The following table lists known problems with the Central UNIX System which includes both the new Hewlett-Packard HP-UX sites as well as a pair of older IBM AIX sites. Please report any problems to the email address "bugs@polymail.calpoly.edu", Help Desk at 756-7000, or go to Building 14 (Computer Science) Room 114. In reporting problems, please provide a clear and concise description as well as enough information required to replicate it.
If you have a workaround to the problem and do not see it listed with the problem description, please email it to "bugs@polymail.calpoly.edu".
NOTE: This page is in progress and will be changing as more information becomes available.
| Problem | Description and Workaround if available | Date Added |
Date Resolved |
|---|---|---|---|
| "elm" mail program. | HP-UX ships with a much older version of "elm" which does not recognize some of the newer version's commands. We are currently considering updating the version even though it will mean a loss of support from HP for the product. | 9/26/97 |
| Problem | Description and Workaround if available | Date Added |
Date Resolved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control-C doesn't always respond immediately or sometimes take many repeated attempts. | Control-C cannot stop a process which is
in an atomic state. This is most common with I/O
(Input/Output) states. With much larger machines
with more memory, file buffer are potentially larger than
the old AIX machines. Because of this, even copying a large file to the screen may be difficult to interrupt before several hundred lines go by giving the appearance that its not responding at all. The when it finally does respond, all of the control-C's which have been entered get processed at that time. Because of the current state of tuning, this could change, but cannot be eliminated as changing it will also have an impact on the performance of I/O bound jobs. |
10/2/97 | 12/1/97 |
| Extra characters appearing in files while using the arrow keys. | The characters appearing are part of the
vt100 escape sequence generated by the arrow keys.
This appears to only be happening on serially connected
workstations and terminals (this would include modem
connections with serial software). Its felt that
this is a noise issue in operating a serial device at a
speed that puts it out of specification with the length
of the cable attaching the serial device to a modem or
terminal server. This is still being looked into. Reports of continued occurrence have died out. |
10/1/97 | 12/1/97 |
| "f" command | This was actually an alias on AIX and is not supported by most POSIX UNIX systems. Use the "finger" command instead. | 9/26/97 | 9/26/97 |
| "finger"command | There is a known problem with the finger
wrapper on HP-UX. This is a local product which
provides quicker response on a large system, but is not
responding on the session server. It has been
reported to the UNIX Systems Support Group. The problem seems to be tied to NIS/YP and the systems group is looking into alternative methods to improve performance. |
9/26/97 | 1/98 |
| "lp" command | The "lp" command is not communicating the Job Title properly to the IBM host the printer is attached to. This is being researched by the UNIX Systems Support Group. | 9/26/97 | 12/1/97 |
| "lynx" Web browser | FIXED ON HP-UX! Still unavailable on AIX. | 9/26/97 | 9/15/97 |
| "lpr" command | "lpr" does not exist on the HP-UX systems. "lp" must be used instead. | 9/26/97 | 9/26/97 |
| "NO SHELL" | The user's account is frozen. | 9/29/97 | 10/1/97 |
| "ph" command | Installed September 23, 1997. | 9/26/97 | 9/23/97 |
| Pine/elm/mailx Hanging problem | More NFS tuning is being performed to
try to eliminate this problem. On Sunday, September 28, 1997 the Systems group changed several NFS parameters to improve NFS services. As the week went on, the system ran well for about 52 hours then experienced a steady increase in load. We are now concentrating our efforts around network traffic and NFS and related kernel settings. On Sunday, October 5, 1997, the Systems group changed several NFS parameters back that had no effect as well as decreasing the amount of memory that could be used for dynamic buffers. We observed some improvement, but only for a little more than 30 hours. Hewlett-Packard is sending patches to us that they feel will help with the problem. Until the patches can be installed on 10/19/97, the Session Server will be rebooted every weekday/Sunday morning at 6:00 AM. this should provide a stable working environment until the patches are installed. Several of the patches are installed early as an attempt to cure the problems. The net affect seems to be a faster performing machine the first day, and then back to the old problem the next day. We have noticed a memory loss between the first and second day of production and this seems to coincide with the performance degradation. Look at the "Current Events" page for more details. On October 26, 1997 we made changes to several Kernel parameters based on a visit by an HP performance specialist. This seems to have cured the majority of the problems, although we still occasionally see a hung pine, elm or mailx process. Please contact us if this happens to you by emailing "bugs@polymail.calpoly.edu" |
9/26/97 | 10/26/97 |
| Screen editors do not seem to repaint properly. | This usually seems to be caused by not using the standard "dot" files and seems to be affecting accounts owned by upper division students who may have either elected not to have their "dot" files updated or have edited the new files after they were put in place. | 10/1/97 | 10/1/97 |
| SMTP Server Refuses connection. | It has been reported that the SMTP
server is intermittently refusing connections from POP
clients such as Netscape and Eudora. Complaints of this have dropped at about the same time that we applied fixes related to the filesystem problems that resulted in hanging pine, elm, and mailx sessions. If you do encounter a problem with this, please contact us and let us know by emailing "bugs@polymail.calpoly.edu" |
9/26/97 | 10/26/97 |
| "unixmenu/aixmenu" | In progress thanks to the availability of "lynx" on HP-UX. | 9/26/97 | 12/1/97 |
Revised: March 27, 1997