compat_ultrix(8) - NetBSD Manual Pages

COMPAT_ULTRIX(8)        NetBSD System Manager's Manual        COMPAT_ULTRIX(8)


NAME

     compat_ultrix -- setup procedure for ULTRIX compatibility on MIPS and VAX
     architectures


DESCRIPTION

     NetBSD/mips and NetBSD/vax architectures can run Risc ULTRIX and VAX
     ULTRIX executables, respectively.  However, you have to worry about the
     legal issues of ensuring that you have a right to use any ULTRIX binaries
     on your machine.

     Most executables will work.  The exceptions include programs that use
     proprietary, ULTRIX-specific features (LAT, CI support, DECnet support)
     and various system calls, ioctl()'s, or ULTRIX kernel semantics that are
     difficult to emulate (e.g. ULTRIX packetfilter) or buggy (e.g. ULTRIX
     NIS).

     All ULTRIX executables are static, so no shared libraries are required
     for ULTRIX compatibility.  However, ULTRIX is based on a 4.3BSD alpha
     release.  ULTRIX commands and libraries are often much older than their
     NetBSD or even SunOS 4.x equivalents, and may require incompatible con-
     figuration files.


SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FILES

     Set up resolv.conf and svc.conf as below:

           # mkdir -p /emul/ultrix/etc
           # cd /emul/ultrix/etc
           # egrep 'domain|nameserver' /etc/resolv.conf > ./resolv.conf
           # cp -p /usr/share/examples/emul/ultrix/etc/*     ./

   /etc/resolv.conf
     The ULTRIX resolver library only understands domain and nameserver lines
     in resolv.conf(5).  You should create a copy of /etc/resolv.conf contain-
     ing only those commands and put it in /emul/ultrix/etc/resolv.conf.  Note
     that the domain search order used by ULTRIX executables may not be the
     same as native binaries; there is no good way around this.

   /etc/svc.conf
     ULTRIX uses /etc/svc.conf to select an ordered search of NIS, Hesiod, or
     local flat-file mappings.  You should create an /emul/ultrix/etc/svc.conf
     specifying either local files or bind (DNS) lookups for all ULTRIX name
     services.


SEE ALSO

     resolv.conf(5)


BUGS

     RISC ULTRIX NIS (YP) is known to not work.  The ULTRIX NIS libraries have
     a consistent endian-ness bug.  ULTRIX NIS client will not inter-operate
     with the NetBSD ypbind(8) process.  The only workaround is to use
     /etc/svc.conf to disable NIS (YP).

     The ndbm hashed-password file used by ULTRIX are incompatible with the db
     hashed-password file used by NetBSD.  There is no good solution for this.
     NIS would be a good one, if ULTRIX NIS worked.

     The API used by Xservers to talk to the kernel is currently compatible
     with ULTRIX 4.1.  An implementation of the ULTRIX 4.2 Xws interface (used
     by X11R6) is in progress.

     A complete list of things which fail to work in ULTRIX compatibility mode
     should be added here.

NetBSD 10.99                   January 16, 1999                   NetBSD 10.99