From owner-freebsd-announce Sat Sep 21 10:31:16 1996 Return-Path: owner-freebsd-announce Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24279 for freebsd-announce-outgoing; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jkh@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24262 for announce; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:14 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:14 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Message-Id: <199609211731.KAA24262@freefall.freebsd.org> To: announce Subject: CVSup 13.4 is now available Sender: owner-freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Subject: CVSup 13.4 is now available Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:42:18 -0700 From: John Polstra Announcing CVSup 13.4 --------------------- Release 13.4 of CVSup, the CVS-aware network distribution system, is now available. Where to Get CVSup - ------------------ CVSup is free software. It is available from the following FTP sites: ftp://freefall.freebsd.org/pub/CVSup/ ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/incoming/ ftp://ftp.polstra.com/pub/FreeBSD/CVSup/ (slow; avoid if possible) Full sources as well as FreeBSD binaries are available: cvsup-bin-13.4.tar.gz FreeBSD binaries for the client cvsupd-bin-13.4.tar.gz FreeBSD binaries for the server cvsup-13.4.tar.gz Sources ** MD5 signatures for these files are: MD5 (cvsup-bin-13.4.tar.gz) = d22feb17efbfbb53fbb1da03162216d5 MD5 (cvsupd-bin-13.4.tar.gz) = 0c5b90c7534e9a1591d99a93b236aa21 MD5 (cvsup-13.4.tar.gz) = d6c5aef96a01f657e7d884f6d2185232 An updated port will appear in the FreeBSD ports and packages collections soon: ftp:://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports-current/net/cvsup/ ftp:://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages-current/net/cvsup-13.4.tgz ** If you wish to build CVSup from the sources, be sure to read the discussion further on in this announcement. What Has Changed Since the Previous Release? - -------------------------------------------- Detect and send changes to the RCS keyword expansion mode. Formerly, these (rare) changes were ignored. That caused checksum mismatches, which slowed down updates because the whole files had to be sent as fixups. Report 0-byte appends as what they really are, i.e., touches. Add a new statistics line for them. Make the command line option handling comply better with POSIX. Fix supconv to handle recent changes to the example "ports-supfile" in FreeBSD-current. Add a timeout to kill a server process when it has been inactive too long (15 minutes). This replaces the TCP keepalives that were added in the previous release. Add a hack to the server to make it easier to shut it down in a controlled manner. If a file "cvsupd-HALT" exists in the directory from which the server was started, and if it is newer than the time when the server was started, then the server will reject all new incoming connection requests. Make some changes to the zlib interface to eliminate the potential for an unsafe interaction with the garbage collector. FreeBSD binary releases are now built with a new version of the Modula-3 runtime that has a thread-safe version of malloc built into it. This cures some vexing core dumps that had been happening from time to time. Add work-arounds for the worst of the problems associated with malloc packages that are not thread-safe. These are not complete, however. I will probably incorporate a (hopefully portable) thread-safe malloc in the next release. Eliminate several FreeBSD-specific constructs that caused portability problems on other platforms. There is a good chance now that this software will compile and run out-of-the-box on most POSIX systems with standard SRC Modula-3 installations. What Is CVSup? - -------------- CVSup is a software package for distributing and updating collections of files across a network. CVSup is specifically tailored to distributing CVS repositories. By taking advantage of the special properties of the files contained in CVS repositories, CVSup is able to perform updates much faster than traditional systems. It is especially valuable for people with slow Internet connections. CVSup parses and understands the RCS files making up a CVS repository. When updates occur, CVSup extracts new deltas directly from the RCS files on the server and edits them into the client's RCS files. Likewise, CVSup notes the addition of new symbolic tags to the files on the server and sends only the new tags to the client. CVSup is able to merge new deltas and tags from the server with deltas and tags added locally on the client machine. This makes it possible for the client to check local modifications into his repository without their being obliterated by subsequent updates from the server. Note: Although this feature is fully implemented in CVSup, it will probably not be practical to use it until some small changes have been made to CVS. In addition to distributing the RCS files themselves, CVSup is able to distribute specific checked-out versions. The client can specify a symbolic tag, a date, or both and CVSup will extract the appropriate versions from the server's CVS repository. Checked-out versions do not need to be stored on the server since CVSup can extract any version directly from the CVS repository. If the client has an existing checked-out tree, CVSup will apply the appropriate edits to update the tree or transform it into the requested version. Only the differences between the existing version and the desired version are sent across the network. CVSup uses lightweight processes (threads) to implement a streaming protocol across the network. This completely eliminates the delays associated with the lock-step, request-reply form of communication used by many existing protocols, such as sup and NNTP. Information is transferred at the full available speed of the network in both directions at once. Network latency and server response delays are rendered practically irrelevant. CVSup uses the "zlib" compression package to optionally compress all communications. This provides an additional 65-75% compression, on top of the diff-based compression already built into CVSup. For efficiency, all processing is built into the CVSup package itself. Neither the client nor the server executes any other programs. For further information about how CVSup works, see the "Blurb" document in the CVSup distribution. Using CVSup to Maintain FreeBSD Sources - --------------------------------------- CVSup servers are currently running at the following FreeBSD mirror sites: USA: cvsup.freebsd.org cvsup2.freebsd.org The Netherlands: cvsup.nl.freebsd.org Using CVSup, you can easily receive or update any of the standard FreeBSD source releases, namely, "cvs", "current", and "stable". The manual page for cvsup(1) describes how to do that. If all goes well, additional servers will come on-line soon. Building CVSup from the Sources - ------------------------------- CVSup is written in Modula-3, a modern, compiled, object-oriented language. Modula-3 integrates threads, exceptions, and garbage collection, providing an ideal vehicle for this sort of application. Without Modula-3, CVSup would almost certainly not exist today. If you wish to build CVSup from the sources, you will first need to install the free Modula-3 compiler and runtime libraries from DEC SRC. A port is available in the FreeBSD ports collection, in "lang/modula-3". The corresponding package is, of course, available in the packages collection. You will also need version 1.0.4 or later of the "zlib" library. In recent versions of FreeBSD-2.2-current, this library has been incorporated into the system sources, in "src/sys/lib/libz". Prior to that, a FreeBSD port was available in "devel/libz" of the FreeBSD ports collection. For other sources of this library, see the "Install" file. Do not try to use versions earlier than 1.0.4. You will also need Poul-Henning Kamp's "libmd" library. It is a standard library on FreeBSD systems. Portability Issues - ------------------ I intend for CVSup to be portable to most POSIX systems. The present release has only been tested under FreeBSD versions 2.1 and later. Primarily because of packaging problems, this release of CVSup probably won't build out-of-the-box on other systems. Among other things, it relies on Poul-Henning Kamp's "libmd" encapsulation of the MD5 subroutines. The library itself appears to be quite portable, but its Makefiles are BSD-specific. There are probably some other FreeBSD-specific things in CVSup that have not been found yet. Anybody who succeeds in porting CVSup to other systems is encouraged to send his changes to . As long as the changes are reasonably palatable, they will be incorporated into future CVSup releases. CVSup uses several POSIX-specific functions which may make it more of an effort to port the package to non-POSIX systems such as Win32. These functions include mmap, fork, syslog, stat, and chmod, among others. Status of this Release - ---------------------- CVSup has been in alpha testing since mid-May. This should be considered a beta release. Please be prepared to find bugs -- without a doubt, there are some. Please report bugs to . John Polstra, Copyright 1996 John D. Polstra $Id: Announce,v 1.9 1996/09/12 22:43:05 jdp Exp $ $Name: REL_13_4 $ From owner-freebsd-announce Sat Sep 21 10:31:37 1996 Return-Path: owner-freebsd-announce Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24501 for freebsd-announce-outgoing; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jkh@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24487 for announce; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:31:35 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Message-Id: <199609211731.KAA24487@freefall.freebsd.org> To: announce Subject: FreeBSD based product announcement.. Sender: owner-freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk From: Julian Elischer Organization: Whistle Communications Subject: FreeBSD based product announced.. To all my fellow FreeBSD users! Announcing the whistle "Interjet"! Hey don't laugh.. the name grows on you! It really describes a new class of internet "appliance". We have been very fortunate to have a base to work off, of the caliber of FreeBSD! julian my comments on the "official line" below will be in [] Remember that the original text is aimed at the internet neophite. ==============Official Whistel product description=========== The Whistle InterJet(TM) is an all-in-one, plug-and-play device that is remarkably easy to set up and use. All you have to do to get your network of computers connected to the Internet is to plug a phone line into the back of the InterJet and connect the InterJet to your Ethernet network. And since it's preconfigured by your Internet service provider specifically for your business requirements, you can literally have your local network connected to and communicating with others in just a few minutes. [You only buy it through your ISP.. we give the ISPs configuration software] All the software needed for each of your PCs to get productive on the Internet is included and preconfigured for your network. The InterJet has all kinds of additional features that you can choose to take advantage of in your business. E-Mail With the InterJet installed in your network, you'll have new electronic mail capabilities, both inside your local network and out in the worldwide Internet community. Web Access The InterJet makes the exciting new world of the Internet available to everyone on your local network. People can access information from Web sites all over the world, search for information important to their specific job function and learn more about the competitive marketplace. Your Web Site You can use your InterJet to simply and easily publish your company Web site, allowing your employees and customers to have quick-and-easy access to information about your company, facts about your products or services, and much more. A company Web site is an excellent way to keep your existing clients informed and an exciting way to attract new business. Security Of course, with the InterJet, you'll be able to maintain complete control over who in your company can access the Internet, as well as over the level of Internet security your company requires. The InterJet has its own built-in firewall, meaning you'll have access to the world, but the world does not have access to your computers. Easy to Maintain >From the InterJet administration application, it's remarkably easy to set up Internet and electronic mail accounts for the people in your company. All you have to do is type in a name and password and click on the services you want each user to have. That's it! You don't have to have any special networking know-how to add or delete users or manage the InterJet. The InterJet has unique diagnostic abilities built right in. If anything gets in the way of the InterJet doing its job, it'll tell you what the problem is and point you towards how to fix it. =========================================================== Whistle and FreeBSD see www.whistle.com This box is based on FreeBSD-current (presently last week's version) Whistle is actively feeding changes and fixes back to FreeBSD The multi-link PPP daemon from this box is available in ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/incoming as mpd.[some version] Also Whistle has integrated the netatalk protocol into FreeBSD -current and made enhancements. It is also arranging that the netatalk appletalk server software will come out in it's next revision with FreeBSD-current support "out of the BOX". We are also working with the Samba folks to make sure that FreeBSD with SAMBA will have good support. This box is designed to be a "web-server in your modem" and looks just like a toaster I think :) It has a 486DX4 in it and makes about 800MB of shared (via samba, netatalk and ftp) of www publishing space available to the users. it has a 4 port 10baseT hub built in so a small company can hook it's macs and PCs straight in.. as I said: see http://www.whistle.com for more details.. Sorry no telnet interface.. no shell.. this is an embedded system. julian p.s. In particular see the "Employment Opportunities" section.. known FreeBSD hackers have bonus points..