Newsgroups: comp.os.plan9,comp.os.misc,comp.answers,news.answers
From: [email protected] (Steve Kotsopoulos)
Subject: Plan 9 from AT&T Bell Labs - Frequently Asked Questions [FAQ]
Summary: FAQ for the Plan 9 operating system
Approved: [email protected] [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected]
Organization: Secure Computing Canada Ltd.
Expires: 1 May 1997
Followup-To: poster
Archive-name: comp-os/plan9-faq
Last-modified: Mar 31, 1997
Posting-Frequency: monthly
URL: http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/plan9faq.html
This document answers frequently asked questions about the Plan 9 operating
system. Much of it was taken (with permission) from Dennis Ritchie's Plan
9 Q&A press release.
The following sections are new or modified recently:
•Can I emulate Plan 9 under Unix?
A hypertext version of this FAQ is available on my Plan 9 web page, URL
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/
Other sources of information include the newsgroup comp.os.plan9, which
is bidirectionally gatewayed to the 9fans mailing list, and of course the
Plan 9 homepage at Bell Labs, URL http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/index.html
The 9fans mailing list archives are available in html format at http://plan9.wtf.nyc.ny.us/mindex.html
Please forward any comments or suggestions regarding this FAQ to [email protected]
______________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
•What is Plan 9?
•What are Brazil and Inferno?
•What is its relation to other operating systems?
•What are its key ideas?
•What are the advantages to this approach?
Hardware and Software:
•What platforms does it run on?
•Is anyone working on a port for my system?
•Does it support symmetric multiprocessing?
•Is it object-oriented?
•What about applications and tools?
•What about application portability?
•Is there a fortran compiler?
•What resources does it need?
•What GUIs does it support?
•Does Plan 9 have any Unix-like terminal emulators?
•What character set does it use?
•What about security and user authentication?
•How does it communicate with other systems?
•Is it suitable for real time control?
Installation and Administration:
•What PC hardware works well with Plan 9?
•How do I Install Plan 9?
•How can I install only part of the CDROM?
•Are there any known problems?
•It doesn't work for me, how should I troubleshoot?
•How do I setup the VGA?
•How do I control the services that start at boot time?
•How do I setup network services?
•How do I upgrade from the old release of Plan 9?
•How do I install Plan 9 on a standalone Sparc?
•How do I install Plan 9 on a Next?
•How do I setup a dual boot for Plan 9 and Windows95?
•Can I install Plan 9 with less than 8Mb of ram?
•Are there any security concerns I should be aware of?
•What is a boddle and what is it good for?
•How do I setup PPP?
•Where can I get unzip and gzip for Plan 9?
•How do I use texinfo on Plan 9?
•How do I reboot my system?
•How do I tell if a file server is up?
General Information:
•Where did the name come from?
•How can I Obtain Plan 9?
•How can I get involved?
•How can I get more detailed technical information?
•Can I emulate Plan 9 under Unix?
______________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
Subject: What is Plan 9?
Plan 9 is a new computer operating system and associated utilities. It has
been built over the past several years by the Computing Science Research
Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories, the same group that developed Unix, C,
and C++.
Plan 9 is a distributed system. In the most general configuration, it uses
three kinds of components: terminals that sit on users' desks, file servers
that store permanent data, and other servers that provide faster CPUs, user
authentication, and network gateways. These components are connected by
various kinds of networks, including Ethernet, Datakit, specially-built
fiber networks, ordinary modem connections, and ISDN. In typical use, users
interact with applications that run either on their terminals or on CPU
servers, and the applications get their data from the file servers. The
design, however, is highly configurable; it escapes from specific models
of networked workstations and central machine service.
Subject: What are Brazil and Inferno?
Brazil is the next research project after Plan 9, and is strictly internal
to Bell Labs at this time. The kernel data paths have been re-architected
to take advantage of faster machines and networks. Work on Brazil has been
stalled, as the developers have been pulled off the Brazil project to work
on Inferno. The abstract of a talk on Brazil given by Rob Pike is at http://plan9.wtf.nyc.ny.us/brazil.html
Inferno is an operating system for delivering interactive media to its users.
It is intended to be used in a variety of emerging network environments,
for example in TV set-top boxes attached to cable systems, advanced telephones,
hand-held devices, and inexpensive networked computers, but also in conjunction
with traditional computing systems. More Inferno information is available
at http://inferno.bell-labs.com/inferno/
Some comments on Inferno vs. Java are at http://www.suck.com/dynasuck/96/04/17
The Inferno mailing list archive is at http://www.isr.umd.edu/%7Edoc/Inferno/Mail-list/
Subject: What is its relation to other operating systems?
Plan 9 is itself an operating system; it doesn't run as an application under
another system. It was written from the ground up and doesn't include other
people's code. Although the OS's interface to applications is strongly influenced
by the approach of Unix, it's not a replacement for Unix; it is a new design.
Subject: What are its key ideas?
Plan 9 exploits, as far as possible, three basic technical ideas: first,
all the system objects present themselves as named files that are manipulated
by read/write operations; second, all these files may exist either locally
or remotely, and respond to a standard protocol; third, the file system
name space - the set of objects visible to a program - is dynamically and
individually adjustable for each of the programs running on a particular
machine. The first two of these ideas were foreshadowed in Unix and to a
lesser extent in other systems, while the third is new: it allows a new
engineering solution to the problems of distributed computing and graphics.
Plan 9's approach means that application programs don't need to know where
they are running; where, and on what kind of machine, to run a Plan 9 program
is an economic decision that doesn't affect the construction of the application
itself.
Subject: What are the advantages to this approach?
Plan 9's approach improves generality and modularity of application design
by encouraging servers that make any kind of information appear to users
and to applications just like collections of ordinary files. Here are a
few examples.
The Plan 9 window system (called 8½) is small and clean in part because
its design is centered on providing a virtual keyboard, mouse, and screen
to each of the applications running under it, while using the real keyboard,
mouse, and screen supplied by the operating system. That is - besides creating,
deleting, and arranging the windows themselves - its job is be a server
for certain resources used by its clients. As a side benefit, this approach
means that the window system can run recursively in one of its windows,
or even on another machine.
Plan 9 users do Internet FTP by starting a local program that makes all
the files on any FTP server (anywhere on the Internet) appear to be local
files. Plan 9 PC users with a DOS/Windows partition on their disk can use
the files stored there. ISO 9660 CD-ROMs and tar and cpio tapes all behave
as if they were native file systems. The complete I/O behavior and performance
of any application can be monitored by running it under a server that sees
all its interactions. The debugger can examine a program on another machine
even if it is running on a different hardware architecture.
Another example is the approach to networks. In Plan 9, each network presents
itself as a set of files for connection creation, I/O, and control. A common
semantic core for the operations is agreed upon, together with a general
server for translating human-readable addresses to network-specific ones.
As a result, applications don't care which kind of network (TCP/IP, ISDN,
modem, Datakit) they are using. In fact, applications don't even know whether
the network they are using is physically attached to the machine the application
is running on: the network interface files can be imported from another
machine.
Hardware and Software:
Subject: What platforms does it run on?
The Plan 9 kernel and applications are highly portable. Plan 9 runs on four
major machine architectures: Intel 386/486/Pentium, MIPS, SPARC, and Motorola
68020. Data structures and protocols are designed for distributed computing
on machines of diverse design. Except for necessarily machine-dependent
parts of the kernel, the compilers, and a few libraries, there is a single
source representation for everything.
The systems supported under each architecture are:
386
386, 486, Pentium and clones
see the "What PC hardware works well with Plan 9?" section of this faq
for more information on this popular topic
MIPS
MIPS Magnum 3000, 6280, SGI Power Series, Indigo, Challenge M;
SPARC
SLC (4/20) Sparcstation 2 (4/75) have been tested, Sparcstation 1 (4/60),
IPC (4/40), 1+ (4/65), ELC (4/25), and IPX (4/50) will probably work too;
68020
Gnot, 68040 NeXTstation.
More details are available in "The Various Ports" at URL http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/port.html
Subject: Is anyone working on a port for my system?
Steve Kotsopoulos has a preliminary SGI Indy R4000 port, available from
ftp://ftp.ecf.toronto.edu/pub/plan9/steve/indy.bod Bug reports welcome at
[email protected]. Charles Forsyth has found that the Indy R4600 will require
more extensive changes.
Both David Hogan and forsyth (separately) ported an older version of Plan
9 to the Sun-3/50 and 3/60. David Hogan got the new release working on Sun-3/50
and 3/60s and forsyth has tidied it up for distribution. See http://www.plan9.cs.york.ac.uk/plan9/soft/nonlocal.html
for more information.
David Hogan is also working on a port to the DEC Alpha architecture. He
will announce it when it is ready.
Charles Forsyth is working on a Plan 9 Port to the BeBox, details are at
http://www.plan9.cs.york.ac.uk/plan9/soft/bebox.html A PowerPC compiler
suite for Plan 9 has been implemented, see http://www.plan9.cs.york.ac.uk/plan9/soft/power.html
for details.
Neither the Amiga nor Atari are supported.
The Decstation 2100 and 3100 are not supported, but Tad Hunt has started
working on a port. Step one was to make the plan9 mips toolset output little
endian code. His patches for vl(1) to make bootable pmax code are at http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/patches/vl
Queries to [email protected]
Subject: Does it support symmetric multiprocessing?
Yes. SGI Power series multiprocessors are supported both as CPU servers
and file servers. The newer SGI Challenge series of multiprocessors and
dual processor Pentiums are only supported by Brazil, not Plan 9.
Subject: Is it object-oriented?
No, not in the conventional sense. It is written in a strict dialect of
ISO/ANSI C. In a wider sense, its general design of making all its `objects'
look like files to which one talks in a well-defined protocol shows a related
approach.
Subject: What about applications and tools?
Plan 9 comes with its own compilers for C and other languages, together
with all the commands and program-development tools originally pioneered
in the Unix environment. It also provides newly designed software. Alef
is a new language that provides threads, inter-process and inter-machine
communication through typed channels, and abstract data types. Acid is a
programmable debugger that understands multiple-process programs, and the
programs it is debugging may be running on a hardware platform different
from its own. Acme is a new user interface in which any word on the screen
can be interpreted as a command by clicking on it, and any string can specify
a file to be displayed.
Subject: What about application portability?
Plan 9 comes with a library that makes it easy to import POSIX-conforming
applications. There is also a library that emulates the Berkeley socket
interface.
Subject: Is there a fortran compiler?
No, plan9 does not have a fortran compiler. If you have fortran programs
you want to run, you can try using the f2c (fortran to C) converter available
at ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/f2c/
Subject: What resources does it need?
As might be expected, the answer depends on what you want to do. The kernel,
the window system, and the basic applications will run comfortably on a
PC with 8MB of memory. A single diskette can hold the kernel, window system,
editor, and basic Ethernet/Internet interface. A 4-diskette set holds a
system sufficient for simple program development (compiler, loader, debugger,
more utilities).
On the other hand, the system can grow. The installation at AT&T Bell Laboratories
includes multiprocessor SGI Power Series and Challenge machines as CPU servers,
and a 350GB Sony WORM disk jukebox for the file server.
Subject: What GUIs does it support?
The standard interface doesn't use icons or drag-n-drop; Plan 9 people tend
to be text-oriented. But the window system, the editor, and the general
feel are very mousy, very point-and-click: Plan 9 windows are much more
than a bunch of glass TTYs. The system supports the graphics primitives
and libraries of basic software for building GUIs, and if need arises, the
X window system has been ported to Plan 9. [Note: The X server only runs
on MIPS systems. No one at Bell Labs is working on the port, so they didn't
ship it with the CDROM]
Subject: Does Plan 9 have any Unix-like terminal emulators?
The Plan 9 window system doesn't obey any inline cursor controls, since
none of the native applications use cursor-addressing. If you want to get
from Plan9 to Unix systems, you can run /bin/hp in one of your windows,
telnet/rlogin to Unix, and set the term/TERM variable to hp2621 on the Unix
end. See hp(1) for more details.
Subject: What character set does it use?
The character set is Unicode, the 16-bit set unified with the ISO 10646
standard for representing languages used throughout the world. The system
and its utilities support Unicode using a byte-stream representation (called
UTF-8) that is compatible with ASCII. On Plan 9, one may grep for Cyrillic
strings in a file with a Japanese name and see the results appear correctly
on the terminal.
Subject: What about security and user authentication?
Plan 9's authentication design is akin to that of MIT's Kerberos. Passwords
are never sent over networks; instead encrypted tickets are obtained from
an authentication server. It doesn't have the concept of `set UID' programs.
The file server doesn't run user programs, and except at its own console,
it doesn't allow access to protected files except by authenticated owners.
The concept of a special `root' user is gone.
Subject: How does it communicate with other systems?
The distribution includes a u9fs server that runs on Unix-compatible systems
and understands the native Plan 9 remote file protocol, so that file systems
of Unix machines may be imported into Plan 9. It also includes an NFS-compatible
server that runs on Plan 9, so that Plan 9 file systems may be accessed
from other systems that support NFS. It includes the full suite of Internet
protocols (telnet, rlogin, ftp).
Subject: Is it suitable for real time control?
No, it is not. It is a general purpose system, without an interrupt priority
scheme or real scheduler.
Installation and Administration:
Subject: What PC hardware works well with Plan 9?
If you don't want to spend time fiddling with and swapping PC hardware,
you may prefer to buy hardware that is in use within Bell Labs. If so, have
a look at the "What We Use" document by [email protected], at http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/clone.html
The general recommendation would be for a 486 PCI+ISA motherboard with I/O
on the motherboard that would take a DX4-100. SIS or Intel chipset should
be OK. If you can afford it, Intel cpus have larger primary caches and less
possibility of running into incompatibilities.
A condensed summary of the hardware that is known to work follows:
Motherboards
AMI Enterprise IV, ACER AP41. Many people run on stock PC-clones such as
Dell, Gateway, Micron Millenias
Pentium motherboards
ASUS PCI/E-P54NP4, Gigabyte GA586-ID, Tyan Tempest S1462
VGA cards/chips
S3 80[15], S3 928, S3 864, S3 964, S3 Trio64, S3 Trio32, Tseng Labs ET4000,
Tseng Labs ET4000/W32p, Tseng Labs ET4000/W32i, ARK2000pv, CL-GD542x, CL-GD543x,
C&T65540, MACH32, MACH64.
Monitors
IDEK 8617, Viewsonic 17, Nokia 445X, Nanao Flexscan 6500 21" greyscale.
SCSI Controllers
Buslogic controllers have been the most trouble-free, due to their open
policy on providing programming information. Adaptec 1542 series, Ultrastor
14F ISA and a 34F VLB.
SCSI CD-ROM
2x Toshiba 3401, 4X Toshiba 3601B, NEC 74 and 3Xi, 4x Plextor 4-Plex. The
Toshiba and Plextor let you read the digital audio over the bus.
Non-SCSI CD-ROM
Mitsumi, Panasonic and Matsushita, attached to a Sound Blaster audio card,
4X Toshiba 5302B, Mitsumi FX400 and Teac 6x drive, attached to an ATAPI
controller. Avoid Sanyo, it doesn't execute the drive diagnotics command
properly.
Audio
Sound Blaster 16 or compatible (not the Sound Blaster Pro).
Mouse
PS/2 or serial, as long as it has 3 buttons.
Ethernet Adapters
3Com 3C509, 3C509B are recommended. The EISA 3C579 works, but isn't worth
the extra cost. The PCMCIA 3C589, PCI 3C590 and PCI 3C595 (fast ethernet)
also work. AMD 79C970 based adapters seem to work fine. SMC (WD) series
up to the Elite (and the Elite Ultra), some NE2000 compatibles (including
an NE4100 PCMCIA card) and one Eagle NE3210 EISA card. The 3Com 3C503 does
not work at all under load. The 3Com 3C595 is not supported.
If you have time for netnews, the OS/2 and Linux newsgroups probably have
some useful information.
Another useful web page on PC hardware (with a BSDi bias) is "PC Hardware
Hints and Kinks" at http://www.vix.com/pc-hw/
Subject: How do I Install Plan 9?
The installation is designed to be run from a PC. Note that Plan 9 uses
an unallocated portion at the end of the disk, and you won't see this partition
with the FDISK program.
1.Back up your system.
1.Make sure you've backed up your system.
1.Read"Installing the Plan 9 Distribution" at URL http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/install.html
1.Check the errata page athttp://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/errata.html for
problems and fixes found since the distribution was frozen. More recent
bugfixes are now distributed in boddle format from the update directory
at ftp://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/update
1.Here are some more questions that have been answered on the 9fans list:
IP configuration
ndb/cs will set the sysname if you setup an appropriate entry in /lib/ndb/local.
You must specify an 'ether=' entry, and the address should be all lower
case. If all goes well, ip/ipconfig will then configure IP.
Mice
If aux/mouse is having problems guessing the protocol, you can use the undocumented
'-d type' option to help it out. Use 'aux/mouse -dC $mouseport' for a Logitech
type C mouse, '-dW' for a Logitech type W mouse, or '-dM' for a Microsoft
compatible mouse.
Name Service
If you have having problems, first check that ndb/dns is running. It needs
to be started in /rc/bin/termrc or /rc/bin/cpurc. Also note that only fully
qualified names are supported, and there isn't a separate resolver.
Binding and Mounting Devices
Note that # is the shell comment character, so you must enclose it in single
quotes. For example: bind -a '#R6' /dev
Auth Server
When booting a cpuserver without an auth server, if you give 0.1.0.0 as
the auth server address instead the cpu server's own address, you won't
have to wait for it to timeout.
Subject: How can I install only part of the CDROM?
The cdrom has about 375Meg of files on it, but if you are short on disk
space you can install with much less than that. Each of the toplevel architecture-specific
directories takes up over 40Meg, so if you only have PC's you can save over
140Meg by simply not installing /mips, /sparc and /68020. If you don't need
the source in /sys/src (shame on you), you'll save 43Meg.
The pcdist disks at ftp://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/pcdist contain bugfixes
that are not on the CDROM, and some of the fixes are not yet available in
source form either. If you are installing on a pc, it is probably easiest
to install the pcdist first, and then merge in whatever you want from the
cdrom.
If you use mkfs to copy the cdrom, you can make sure you don't overwrite
files that were fixed on the pcdist. You can use the following steps to
load the entire cdrom except /mips, /sparc and /68020 on a standalone pc.
First, install the latest pcdist using the standard installation procedure.
Next, mount the cdrom [this assumes scsi cdrom at device 4]
% 9660srv
% disk/kfscmd allow
% mkdir /n/cd
% mount /srv/9660 /n/cd '#R4/cd4'
Use the following to copy the filesystem rooted at /n/cd (the cdrom) to
/n/kfs (the local PC filesystem), according to the proto file /tmp/386allproto,
and without overwriting any files that are on the pcdist.
% /n/cd/386/bin/disk/mkfs -v -s /n/cd /tmp/386allproto
Where /tmp/386allproto is the following mkfs proto file:
acme
+
adm
+
cron
+
lib
+
mail
+
mnt
+
rc
+
sys
+
usr
+
386
+
Subject: Are there any known problems?
New pcdist files are available via ftp from plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/pcdist.
These should fix most problems people have had with disc configurations.
There are also VGA fixes and ATAPI CD-ROMs are included in the list of supported
hardware.
Some of the source changes are available as boddles in the update directory
already but not all changes are there yet.
Problems with Adaptec 1542C[FP]
If the BIOS is enabled on the 1542C/CF and BIOS options for support of drives
> 1Gb, dynamic scanning of the SCSI bus or more than 2 drives under DOS
5.0 are enabled, the BIOS disables accepting Cmbinit to protect against
running with drivers which don't support those options. In order to unlock
the interface it is necessary for the driver to read a lock-code using Cextbios
and write it back using Cmbienable; the lock-code is non-zero.
If any of the options mentioned above are on, timeout errors will occur.
Either the BIOS or all the relevant options should be disabled. There is
a new version of b.com on plan9.bell-labs.com in the pcdist subdirectory
which should overcome this problem but it's not known if it works in all
cases.
Adaptec AHA-2xxx series controllers
There is no support for any Adaptec AHA-2xxx series controller. It would
be great if someone wrote a driver since these are popular and show up embedded
on motherboards. However, it's completely different from any other Adaptec
controller and the rumour on the street is that a driver would be a fair
amount of work. Manuals are hard to get, they seem to be permanently on
back-order. If someone wants to tackle this project, the driver for FreeBSD
may be a good starting point.
The NCR8xx series look to be a cheaper alternative with similar performance
and Nigel Roles has already written a driver for it which is available at
ftp://ftp.cs.york.ac.uk/pub/plan9/ngr/ncr
3C509B ethernet card
Make sure you disable the Plug-and-Play option and set the transceiver type
explicitly(don't use auto-select mode)
Subject: It doesn't work for me, how should I troubleshoot?
If you are having having SCSI problems, check your cables and terminators.
this is generally the single largest cause of weird SCSI problems. Active
terminators are best. If you run external cables you need to get high quality
ones. Also, don't crank of the speed on the card.
Subject: How do I setup the VGA?
Simple vga cards and monitors should work at 640x480x[12]. For higher resolutions,
especially on untested cards, you will have to find out more about the card
so you can configure it. The relevant manuals are: vga(3), vgadb(6), vga(8),
and b.com(8). For a detailed debugging guide (too large to include here),
see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/vga
Subject: How do I control the services that start at boot time?
This is controlled by shell scripts, that are roughly equivalent to the
/etc/rc files on Unix:
/rc/bin/termrc for terminals
/rc/bin/cpurc for cpu servers
See cpurc(8) for more details.
Subject: How do I setup network services?
For UDP services, you must start them up in the appropriate cpurc(8) file.
For TCP, IL, or Datakit services, you must use the listen(8) daemon.
Subject: How do I upgrade from the old release of Plan 9?
The 9P protocol has changed in the second edition, due to changes in the
way that Plan 9 does its authentication. For those using Unix-based u9fs
file servers, you will have to compile and install the new version of u9fs.
For more tips on running with a u9fs file server, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/u9fs
For those using the standard Plan 9 file servers, [email protected]
reports that the disk format in the new release is the same, so there should
be no problems running the new FS code on old disks.
Subject: How do I install Plan 9 on a standalone Sparc?
[email protected] (Alex Bochannek) did it as follows:
1) Unpack the CD on a UNIX system and install a u9fs server.
2) Boot the SPARC off the u9fs server
3) Create a kfs on sd1 and unpack the whole CD on it.
4) Copy the file /sys/src/9/ss/sscd to /sys/src/9/ss/sssd1
5) Change the line k9660srv.root to kfs.root and change the line boot
terminal #R6/cd6 to boot terminal #w1/sd1
6) Add sssd1 to the CONFLIST and change CONF=ss to CONF=sssd1 in the
ss/mkfile
7) Do a make all in /sys/src/9
8) Copy the new image 9sssd1 to your favorite TFTP server (or boot
from sd3 on your local system)
Subject: How do I install Plan 9 on a Next?
For a summary of how [email protected] (Ta-Wei Li) did it, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/next.html
Subject: How do I setup a dual boot for Plan 9 and Windows95?
For a summary of how [email protected] (Castor Fu) did it, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/win95
Subject: Can I install Plan 9 with less than 8Mb of ram?
The official answer is no, 8Mb is the minimum supported memory configuration.
Some people are using it with only 4Mb though.
You'll need to borrow 4Mb from another system to get you past the install
process (where 8Mb is needed to expand the diskettes). After the install
is done, you may be able to run with only 4Mb if you set the vga at a low
resolution and/or depth, or perhaps fiddle with the kernelpercent parameter
in plan9.ini(8).
Subject: Are there any security concerns I should be aware of?
If someone sets up their plan9 system according to the manuals, anyone on
the internet can telnet/rlogin in as 'none' without a password
To disable this anonymous access, use the undocumented '-N' option to aux/telnetd
and aux/ftp, which disallows logins as 'none'.
Since aux/rlogin execs aux/telnetd without the '-N' option, the only protection
may be to patch the source, or remove /bin/service/tcp513
Finally, ip/tftpd grants access to any world-readable file. The main concern
here is that people using u9fs as their file server probably have an /etc/passwd
file from their Unix system accessible. If so, make sure you don't have
any encrypted passwords in it, or someone could steal it and use 'crack'
to break the passwords.
Subject: What is a boddle and what is it good for?
It's a bundle o' diffs: an rc script that when run with appropriate options
will apply a set of changes to the reference copy of the source from the
CDROM producing an updated copy in a subdirectory, for you to cat and diff,
and eventually cp onto the active source for a subsequent mk.
The boddle command (not in the release, fetch it from plan9.bell-labs.com)
takes a reference source and an updated version and produces a boddle file.
it comes with a manual page; read that for details.
Subject: How do I setup PPP?
First, apply the changes at ftp://ftp.cs.york.ac.uk/pub/plan9/bod/ppp.bod
These add -9 (enable IL/IP compression) and -m (set netmask) options to
pppclient, and fix a few bugs. Assuming you will use /dev/eia1, login to
the ppp server as follows:
1. % telco -s 38400 /dev/eia1
2. % con -r -l telco!967-1111
3. login and startup ppp on the server
4. use "control \" to escape back to the >>> prompt in con, and type
!onppp
to link pppclient to the remote server.
onppp is the following rc script:
#!/bin/rc
{sleep 5; echo add 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 128.100.8.4 >'#P/iproute' }&
exec aux/pppclient -i 128.100.8.19 -p 128.100.8.4 $*
5. To shut down, use
% kill pppclient | rc
and disconnect in con.
Thanks to [email protected] and [email protected] for this section.
Subject: Where can I get unzip and gzip for Plan 9?
ftp://ftp.cs.york.ac.uk/pub/plan9/pub/gzip.tar
ftp://ftp.cs.york.ac.uk/pub/plan9/pub/unzip.tgz
you might need to use the -f (force) option with gzip, because it changes
behaviour based on isatty()
Subject: How do I use texinfo on Plan 9?
To use texinfo, run "tex foo.texinfo" to create foo.dvi, then use "dvips
foo.dvi > foo.ps" to create a Postscript file, which is viewable with "page"
and printable with "lp". Note: If the file foo.texinfo contains cross-references,
you may have to run "tex foo.texinfo" twice. The first pass creates aux
files and the second pass reads them.
Subject: How do I reboot my system?
The system can be rebooted by typing ^T^Tr (two control-T's followed by
'r'). Cpu servers can be rebooted by typing ^P on the console. See the cons(3)
manual for more details.
Subject: How do I tell if a file server is up?
It won't respond to ping (no icmp), but it does support arp. Of course,
you could just try connecting to it with 9p.
General Information:
Subject: Where did the name come from?
It was chosen in the Bell Labs tradition of selecting names that make marketeers
wince. The developers also wished to pay homage to the famous film, "Plan
9 From Outer Space".
Subject: How can I Obtain Plan 9?
Complete information for purchasing the Plan 9 distribution or ftp'ing the
free PC trial version is available at URL http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/distrib.html
To summarize the information on the above webpage:
Contents
The Plan 9 distribution consists of two books, four 1.4 megabyte floppies,
and a CD-ROM. The books contain the manual pages and a collection of papers
describing the system.
The four floppies contain a complete bootable Plan 9 system for IBM-compatible
PCs (>=386). They have the kernel, the window system, Internet support,
and programming environments for both the C and Alef languages. The CD-ROM
contains everything: kernels, libraries, and utilities for the Intel 386
(including 486 and Pentium), Sparc, 68020, and Mips architectures and the
sources to create them. It also has a selection of interesting stuff (road
maps of the US, sky catalogs).
To find out whether Plan 9 supports your hardware, read "The Various Ports"
at URL http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/port.html
To Order
The distribution is published by Harcourt Brace and Company. To order it
from the US call 800 782 4479.
From Canada and the Caribbean, call 800 841 9938
Elsewhere, use +1 407 345 3800
If you are having problems getting through on the above number you can fax
your order to +1-407-345-4060.
The cost for the full kit is US$350 plus shipping; the ISBN is 0-03-017143-1.
The manuals can be ordered by themselves for US$125 plus shipping; ISBN
is 0-03-017142-3. Everyone, even AT&T employees, must order the system this
way. There are no special arrangements or deals.
Any bookshop should be able to order it for you if you give them one of
the ISBN numbers.
Free Trial
Plan 9 does not purport to run on all PCs. Since Plan 9 does not use the
BIOS, it is sensitive to hardware differences between PCs. Therefore, the
developers provide the contents of the four floppies on the Internet via
FTP for you to try out. Ftp to plan9.bell-labs.com, log in as anonymous,
and get the files from /plan9/pcdist
Subject: How can I get involved?
The best way to learn about the system is to write something that other
people in the Plan 9 user community could use, or to port the system to
new platforms. Several people have already made their applications available,
such as an http server, Unix-based authentication server, fileserver port
to the PC, etc. The current list of user-contributed software includes:
[email protected] (Pace Willisson) has ported the Plan 9 authentication server
to Unix, to allow Plan 9 terminals to function without a Plan 9 cpu server
performing authentication. For more details, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/unixauth
[email protected] (Vadim Antonov) has provided some information on converting
terminals into multi-user hybrid cpu servers and terminals. For his posting
to 9fans, see http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/misc/cpu_terminal
[email protected] has ported a Linux QuickCam program into a Plan 9
driver which serves /dev/camera and /dev/focus. /dev/camera has the same
format than /dev/screen so most of fb/* programs work well with it. The
driver is at http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/projects
[email protected] (Eran Gabber) has ported the FreeBSD driver for the
Talisman XL MPEG-1 playback card for ISA bus to Plan 9. It displays full
motion video in a VGA window and/or generates NTSC signal. In particular,
MPEG decoding, picture resizing and video overlay are all done in hardware.
However, it doesn't use DMA due to its complex architecture.
The driver is available from http://cm.bell-labs.com/is/what/mpeg-driver
This page also points at a copyright disclaimer and installation instructions.
Please read both carefully.
[email protected] (Hans-Peter Bischof) has written spy,
which receives the 9P messages from the kernel, displays them for modification
and sends the resulting messages to the intended server. In the same way
spy transmits the 9P replies of the server. Data spied out in this manner
can be used in many different ways.
It is available from ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/pub/plan9/spy.tar
[email protected] (Bodet Laurent) has modified the dossrv file
server to read and write Linux ext2 partitions. You can find ext2srv at
ftp:://ftp.mime.univ-paris8.fr/usr/bl/ext2srv-0.2.tar.gz
Contact [email protected] if you'd like to test his Zip parallel port
driver. It does nibble mode only so works with anything, just not quickly
(reads are about 5mb a minute, writes double that).
Other software is available on the Plan 9 user community ftp site, ftp.ecf.toronto.edu:/pub/plan9
If anyone would like their projects listed here, let me know. This should
help prevent duplication of effort, and increase involvment from the 'net
community. If you are looking for a list of suggested project topics, see
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/projects
Subject: How can I get more detailed technical information?
The Internet site plan9.bell-labs.com stores a collection of papers about
the system in the plan9 directory; they are available for anonymous FTP.
For a hypertext interface to these papers, see http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/vol2.html
For the manual pages, see http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/vol1.html
Subject: Can I emulate Plan 9 under Unix?
Several Plan 9 inspired applications are available for Unix systems.
The sam editor is available from ftp://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/unixsrc/sam/
There is also a Windows 95/NT version of Sam, currently distributed in binary
form only, available from http://netlib.bell-labs.com/netlib/research/sam-win.zip
Comments and bug reports can be sent to [email protected]
A free re-implementation of the rc shell is available from ftp://ftp.white.toronto.edu/pub/rc/
Wily is an acme lookalike by Gary Capell, [email protected]. See http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/wily/
9wm is David Hogan's lightweight X window manager in the style of 8½. It
is available from ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/dhog/9wm/ Comments to [email protected]
9term is an 8½ terminal emulator by Matty Farrow, [email protected], available
from ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/matty/unicode/ In the same directory, you'll
find a collection of Unicode fonts that can be used with 9term, sam and
wily.
9menu is a simple program by Arnold Robbins, [email protected], that
allows you to create X menus from the shell, where each menu item will run
a command. 9menu is intended for use with 9wm, but can be used with any
other window manager. It is available from ftp://ftp.mathcs.emory.edu/pub/arnold/9menu-1.4.shar.gz
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