Linux-Development-Sys Digest #260, Volume #6 Tue, 12 Jan 99 00:14:34 EST
Contents:
Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux (George MacDonald)
Re: Registry for Linux - Why? (Miguel Cruz)
Re: Re: things I'd pay to have developed for Linux... (Peter Samuelson)
file access in device driver? (Malte Starostik)
Re: How to run Windows Applications on Linux (Jeff Taylor)
COFF Magic Numbers? (Mitch Williams)
Dosemu breaks in 2.2.0-pre6? (Peter S. Fales)
Re: file access in device driver? (Frank Sweetser)
Re: GUI, The Next Generation (Miguel Cruz)
Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: disheartened gnome developer ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux (George MacDonald)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: George MacDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 21:35:35 GMT
Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> George MacDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> hmm... that actually makes a lot of sense, assigning a priority or a weight
> >> to each setting. there would have to be some restrictions, though - the
> >> system config should be able to unconditionally override a user's
> >> settings. still i like the idea =)
> >
> >Actually this is quite interesting. As frank says we definately need a way
> >for administrators to *lock* values by marking them final and then also
> >not allowing the evaluation methods or "store path" to be overriden.
>
> I think that you also want a way that any network-available value
> can either be a fall-back default only for the cases where the
> local value hasn't been configured at all, and the opposite case
> where the local copy is only used if no one has configured the
> setting at a more global level.
>
> >We also want to allow the opposite(in some cases), i.e. allow the user
> >to override these(e.g. A Trusted user). I had only envisage one evaluation
> >mechanism, but the priority evaluation suggest there may be others.
>
> I'd expect some sort of hierarchy where you don't know the number of
> levels ahead of time. That is, you might have a laptop that runs
> off-network sometimes, on a home network with one other host sometimes,
> and on the office network where there are department, division, and
> enterprise defaults for different values. Having a wide value range
> with space available on both sides of the initial defaults should let
> things fall into their assigned places.
>
> >So perhaps making the evaluation mechanisms definable externally and
> >then configuring them?
>
> You will need a way to assign the priorities to the existing
> mechanisms (files, etc.) that do not supply them directly. New
> mechanisms can be built to supply their own along with the value
> (like asking for a DNS MX record). There is a certain intellectual
> purity in using the same mechanism internally as you present
> externally. I'd recommend assigning a default priority to values
> obtained by each method and get this setting just like all the
> others. Note that if you allow local files to be used at all
> you probably can't prevent local administrators from overriding
> the network-mandated defaults and I'm not sure how much effort
> should go into even trying.
It's possible. One could only provide network service to systems
properly configured to support network mandates. i.e. if you
don't use a specific keyed network store module then the
network would shut down your connection(assuming you are
connected to a switch/hub that can be turned off/on). This
might be desirable in a highly secure environment.
Also I'm not sure priorities are always required, what
if there is an implied search order, i.e. try local
files first, then LDAP, then ACAP. I might be missing
something but are priorities only needed when there
is some kind of tie in evaluation order that needs
to be resolved? Or are you saying just use priorities
as the way to determine evaluation order?
--
We stand on the shoulders of those giants who coded before.
Build a good layer, stand strong, and prepare for the next wave.
Guide those who come after you, give them your shoulder, lend them your code.
Code well and live! - [EMAIL PROTECTED] (7th Coding Battalion)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Miguel Cruz)
Subject: Re: Registry for Linux - Why?
Date: 12 Jan 1999 03:27:21 GMT
George MacDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> For that matter why limit it to just Linux or Unix? Some applications span
> multiple operating systems. For example lets say I am using Netscape on
> a number of different platforms, wouldn't it be nice if I could just set
> some configurable parameters and have the apps look for configuration/app
> information on other machines?
On my Windows NT station I have mounted a volume (via SAMBA) on my Linux
station which contains my netscape folder. I created a profile on NT and
told it to look there. Seems to work fine. I get the same settings on either
system. The only problem is when I run on both at once, my bookmark changes
tend to vanish, but that's not really a cross-platform issue.
miguel
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Re: things I'd pay to have developed for Linux...
Date: 11 Jan 1999 21:25:47 -0600
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[me]
> > - A volume group, which acts as a sort of meta-partition, if you
> > will, can comprise multiple physical disks. These can also
> > provide redundancy not unlike RAID mirroring, as well as plain
> > striping. The sysadmin can add disks to an LV at will, and take
> > them away.
[bill davidsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> You have mixed volume group (VG) and logical volume (LV) here.
> RAID-0/1 are done at the LV level, and you can't (so far as I know)
> add/delete physical volumes to a striped LV. You can make/break
> mirrors, which is how you mirror root, etc.
I got careless in remembering which layer I was describing where. But
anyway I really *do* wish you could mirror an entire VG at once; I
tried once for quite awhile to coax AIX into doing this. Finally
resigned to manually creating copies of each LV and remembering to do
that every time we made a new one. Which isn't infrequent. Never did
get around to whacking up a script for this (and a SMIT menu to go
with, just for kicks) but I think it's still somewhere down there near
the bottom of the todo list.
> Striped or mirrored, not both, at least up to 4.2.1 kernel.
You are of course correct. Seems like a silly design limitation.
> > - On an LV you mkfs a filesystem. Since the LV is a block device
> > this works just like traditional partitions/slices, except that
> > LV's are so much easier to manipulate.
> Like an md pseudo physical device.
Like any random-access block device. Perhaps the easiest to manipulate
in Linux are loop devices, which are great for floppy images but were
of course never meant for efficiency and scalability as long-term
solutions.
> Most people over partition their drives, IMHO. If you have only a
> single drive, as most or at least many systems do, you gain mostly
> complexity by having a bunch of partitions for the actual ext2fs
> data.
[...]
> ... garbage. Just because you understand techniques useful on large
> systems doesn't mean you need them, or gain from them.
Right on. I was amazed when we got an SGI O2 in here and it had IRIX
6.3 preinstalled on a single partition of the 4G disk. I was used to
AIX which by default creates separate fs's for /, /tmp, /var, /home and
/usr not to mention swap and the jfs log (oh yes, and a /welcome full
of cute HTML, welcome to Unix in the 90s). But really on a 4G disk and
a filesystem like IRIX's xfs there aren't many good reasons to
partition. I now wish I hadn't insisted at the time on reinstalling
with my familiar partition table layout -- I gained a lot of headache
and little else. Next SGI we get in, it stays one big filesystem.
> The AIX model is a good thing to understand, I'm not sure I want to
> do things exactly that way. I could go on about how I do think it
> should be done, but it's not relevant to this topic.
There are a lot of things I like about it. Linux md is OK but seems
rather patched-together and clumsier to use. You're right, ID strings
on each disk can cut both ways, but I think a vgck utility to repair or
compensate for incomplete or corrupted vg's would help a lot and not be
that hard to do.
Anyway, Heinz's LVM is reportedly modeled after the HP-UX one which I
understand is somewhat similar to AIX. I eagerly await version 0.5
which has been almost here for about six months now. I have been
reluctant to hack 0.4 (to support glibc and newer kernels) just in case
0.5 already has this stuff....
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: Malte Starostik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: file access in device driver?
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 04:42:41 +0100
Hi!
While just plaing around writing a character device driver, I came
accross the problem that I need to read something like a config file.
When insmoding the module, I always get unresolved symbol errors for
open and close...
Can I use these calls at all? Are there any other ways to access a file
from within a kernel module?
Any help appreciated!
-Malte
------------------------------
From: Jeff Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: How to run Windows Applications on Linux
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 20:45:59 -0500
"Brett W. McCoy" wrote:
> > Santa's making a list. If You could have any piece of software ported
> > to Linux, other than Microsoft's what would it be?
>
> PageMaker or CorelDRAW!
>
I thought that there is CorelDRAW! for LInux. Didn't Caldera release
something like that?
JT
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mitch Williams)
Subject: COFF Magic Numbers?
Date: 11 Jan 1999 22:17:11 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sure hope this is the right group:
I am working on an experimental microkernel for a school project, and
I have decided to use the GNU kernel and linker (LD) for development.
After some investigating, I've decided to use COFF as an executable
file format, so I don't have to hack LD too much.
I've found documentation for the COFF file format on the web, at least
enough to work with, except for one piece: the magic numbers.
The page I found just said that the magic number defined what
architecture the COFF file is for, but didn't define any values.
Does anybody have a list of valid magic numbers, or know of a place
where I can find such a list? Is there a central Magic Number
Authority who doles out these numbers, or can I just pick one at
random and start using it?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
If you reply to the newsgroup, please also copy me via email -- our
news server here is a bit of an underachiever, so I may never see your
reply....
Mitch Williams - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Remove the NOSPAM to reply!
<Insert witty quotation here.>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter S. Fales)
Subject: Dosemu breaks in 2.2.0-pre6?
Date: 11 Jan 1999 22:39:14 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anyone else having trouble with dosemu in 2.2.0-pre6? I'm using
dosemu-0.66.7 and I pretty sure it was working up through pre5. Now
it just hangs during the boot process with no error messages.
--
Peter Fales Lucent Technologies, Room 9A-213
N9IYJ 2000 N Naperville Rd PO Box 3033
Naperville, IL 60566-7033
internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] work: (630) 979-8031
------------------------------
From: Frank Sweetser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: file access in device driver?
Date: 11 Jan 1999 22:59:47 -0500
Malte Starostik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi!
> While just plaing around writing a character device driver, I came
> accross the problem that I need to read something like a config file.
> When insmoding the module, I always get unresolved symbol errors for
> open and close...
> Can I use these calls at all? Are there any other ways to access a file
> from within a kernel module?
no. there's no API for doing such things from within the kernel. the
reccomended way seems to be to configure the device via ioctl()'s passed
from a userspace program to the device.
--
Frank Sweetser rasmusin at wpi.edu fsweetser at blee.net | PGP key available
paramount.ind.wpi.edu RedHat 5.2 kernel 2.2.0pre5ac1 i586 | at public servers
The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and
bigotry at worst.
-- Larry Wall in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Miguel Cruz)
Subject: Re: GUI, The Next Generation
Date: 12 Jan 1999 03:46:44 GMT
Marco Anglesio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I think the current UI is a lot like stering wheels on cars. I can't
>> think of a more stupid paradigm directing the vehical going 80 MPH, but,
>> I can't come up with anything better.
>
> Stick, perhaps? The wheel isn't a bad design as bad designs go, actually,
> and mapping directions through ninety degrees is not unknown in nature
> (bee dances, for example, map the horizontal through the vertical).
Ever ride a bicycle no-handed? I think that's about as natural as it gets.
I've ridden the same 1-mile stretch from home to work so many times that I
go the whole way without hands, traffic and all (unless the lights and cars
really conspire against me).
The interesting thing about it is that even when I try, I can't figure out
how I'm doing it. I can't figure out what to do explicitly to make myself
move to the right or the left, or to hold my balance at a low speed. It just
happens, something in my medulla takes over. I don't have to think about it
at all. And that's the sort of control you want in a truly easy-to-use
computer.
miguel
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux
Date: 11 Jan 1999 22:30:19 -0600
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
George MacDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I wouldn't question your capabilities. You are just attempting something
>> that needs transactioning and it can't be done right unless the
>> back end supports it - or you are willing to accept occasional errors.
>> Perhaps you should start with postgresql (which supports transactions
>> and has an open license) as the preferred network store. Even then
>> you will have problems if you allow settings stored at different
>> levels in the hierarchy to be used if they come from different databases
>> or files.
>
>There are a couple of different ways to go about this. The first is to
>simply say the underlying mechanisms limitations flow through. i.e.
>if it's possible to corrupt a LDAP directory via multiple updates
>simultaneously from different locations on the same shared data then
>that is a limitations of that storage/access "module". The same
>can be said for flat files accessed by root, it is possible for
>two root users to be modifying a set of files and end up corrupting
>them instead. Yet it is a practical solution in many situations.
That's not the situation I had in mind, although it poses a problem
as well. What I meant was that if your API allows get/set of
individual values as separate operations and two values affect
each other, it will be possible for a single person doing a
single update to cause simultaneous get operations to see a
mix of old and new values. This generally doesn't happen
with root editing files because you normally have to do
something to tell the running daemons to re-read the file when
you are done.
>We also need to build a module that uses a new flat file format which
>will handle the transactional mechanism. This can be done using
>file locking or Copy on write or versioning based repositories. There
>are ways to do this that are not as efficient as a DBMS and probably
>not as robust either but they would be practical on small systems.
If you write a tmp file on the same filesystem, rename() is an
atomic operation on most unix filesystems.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: disheartened gnome developer
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 19:09:10 GMT
Roberto Alsina writes:
> I was told that was one of the things lawyers had to think a lot about.
> Basically the right to rerelease has already been granted. So, the
> successors cant take it away, just like they cant take away my own Qt
> copy.
Ok. I don't know anything about Norwegian bankruptcy law, but here is a
scenario for US law:
Troll Tech files a bankruptcy petition. When the creditors review the
documents, they discover the release agreement and are appalled: it gives
away the companies only real asset. They (or the administrator) ask the
judge to issue a temporary injunction forbidding the release of the code
and he agrees. You get a letter telling you that you will be found in
contempt of court if you distribute Qt. You can hire a lawyer (about
$150/hour for Federal bankruptcy court) to try to get the injunction
removed, but it would probably be pointless: you cannot demonstrate that it
is harming you. The bankruptcy drags on for months or years, and
eventually the creditors propose that the injunction be made permanent.
You receive another letter, this one informing you that the injunction will
be made permanent unless your attorney can convince the judge otherwise. I
think that there is a fairly good chance he could do so (at $150/hour, of
course). However, if three or four years have gone by, you may not care
any more.
Other scenarios would involve shareholder lawsuits (common in business
failures), suits by holders of proprietary Qt licenses who feel that a
BSD'd Qt would "unfairly" compete with them, etc.
--
John Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
------------------------------
From: George MacDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Open Configuration Storage - was Registry for Linux
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:30:20 GMT
Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Frank Sweetser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> If you can't obtain these values through the same mechanism you
> >> propose for everyone else's configurations then you have done
> >> something wrong.
>
> >in addition, there also has to be some amount of locally stored information
> >so that the lib knows who/what to contact for more info (other local files,
> >rdbms, etc). each source could also then be given a modifier applied to
> >any priorities from that source, at the sysadmin's discresion.
>
> Your starting point values need to be local, but if they indicate
> that additional sources should be checked then network sources and
> priorities should cascade upwards so you would really only need to
> configure one thing to pull in the whole network scheme. This
> could be a well-known-service on a well-known-hostname (alias) in
> your default domain so an unconfigured machine - even DHCP addressed
> - could come up using it automatically with a minimum of administrator
> work. For example if you requested http://configuration/configuration.txt
> and parsed the result for a magic token that said it was the right
> file type it could just work out of the box with only a DNS alias
> and a file on a web server added to the network. The down side is
> that if there is no DNS service available you would have to wait
> for a timeout.
Well just like in nsswitch you should be able to say
get from files, get from NIS, get from DNS
or
get from files
or
get from DNS
i.e. it should be configurable.
Enforcing the network as the top priority is limited, i.e. obviously
anyone could walk in with a laptop and plug into a network. It's
trivial to replace/fake an existing machine just by unplugging
it and plugging in a laptop with the same address.
In such cases where a site might want to prevent such an occurence
they will need some kind of key on each system. If we create a new
protocol, we could build that in. However how do you handle the
other cases of DNS requests ... One way I could see of doing that
would be to require some kind of daemon/module that is required
to be running on all systems connected to the network. Then
a security monitor could check them periodically, also
it could sniff for new ethernet address'es ... Once a host
is determined to be un-authorized it could be isolated.
So while we can't solve this particular problem in totatlity, we can
make a new config service protocol work in the desired manner.
--
We stand on the shoulders of those giants who coded before.
Build a good layer, stand strong, and prepare for the next wave.
Guide those who come after you, give them your shoulder, lend them your code.
Code well and live! - [EMAIL PROTECTED] (7th Coding Battalion)
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Development-System Digest
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