SGI admin Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is one of the Silicon Graphics FAQ series, which consists of:

    SGI admin FAQ - IRIX system administration
    SGI apps FAQ - Applications and miscellaneous programming
    SGI audio FAQ - Audio applications and programming
    SGI diffs FAQ - Changes to the other FAQs since the last posting
    SGI graphics FAQ - Graphics and user environment customization
    SGI hardware FAQ - Hardware
    SGI impressario FAQ - IRIS Impressario
    SGI inventor FAQ - IRIS Inventor
    SGI misc FAQ - Introduction & miscellaneous information
    SGI movie FAQ - Movies
    SGI performer FAQ - IRIS Performer
    SGI pointer FAQ - Pointer to the other FAQs
    SGI security FAQ - IRIX security

Read the misc FAQ for information about the FAQs themselves. Each FAQ is
posted to comp.sys.sgi.misc and to the  and 
newsgroups (whose purpose is to store FAQs) twice per month. If you
can't find one of the FAQs with your news program, you can get it from

    ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/
    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/

(rtfm.mit.edu is home to many other FAQs and informational documents,
and is a good place to look if you can't find an answer here.) The FAQs
are on the World Wide Web at

    http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/

If you can't use FTP or WWW, send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
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document describing how to get files from rtfm.mit.edu by mail. Send the
command 'send usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/misc' to get the SGI misc FAQ,
and similarly for the other FAQs. Send the command 'send
usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email' to get the
"Accessing the Internet by E-Mail FAQ".

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sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu.

Topics covered in this FAQ:
---------------------------
   -1- DIAGNOSTICS
   -2- How can I determine which release of IRIX I'm running and which
       patches are applied?
   -3- How can I determine my SGI's Ethernet (and/or FDDI) address?
   -4- My SGI crashed and generated a file, /usr/adm/crash/vmcore.1. How
       can I examine this file to see what crashed my system?
   -5- How can I find out just about everything about my system at once?
   -6- DISKS
   -7- How big can files and filesystems be?
   -8- My XFS filesystem is corrupt or inconsistent.  How do I fix it?
   -9- Does IRIX support sparse files?
  -10- Why is /debug or /proc full of huge files?
  -11- How do I remount the /proc filesystem after accidentally
       unmounting it?
  -12- How do I extend an existing filesystem onto a new disk?
  -13- How do I know if I need more memory and/or swap space?
  -14- How much swap space should I have per megabyte of memory?
  -15- How can I increase my swap space?
  -16- What are virtual and logical swap space? How do they work in IRIX
       3.x, 4.0.x and 5.x?
  -17- Why is there no way to set up a RAM disk under IRIX?
  -18- BOOTING
  -19- How can I boot directly into single-user mode?
  -20- How can I boot from a non-default disk?
  -21- How can I boot my machine using a server on the other side of a
       router?
  -22- How do I make a bootable tape from an IRIX CD?
  -23- Why can't I boot one of the stand-alone programs on a tape or CD?
  -24- INSTALLING
  -25- Is it possible to remotely install IRIX over a network?
  -26- Which IRIX CD is the program 'foo' on?
  -27- How can I extract a single file from an 'inst' subsystem?
  -28- Why doesn't 'inst' work?
  -29- Why doesn't 'inst' work remotely?
  -30- I just installed a new version of IRIX and file X is missing.
       What should I do?
  -31- I reinstalled an IRIX subsystem to restore a missing file or get
       rid of a corrupted file, but it didn't help. Why not?
  -32- Why do 'inst' and 'showprods' say that a subsystem is an "Unknown
       product entry"?
  -33- How can I install IRIX onto a second disk which I can then move
       to another machine?
  -34- How can I copy my system disk onto a second disk which I can then
       move to another machine?
  -35- How can I share parts of IRIX among multiple machines?
  -36- Can I install a "tardist" archive without the "tardist" software?
  -37- I'm running 6.5.x, why can't I install the compilers?
  -38- NETWORKING
  -39- Why isn't my network working?
  -40- How can I measure my network's reliability?
  -41- How do I add a static route?
  -42- How can I make the 'slip' command advertise the Ethernet address
       of the SLIP client?
  -43- I've just edited inetd.conf, and nothing changed. Why?
  -44- Why can't I 'rdist' files between Suns and SGIs?
  -45- Why are there "satwrite failure: inetd" messages in my SYSLOG in
       IRIX 5.3?
  -46- What is causing the "get interface flags" error in my syslog?
  -47- Why are network connections between SGIs and Suns much slower
       than between SGIs and SGIs or Suns and Suns?
  -48- How can I set up IP aliases?
  -49- Where is ipfilterd documented?
  -50- MAIL
  -51- How can I set up 'sendmail' to pass (or not pass) 8-bit
       characters?
  -52- Why are my mailbox files changing ownership?
  -53- Why isn't a valid user getting their mail?
  -54- How can SGIs and Suns share a mail spool?
  -55- What's an "unknown mailer error"?
  -56- What's "mailbox: Error 0"?
  -57- Why am I having problems with my NFS-mounted mail spool?
  -58- Why are incoming mail addresses case-sensitive in IRIX 5.3?
  -59- NFS
  -60- How can I tell what hostname to use in /etc/exports?
  -61- Why can't I export an NFS-mounted filesystem?
  -62- Why can't Ultrix automount SGI filesystems?
  -63- Why does 'tar' work strangely on a filesystem mounted from an
       SGI?
  -64- Why does 'df' report incorrect numbers for a filesystem mounted
       from a Sun?
  -65- Is 'pcnfsd' available for the SGI?
  -66- Can I export a CD-ROM from my SGI to a non-SGI?
  -67- How can I read an IRIX (EFS) CD-ROM on a machine which doesn't
       use EFS?
  -68- How can I get quotas to work on an NFS filesystem?
  -69- Why can't some NFS clients NFS-mount IRIX 5.2 filesystems?
  -70- What's NFS3?
  -71- Why can't Solaris 2.5 clients read directories on NFS3-mounted
       IRIX 6.2 filesystems?
  -72- Why does my NFS server print "fhtovp_end VFS_GET failed" or
       "fhtovp_end vp NULL" to the console/SYSLOG?
  -73- PRINTING
  -74- Why can't lp(1) read my file?
  -75- How can I tell 'lp' to turn banner printing or page reversal off
       or on?
  -76- How can I use 'lpr' instead of or as well as 'lp'?
  -77- How can I print to a printer with a JetDirect card?
  -78- Why won't lpr(1) print very large files?
  -79- SGI DAEMONS
  -80- Why isn't the objectserver working?
  -81- What is sending packets to the sgi-dog.mcast.net multicast
       address?
  -82- Why are the objectserver and directoryserver taking up so much
       memory in IRIX 5.3?
  -83- Why don't the desktop admin tools recognize root as a privileged
       user?
  -84- Why doesn't my desktop deal properly with the CD or tape icons?
  -85- Why doesn't my mediad start up under IRIX 5.3?
  -86- Why do cdman, cdplayer and capture say "permission denied"?
  -87- Why can't 'cformat' format floptical disks, and/or why can't
       'datman' play audio DATs?
  -88- Why is famd hammering my NFS server?
  -89- What is causing "/dev/imon: event queue overflow" in my syslog?
  -90- BUGS
  -91- Why do 'who', 'rusers', etc. show users who aren't really logged
       in?
  -92- What's wrong with ftpd in IRIX 5.2?
  -93- Why isn't /usr/adm/SYSLOG being updated?
  -94- I just edited /etc/inittab, and now I can't start up or shut down
       my SGI! What's wrong?
  -95- Why does timed say "bind: Cannot assign requested address"?
  -96- Why does "ALERT: i2cWaitForXferDone: Xfer Done timeout ERROR"
       appear in my SYSLOG?
  -97- Why has NIS (YP) stopped working under IRIX 6.x?
  -98- MISCELLANEOUS
  -99- How do I set the number of processes allowed on my machine?
 -100- Where can I get a termcap file for 'iris-ansi-net' to install on
       my non-SGI system?
 -101- How can I make my SGI understand strange terminal types from
       other Unix systems?
 -102- Can I change my login shell or other password-file info without
       being superuser?
 -103- How can I administer my Iris without a graphics terminal?
 -104- How can I use the visual admin tools on a system with graphics to
       administer a system without graphics?
 -105- What's /etc/ioctl.syscon?
 -106- Can I log out users automatically?
 -107- How can I change kernel variables and/or rebuild my kernel?