Last updated on:
Sunday, July 06, 2008

Software

• Linux/390 Distributions
• Linux/390 Patches
• Hercules - An S/390 Hardware Emulator

Information

• Large numbers of links
• Linux/390 HOWTOs
• IBM's Linux/390 pages
• Distribution Contents
• IBM VM and Linux Resources
• Linux man pages
• Notes & Observations
• Top 10 reasons to run Linux on VM
• Linux/390 at Princeton University
• i/370 Port, aka Bigfoot
• linuxvm.org Archives

Community

• Community Members
• Linux-390 Listserv
• Linux/390 Presentations
• Linux/390 Subscribers
• Linux/390 Survey Results

News

• Enterprise Linux Today
• Linux Journal
• Linux Today
• Linux World
• Kernel Traffic

Fun

• Ubersoft
• User Friendly

Credits

• Cast of characters

Archives of linuxvm.org

10/03/2002 - Mike Grundy of IBM announced that a paper had been written, documenting how to configure Dynamic Probes, and the Linux Trace Toolkit to work together. The distribution used in the paper was SuSE SLES7. Pointers to more information about dprobes and LTT were also given.
http://www-124.ibm.com/linux/pubs/?project_id=28
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/linux/projects/dprobes/
http://www.opersys.com/LTT/index.html

10/03/2002 - Jason Herne announced that a port of Gentoo Linux to S/390 was being started by "a student member of the Clarkson Open Source Institute as a summer internship project for IBM." He promised a followup announcement when the port was ready for testing.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30574

10/04/2002 - In response to a question as to whether there were any quidelines available to decide between deploying an application on AIX versus Linux, David Boyes contributed some that he uses. That information has been turned into a mini-HOWTO on the HOWTO page.

Scott Courtney had some follow-up comments about the "extensive use of Java" question. His point was that Java itself should be subject to the same list of questions as the topic as whole, since Java can have a wide range of resource profiles, depending on the Java vendor and the platform.
http://linuxvm.org/Info/HOWTOs/linuxaix.html
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30596
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30680

10/04/2002 - Mark Post contributed a link to an article about AOL starting to replace some of their UNIX servers running on RISC hardware with blade servers running Red Hat Linux 7.3 on Intel chips.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020927S0036

10/04/2002 - Neale Ferguson posted the link to an article about IBM winning the first large customer for its computing-on-demand service that is based on Linux/390. The customer was Mobil Travel Guide.
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-10-04-015-26-NW-HE-SV

10/08/2002 - In response to a request for help planning a "roadmap to migrate from MS-EXCHANGE (including messages files) to a open-source application," David Boyes had several suggestions:

1. Bynari Insight Server and client
2. Oracle Collaboration Server and client
3. Using the open-source sendmail,Cyrus IMAP, and OpenLDAP plus the Oracle Collaboration Server client piece to fool Outlook into thinking it's talking to Exchange.
4. Using the open-source sendmail, Cyrus IMAP server, and OpenLDAP plus the Bynari client connector to fool Outlook into thinking it's talking to Exchange.
5. Ximian's Evolution client and the above back ends.

10/09/2002 - During a discussion about kernel levels, etc., Alan Cox recommended that "People should be using at least 2.4.19 if they have untrusted local users, and probably at least 2.4.9 if not." Since the only systems that don't have untrusted users are single-user systems the recommendation to be running 2.4.19 will cover just about everybody.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30661

10/09/2002 - Dennis Andrews of UTS Global announced the General Availability of their Distributed Tape product. The complete text of the announcement is in his posting.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30676

10/10/2002 - During a discussion about using Amanda and Samba to back up Windows® clients, Adam Thornton corrected a misconception that the Amanda userid would only have to be a "backup operator" and not an administrator. According to some Amanda documentation, "Samba does not use Windows' Backup API, so configuring the Amanda backup user as a member of group backup, in the Windows host, is useless. You will probably have to configure it as an Administrator, and make sure that it can read and change permission of *all* files in the share."
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30686
http://archiv.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/2001/0010/data/docs/SAMBA

10/11/2002 - In response to a question about the maximum number of DASD devices that Linux/390 can recognize, Ihno Krumreich replied that the limitation is the number of free "major numbers." He referenced a table in the "Device Driver and Installation Commands" manual that details this:

Names	Number	Major/minor numbers (assuming dynamic allocation from 254)
dasda - dasdz	26	94:0 - 94:100
dasdaa - dasdbl	38	94:104 - 94:252
dasdbm - dasdzz	638	254:0 - 245:244
dasdaaa - dasdzzz	17576	245:248 - 131:148
Sum:	18278

http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30696
http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux390/docu/lnuxdd02.pdf

10/15/2002 - Mark Post forwarded a pointer from a co-worker to an online white paper/essay titled "Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!" The lead-in to the paper states "This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using open source software / free software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures. This paper examines market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. It also has sections on non-quantitative issues, unnecessary fears, usage reports, other sites providing related information, and ends with some conclusions."
Mark commented that most of the people on the mailing list had probably already heard or read most of what was in the paper, but that it would be good to refer people that aren't familiar with the topic to it.
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

10/15/2002 - Jim Rich of BEA reported that "IBM has now certified their Java 1.3.1 SDK's and JRE's for Red Hat for zSeries... We are now completing our certification testing for Weblogic 7.0 with Service Pack 1 on Red Hat for zSeries, and the download page should be updated with appropriate information soon. If you want an early start, try the existing SuSE download."

Phil Knirsch of Red Hat replied that there were errata fixes for Red Hat to go along with the certification by IBM. He gave the web page to find out what needs to be fixed.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/linux/tested.html
http://commerce.bea.com/downloads/weblogic_mainframe.jsp
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2002-198.html

10/16/2002 - Richard Hitt of UTS Global announced the availability of some fixes for the 3270 driver:

1. Fix 3270 console reboot loop
2. Recognize 3270 control unit type 3174
3. Fix tubfs kmalloc()s
4. Dynamically get 3270 input buffer
5. Get colors right on 3270 devices

10/17/2002 - Neale Ferguson discovered an article on kerneltrap.org that talked about Robert Love backporting the "jiffies_to_clock_t() code from the 2.5 development kernel to the 2.4 stable kernel. This patch allows one to adjust the frequency of the timer interrupt, defined in the standard 2.4 kernel with HZ=100. In 2.5 this has been increased to HZ=1000." Neale's note ended with a question about what impact this was going to have on the Linux/390 "no jiffies" patch, but no one ever answered him.
http://kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=464

10/18/2002 - Neale Ferguson reported another article that described a new agreement between SuSE and Turbolinux. This one extended past the UnitedLinux alliance, which was for Intel Linux only, and creates a joint development effort for all of IBM's high-end servers, such as zSeries, pSeries and iSeries. Lionel Dyck found the official press release on SuSE's web site.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-962473.html
http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive02/suse_turbo.html

10/21/2002 - Bruce Hayden contributed information on how to shutdown and restart the network on a SuSE system:
The equivalent commands in SuSE's way of doing things is "rcnetwork stop ctc0" and "rcnetwork start ctc0". Note that you may lose your default route with the ctc interface down, so you will probably want to enter "rcroute start" for good measure. Also note that even if you only have 1 network device, entering the device argument on the command avoids broadcasting the "Network is going down now" message.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.30873

10/22/2002 - Mark Post published the URL to a Computerworld article about Linux gaining increasing acceptance in the financial industry.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,75271,00.html

10/22/2002 - During a discussion on software packaging for Linux systems, David Boyes posted a note about an online article in Sysadmin magazine about a tool called OpenPKG. According to David, "It's an excellent description of how to package your tools in a way that:

1. DOES NOT spray files all over the file system.
2. DOES allow easy installation and upgrades, as well as version coexistance in a RO environment.
3. Why this is important.
4. How to work around some of the deficiencies in RPM."

10/22/2002 - Neale Ferguson posted the link to a Forrester Research, Inc. commentary on the readiness of Linux for use in the enterprise.
http://news.com.com/2009-1069-962579.html

10/23/2002 - Mark Post forwarded the link to a an article that focused on Linux/390 as a messaging platform. It didn't mention VM at all, but did discuss the business advantages of running Linux/390 on VM.
http://www.silicon.com/ess56018

10/24/2002 - Alan Cox gave a tip to a questioner who was wanting to know how to run some services in the local time zone, and some in UTC. His response was:
"Run that service with the TZ environment variable set to UTC, e.g."
TZ=UTC mydaemon
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.31013

10/25/2002 - Gerhard Hiller of IBM reported the following updates to the DeveloperWorks web site:
Changes to the "May 2002 stream"

• Bug-fixes for
  • kernel 2.4.19 (with adapted "On-Demand Timer" patch)
  • binutils 2.12.90.0.15,
  • strace 4.4
  • s390 tools 1.1.4 (was 1.1.3).
• The "May 2002 stream" Restrictions page has been updated.
• The "May 2002 stream" Documentation page contains updated manuals.

10/26/2002 - Neale Ferguson contributed the URL of a Computerworld article titled "New Apps Give New Life to Mainframes."
http://computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/apps/story/0,10801,75280,00.html

10/26/2002 - Mark Post contributed the URL of an article that talked about IBM selecting Linux as the operating system for the new suppercomputer cluster family they are building. The line of new computers is named "Blue Gene."
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963285.html

10/28/2002 - Colman Fink posted the URL of an InformationWeek article that provides a little more detail about Winnebago's hardware and software mix, and their experience with Windows® NT. It also talks about Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corp. and Sabre. One moving to Linux/390, the other moving away from TPF to UNIX. One thing the article gets badly wrong is attributing logical partitioning and server virtualization capabilities to Linux, and not z/VM.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021017S0004

10/29/2002 - Mark Post notified the mailing list that he was going to be removing the Caiman distribution from the main "navigation section" at the left of the linuxvm.org web pages. He also commented "The FTP servers for the distribution have been unavailable for months and months now, and according to an email I received from the person who originated it, all the people who used to maintain it for Linux Korea, have left for other companies. Since this was a Debian-based distribution, the fact that there is now an official Debian Linux/390 makes the loss of Caiman much easier to bear. Still, it's a little sad that it's gone.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.31104

10/30/2002 - In response to a question about where to find information on FCP support on zSeries hardware, Neale Ferguson recommended an IBM Redpaper, and his presentation on "SCSI on Linux for zSeries - Early Experiences" on this web site.
http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpaperAbstracts/redp0205.html
http://linuxvm.org/Present/SHARE99/S9305NFa.pdf

10/30/2002 - In response to a question about VPN servers for Linux or Linux/390, David Boyes gave a small dissertation on the possibilities. For commercial solutions he mentioned zGate and Stonesoft. For Open Source, he recommended FreeS/WAN. He also commented that "IPSec and VPN solutions in general are CPU intensive, so you will see a spike in utilization." He also gave some details on what could be used for clients.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.31135

10/30/2002 - In response to a question about VPN servers for Linux or Linux/390, David Boyes gave a small dissertation on the possibilities. For commercial solutions he mentioned zGuard and Stonesoft. For Open Source, he recommended FreeS/WAN. He also commented that "IPSec and VPN solutions in general are CPU intensive, so you will see a spike in utilization." He also gave some details on what could be used for clients.
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvtype?LINUX-VM.31135
http://www.stonesoft.com/
http://www.fbit.de/
http://www.freeswan.org/
http://www.poptop.org/

10/30/2002 - In response to someone who was having problems installing Bastille on Linux/390, Carlos Ordonez sent out part of a workbook that IBM developed for a class.

The site recommends using version 1.3.0 RPMs, however, they do
not work with the s390 architecture, so the source tar file,
Bastille-1.3.0.tar.bz2, is used. Also you need to install Perl
curses or Tk modules, depending on what mode you want to run in:
curses mode (-c) or Xwindows mode (-x).


http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=403&release_id=78589
To install Bastille, do the following:

Install Curses or Tk perl module. (you need to install only one!)

  If you prefer to run Bastille using Curses, untar and install
     Curses:

     # cd /usr/src
     # tar xzf /mnt/labstuff/security/bastille/Curses-1.06.tar.gz
     # cd Curses-1.06
     # perl Makefile.PL
     # make
     # make install
  You can also use the rpm from the same website as Bastille :
     Bastille-Curses-module-1.3.0-0.5mdk.noarch.rpm --nodeps


  If you prefer to run Bastille using Xwindows, install the Tk
     module

     # rpm -ivh
     ../labstuff/security/bastille/Bastille-Tk-module-1.3.0-0.5
     mdk.noarch.rpm --nodeps

Untar Bastille :

  # cd /usr/src
  # tar xjf /mnt/labstuff/security/bastille/Bastille-1.3.0.tar.bz2
  # cd Bastille
  # chmod +x Install.sh
  # ./Install.sh

You can run Bastille in Xwindows mode with the command
./InteractiveBastille -x. You must be in a KDE window to run this
command or have access to Xwindows. If you prefer to run in curses
mode you have to change the -x parameter for a -c .This will begin
the security interview (read the descriptions of each proposed
action! - they are very informative).

10/30/2002 - In response to someone who was having problems with their GuestLAN setup, Dennis Musselwhite gave some tips for checking out what is going on.
"You can issue a couple of CP commands to find out what IP addresses have been registered on the Guest LAN:
"From the main logon (console) of your Linux guest, ask for details about your virtual network interface card (NIC) with the command:

      CP QUERY NIC A000 DETAIL

      CP QUERY LAN HSI1 OWNER SYSTEM DETAIL

10/31/2002 - Mark Post reported the release of a study by Mitre Corporation on the "use of Free and Open-Source Software by the U.S. Dept. of Defense." The full 160-page MITRE paper is available for free download.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7747450961.html
http://www.egovos.org/pdf/dodfoss.pdf