From owner-freebsd-current Thu Apr 20 10:14:16 1995 Return-Path: current-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id KAA02542 for current-outgoing; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 10:14:16 -0700 Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.20.4]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA02536 ; Thu, 20 Apr 1995 10:14:13 -0700 Received: by brasil.moneng.mei.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10822; Thu, 20 Apr 95 11:13:06 CDT From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <9504201613.AA10822@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: wcarchive down To: gpalmer@freefall.cdrom.com (Gary Palmer) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 11:13:05 -0500 (CDT) Cc: current@FreeBSD.org, jkh@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <19451.798358087@freefall.cdrom.com> from "Gary Palmer" at Apr 19, 95 11:08:07 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2535 Sender: current-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > In message <199504200518.WAA03907@geli.clusternet>, "Russell L. Carter" writes: > >This is a helluva commitment to FreeBSD, might be messy to begin with but > >will likely root out many of those hard to find bugs right quick, with long > >term benefits for the community. > > And in the meantime, every time wcarchive goes down, Walnut Creek's name > get's slightly muddier. We were origionally waiting for 2.1 to come out, and > be properly tested, etc, etc, before even thinking of touching wcarchive, > but it spamming it's /dev/*sd* entries well enough so that we can't even > re-mount the root filesystem read-write kinda forced our hands. > > Yes, it'll force a lot of obscure bugs into the open, but debugging wcarchive > isn't easy as we don't normally have any console access... Then maybe it's time to ARRANGE for console access. As I recall, somebody recently arranged for serial consoles under -current. This works; I tried it. I spent money on hardware which ultimately will centralize console control for my own little flock of FreeBSD systems. As I also recall, I offered a 386sx/16 at one point in the past to "the Cause". This machine can be outfitted with a little extra circuitry to provide a hardware reset output. I will donate a 2-port 16550 card for this box, and one for wcarchive, if need be, and a cable. You then wire the serial ports together, and the 386sx/16 has console control over wcarchive. The 386sx/16 can reset wcarchive. From this perspective, you can do ANYTHING to wcarchive that does not require physical hardware muckymuck. The 386sx/16 in question has already been verified to fit within the minimalistic space available down at Barrnet. IF there is still interest, *I* am still willing to provide this machine. AND a cheap network card. MAYBE even memory and a hard drive (i.e. whole ball of wax). IF it will make wcarchive maintenance easier! This is almost a drop-in solution! But SOMEBODY has gotta say "O.k., it's time to take advantage of this fool who's willing to give up a machine for free". :-) wcarchive has been *extremely* useful to all of us. I consider it an "essential" resource. Do we have any takers? (Dammit, I have very little time to do software hacking and the like. But I'd like to "contribute" to the FreeBSD effort in some manner!) ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/342-4847