Key Features and Changes for
Previous IRIX Releases
The page contains a list of the key
features and changes for the IRIX releases from 6.5 through 6.5.21:
IRIX 6.5.x Key
Features
IRIX 6.5 Key
Features
To see the list of key new features
and changes for the IRIX 6.5.22 release, see the Key New Features and Changes page.
For information about the IRIX 6.5
release family, see Supportfolio Online at http://support.sgi.com/irix/6.5
and www.sgi.com.
For details on any of these
new features and changes, see the release notes for
the software product.
Please be aware that some
features listed here are only applicable for certain software bundles
or hardware configurations.
The following features are in the
core IRIX 6.5.x overlays.
-
SGI Origin 350 server
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.21).
-
Silicon Graphics Onyx4TM
UltimateVisionTM
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.21).
-
SGI Origin 3900 server
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.19).
-
Silicon Graphics Fuel visual workstation
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.17).
-
Version 3.01.07 firmware for QLogic 2 Gbit fibre channel
adapters: the 2300, 2310 and 2342
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.17).
-
PCI Expansion
Module to Origin 300
systems
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.15).
-
SGI Origin 300 server series
(initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.14).
-
500MHz R14000 processor on SGI Origin 2000
series and Onyx2 systems (initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.13)
-
500MHz R14000 processor on SGI Origin 3000
series and Onyx 3000 systems (initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.12)
-
SGI Origin 3000 server series, including the
SGI 3200, SGI 3400, and SGI 3800
servers (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.9)
-
TVO
digital video option board for Silicon Graphics Onyx2 systems
(initially supported in IRIX 6.5.9)
-
VPro
Graphics, the next generation graphics for Octane systems (initially
supported in IRIX 6.5.8)
-
Onyx2 InfiniteReality3
systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.8)
-
66 MHz
QLogic 2200 controller(initially supported in IRIX 6.5.7)
-
FC-Tape on
a Storage Area Network (fabric) using the QLogic 2200 fibre channel
controller to the tpsc driver (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.7)
-
R12KS CPU on sgi2200,
sgi2400, and sgi2800 systems (pending overall product release)
(initially supported in IRIX 6.5.7)
-
QLA2200 (both copper and
optical) is supported for FC-AL, FC-AL via the Emulex hub or Fabric
attach via the Brocade Silkworm 2000 switches (initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.5)
-
270 Mhz processor for O2
and Silicon Graphics Octane (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.4)
-
HDTV XIO Board for Silicon
Graphics Onyx2 and SGI Origin 2000 systems (this includes systems
formerly known as Cray Origin2000 systems) (initially supported in
IRIX 6.5.4)
-
Systems using the MIPS
R12000 processor (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.3)
-
Digital Video Multiplexer
option board (DPLEX) for Silicon Graphics Onyx2 systems (initially
supported in IRIX 6.5.3)
-
Redundant Power Supply
(RPS) (initially
supported in IRIX 6.5.3)
-
21" Monitor Support
for O2 and Octane (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.3)
-
Flat Panel Monitor for O2
systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.2)
-
16 pipe Onyx2
InfiniteReality systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.2)
-
GSN network adapter
(initially supported in IRIX 6.5.2)
-
Gigabit Ethernet for
Octane and SGI Origin systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.1)
-
128p Metarouter for Origin
2000 systems (formerly known as Cray Origin2000 systems) (initially
supported in IRIX 6.5.1)
-
Dual Channel Display
option for O2 systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.1)
-
Onyx2 InfiniteReality2
systems (initially supported in IRIX 6.5.1)
-
225QC for SGI Origin 200
(initially supported in IRIX 6.5.1)
Software Support Added in IRIX
6.5.1 through IRIX 6.5.21
Feature Stream Only
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.21f:
-
In the IRIX 6.5.21f release, the output to the XVM show command indicates
whether an XVM physical volume (physvol) has no physical connection
to the system. This indicates that an I/O error would be
returned when trying to read or write anywhere on the volume.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.20f:
-
IRIX 6.5.20f provides the following options for the CXFS and XVM Manager
GUIs:
-
New GUI login choices, including support for a remote shell
connection, which connects to the server via a user-specified
command shell, such as rsh(1C) or ssh(1).
-
The ability for the root user to grant other users permission to
execute specific GUI tasks.
-
In IRIX 6.5.20f, the default values for cxfsd_min and cxfsd_max
have changed to 16.
The legal value for cxfsd_max has also
changed to be an integer in the range 8 through 4096.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.19f:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.18f:
-
In IRIX 6.5.18f, the CXFS Manager graphical user
interface (GUI) has been enhanced to contain all of
the XVM GUI functionality. Using the CXFS GUI
in IRIX 6.5.18f or later release, you
can view and configure CXFS filesystems
as well as use drag-and-drop to
structure volume topologies and administer XVM disks.
Command buttons provide shortcuts to some tasks.
For information on the CXFS GUI, see
SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS Administration Guide.
For details about XVM
volume management, see the XVM Volume Manager
Administrator's Guide.
-
The XVM snapshot feature provides the ability to create
virtual point-in-time images of a filesystem without
causing a service interruption. The snapshot feature
requires a minimal amount of storage because it uses
a copy-on-write mechanism that copies only the data
areas that change after the snapshot is created.
The XVM snapshot feature is supported in the
CXFS XVM GUIs.
For information on the XVM snapshot feature,
see the
XVM Volume Manager Administrator's Guide.
Use of the XVM snapshot features requires a FLEXlm license.
-
In an environment without cluster services enabled,
you can set up and administer logical volumes with
the XVM Manager GUI as
a standalone product. For information on XVM
volume management, see the XVM Volume Manager
Administrator's Guide.
-
As of 6.5.18f, IRIX nodes may now be CXFS client-only nodes, meaning
that they run a minimal implementation of the CXFS and cluster services,
and do not contain a copy of the CXFS cluster database. Client-only
nodes are installed with the cxfs_client software product.
Nodes that you want to run as potential metadata servers must be
installed with the cluster_admin software product, allowing the node
to perform cluster administration tasks and contain a copy of the
cluster database. They must also be defined as metadata server-capable
administration nodes.
A CXFS cluster is now supported with as many as 32 nodes. As many as
16 of those nodes can be CXFS administration nodes and all other
nodes can be client-only nodes. SGI strongly recommends that only
potential metadata servers be configured as CXFS server-capable
administration nodes and that there be an odd number of
server-capable nodes for quorum calculation purposes.
-
In IRIX 6.5.18f, CXFS relocation is disabled by default and
CXFS recovery is supported only when using standby nodes.
This includes recovery (when using standby nodes) of
hierarchical storage management (HSM) products using the
data management application programming interface (DMAPI).
A standby node is a metadata server-capable administration node that
is configured as a potential metadata server for a given filesystem,
but does not currently run any applications that will use that
filesystem. To use recovery, you must not run any applications
on any of the potential metadata servers for a given filesystem;
after the active metadata server has been chosen by the system, you
can then run applications that use the filesystem on the active
metadata server and client-only nodes.
Relocation and recovery are fully implemented, but the number of
associated problems prevents full support of these features in the
current release. Although data integrity is not compromised, cluster
node panics or hangs are likely to occur. Relocation and recovery
will be fully supported in a future release when these issues are
resolved.
For information on CXFS, see
SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS Administration Guide.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.17f:
-
The IRIX 6.5.17f release includes the XVM
Manager GUI. The XVM Manager GUI provides access to the
tasks that help you set up and administer XVM logical volumes
and provides icons representing states and structure
of the XVM volume elements.
With the XVM Manager GUI, you can perform the following
tasks:
-
Administer XVM logical volumes by means of a web browser,
such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.
-
Drag and drop XVM volume elements to create local and cluster volume
topologies.
-
Drag and drop disks to label them or give them away.
-
See volume element and filesystem status changes
instantly, reflected in color-coded icons.
-
Click buttons to create volume elements quickly.
For information on the
XVM Manager GUI, see
XVM Volume Manager Administrator's Guide.
Use of the XVM snapshot features requires a FLEXlm license.
-
IRIX 6.5.17f includes support for the use of
local XVM volumes as FailSafe resources.
This requires FailSafe version 2.1.3.
XVM volumes used in conjunction with CXFS should
not be added as FailSafe resources.
For information on configuring FailSafe resources,
see the IRIS FailSafe Version 2 Administrator's
Guide, 007-3901-006.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.16f:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.15f:
-
As of the IRIX 6.5.15f release,
the default naming convention for subvolumes in the /dev/lxvm/ and
/dev/cxvm directories is volname, subvolume.
Older releases of XVM created a
directory entry for a subvolume of the form volname_subvolname. This
convention can yield potential problem. For example, since vol1_data is
a legal name for a volume it is impossible to determine whether
/dev/lxvm/vol1_data refers to the data subvolume of the volume vol1 or
to a volume named vol1_data.
The volname_subvolname form of subvolume
directory entries is still supported in IRIX 6.5.15f and
later, but
its use is not recommended.
For information on XVM device
directories and pathnames, see the XVM Volume
Manager Administrator's Guide.
-
As of the IRIX 6.5.15f release of IRIX,
you can implement disk quotas on XFS filesystems according to group ID.
Previous releases of IRIX supported implementing quotas according to
user and project ID. Project and group accounting are mutually
exclusive. This feature is on-disk compatible with Linux-XFS group
accounting, where this feature is already active. For information on
administering XFS quotas, see IRIX Admin: Disks and
Filesystems.
Caution: Group quotas are supported
in the feature stream only. If you implement group quotas
on a disk and, subsequently, mount that disk with the pquota
mount option on a machine running the maintenance stream or
an earlier release of the feature stream on which group
quotas are not supported, the quota
accounting could be corrupted.
-
IRIX 6.5.15f provided the following new features for
CXFS.
-
Support has been added for clients of other
operating systems such as Solaris
as defined in CXFS Client Administration
Guide. These clients are
released asynchronously from the IRIX release. This
support requires IRIX 6.5.15f or later plus
appropriate patches. For more information,
contact your SGI support contact.
-
Default scripts are now provided in the
/var/cluster/clconfd-scripts directory to permit NFS-exporting
of CXFS filesystems listed in /etc/exports.
-
Changes have been made to the rotatelogs script syntax.
The root crontab file now has an entry to run the rotatelogs
script weekly. If you run the script twice in one
day, it will append the current log file
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.14f:
-
The CXFS GUI was
enhanced in the IRIX 6.5.14f release as follows:
-
CXFS Manager and CXFS Cluster View windows
are now combined into one window called CXFS
Manager.
-
Tasks can now be
launched by clicking the right mouse button over the tree-view area, or
by selecting Tasks on the menu bar.
-
Command line
interfaces (CLIs) that the GUI runs can be viewed from a new File
> Show SALog menu item.
-
You can now partially
mount filesystems on just a subset of nodes, using the Define
Filesystem and Modify Filesystem tasks.
-
A new Find text
field helps you find items within the displayed tree-view area.
-
Filesystem status and
cluster status update faster.
For more information, see
the
SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS Administration Guide.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.13f:
-
With IRIX 6.5.13f, the structure
of the CXFS filesystem configuration was changed. CXFS filesystems
can now be defined, modified, managed and deleted independently of each
other, and of the cluster definition. (Previously, the CXFS filesystems
were defined as attributes to the cluster definition.) To accommodate
clusters mixing nodes running IRIX 6.5.12f and IRIX 6.5.13f, backwards
compatibility is enforced by default in IRIX 6.5.13f. For more information,
see the
SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS Administration Guide.
-
The XVM Volume Manager can
be used when layered with the CXFS filesystem. The XVM Volume Manager
can also be used as a standalone volume manager; this requires that you
be running the IRIX 6.5.13f release leg of the IRIX operating system. The
IRIX 6.5.13m leg does not support XVM as a standalone volume manager; this
support will be added in a later release. For information on CXFS
filesystems, see
SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS Administration Guide.
-
The IRIX 6.5.13f release added
support for the use of mirrors in XVM logical volumes. The mirroring
feature of XVM requires the XFS Volume Plexing software option.
Customers running CXFS and who want to run mirrors will need to
purchase this license. XLV customers with plexing licenses can upgrade
to XVM without having to acquire a new license.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.12f:
-
Supports the labeling of
disks as XVM system disks in the XVM Volume Manager. This lets you
create XVM logical volumes that include the partitions of a system
disk. The following XVM system disk features are supported:
-
Root partitions can be
mirrored
-
There can be multiple
root partitions on a system disk
-
You can include usr
and swap partitions in any XVM logical volume configuration, including
mirrors, concats, and stripes
-
A system disk can
include slices that are not part of a root, usr, or swap partition
You can now convert
existing system disks to XVM system disks, and then use their
partitions as part of an XVM logical volume. After you have converted
an existing system disk to an XVM disk, you can convert the disk back
to its original state by unlabeling the disk with the XVM unlabel
command. For information on XVM system disks, see the XVM
Volume Manager Administrator's Guide.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.10f:
-
XVM installed with CXFS
is now qualified on IP35 (Origin 3000) systems in
addition to the existing qualification on the IP27
(Origin 200, Origin 2000, and Onyx2) and IP30 (Octane) systems.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.9f:
-
CXFS supports the use of
hierarchical storage management (HSM) products through the data
management application programming interface (DMAPI). An example of an
HSM product is the SGI DMF product.
-
Support for the Scheduled
Transfer Protocol (STP). STP is a lightweight network protocol that is
compliant with the ANSI Standard Revision 3.1 protocol suite that is
designed to support extremely high performance data movement. STP uses
Direct Memory Access (DMA) to read and write data into user space from
a network interface. This lets high bandwidth devices, such as Gigabyte
System Network (GSN) and Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), perform at network
speeds with minimum interrupt overhead. For more information, see the
stp(7P) man page or http://www.hippi.org.)
This STP feature was initially added in IRIX 6.5.9. In IRIX 6.5.6, STP was
initially added to the IRIX feature stream with minimal functionality.
-
Support for disk quotas
that can now be set by project ID. Disk quotas let you limit the amount
of space a user or project can occupy and the number of files (inodes)
that each user or project can own. You can implement hard or soft
limits; hard limits are enforced by the system and soft limits only
remind the user to decrease disk usage.
For more information on
disk quotas and their administration, see IRIX
Admin: Disks and Filesystems, which now includes
information about project quota administration. For more information on
project IDs, see IRIX Admin: Backup, Security, and
Accounting. For more information on the
administration of disk quotas by project, see the edquota(1M),
find(1M), quota(1M), repquota(1M), and fstab(4) man pages.
-
Support for the waitjob
feature, which includes the new functions setwaitjobpid( ) and
waitjob( ). These functions let the batch schedulers query job
information following job termination. When a batch scheduler launches
a job, it calls setwaitjobpid( )
to tell the new job what pid is waiting
for information upon termination. When the job terminates, it remains
as a zombie until either the batch scheduler calls waitjob( ) to
retrieve the job's termination information or the waiting pid no longer
exists. The information returned includes the job start time, usage
information, and reason for termination.
For more information, see IRIX
Admin: Resource Administration and the waitjob(1M)
and setwaitjobpid(1M) man pages.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.8f:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.7f:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.2f:
-
Motif 2.1/ViewKit 2.1
-
IRIX Oplock Support
-
Support for Non EUC
encoding and locales (sjis/big5/gbk/utf8)
Maintenance and Feature
Stream
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.21:
-
In an SGI Origin 3900 system, a Cx-brick contains node boards without
CPU packages or cache that are referred to as
a memory-only nodes. The Cx-brick is a "super" CPU brick. It contains
multiple node cards. One of those node cards
must be a CPU node, but any of the other nodes can be memory-only nodes.
Memory-only nodes, sometimes called
headless nodes, allow you to expand the memory capabilities of your
system without the cost or overhead of adding
unnecessary additional processors.
In IRIX 6.5.21, the new keyword directives for use in the cpuset configuration file
(there are equivalent structures or flags for the
cpuset API) to support memory-only nodes are as follows:
-
POLICY_SHARE_WARN
-
POLICY_SHARE_FAIL
-
NODE nodeid or nodeids
-
MEM nodeid or nodeids
-
MEMORY_SIZE_ADVISORY size
-
MEMORY_SIZE_MANDATORY size
-
CPU_COUNT_ADVISORY count
-
CPU_COUNT_MANDATORY count
For a description of these new keywords see the
cpuset(4) man page
and IRIX Admin: Resource Administration.
-
Boot cpusets are used to constrain regular system
activities to a subset of the available CPUs.
In IRIX 6.5.21, kernel threads not forced to run on specific CPUs
run within the boot cpuset if one exists.
Boot cpusets are used to constrain regular system
activities to a subset of the available CPUs.
-
In IRIX 6.5.21, the tcp_wrappers package is available in the
eoe.sw.base IRIX subsystem. It consists of the following components:
-
A library in /usr/lib/libwrap.so
-
A header file in /usr/include/tcpd.h
-
A suite of programs to verify tcp_wrappers operation: tcpdchk, tcpdmatch,
and try-from
In IRIX 6.5.21, inetd(1m) is built with tcp_wrappers by default.
See the inetd(1M) man page for details.
For information on using the tcp_wrappers package, see the IRIX
Network Programming Guide.
-
The IRIX 6.5.21 release provides a new PLACEMENT policy keyword
for checkpoint and restart processes. PLACEMENT offers
two action keywords, STRICT and FLEXIBLE.
The STRICT action keyword
restores the memory of process(es) according
to the placement policies saved at the time of checkpoint.
The FLEXIBLE action keyword attempts to place process memory according
to a basic memory placement algorithm (TOPOLOGY_FREE)
if and only if process memory placement fails when adhering to the
checkpointed placement policies; this is the default action.
For more information on this new PLACEMENT policy,
see the cpr(1) man page and the
IRIX Checkpoint and Restart Operation Guide.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 includes support for the M-Audio
Revolution PCI audio card on Octane and Octane2
systems.
-
The sysdump command, first added in IRIX 6.5.19,
has been enhanced to generate level 1 system crash
dump files of a running system.
The sysdump command is used by system administrators
to generate a crash dump file of the operating
system without the need to reboot the system. The
crash dump file can be used to diagnose system
problems. For information, see the sysdump(1M) man page.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 provides support for the thread and system
nonpreemption pthread mutex protocols that
let real-time pthreads avoid being
preempted while in critical sections.
Real-time developers would use this feature when
the priority inheritance and priority ceiling
mutexes incur too much overhead. For information,
see the pthread_mutexattr_setprotocol(3P) man page.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 includes OpenLDAP version 2.1.17.
The previous release of OpenLDAP on IRIX was split into an
openldap and an openldap_dev package. This release combines both
packages into a single openldap package that includes all libraries,
headers and binaries normally
included in the OpenLDAP distribution.
For information on OpenLDAP, see
http://www.openldap.org/.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 includes OpenSSH version 3.6.1p2.
For information on OpenSSH, see
http://www.openssh.com/.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 includes OpenSSL version 0.9.7b.
The previous release of OpenSSL on IRIX only included selected
libraries. This release includes all libraries, headers and binaries
normally included in the OpenSSL distribution.
For information on OpenSSL, see
http://www.openssl.org/.
-
IRIX 6.5.21 includes support for USB tablets.
-
In the IRIX 6.5.21 release,
the NFS Access control mechanism has been updated to
support new access control list elements such as IP netmasks, domain
name suffixes and explicit exclusion of a host or group of
hosts. For information see the exports(4) man page.
NFS Access control checks are now performed by rpc.mountd for both
MOUNT and NFS protocols.
-
With the 6.5.21 release, a user must have the same or a subset of the
Mandatory Integrity (MINT) divisions of an
object in his or her label and the integrity divisions of the user must
be the same or a subset of the integrity
divisions of the object. For information, see
the Trusted IRIX/CMW Security Administration Guide.
With this release, the integrity divisions of the user must be the same
or a subset of the integrity
divisions of the file. For information, see
the Trusted IRIX/CMW Security Features User's Guide.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.20:
-
For the IRIX 6.5.20 release,
Sysadm Base 3.0 ports the Sysadm Base 2.0 software from Java1 (version
1.1.8) to Java2 (version 1.4.1) which is the latest Java version
supported by SGI.
Sysadm Base 3.0 supports SGI's IRIX software for remote cluster
and storage administration. The CXFS, FailSafe,
and XVM Manager GUIs depend on Sysadm Base.
The use of Java2 simplifies the Java
installation and co-operation with third-party GUIs. This
also enhances the ability to run the GUIs through a
web browser. For example, for the CXFS GUI, you can open
http://server/CXFSManager/.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 integrates MP3 audio decoding into the digital
medial libraries and all associated dmedia tools. For
information, see the soundplayer(1) man page or
the Digital Media Programmers Guide.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 supports the Huffman YUV (HuffYUV) video codec,
which allows lossless real-time compression of 4:2:2 video in the
range of 2:1 to 3:1. Note that since it is software-based,
we do not guarantee real-time compression. For information,
see the movieplayer(1), dmconvert(1), and makemovie(1) man pages.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 adds support for the
Griffin iMic USB audio interface.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 adds support for the
M-Audio Revolution PCI audio card.
-
OpenGL Shader is now shipped with IRIX.
OpenGL Shader is a powerful multi-platform appearance-modeling tool
that provides incredible realism effects through an easy and powerful
development toolkit.
For information see the release notes installed under
/usr/relnotes/shader_eoe
and the
ISL shading language specification installed under
/usr/share/shader/doc/user/islspec.html.
-
Universal Disk Format (UDF) is the filesystem used on
DVDs. The UDF specifications are produced by OSTA, and
are based on the ECMA-167 specification.
A read-only implementation of UDF was added to IRIX
6.5.18, and a write-capable version was added for IRIX 6.5.20.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.20 release, support for Motif 2.1
and ViewKit 2.1 development has been added to the
Maintenance stream.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 includes libraries and utility programs
from MIT kerberos V version 1.2.7. The libraries included are:
libcom_err.so, libdes425.so, libgssapi_krb5.so, libk5crypto.so, and
libkrb5.so. The following utility programs are included: kdestroy,
kinit, klist, kpasswd, and kvno. For information on kerberos,
see
http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/.
-
IRIX 6.5.20 includes OpenLDAP version 2.1.12 with support for TLS/SSL and
Kerberos authentication. This includes the complete suite of
programs and header files necessary to implement an LDAP server
and client applications. For information on OpenLDAP,
see
http://www.openldap.org/.
-
The Job Limits and Comprehensive System Accounting packages, long available
in the IRIX feature stream, have been added to the maintenance stream.
These features are available in the optionally installable packages
eoe.sw.jlimits and eoe.sw.csa.
-
For IRIX 6.5.20 the mod_ssl package has been added to the sgi_apache
web servers. The mod_ssl package adds secure http (https or TLS)
support to apache, using openssl to do the encryption. Note that to
use secure connections you must generate a certificate for your host.
See the sgi_apache release notes for details.
-
The IRIX 6.5.20 release adds support for Trusted IRIX attributes
to checkpoint and restart processes (CPR).
If enabled, capabilities, mandatory access control (MAC) labels, and
access control lists (ACLs) are saved at the
time of checkpoint and restored upon restart. Capabilities are saved and
restored for processes and files. MAC labels
are saved and restored for processes, files, pipes, named pipes, and
System V shared memory segments. ACLs are
saved and restored for files and named pipes. For more information on
these attributes,
see "Using CPR in Trusted IRIX" in the IRIX Checkpoint and Restart
Operation Guide and the capabilities(4), DOMINANCE(5) and acl(4) man pages.
-
The IRIX 6.5.20 release adds information
about set-capabilities (SCAP) programs
in a Trusted IRIX environment to
the "Capability Assignment" section
of Trusted IRIX/CMW Security Administration Guide as follows:
Like set-user-ID (SUID) and set-group-ID (SGID) programs,
programs assigned capabilities (set-capabilities
(SCAP) programs) are handled differently.
A user cannot use the process activity reporter par system utility
program on a SCAP process or trace a SCAP process unless the
user has the CAP_PROC_MGT capability. See the par(1) and
exec(2) man pagase for more details.
Similarly, certain environments variables are not respected when dealing
with SCAP programs. These include
_RLD*_LIST and LD_LIBRARY*_PATH environment variables
of the runtime linker rld command, the IFL_DATABASE
environment variable of the
Image Format Library ifl command (see rld(1) and ifl(1)) and the NLSPATH
environment variable of the open/close a message catalogue catopen routine
that allows user control of message formatting (see catopen(3C)).
-
IRIX 6.5.20 adds information to IRIX Admin: Resource Administration
on using the XThread Control Interface (XTCI) with cpusets as follows:
Kernel system threads and interrupt threads can be confined to the boot
cpuset by using the XThread Control
Interface (XTCI), which is documented in the realtime(5) man page and
the REACT Real-Time Programmer's Guide.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.19:
-
IRIX 6.5.19 provides a Pseudo Random Number Generator, accessible
through the special files /dev/random, and /dev/urandom.
These files support the standard file interface operations.
The PRNG is implemented in the kernel. For further information,
see the random(7) man page.
-
In IRIX 6.5.19, the rdrtc() function was added to libc. This
function provides a simplified interface to read
the system's raw real-time clock value. This feature is similar to
those in other operating systems that read the cycle counter.
For information, see the rdrtc(3c) man page.
-
IRIX 6.5.19 includes OpenSSH version 3.4p1.
This has been patched for TRIX
support and SOCKS support and uses the OpenSSL libraries.
-
For IRIX 6.5.19, a bug was fixed that allowed processors isolated
and made non-preemptive with mpadmin() or sysmp() to become unisolated
while still non-preemptive. This has been changed to force the
processor to become preemptive before it can become unisolated.
For information, see the
mpadmin(1) and sysmp(2) man pages.
-
IRIX 6.5.19 supports Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the next generation Internet
protocol, designed eventually to replace the current IPv4.
IPv6 is expected to grow in usage gradually over many years and
will coexist and interoperate with IPv4 for the foreseeable future.
IPv4 uses a 32-bit address scheme to represent a unique Internet address
while IPv6 uses a 128-bit addressing scheme.
Because IPv6 has four times the number of bits to represent addresses,
it provides several billion times the address space of IPv4 and adds
an almost unlimited number of available IP addresses.
This resolves a projected future
shortage of IPv4 addresses as more and more devices are added to the
Internet.
To ease the transition from IPv4 based networks to IPv6, IRIX
supports a dual-stack protocol implementation that supports both
IPv4 and IPv6 protocols on the same system. The IPv6 basic socket API
is supported and allows network programs to use either protocol.
The IPv6 API software interface communicates transparently with both
IPv4 and IPv6 nodes.
It automatically chooses the right protocol to communicate with any
particular node.
It has an encapsulation mechanism called tunneling that allows IPv6
packets to operate over IPv4 networks. The IPv6 protocol
allows networking applications to operate transparently in both
environments.
For more information, see the IRIX Network Programming Guide and
IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail.
-
The new gigabit ethernet driver (device tgx) now
dynamically adjusts the cards
parameters to maintain good performance across very dynamic workloads.
Manual setting of this parameter is no longer needed.
-
IRIX 6.5.19 includes 64-bit versions of libaudiofile and
libcdaudio. For information on these libraries, see the
afIntro(3dm) and CDintro(3dm) man pages.
-
IRIX 6.5.19 supports sendmail version 8.12.5, which provides the following
features:
-
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
-
Performance improvements including multiple queues, memory-buffered
pseudo-files, and more control over resolver timeouts.
-
Support for "message submission agent", as defined by RFC 2476.
-
Changes to support running sendmail with group-id privileges.
sendmail no longer runs with set-uid-root privileges.
-
Ability to connect to servers running on named sockets.
-
Changes to support IPv6.
-
Improved support for virtual hosting.
-
Improved anti-spam control features.
-
Several new map classes, including ph, arith, and macro.
For more information on sendmail, see
IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail.
-
For security reasons, sendmail is no longer implemented as a setuid-root
program. Rather, it is implemented as a setgid-sgismmsp program.
The sendmail functionality is now split
between the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) and Mail Submission Agent (MSA)
programs and requires new account and group categories both named sgismmsp.
Trusted IRIX/CMW system relies on a number of
administrative data files to provide crucial information for the system.
This release adds a new /etc/mail/submit.cf configuration file for the
mail submission program which is used to submit emails as invoked by
programs (or users).
For more information, see the Trusted IRIX Security Administration
Guide and IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.18:
-
The IRIX 6.5.18 release includes read-only support for the UDF
filesystem format typically used for DVDs and packet-written
CD-RWs. IRIX support for UDF
filesystems does not, however, include support for playing DVD movies.
DVDs will be automatically mounted by mediad in the same way that
CD-ROMs are automatically mounted. For further information on mounting
UDF filesystems, see IRIX Admin: Peripheral Devices.
Note: Support for UDF filesystems requires that you
install eoe.sw.udf.
-
QLFC has been enhanced to improve its output
message format for messages logged to the
console and SYSLOG. The name of the driver as
it appears in messages has been changed from "QL" to
"QLFC". The syntax of the messages has been modified
to include the fabric port number in the message,
in a form similar to the manner in which fabric
devices are named.
For example, where the old driver would output this message:
ql11d(0x200400a0b80cd1ab): target has returned.
the new driver will output this message:
qlfc11: 200400a0b80cd1ab/c11p2: target has returned.
-
In IRIX 6.5.18, the /etc/shells file has been added
to provide system administrators with the ability
to define appropriate shells for users. The implementation
of this feature includes the following ramifications:
-
A user's shell, as defined in /etc/passwd
or an NIS map, must be listed in /etc/shells for the
user to change a password with yppasswd or ypchpass.
-
A user's shell, as defined in /etc/passwd
or an NIS map, must be listed in /etc/shells for
sendmail to deliver a user's mail if the
user's mail is piped to a process (such as procmail
or vacation).
Users are able to log in and use the
system interactively, regardless of whether the shell is
listed in /etc/shells. For more information see the
shells(4) man page.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.18 release, the hinv command with the
-v option displays the PCI/PCI-X bus speed of QLogic
fibrechannel adapters. The hinv -t scsictlr command
displays the SCSI/fibrechannel adapters.
-
Beginning with IRIX 6.5.18, a user is able to keep the
interrupt and processing load generated by interval timers
away from specific CPUs. This feature may reduce latency
and jitter for real-time applications. For more information
see the sysmp(2) and mpadmin(1) man pages.
-
The reboot_on_panic parameter, when set to 1, specifies
that the system should automatically reboot after a
kernel panic. This is particularly useful for servers
or other systems which frequently go unattended or
are used remotely, where it may not be convenient to
physically reset the system. The
default for SGI servers and large graphical systems
is to reboot after a kernel panic.
It is important to note that the rebound variable, an environment
variable set in the PROM monitor for most processors, is always checked
before the reboot_on_panic parameter and can override it.
If the reboot_on_panic parameter is set to 0 and the rebound value is
set to y, the reboot_on_panic parameter in effect becomes
1 and your system will automatically reboot.
For more information, see
IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation.
-
Job limit values (rlim_t) are 64-bit in both n32 and n64 binaries.
Consequently, n32 binaries can set 64-bit
limits. o32 binaries cannot set 64-bit limits because rlim_t is 32-bits
in o32 binaries. IRIX supports three
Application Binary Interfaces (ABIs): o32, n64, and n32 (for more
information on ABIs, see the abi(5) man page).
IRIX Admin: Resource Administration, IRIX Admin: System
Configuration and Operation, and
the setjlimit(2) man page have been updated with this information.
-
At checkpoint time and at restart time, registered functions
are called in the same order as the first-in-first-out
order of their registration with atcheckpoint() or atrestart(),
respectively. This is an important consideration for applications
that need to register multiple callback handlers for
checkpoint or restart events.
Use of atcheckpoint() and atrestart() now ensures that registered
signal handlers are invoked only when a checkpoint or
restart of the application is actually in progress (as opposed
to the user sending the signals directly via a function such
as sigsend()).
-
The Falls screen saver is a new choice that can be
selected from the IRIX screen saver control panel.
It is an OpenGL depiction of a waterfall.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.17:
-
With IRIX 6.5.17, the underlying documentation tools and books
have undergone a major upgrade. These processes now allow for SGML
or XML documents to be published directly into HTML (our delivery
format). These same tools are available to you as part of the "SGI
Book Building Tools" product; formerly the "IRIS InSight
Professional Publisher".
For viewing documentation on the IRIX Interactive Desktop, the
following changes have been made: InfoSearch (the primary online
documentation viewer) has been revamped to support the new
document format, SGIHelp (the IRIX Desktop Help system) has
undergone minor changes, and the Dynaweb product is no longer
shipped (or required). In addition, the IRIS InSight Viewer
(insight) now exists solely as an intermediate process that
launches your standard desktop web browser to access InfoSearch.
Online books can also be viewed using your standard desktop web
browser by opening the (local) file:
/usr/share/Insight/library/SGI_bookshelves/index.html
Our goal is to deliver all online books to you in this new
format. There are circumstances whereby some books may still
exist on your local system in the "old format". Examples would
include some of the SGI Developer documentation: the MIPSpro
compiler books and the ProDev WorkShop books fall into this
category (books that require conversion). The online
documentation tools will report a warning when encountering books
in the "old format" that require conversion.
A conversion process is provided (the existing insightAdmin
command). Various options for performing the conversion are
available through this tool. It is important to note that the
conversion only needs to be done once, unless additional products
are installed that still contain books in the "old format". Be
advised that this process can be time consuming. Total time is
based on the size and number of books that need to be converted,
and the availability of system resources. On average, 1-3
minutes per book on an older desktop-class machine (R5000 O2) can
be expected. For that reason, a system administrator may wish to
perform this operation at an off-peak time.
For further details, see the insight and infosearch release
notes, and the related man pages (insightAdmin, insight, sgihelp,
infosearch). Virtually all SGI documentation can be accessed from
http://techpubs.sgi.com.
-
In IRIX 6.5.17, the Remote Shell Daemon (rshd)
has been enhanced
to check for expired passwords.
Users who attempt to access a system using rsh
to an account that has an expired password will
be denied access.
An administrator who is using password expiration
no longer has to disable rshd in order to prevent
expired users from accessing the system.
For information, see the rshd(1M) man page.
-
The overall behavior of the NFS Version 3 client has been modified to
improve mixed and heavy load performance. Most casual users of NFS
will probably notice little change. However, users should see
a marked improvement in performance under the following conditions:
-
Running applications that write large amounts of data over NFS
-
Heavy use of bi-directional NFS I/O
-
Mixed heavy local disk and NFS I/O
To improve performance under heavy loads, a new set
of behaviors have been added that perform the
following actions:
-
Enable full-duplex NFS traffic
-
Prevent read and write starvations
-
Provide resource limiting to make the NFS client a fairer user of
system resources
These behaviors are based on the notion of fair scheduling of
asynchronous NFS I/O to prevent starvations and provide more efficient
use of network bandwidth and server disk resources. This also extends
to prevent starvations between different NFS mounted directories.
-
The build_cmgr_script(1M) command generates a cmgr(1M)
script from the cluster database. The script can be used later to
recreate the cluster database after performing a cdbreinit.
For further information, see the build_cmgr_script(1M) man
page.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.17 release, device drivers can create
kernel threads not associated with particular interrupts
to act as daemons and do background processing. For
more information, see the drv_thread_create(3D) man page
and the
IRIX Device Driver Programmer's Guide,
007-0911-190.
-
For IRIX 6.5.17, two new options have been added to the cpuset command. The
-M option allows the user to move a process or group of processes and
their associated memory from one cpuset to another. The -T option
allows the user to move a process or group of processes but not their
memory from one cpuset to another. For more specific information,
see the cpuset(1) man page.
-
In IRIX 6.5.17, support for following interfaces has been added:
-
For nodename-to-address and address-to-nodename translations,
getaddrinfo(3), getnameinfo(3), gai_strerror(3),
freeaddrinfo(3), getipnodebyname(3), getipnodebyaddr(3)
and freehostent(3)
-
For interface index-to-name and name-to-index conversions,
if_indextoname(3), if_nametoindex(3),
if_nameindex(3) and if_freenameindex(3)
These interfaces perform the following functions:
-
The getaddrinfo() function translates the node name and/or a
service name and returns a set of socket addresses and associated
information. This is used in creating a socket with which to address
the specified service. It can provide the functionality of
gethostbyname() and getservbyname().
-
The getnameinfo() function translates a socket address to a node name
and a service location.
The above translations are done in a protocol-independent manner to
support both IPv4 and IPv6.
(Note that IPv6 is not supported in this IRIX release.)
-
The gai_strerror() function returns a text string describing an
error that is returned by getaddrinfo() or getnameinfo().
-
The freeaddrinfo() function frees one or more addrinfo structures
returned by getaddrinfo(), along with any additional storage
associated with those structures.
-
The getipnodebyname() and getipnodebyaddr() functions are for
node name to address and address to node name translations for a
given address family type.
The getaddrinfo(), getnameinfo(), getipnodebyname()
and getipnodebyaddr() functions are thread-safe.
-
The freehostent() function frees the memory occupied by the hostent
structure that was obtained by a call to getipnodebyname() or
getipnodebyaddr().
-
The if_indextoname() function maps an interface index to its
corresponding name.
-
The if_nametoindex() function maps an interface
name to its corresponding index.
-
The if_nameindex() function
returns all interface names and indexes.
-
The if_freenameindex()
function frees memory allocated by if_nameindex().
For more information, see the getaddrinfo(3), getnameinfo(),
gai_strerror(3), freeaddrinfo(3), getipnodebyname(3),
getipnodebyaddr(3), freehostent(3), if_indextoname(3),
if_nametoindex(3), if_nameindex(3), and if_freenameindex(3)
man pages.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.16:
-
IRIX 6.5.16 supports a new XThread Control Interface
(XTCI) that allows users to control many
interrupt thread parameters, including cpu binding.
System administrators can use this interface to
control kernel thread properties separate from the
physical interrupts they service. For information on
this interface, see the realtime(5) man page.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.16 release, performance
improvements have been made to the rtmond system
monitoring daemon. These improvements will be
most noticeable on systems with 128 CPUs
and larger. For information on the rtmond
daemon, see the rtmond(1) man page.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.16 release, Array Services scaling
support has increased from a maximum of 8
hosts to 64 hosts. Array Services also provides
increased interoperability with job limits
and new functions such as askillash.
For more information, see the Array Services
release notes and the array_services( 5)
man page and the Array Services chapter in IRIX Admin:
Resource Administration.
-
IRIX 6.5.16 provides support for mice with more than three
buttons and mice with wheels. Users with Microsoft Intellimouse
or Intellimouse Explorer can use this expanded functionality in
many IRIX and Open Source applications. For information
on this feature, see the pcmouse(7) man page.
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release added an -x[processor] option
to the mpadmin(1) command that allows you to
exclude the specified CPU from performing any
work.
For more information, see the "Excluding a CPU from Performing Work"
section in IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation
and the mpadmin(1) man page.
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release includes two new options
to the cpr command:
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release added a CONTENTS action
keyword for the FILE policy of a CPR attribute
file. This causes the system to calculate checksum (currently
MD5) on the file at checkpoint. Upon restart, the
system detects if the file has been modified between
begin-of-file and file-size-at-checkpoint; if the file has been
modified in this area, the process is refused restart, otherwise,
it seeks to the previous offset and continues.
For more information, see
the IRIX Checkpoint and Restart Operation Guide.
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release added two new functions
in the Cpuset library called cpusetMove(3x) and cpusetMoveMigrate(3x).
The Cpuset library routines, cpusetMove(3x)
and cpusetMoveMigrate(3x), can be used
to move processes between cpusets and optionally migrate their memory.
They allow you to move specific processes,
or groups of processes, between existing cpusets,
and out of a named cpuset into the pool of CPUs not
assigned to any specific named cpuset.
Using this functionality, you can easily destroy existing cpusets
to free resources to run a prime job and then easily reconstitute
cpusets to continue prior jobs. Because memory used by
a process can be migrated to the node associated with
the new cpuset, memory locality is improved.
For more information on the cpusetMove(3x)
and cpusetMoveMigrate(3x) routines, see
Chapter 4, "Using the cpusetMove and cpusetMoveMigrate Functions" in the
IRIX Admin: Resource Administration manual and the
cpusetMove(3x) and cpusetMoveMigrate(3x) man pages.
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release added a disable_uspollsema_chk
systune variable for the usopenpollsema(3P) library call.
This variable turns off the standard access mode
checking on usopenpollsema(3P) (set on the first call
to usopenpollsema(3P) via the 'acc' parameter).
Some older IRIX applications that were written
to work with usopenpollsema(3P) may now require
this variable.
For more information, see the usopenpollsema(3P) man page
and the /var/sysgen/mtune/kernel configuration file.
-
The IRIX 6.5.16 release added documentation for
the following kernel
tunable parameters:
-
min_bufmem general parameter
min_bufmem specifies the minimum amount of
memory held by filesystem metadata
that is cached in the buffer cache
when the system runs into low
memory conditions.
-
rtcpus dispatch parameter
rtcpus controls the quality of the real-time
scheduler.
-
bdflush_interval filesystem parameter
bdflush_interval specifies the
interval at which the bdflush function
executes to push dirty file data to disk.
For more information on kernel tunable parameters,
see Appendix A in IRIX Admin: System Configuration
and Operation.
-
IRIX 6.5.16 provides support for upgrading license_eoe to
the FLEXlm 8.1a release from Globetrotter Software, Inc.
The license manager daemon is built
in V5 compatibility mode. For more information see the
FLEXlm End User Manual and the associated man pages.
IRIX 6.5.16 also provides support for upgrading license_dev
to include new optional thread-safe FLEXlm 8.1a client
side libraries and headers. For more information see
the license_dev release notes.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.15:
-
XFS inode numbers are 64-bit values containing an
encoded disk location. For large filesystems (1 Terabyte plus),
the inode numbers can overflow into the top 32 bits
of the number. Certain backup applications which
use the inode number only allow 32 bits of space,
and thus have severe problems dealing with very
large XFS filesystems.
In IRIX 6.5.15, XFS was changed to allocate
inodes only within the lower portion of the filesystem
to avoid this overflow issue. Other allocation policies
in the filesystem will make this lower order
space preferred for inodes and reduce the risk of a
filesystem refusing to create new inodes when it
still has space available.
For existing large filesystems with high numbered inodes
this does not solve the problem, but it does solve it
for new filesystems, and for new files created on
existing filesystems.
For backwards compatibility a new mount option
is available, inode64, this will allow xfs to place
inodes anywhere in the filesystem and
follow exactly the original placement policies.
Filesystems which were small enough not to be able
to overflow 32 bits of inode number also
retain the old behavior.
-
The IRIX 6.5.15 release added
support for disks that have a capacity of 2 terabytes. Previously, the
maximum was 1 terabyte. The maximum disk capacity had become an issue
with the introduction of 180-GB drives, multiples of which can be
combined into a single logical unit (lun) behind a RAID controller.
The maximum capacity of a
logical unit for both of our current RAID controllers is 2 terabytes,
so this change allows us to support that maximum.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.15 release, Chapter 5 "System Administration
in a Multiuser Environment" in IRIX Admin:
System Configuration and Operation was
updated with a new section
on Project ID numbers and the chproj(1) command that
changes the project ownership of a file.
The project ID may be either a project
name found in the project file, or a decimal project ID.
For more information, see the chown(1) man page and
the IRIX Admin:
System Configuration and Operation manual.
-
In IRIX 6.5.15 and later, the systune
parameter gang_sched_off is turned on by default. This means that gangs
will not be running on the system unless the system administrator sets
gang_sched_off to 0. This differs from previous IRIX releases, for
which gangs ran on the system automatically.
This change has been made per
field request because we have discovered that having gang scheduling on
by default greatly diminishes system performance. Most customers have
been running with it off.
-
The IRIX 6.5.15 release added a coremask parameter set in the
/var/sysgen/mtune/kernel file to determine
what kind of permissions a core file will receive.
Currently, when a process creates a core file,
it uses the umask of the owner of the process
to determine the permissions.
This can lead to core files containing sensitive information
being created with world readable permissions.
This systune variable allows the system administrator
to limit access to core files.
The default is 0, which is the current behavior.
However, if the coremask variable is set to some other value,
it uses that number as the umask and
ignores the umask of the owner of the process.
For example, if coremask is set to 0177 and the owner of the process
has a umask of 022, the permissions set on the core file will be 600
instead of 644.
This variable assumes that the number entered is octal. The default
setting is 0. The minimum setting is 0.
The maximum setting is 0177.
For more information on the coremask parameter, see Appendix A,
"IRIX Kernel Tunable Parameters", in
IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation.
-
A new partitioning administration command, partmgr(1M), was
added to define and store partition definitions.
For more information, see
IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation.
-
The IRIX 6.5.15 release added support for the /dev/poll
interface for scalable and efficient event notification.
For information on /dev/poll, see the poll(7M) man page.
-
The Dynamic Host Configuration With Proclaim section in
IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail was updated to
include detailed procedures and descriptions for setting up
DHCP.
-
For the IRIX 6.5.15 release, the DHCP client (proclaim)
was updated to include options to allow DHCP
clients to capture changes to DNS, NIS, or
GATEWAY in your environment. For more information, see the
proclaim(1M) man page and IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail.
-
The IRIX 6.5.15 release
provides the ability to designate one or more CPUs or a range of CPUs
on a single line in the cpuset configuration file. The CPUs in a cpuset
configuration file do not have to be specified in a particular order.
The following is a sample
configuration file that describes an exclusive cpuset containing 7 CPUs:
# cpuset configuration file
EXCLUSIVE
MEMORY_LOCAL
MEMORY_EXCLUSIVE
CPU 16
CPU 17-19, 21
CPU 27
CPU 25
For more information on the cpuset configuration file,
see Chapter 4, "Cpuset System", in IRIX Admin: Resource
Administration.
-
For the 6.5.15 release, the systune(1M) man page was
updated to describe a situation where the system segment size
value (syssegsz) reported by the systune command is different
than the value set in the /unix file as follows:
The systune(1M) may not show the user-defined value of
syssegsz after a system reboot.
This is due to the fact that the colormap must be calculated
and added to the syssegsz value for machine types IP19,
IP20, IP22, and IP32. When systune is called, it
compares the value of syssegsz in the kernel to the
value set in the /var/sysgen/stune file. If this
is done on one of the above machines, the values
will not match because syssegsz has been altered
with the colormap value in the kernel, but not in
the /var/sysgen/stune file. This indicates normal functioning
of the operating system.
-
Starting with the IRIX 6.5.15
release, each partition of a partitioned Origin 3000 system will have a
new unique FLEXlm host ID (lmhostid). Any FLEXlm license based on the
old non-partitioned lmhostid value will no longer work and a new
license key must be generated. See the following web page for
additional details, http://www.sgi.com/support/licensing/.
-
Contact the applicable
software product vendor and provide the lmhostid number of the
partition to generate a new license key. For nodelock licenses, provide
the lmhostid for all partitions of the software installed and operating.
-
For software licensed
by SGI, see the following web page for more details:
http://www.sgi.com/support/licensing/.
-
For e-mail and
telephone contact information, see the
Bundled software page.
-
For IRIX 6.5.15 we added
HOTPLUG attach and detach support for SGI Gigabit
Ethernet Network adapters. This feature is supported on
IP35 Origin 3000 series systems only; it is not supported on IP35 0300
systems. For information on this feature, see IRIX
Admin: Networking and Mail.
-
The IRIX 6.5.15 release
supports the lmparthostids and lmbasehostid commands.
The lmparthostids command generates a list of all 63
partition specific hostids and the unpartitioned id.
This list can be passed to a license key generation
tool for nodelock licenses so that the license works across
all partitions or an unpartitioned system.
The lmbasehostid command takes any arbitrary lmhostid
(this could be a partition specific value) and generates
the base unpartitioned id. That number could be used
when the base lmhostid is required, even from a partition.
-
FLEXlm v7.2i support from GLOBEtrotter Software, Inc. was
added.
The license manager daemon
and the floating license server are
built in V5 compatibility mode. For backwards compatibility,
the client libraries and header files are still based on FLEXlm
v6.1g. For more information, see the FLEXlm End User Manual
and the associated man pages.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.14:
-
In the IRIX 6.5.5 release,
SGI introduced a new optional directory format for XFS filesystems,
referred to as the "version 2" directory format in mkfs
output.
XFS filesystems with a
version 2 directory format can provide improved reliability and
performance over filesystems with a version 1 directory format in some
applications, particularly for applications that use NFS exported XFS
filesystems.
The directory format for
an XFS filesystem is specified with the -n parameter of the mkfs
command. The default directory format is currently the original version
1 directory format.
Beginning with the IRIX
6.5.14 release, version 2 directories of XFS will be the default for
all new filesystems created with mkfs. Version 1 directory filesystem
creation will still be supported, but this will require that you
specify the -n version=1 parameter of the mkfs command.
SGI recommends that all
new XFS filesystems be created with version 2 directories. IRIX
releases older than IRIX 6.5.5, however, will not be able to mount a
filesystem created with a version 2 directory and will issue the
following message when a mount is attempted:
Wrong filesystem type: xfs
Many SGI customers are
currently running production servers with version 2 directories. If you
want to format filesystems with the version 2 directory format prior to
the IRIX 6.5.14 release, you can specify the following option of mkfs:
mkfs -n version=2
There is no means for
converting a filesystem, in place, between version 1 and version 2
directories. A filesystem can be converted between version 1 and
version 2 directories by means of an xfsdump/mkfs/xfsrestore sequence.
For more information, see IRIX
Admin: Disks and Filesystems.
-
In IRIX 6.5.14, added a -q cpuset_name
-p option to the cpuset command that allows you to see the properties
of particular cpuset, such as, the number of processes and CPUs
associated with the specified cpuset.
-
In IRIX 6.5.14, added
cpusetGetProperties( ) and cpusetFreeProperties( )
functions to the
Cpuset System library .The cpusetGetProperties( )
function allows you to
retrieve various properties associated with a cpuset. The
cpusetFreeProperties( ) functions allows
you to release the memory used
by a cpuset_Properties_t structure. Any programmer that uses the cpuset
API from IRIX 6.5.14 and later, can use these functions. For
information, see chapter 4, "Cpuset System", in the
IRIX Admin: Resource Administration manual and the
cpusetGetProperties(3x) and cpusetFreeProperties(3x) man pages.
-
Parts of the IRIX
Interactive Desktop were refreshed in IRIX
6.5.14. While functionality has not changed, the navigation, imagery,
and graphics design have been enhanced in the following areas:
-
The main IRIX login
window (clogin) has a new design using new SGI colors, font, and logo.
The product is called sysadmdesktop and appears automatically at boot
when root has "chkconfig noiconlogin on".
-
EZsetup has a new layout and login
icon using new SGI colors, font, and logo. The product is called
sysadmdesktop and is launched by logging into EZsetup
account from main IRIX login window.
-
The System Manager
main window uses new SGI colors, font, and logo. The product is
sysadmdesktop and is launched from the System
toolchest.
-
The Welcome to SGI web
pages have new navigation and new SGI colors, font, and logo. The
product is Welcome. Launch from Find toolchest,
select WhatsNew, double-click the Welcome_to_SGI
icon.
-
The Background Setting
panel includes seven new desktop patterns using the new SGI logo and
font: Camouflage, Citrus Citrus, Iron, Midnight, Reef, Sand, and
Sprinkle. Note: You may notice slow performance when previewing all but
the Sprinkle background, but not when switching desks (see the
background(1) man page). Old backgrounds are still available. The
product is desktop_eoe and is launched from the Desktop
toolchest, select Customize, then Backgrounds.
-
SCSL is a collection of
high-performance mathematical and numerical libraries that are widely
used in scientific and technical compute intensive applications. An
iterative solver for sparse systems of linear equations, as well a
direct solver for sparse complex symmetric systems of linear equations,
have been added to the SCSL 1.4 release. Additional features added to
SCSL for this release are as follows:
-
A thread-safe parallel
random number generator
-
Fortran90 interfaces
to the BLAS
-
A parallel
implementation of the solve phase for the out-of-core sparse solver
-
Removal of all entry
points to the CHALLENGEcomplib FFT routines
-
Performance
enhancements and rollup bug fixes from SCSL 1.3.
SCSL can also be
downloaded free of charge from the Download Cool Software page at http://www.sgi.com/products/evaluation/.
For more information on
SCSL, see http://www.sgi.com/software/scsl.html.
For customers who do not
have web access and are enrolled under a valid support contract, CD
media can be requested free of charge from their local support center.
Non-contract customers can order SCSL from their local sales
representative.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.13:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.12:
-
OpenGL Performer 2.4.1
execution environment, which is a powerful suite of tools and features
that creates real-time visual simulation and other professional
performance-oriented 3D graphics applications for the IRIX operating
system. The following
new features for OpenGL Performer provide enhanced realism and
peak-performance rendering:
-
Programmable model
shading using pfShader
-
Use of pfVolFog for
rendering layered and patchy fog
-
Use of pfRotorWash to
create the visual effect of downwash in helicopter simulation
-
Double-precision
matrix support for rendering extremely large databases where objects
are far away from the origin
-
CPU priority
specification to allow multiple run-time processes to run on the same
processor
-
Multi-pipe scalability
enhancements
-
Improved pfLOD
behavior to allow custom evaluation functions
-
Speed and
functionality enhancements for pfFlux, pfCliptexture, and pfLightpoints
-
pfHyperpipe support
for the DPLEX hardware option
-
EventView performance
tuning tool for instrumenting and tuning your OpenGL Performer
application
-
The IRIX tape-support
feature consists of a tape support driver, personality daemons, and a
daemon that manages the personality daemons. The feature enables new
personality daemons to be developed and added individually. The
tape-support driver, which co-exists with the current IRIX tape driver
(tpsc), passes all device-dependent tasks, except for I/O processing,
to a personality daemon. This release supports various devices
including the Fibre Channel implementation on the StorageTek 9840 and
T9940A tape drives. The reserve, release, preempt, clear, and prsv
commands are available for these tape drives on the mt command. For
more information, see the mt(1), tsarchive(1M), tsdaemon(1M),
tserrpt(1M), tsset(1M), tsstop(1M), ts.config(4), and ts(7) man pages.
-
Updated FLEXlm v7.2e
support from GLOBEtrotter Software, Inc. The license manager daemon and
the floating license server are built in V5 compatibility mode. For
backwards compatibility, the client libraries and header files are
still based on FLEXlm v6.1. For more information, see the FLEXlm
End User Manual and the associated man pages.
-
The Scheduled Transfer
Protocol (STP) has moved from the feature stream to the maintenance and
feature stream. STP is now a mature supported protocol and it includes
TRIX support.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.11:
-
Support for the use of a
reserved area of memory; this reserved area is between virtual
addresses 0x30000000 and 0x40000000. This feature disables the reserved
area of memory that the kernel provides for applications to place their
mmap and shmat mappings. For more information, see the mmap(2),
shmat(2), syssgi(2), and sgi_use_anyaddr(1) man pages.
-
Support for weightless
pthreads; they allow you to lower the priority of a process by using
the npri -w command. For more information, see the npri(1) man page.
-
Support for upgrading
license_eoe to the FLEXlm 7.1 release from Globetrotter Software, Inc.
The license manager daemon will be built in V5 compatibility mode. For
more information, see the FLEXlm End User Manual
and the associated man pages.
-
Support for an increased
maximum number of logical unit numbers (LUNs) in the SCSI
infrastructure from 64 to 255. This change impacts only the fcadp and
qlfc fibre channel drivers and they will now enforce this LUN limit. If
a LUN is greater than 255, it will be ignored after issuing a message
to this effect. If you use large numbers of LUNs, you can exhaust the
hardware graph. You may need to use the systune command to increase the
hwgraph_num_dev parameter to let the kernel build larger hardware
graphs.
-
Support for licensing of
partitioned environments. The SGI Origin 3000 server series and SGI
Onyx 3000 series of systems give you the flexibility to distribute and
manage a partitioned system environment on a large CPU server system.
In most cases, software licensing behaves in the same manner on a
single system image as in a partitioned environment. However, there are
some differences. Depending on your applications, you may need either
systemwide or per-CPU licensing. For more information, see IRIX
Admin: Software Installation and Licensing.
-
Support for the PCI Hot
Plug infrastructure on the SGI 3200, SGI 3400, and SGI 3800 servers.
The Hot Plug feature consists of the Hot Insertion and Hot Removal
actions. Each device driver must be qualified as supporting one or both
of these actions. Currently, the QLogic fibre channel and QLogic SCSI
device drivers are qualified for Hot Insertion. For more information on
specific administrative options, see the pciconfig(1) man page.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.10:
-
Support for point-to-point
connections between the QLogic 2200 fibre channel controller and the
Brocade switch. This type of connection lets the QLogic 2200 controller
perform full duplex transfers with the switch offering a potential
increase in bandwidth. This capability was enabled by changing the
value assigned to the qlfc_use_connection_mode variable (in
/var/sysgen/master.d/qlfc) to 2. The previous value was 0. This change
does not impact loop operation.
-
Support for the IRIX SCSI
tape driver (tpsc) enhancements that let system administrators and
privileged applications specify a persistent reservation on shared tape
drives. After the reservation has been established, the shared tape
drive cannot be accessed by another host until the reservation has been
released. For more information, see the mt(1) and mtio(7M) man pages.
-
Support for the new
Fortran, C++, and base compiler runtime libraries packaged under the
ftn_eoe, c++_eoe and compiler_eoe overlay images. These libraries are
based on the MIPSpro <IP_ADDRESS>m compilers and contain new interfaces
released under the MIPSpro 7.3 compilers. The libraries are backward
compatible with the libraries that were released in previous versions
of IRIX 6.5. For more information, see the ftn_eoe, c++_eoe, and
compiler_eoe release notes.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.9:
-
Support for Embedded
Support Partner 2.0 (ESP2.0). This release supercedes patch 3895 and
includes the major features as follows:
-
Automatic Call Logging
to the SGI call centers for Mission Critical Supported customers
-
Support of event
profiles for monitoring
-
A new command line
interface to setup and use ESP
-
A new user interface
with a high level of usability and navigational features
-
Fixes to the System
Group Manager for secure interconnectivity between group members and
the group manager
-
Support for an
unlimited number of group members to the System Group Manager
-
Multiple ESP user
support with page privileges
-
ESP logbook for
electronically logging and tracking support activities locally on the
system
The migration from ESP1.0
to ESP2.0 is done seamlessly when upgrading from previous versions of
IRIX to IRIX 6.5.9.
The Embedded Support
Partner Overview and the Embedded Support
Partner User Guide have been combined. The new
document is called the Embedded Support Partner User
Guide and will contain overview and usage
information for the ESP 2.0 command line and graphical user interfaces.
-
Support for the SCSI
Enclosure Services (SES). A new subsystem that manages the Fibre
Channel drive enclosures has been added. The new daemon, sesdaemon,
supports the Xyratex 12-slot enclosure and the Clarion 10-slot
enclosure. The new client application, sesmgr, uses a command set
similar to the set used by the previous fcagent/fccli subsystem. For
more information, see the sesdaemon(1M) and sesmgr(1M) man pages.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.8
-
Support for 32-bit direct
mapping to any node on the system. This feature lets the system
administrator change the 32-bit direct mapping node for a specific
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. It also provides a new
interface, pcibr_get_dmatrans_node( ),
that lets a device driver obtain
the node ID. For more information, see the IRIX
Device Driver Programmer's Guide and the
pcibr_get_dmatrans_node(D3) man page.
-
Support for the Cpuset System
programming interface application (previously known
as miser_cpuset). This
interface is provided in the form of a Dynamic Shared Object (DSO). You
can use this programming interface to create cpusets, remove cpusets,
and attach processes to cpusets. You can use the cpuset programming
interface in areas where the cpuset command is inappropriate. For
example, if a batch system needs to use the cpuset capability in IRIX,
the programming interface will provide a more flexible and robust
solution than the cpuset command. For more information, see IRIX
Admin: Resource Administration and the cpuset(5),
cpusetAllocQueueDef(3x), cpusetAttach(3x), cpusetCreate(3x),
cpusetDestroy(3x), cpusetDetachAll(3x), cpusetFreeCPUList(3x),
cpusetFreeNameList(3x), cpusetFreePIDList(3x), cpusetGetCPUCount(3x),
cpusetGetCPUList(3x), cpusetGetName(3x), cpusetGetNameList(3x), and
cpusetGetPIDList(3x) man pages.
-
Support for new Miser
cpuset options. These options allow the creation of restrictive memory
pools from the nodes that contain the CPUs listed in the configuration
file. Processes that exceed the available memory on those nodes may be
terminated or paged (selectable). For more information on these
options, see the cpuset(4) man page.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.7:
-
Support for the IRIX
sendmail mail system based on sendmail version 8.9.3 (see http://www.sendmail.org).
Some of the new functions in version 8.9.3 are as follows:
-
The major difference
between sendmail versions 8.8.8 and 8.9.3 is their configuration file.
The configuration file in sendmail version 8.9.3 is configured with the sendmail.mc
file which is processed with the m4 macro processor to create the sendmail.cf
file.
-
A new version of
configmail configures the sendmail.mc file
and provides features similar to the configmail utility in previous
versions of IRIX. This version of configmail also processes the sendmail.mc
file into sendmail.cf by using the m4 macro
processor.
-
Sendmail 8.9.3
includes many new features requested by IRIX users, such as anti-relay
features which can be used to control spam messages.
For more information on
the 8.9.3 version of sendmail, see the IRIX
Administration: Networking and Mail manual. For
more information on how to configure sendmail, see http://www.sendmail.org/m4/readme.html.
The sendmail feature was initially added to the IRIX 6.5.7 release.
-
Integration of the
fsr_xfs(1M) command into the fsr(1M) command. With previous releases of
IRIX, the fsr command could be run only on EFS filesystems and the
fsr_xfs command could be run only on XFS filesystems. Both commands
reorganize filesystems so that the layout of the extents is improved.
This improves the performance of mounted filesystems that have become
fragmented over time. With this release, the fsr command invokes
fsr_xfs when it encounters XFS filesystems. With this change, the
default crontab(1M) entry that calls fsr, also reorganizes XFS
filesystems. For information on the fsr command and the fsr_xfs and
fsr_efs options, see the fsr(1M), fsr_xfs(1M), and fsr_efs(1M) man
pages.
-
Support for the -u option
of the sat_interpret utility that writes unbuffered output. You can use
this new option if you are using the sat_interpret utility to process
system audit trail data, and then you can pipe this output to another
filter utility. For more information, see the sat_interpret(1M) man
page.
-
Support for bzero error
recovery; this RAS feature prevents the kernel from panicking when a
memory Multiple Bit Error (MBE) is encountered while the kernel is
zeroing out a new page in the virtual memory fault handler (vfault).
The kernel will now discard the page with the memory error, grab a new
page, and continue its task.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.6:
-
Support for a
multithreaded version of the automatic filesystem mount daemon autofsd.
This enhanced functionality allows for simultaneous multiple
automounts. If a particular server for an automounted filesystem is not
running or is slow to respond, one autofsd
thread can wait for that server while other autofsd
threads mount filesystems from other servers. This capability improves
the automount performance and simultaneously provides longer wait times
for downed servers, which should lead to a decrease in automount
failures.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.5
-
Embedded Support Partner,
which is an integral part of the IRIX operating system, provides system
administrators with a way to monitor various events (such as system
events, changes in system hardware and software configuration, and
system performance) that can occur on their system. Embedded Support
Partner consists of a set of daemons that perform the monitoring
activities. These include an event monitoring daemon (eventmond), an
event management daemon (espemd), and a database daemon (espdbd).
Embedded Support Partner provides single system monitoring capabilities
as a standard part of IRIX. Optionally, Embedded Support Partner can be
configured to receive event and system configuration data from all
systems contained within a system group. Embedded Support Partner is
controlled through a Web browser that is connected to the Configurable
Web Server that is included in the Embedded Support Partner package.
For more information, see the Embedded Support
Partner Overview, the Embedded Support Partner
User's Guide, and the Embedded Support Partner man
pages.
-
Support for the version 2
XFS directory format; this format provides you with the capability to
choose a filesystem block size to match the distribution of data file
sizes without adversely affecting directory operation performance. The
directory format is specified with the -n parameter of the mkfs
command. For more information, see the IRIX Admin:
Disks and Filesystems and the mkfs_xfs(1M) man
page.
-
SCSL version 1.2 supports
features such as
convolution/correlation and filter routines to the Signal Processing
functionality.
Additional IRIX
features added to SCSL for this release are improved ordering
techniques for the sparse linear solvers, performance enhancements for
the MIPS R12000 processor, rollup bug fixes from SCSL 1.1, and all
other Challengecomplib 3.1 functionality.
-
Support for Automated
Performance Monitoring. Together with Embedded Support Partner, the
base performance monitoring services in the pcp_eoe product have been
extended to include an inference engine for evaluating rules about
system-level performance and raising alarms. Also provided is a
parameterized set of standard rules that can be selectively enabled and
tuned to meet local requirements and to choose alternative alarm
notification mechanisms. These features are of most value to operations
staff running production IRIX systems. For more information, see the
pmie(1) and pmieconf(1) man pages, and the Performance
Co-Pilot(TM) IRIX Base Software
Administrator's Guide.
-
Two new options were added
to the "miser_create_cpuset" command. These options allow
additional restrictions on memory assignment for processes running on a
cpuset. These options are documented in the miser_cpuset(4) man pages.
-
Support for SAN addressing
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.4:
-
Support for the Miser
queue repack policy. When a job finishes execution prior to the end of
its schedule, the system resources it was using are released. This
policy attempts to reschedule the jobs using earlier start and end
times in order to take advantage of these released system resources.
The order of the scheduled jobs will be maintained. This feature can be
used by all Miser users running IRIX 6.5.4m or f. For more information,
see the miser(4) and miser(5) man pages, and the IRIX
Admin: System Configuration and Operation, Chapter
7 "Managing User Processes."
-
Distributed Computing
Environment (DCE) Client for accessing shared resources in distributed
computing DCE/DFS serving environments
-
Kernel libraries only
-
As of IRIX 6.5.8 and
later, DCE/DFS 1.2.2b software is required for full functionality
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.3:
-
(Octane systems only) The
worst-case interrupt response time is guaranteed to be less than one
millisecond on properly configured Octane systems
-
Support for the X security
and appgroup extensions (combined with a new Netscape plugin, these
allow the embedding of X applications in Web pages)
-
Extra support for European
fonts, including the new Euro currency symbol
-
New Software Manager and
Inst commands to simplify selections for upgrades
-
New Software Manager and
Inst configuration variable to more easily handle cases where
configuration files are upgraded. See the
"smart_config_handling" preference in inst or swmgr for more
information
-
LDAP 3.0 now supported
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.2:
-
AutoFS extended to use
Unified Name Service (UNS)
for map information
-
Support for DCShare
application sharing extension
-
Fibre channel support to
Dmnet
-
Three new HP printer
drivers
Applications CD
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.21:
The following full images were revised in the IRIX 6.5
Applications CD:
-
Common Desktop Environment, 5.3.1
-
Information Searching Execution Environment, 6.5.21m
-
IRIS InSight Viewer & Base Environment, 5.2
-
Macrovision FLEXlm (v9.0) License Tools, 3.4.10
-
Mozilla 1.0.2a
-
MPI 4.3 (MPT 1.8)
-
MPT 1.8
-
Fulltext Indexing and Search Environment, 4.3
-
SMA 4.1 (MPT 1.8)
-
Web Setup and Administration, 3.6
The following overlays images were revised for the IRIX 6.5
Applications CD:
-
IRIX® Interactive Desktop
-
IRIX® Interactive Desktop Tools
-
IRIX® Interactive Desktop Administration
-
Impressario(TM)Printing & Scanning
Tools
-
WebViewer Library Execution only Enviroment
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.20:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.19:
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.18:
-
The following full images were
added to the IRIX Applications CD:
-
Common Desktop Environment 5.3 (CDE)
-
Java2 v1.3.1_02 JRE
-
Java2 v1.3.1_02 JDK
-
Java2 v1.3.1_02 plugin
-
The following full images were
revised with bug fixes for the IRIX 6.5
Applications CD for IRIX 6.5.18:
-
Fulltest Indexing and Search Environment
-
Information Searching Execution Environment
-
InSight, InSight Dev, and InSight Glossary
-
License Tools
-
SCSL 1.4.1
-
The following full image was
revised with localization updates for the IRIX 6.5
Applications CD for IRIX 6.5.18:
-
The following Overlays were revised with bug fixes for the IRIX 6.5 Overlay
CD for IRIX 6.5.18:
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop Tools
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop Administration
-
Impressario Printing Tools
-
Several overlays were revised to fix Section 508 bugs.
-
The IRIS InSight Viewer (insight) was converted to a
full image rather than an overlay image and the Dynaweb product was removed.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.17:
-
The following products were
added to the IRIX Applications CD:
-
MPT 1.6 - Message Passing Toolkit
MPT was previously released on a separate CD.
It is also available as a download
from the
Products Evaluation page.
It includes MPI 4.0 and SMA 3.2.
-
SCSL <IP_ADDRESS> - Scientific Computing Software Library
SCSL was moved from the Overlay CD to the Applications CD.
It is also available as a
download from the
Products Evaluation page.
-
Teleffect 1.0 - Mouse and keyboard sharing service
Teleffect was moved from the Teleffect CD to the Applications CD.
The Teleffect product enables the sharing of a single keyboard and
mouse between multiple IRIX or Windows NT systems. An NT install
shield for Teleffect is located in /CDROM/NT/TeleffectInstall.exe.
-
The following products were
updated with bug fixes only:
-
The following products contain
enhancements or new features:
-
NEdit 5.2a
In IRIX 6.5.17, NEdit 5.2a added localized strings and messages.
-
SGImeeting 2.0.3
The SGImeeting user interface was reworked to make it more
compact and attractive. Changes include new icons, popup
tooltips, color scheme support, and better desktop integration.
-
SGI Webserver 1.3.26
In IRIX 6.5.17, SGI Webserver 1.3.26 added
Trusted IRIX(TM), Kasenna(TM) MediaBase, and base SSL
(Secure Socket Layer) support.
-
FLEXlm License Tools 3.4.7
The floating license server was upgraded to FLEXlm v8.1b.
-
InSight 5.0
-
InSight Dev 5.0
-
Information Searching Execution Environment 6.5.17m
-
SgSearch 4.0
-
InSight, SgSearch, and InfoSearch changed from being
overlay images to being full images. Because of the
changes for InSight,
AccessX, Gateway, Imgtools, Outbox, Showcase, and
Sitemgr had their online books rebuilt with
no other software changes.
-
Dynaweb has been removed from the IRIX Applications CD since its
functionality has been integrated into InSight and InfoSearch.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.16:
-
The following products were
updated with bug fixes only:
-
Impressario Printing Tools
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop Administration
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop Tools
-
SGImeeting 2.0.2
-
The following products contain
enhancements or new features:
-
Array Services 3.5
-
Information Searching Execution Environment
-
License Tools 3.4.6
-
NEdit 5.2
-
Xinet Appletalk 10.02
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.15:
-
The following products
were updated with bug fixes only:
-
Netscape Communicator 4.79
-
IRIX Interactive Desktop System Administration
-
Information Searching Execution Environment
-
Impressario 2.10.5
-
NEdit 5.1.1c
-
Webviewer 3.0.2
-
InSight Online Doc Viewer 4.4.1 is now N32 for better
performance.
-
SGI Web Server, based on the Apache 1.3.22
-
SGI Scientific Library <IP_ADDRESS>
(SCSL <IP_ADDRESS>) is now included on the IRIX Overlays CDs.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.14:
-
The following products
were updated with bug fixes only:
-
Bug fix update for
SGImeeting 2.0.1
-
Final bug fix update
for Color Management
-
Bug fix update for
Internet Gateway 3.2
-
Security and other bug
fixes for NEdit 5.1.1b
-
Minor fixes for
Appletalk 10.01
-
Netscape Communicator
4.78
By default, Netscape Communicator
version
4.78 will install the new N32 version of the browser. Any existing
third-party plugins for the browser that are O32 will no longer
function. Support for the Macromedia Flash plugin is also included. For
more information, see http://browsers.netscape.com/browsers/main.tmpl.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.13:
-
The following products
were updated with bug fixes only:
-
SGI Web Server, based
on the Apache 1.3.20
For details on how to
change your default web server and configure and administer the SGI Web
Server, see
Caveats
to Read After You Upgrade .
-
IRIX Interactive
Desktop System Administration
-
Information Searching
Execution Environment
-
InSight Online Doc
Viewer 4.4
-
Netscape Communicator
4.77
By default, Netscape Communicator
version
4.77 will install the new N32 version of the browser. Any existing
third-party plugins for the browser that are O32 will no longer
function. Support for the Macromedia Flash plugin is also included. For
more information, see http://browsers.netscape.com/browsers/main.tmpl.
-
WebSetup 3.3 has been
updated to support the SGI web server based on Apache 1.3.20 and an
administration GUI has been added.
-
Impressario 2.9.5
supports a new HP6300 Scanner driver and an Epson PPD bug fix.
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.12:
-
SGI web server, based on
the Apache web server version 1.3.17, replaces the Netscape FastTrack
web server; for details on how to change your default web server and
configure and administer the SGI web server, see Caveats
to Read After You Upgrade.
-
WebSetup 3.2 has been
updated to support the SGI web server based on Apache
-
NEdit version 5.1.1a has
added extensions to the regular expression syntax, an improved
international character set input, new macro subroutines, and improved
syntax highlighting for several programming languages.
-
Runtime Plug-in for IRIX,
Java(TM) Edition 1.1.1b has added
support for the Netscape N32 plugin and the O32 plugin.
-
The following products
from the Isogon Corporation have been removed: LicensePower/iFOR IS4.0.1 ARK and
LicensePower/iFOR IS4.0.1 CRK. Sales and support has been divested to
the Isogon Corporation at http://www.isogon.com.
For more information on support modes, see the Support Policy page at
Supportfolio Online.
-
Impressario 2.8.5 supports
two new HP printer drivers, HP4050 and HP8100
Introduced in IRIX 6.5.11 and earlier:
-
NEdit version 5.1.1 has
added extensions to the regular expression syntax, an improved
international character set input, new macro subroutines, and improved
syntax highlighting for several programming languages.
-
Cosmo Player 2.1.5 release
has added support for the Netscape N32 plugin
-
CustomerLink Client
Software will no longer be supported. Its key features have been
migrated to the
Supportfolio Online site.
-
Customer Support Services
Base Software will no longer be supported. Its key features have been
migrated to the
Supportfolio Online site.
-
Impressario 2.6.5 has
added 1000 new PPD files to the /usr/spool/lp/PPD_untested/ directory.
The README file in this directory contains details on how to use the
new drivers. The new PPD files include printers from the following
manufacturers:
-
3M
-
Adobe
-
Agfa
-
Apple
-
Autologic
-
Canon
-
Dataproducts
-
Epson
-
FujiPhotoFilm
-
Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd.
-
Hewlett-Packard
-
IBM
-
Kodak
-
Konica
-
Linotype
-
MGI
-
Mitsubishi
-
OKI
-
Optronics
-
PrePress
-
QMS
-
Ricoh
-
Samsung
-
Scitex
-
Shinko
-
Sony
-
Splash
-
Topmax
-
Tektronix
-
Xante
-
Xerox
-
Netscape Communicator
4.76; by default, version
4.76 will install the new N32 version of the browser. Any existing
third-party plugins for the browser that are O32 will no longer
function. Support for the Macromedia Flash plugin is also
included. For more information, see http://home.netscape.com/communicator/v4.5/tour/index.html
-
Netscape FastTrack Server
3.03 contains an updated version of the Administration Server 3.52.
-
NetWare Client 1.1.1 has
added support for IP35.
-
Runtime Plug-in for IRIX,
Java(TM) Edition 1.1.1a has added
support for the Netscape N32 plugin.
-
SGImeeting Collaboration
Environment with Extensions, 2.0, Net-based data-conferencing,
application-sharing software. A 30-day evaluation license is included.
The following enhancements are supported:
-
Enhanced NetMeeting
3.0 interoperability - enables offline selection of compatibility for
sharing applications supported by NetMeeting 3.0. For more information,
see the SGImeeting Help and User's Guide.
-
Speed dialing -
enables creation of .cnf files and initiates calls from the command line
-
Background operation -
provides selections for SGImeeting to minimize, remain actively
connected in the background, and pop up when you receive a call
-
Grouped window sharing
- enables selecting all windows with a specific X class name to be
treated as a single application and shared as a group
-
Response time
performance improvement - redraws during application sharing are faster
among other functional activities
The SGImeeting Extensions
also offer additional whiteboard tools as "plugins" that
appear on the whiteboard tool palette. These tools are ideal for group
discussions in CAD and image intensive industries. The following
extensions are available:
-
A screen capture tool
for dynamic or still whiteboard input
-
A video capture tool
for dynamic or still whiteboard input
-
Customizable arrows
and dimension markers for easy discussion pointing
-
Symbol palette for
drag and drop images
-
SmartClear for
clearing annotations when captured images update
For more information on
SGImeeting, see http://www.sgi.com/software/sgimeeting.
For additional assistance, contact your local SGI sales representative.
-
WebViewer Library
Execution only Environment 3.0 release
-
Xinet Macintosh
Connectivity Software, also referred to as Xinet Appletalk, now
includes K-AShare, K-FS, and K-Spool software. These products provide
enhancements for Macintosh file sharing, file serving, and printing
connectivity with IRIX systems. These Xinet products were updated to
version 10.02 in the IRIX 6.5.9 release. Version 10.02 is only the
demonstration version; no license is included.
Any licenses from previous versions of Xinet software will not work
with version 10.02. For more information on Xinet products, see http://www.xinet.com.
For technical or sales questions, please contact Xinet at
<EMAIL_ADDRESS>or 1.510.845.0555.
IRIX OS Bundled Software
-
Out of Box
Experience (OOBE) CD has been removed.
-
Hot Mix CD has been removed.
For more information about the
bundled software that is included with this release, see CD Contents and the
Bundled Software and Licenses web page that you can access from the
Welcome web page.
Freeware CD
The contents of the IRIX
Freeware CDs and the versions of the applications included
on the CDs is updated for each IRIX release. For
information about the
freeware that is included with the current release,
see
http://freeware.sgi.com/.
For a listing of contents of the IRIX Freeware CDs, see
the IRIX CD Contents
page.
Documentation
IRIX 6.5 feature categories:
Includes both a 32-bit and a 64-bit
runtime environment. Systems that use the 64-bit runtime environment
support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications; systems that use the
32-bit runtime environment, such as the O2, will only support 32-bit
applications.
Systems that support a
32-bit runtime environment with 64-bit
extensions*:
-
Indigo R4000
-
Indigo2
-
Indy
-
Challenge S/M R4000
-
Indy/Challenge
-
O2
-
O2 R10000
*64-bit extensions
include support for
XFS
filesystem and 64-bit long integers,
excluding
64-bit address spaces. |
Systems that support a
64-bit runtime environment:
-
Challenge R4000
-
Onyx R4000
-
Power Indigo2
-
Power Challenge
-
Power Onyx
-
Indigo2 Extreme 10000
-
Indigo2 Impact 10000
-
Origin 200
-
Origin 2000
-
Origin 300
-
Origin 3000
-
Onyx 3000
-
Onyx2
-
Octane
-
Octane2
|
Products:
-
Site Manager 1.1, for web
content validation and version control, workflow support, 3D
visualization, and server traffic statistics
-
Adobe Acrobat 3.0, for viewing
PDF documents
-
Nedit, new default text editor;
jot is also available
-
Accessibility Panel, new
graphical interface for AccessX software, allowing movement-impaired
users to use the keyboard and mouse more efficiently
-
WebViewer 3.0 now supports CSS1
Style sheets, Netscape plug-ins, JavaScript, history mechanism,
animated GIFs (WebViewer is embedded in System Manager, File Manager,
Software Manager, InfoSearch, EZ-setup, Site Manager, Out of Box
Experience, and SGIHelp)
-
Netscape Communicator 4.05
provides support for Navigator (browser), Messenger (e-mail), Composer
(content creation), and Collabra (news reader); MediaMail no longer
supported-see preinstallation
caveat
-
Netscape Communicator Lite 4.05
provides support for Navigator (browser) only
General Changes:
-
Desktop now called IRIX
Interactive Desktop (previously Indigo Magic)
-
For security, ability to display
applications that are running on other systems is now off by default
(see the online Desktop User's Guide,
"About the Remote Display Feature," for details)
-
Performance improvements in
application startup
-
Impressario now supports
PostScript Printer Description (PPD); HP and Lexmark PPD drivers are
included with software
-
Media Player now supports movies
played to video output
-
Movielib file now supports
Quicktime MJPEG-A files
-
Movielib, Media Player, and
Movie Maker now support DV DIF files
-
Sony DAT Qualification
(LibDatAudio)
-
Support new Audio Subcode I/O
-
Hardware generated audio events,
sample rate changes
-
O2 and Octane Digital Media
Buffers (dmbuffers) now support the same interface--the Octane 6.4
interface (for compatibility, the O2 IRIX 6.3 interface will continue
to be supported)
-
For compatibility, VL Buffers
continues to be supported for IRIX 6.2 and earlier applications
(dmbuffers are recommended for new application development)
-
InfoSearch, new and improved
online viewer and search engine for books, man pages, and Release Notes
-
New on the Toolchest: Help >
Quick Answers; Help > Hints and Shortcuts
-
See the Resources section
for comprehensive overview of useful information and support
-
Support for OpenGL 1.1 on all
systems
-
Imaging performance increased
for O2
-
Increased performance for
luminance (8 and 16-bit) and RGB images
-
Increased performance for
general and separable convolves
-
Increased throughput through
the imaging engine
-
Guaranteed Rate I/O (GRIO)
support
-
Project quotas
-
User space serial I/O
-
Fibre channel Arbitrated Loop
Topology (AL)
-
Simple Network Management
Protocol (SNMP) version 2
-
(Origin systems only) HP-UX
MIB/SNMP provides network manageability in enterprise environments
-
Unified Name Service now
supports yp services
-
NFS for data-serving
-
(Origin systems only)
Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Client for accessing shared
resources in distributed computing DCE/DFS serving environments
-
Database Accelerator (DBA)
Origin
Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS)
-
SBE reporting mechanism
-
Automatic disabling of failing
components while booting
-
Extended memory error handling
-
Single system environment
consisting of up to 128 processors
-
Single system image
-
Support for balanced batch
and timeshare workloads
-
Single administrative entity
-
Partitioned system environment
consisting of up to 128 processors
-
Partitioned system image
with firewalls between each origin partition
-
Application availability
with Failsafe (option)
-
Administration through IRIS
Console
-
(O2 systems only) SoftWindows 95
for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 terminal emulation on IRIX
-
Xinet Appletalk for Macintosh
file and print sharing
-
Novell Netware
-
SAMBA (on Freeware CD) provides
interoperability with Server Message Block (SMB) clients
-
Support for multifunction cards
-
User-level PCI drivers can now
be developed for Octane
Products:
-
New and improved personal system
administration interactive guides and tools (accessible from the System
Manager)
-
Process Manager, graphical tool
to manage processes
-
Hosts Guide, graphical tool to
setup your network
General Changes:
-
Startup login screen is user
configurable (for example, user icons can be replaced with any image)
-
Support for personal
filetypes--allows users to create custom icons for their desktops
-
Keyword search now supported in
System Manager
-
Backup and Restore graphical
tool now uses cpio
-
(Origin systems, Onyx2 systems
only) The worst-case interrupt response time is guaranteed to be less
than one millisecond on properly configured Origin
and Onyx2 systems with up to eight CPUs
-
Miser predictive batch scheduler
-
Share II resource manager
(option)
-
Most features of the Commercial
Security Pack are now bundled into IRIX 6.5
-
Least Privilege (POSIX
P1003.1e), which allows allocation of system privileges individually
(rather than setuid)
-
Access Control List
-
Single Sign-on via Distributed
Computing Environment (DCE)
-
Inst now supports ISO 9660 CDs
Standards compliance under IRIX 6.4
will be extended, with the addition of:
-
Year 2000 compliance as defined
by the X/Open group
-
UNIX 95
Certified Single UNIX
Specification - Spec 1170/UNIX 95
-
DII-COE Kernel Version 3.2 available for
development projects
-
Full pthreads support, including
system scope
-
Improved performance for X11 and
Motif
-
Thread-safe Xlib and Xt
-
Support for X11R6.3 server and
libraries (previously X11R6.1), including support for Low-Bandwidth X
-
Continue to support Motif 1.2.4
-
Improvements to the hardware
colormap implementation minimizes colormap flashing for Impact and
Octane graphics systems
|