 in 32-bit mode
>and solaris machines running OS 5.7 in 64-bit mode, both with AFS 3.6. This is
>causing problems because "fs sysname" returns the same string: "sun4x_57".
>Other applications (for example, lsf) use different binaries depending
>on whether they are being run on a 64-bit or a 32-bit machine. We use the
>@sys string to determine the correct version of the binaries to invoke.
>However, since the @sys name is the same for both machines we can't do that.
>
>I wrote Transarc, asking if there would eventually be different sysnames
>for the 32- and 64-bit versions of AFS 3.6. They said both versions will
>have the sysname "sun4x_57".
>
>Our initial thought was to set sysname ourself, using "sun4u_57" for
>64-bit machines and "sun4x_57" for 32-bit machines. Ah, but then what
>do you do about 64-bit machines running in 32-bit mode? And of
>course the AFS "sys" command will always return "sun4x_57"; we'd have to modify
>that binary as well...
>
>Has anyone else run up against this? Any thoughts on how to
>address the problem?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Brian Biswas
