Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!gore!jacob From: jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Next Bugs Message-ID: <130019@gore.com> Date: 24 Sep 89 17:37:00 GMT References: <2420@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> Reply-To: jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) Organization: Gore Enterprises Lines: 97 / comp.sys.next / avie@wb1.cs.cmu.edu (Avadis Tevanian) / Sep 24, 1989 / > In article <2420@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> jst@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Joe Stong) writes: > >I got private mail from Avadis Tevanian [which] > >did NOT contain either helpful suggestions or > >sympathy about my situation in maintaining a NeXT box. It merely > >re-iterated observations that I had already made, and told me what I CANNOT > do with the NeXT box (namely remote system administration). Well, you can, if you are on *a* NeXT---not necessarily the one that you are administering. (I know, that's not a satisfactory answer either.) > >I would expect better public relations from a NeXT employee! > > This last line really hurts. I'm trying as hard as possible to provide > reasonable answers to people in what little time I have available. I beg you not to be turned off by such remarks. I found your participation in comp.sys.next very helpful (the same goes for Ali and for everybody else from NeXT who posts here). Not all of my questions that I posted got answered here to my satisfaction (or at all), but I hardly think that's something to get worked up about. Anyway, I'd like to offer a suggestion or two that would fix many of the problems brought up by Joe. I did send some of them to Northwestern's local 'nereportq' address, but I have no clue as to what happened to them since then. First of all, about all this nidump/niload stuff. There is a very clean way to make NetInfo transparent to all utilities that expect to see an /etc/passwd file: make /etc/{passwd,group,hosts,...} (all files that can be niload'ed) SPECIAL FILES. Their device drivers would incorporate niload (for input) and nidump (for output) for their respective formats. Then you will never have inconsistent data between, say, /etc/passwd, and the NetInfo database. I think this is a MUCH better solution than just getting rid of "chfn" and other programs like it. The rest of my comments on this subject assume the current situation--that you have to use nidump and niload. > #There should be a program that gets all the files synchronized with > #each other. > > Well, niload and nidump attempt to do this. I recommend that one keep > things synchronized by just using the Administration Apps (NetInfoManager > can handle just about anything related to NetInfo). In those cases where > you'd like to edit a file, the best bet is to nidump, edit and niload. The first recomendation is not practical in many situation. Not all people charged with administering NeXTs have a NeXT at their desk. The second can be sort of automated: replace the passwd, chfn and others like them with scripts that call nidump, then the original command, then then niload. The biggest problem is with those files that you just modify with an editor instead of using a special command (/etc/services, for example). The only thing I can suggest there is, if you use Emacs, putting a "magic cookie" at the top of the file that runs niload when the file is read in and rereads the file, and sets things up so that niload is done after the buffer is written out. (Sorry, I can't offer the actual elisp code, since I haven't done this -- I just run nidump and niload manually.) > #/bin/passwd only updates NetInfo. It doesn't touch /etc/passwd or > # /etc/passwd.dir or /etc/passwd.pag or /usr/adm/nu.passwd > > This is a feature. Don't be surprised if those files aren't even on our > next software release. It's not a feature, it's a tradeoff (between having NetInfo and having the "traditional" Unix administration stuff). And it's a false tradeoff at that -- if you use a special file for /etc/passwd which is just a window into NetInfo, you CAN have both. /etc/passwd.{dir,pag} are not needed, they are an implementation detail. But please leave /etc/passwd. > >Is there a sensible way for me to get at the .wn documents on an ascii > >terminal? > > No, you really need to use a NeXT to run WriteNow. It would be really nice if WriteNow could read and write TeX files. If not general TeX, then at least the texinfo format. > [...] use a NeXT and print it out. If you still want it online, you > can use WriteNow to save as an ascii file, but you still need to use > a NeXT to do that. ASCII file is OK, but Emacs info file would be better. Jacob -- Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com {boulder,nucsrl}!gore!jacob