*BSD News Article 59425


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From: Dan Stromberg <strombrg@hydra.acs.uci.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:55:43 -0800
Organization: University of California, Irvine
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Terry Lambert wrote:
> ] > ] >5)       Compiles most net sources "out of the box" without
> ] > ] > modification or use of a compatability environment.
> ] > ]
> ] > ] Is true for Solaris 2.x for most non-ancient net software.
> ] > ] It's even more true in Solaris 2.5.
> ] >
> ] > Because of the compatability environment.
> ]
> ] No.  I have a wide variety of net source compiled under 5.x.  None
> ] required the compatibility environment (I know because the system
> ] I compile most of the code on doesn't have the compatibility environment
> ] installed).
> 
> I don't have any way of personally testing compilability without
> the compatability environment installed.  I would be very
> interested in the results of a "compilability cookoff" for
> the contents of the comp*sources* archives

I'm finding that things compile pretty smoothly on Solaris 2.4.  Small
plug:  ftp://autoinst.acs.uci.edu/pub/generic.tar.gz, an autoconf'd
compatibility library, hasn't hurt.

I'd rather be compiling for 2.5 (and with 2.5), but we have a rather
large number of 2.4 hosts to upgrade first.  Compiling on 2.5 against a
set of 2.4's libraries hasn't seemed worth the trouble - but if someone
tries it, I hope they'll mention how it goes.

> It is my understanding that most of the code in the source
> archives requires BSD interfaces and/or libraries.

Most code that isn't largely dead, has been ported.

We maintain a large software library, with largely common executables,
across Solaris 2.x, Irix 5.x, OSF/1 3.*, SunOS 4.1.x and Ultrix - those
are the ones that aren't "frozen" now, because there wasn't sufficient
interest around campus to continue.

There just isn't anything to speak of missing from the Solaris chunk of
this.  I wish getethers would snag the ethernet address of the sampling
machine, but that's just because I've been too lazy to fix it.  :)

...even the oddballs, like CAP are running now.  I gather samba and SKIP
do also.

> Clearly, someone would have to have a lot of hardware to do
> this type of test.
> 
> [ ... rancor and my rancorous response that I was going to post ... ]

> Dan Stromberg has a couple of nice points potentially in favor
> of Solaris as an ISP platform; unfortunately, they came at the
> very end of a 2297 line, 100k "discussion".  I can't (or rather
> won't) post them without his permission, since the exchange was
> private email.

We have our differences (definitely!) Terry, but that was a quite
gracious segue.

I suggested that MP could be relevant for an ISP service, if:

1) shell accounts were being provided
2) there were enough downstream links that it would begin to saturate a
single CPU to feed the upstream link
3) the downstream links caused a high number of interrupts, and the
   CPU/OS in use had a high interrupt latency

Solaris' recent improvements  in TCP/IP efficiency (helping with single
CPU or MP) couldn't hurt feeding that upstream link, and I'd guess
they'd reduce latency.

I might add: it's kind of nice having PPP bundled.  I know many people
don't use the Solaris PPP, instead going with dp - but then, hey, it's
nice having the choice between the two.

Anecdote: I had two sparc's doing PPP between themselves, with Sun's
PPP, back at Solaris 2.2 (patched).  It seemed to work fine.  I haven't
had reason to fiddle with it since.

How's the interoperability, on the 2.5-bundled PPP, folks who've tried
it?