IRIX 6.5.22

New Software Enhancements - Maintenance and Feature Stream

Feature support added to maintenance stream For IRIX 6.5.22, support for the following features is now provided in both the feature stream (IRIX 6.5.22f) and the maintenance stream (IRIX 6.5.22m). In previous releases, these features were supported in the feature stream only:

• The XVM logical volume manager
• CXFS™
• The SJIS feature of IRIX Language Support, supporting Shift JIS, Traditional Chinese BIG5, and Simplified Chinese GBK locales.

Filesystems

Changes to CXFS Packaging in IRIX 6.5.22 Starting with IRIX 6.5.22, CXFS software is no longer bundled in the IRIX overlay CDs. CXFS software is now on a separate CD that is labeled: "CXFS and IRIX Server and Client 3.0 for IRIX 6.5.22". This changes the installation procedure. For information on CXFS installation, see SGI® InfiniteStorage CXFS™ Administration Guide.

Note: If you are upgrading from a previous IRIX release and have CXFS installed, you must upgrade both IRIX and CXFS. If you try to upgrade one without the other, conflicts will occur.

CXFS customers should make sure that their CXFS support contract contains the CD media option. This option is required for future delivery of the latest features, enhancements, and bug fixes, available only on CD. The CD media option allows you to take advantage of secure and expedited delivery via our online ordering system, Software Updates on Supportfolio, or by calling your local support center.

For further information on this packaging change and CXFS support, go to the following page on Supportfolio: http://support.sgi.com/search_request/publications/index.

Select the following parameters: Publication type: news Product type or keyword(s): CXFS Separate CD Media Case-insensitive filename support for XFS® filesystems Support was added to enable a version 2 filesystem directory with case-insensitive filenames. This feature is normally used only when the filesystem will be used by CXFS clients running the Windows® operating system. Trusted IRIX™ and IRIX extended attribute support added to UDF filesystems Write-capable UDF filesystem format Universal Disk Format (UDF) is the filesystem used on DVDs. 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. Trusted IRIX support and Extended Attribute support (using UDF streams) was added to the UDF filesystem for IRIX 6.5.22.

Checkpoint and Restart

New features of REPLACE keyword of the cpr command The operation of the REPLACE action keyword of the cpr command has been enhanced. Under certain constraints, REPLACE actions may invoke SUBSTITUTE actions for files that have been modified or deleted, or a MERGE action for all other files. If a SUBSTITUTE action is performed, a notice specifying the location of the substituted file is displayed. It is the responsibility of the user to pick up any output file thus substituted. Applications that reopen a substituted file by its original name may not operate as expected.

Checkpoint/Restart users are encouraged to review the information on this behavior change detailed in the IRIX Checkpoint and Restart Operation Guide.

Security

Support for Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) IRIX 6.5.22 includes support for Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM). PAM provides a general purpose interface for customer-definable authentication. Implementation of PAM is off by default.

Desktop

New musicplayer application The IRIX 6.5.22 release includes musicplayer, a skinnable desktop music player that plays sound files using sgi audio hardware. The musicplayer application handles multiple files in a single session.

NFS

Improvements to NFS operation The IRIX 6.5.22 release includes the following improvements to NFS

Changes have been made to the operation of the buffer cache during NFS operation. These updates maintain I/O performance under heavy load and improve the efficiency of I/O in general.

A new mode has been added to the IRIX's kernel NFS service where the number of NFS server daemons grows and shrinks in response to NFS load. Previously on IRIX this was a fixed number that the system administrator had to choose, and both the default number and the recommended tuning procedure ensured inadequate NFS performance for many workloads. IRIX now requires less tuning and will perform better out of the box.

A new -d option has been added to the nfsstat command that will display statistics about individual NFS daemons.

NFS now provides an optional "async" mode to improve write performance. This mode is set with the async option of the exportfs command. By allowing an administrator to switch from synchronous write/commit cycles to performing the same operations asynchronously, NFS writes can finish up-to 10 times faster on the client and server can perform writes in the way which can optimize backend filesystem IO pattern. This option is recommended only for heavy synchronous write loads.

An "offline" option to the exportfs command has been added for use with FailSafe® operations. Historically Failsafe stopped NFS-related activity by killing NFS daemons. With the "offline" option a selected subset of filesystem can be moved offline while NFS server can continue to serve requests to other filesystems.

Network time protocol (NTP) support

Network time protocol (NTP) is a newly supported component. For more information see "Setting up Time Synchronization Service" in "IRIX Admin: Networking and Mail".

Bind Version 9.2.2

The IRIX 6.5.22 release supports BIND version 9.2.2. BIND version 9 is a major rewrite of nearly all aspects of the underlying BIND architecture. Some of the important features of BIND 9 are, as follows:

- DNS security - IP version 6 - DNS protocol enhancements - Views - Multiprocessor support - Improved portability architecture SGI® Software Product Life Cycle Management IRIX support policy In accordance with the SGI software product life cycle management strategy announced in November 2000, SGI will announce support mode changes for various software products on a quarterly basis. To view customer letters containing support mode changes announced since November 2000, as well as the latest IRIX Support Policy documents, visit the IRIX Support Policy Web page located at: http://support.sgi.com/irix/6.5

The following workstations, graphics and scalable server systems will transition to retired support mode after the IRIX 6.5.22 release in November 2003:

• Challenge® S
• Challenge® M
• Challenge® DM
• Challenge® L
• Challenge® XL
• Indigo®
• Indigo2™
• Indigo2™ Extreme™
• Indigo2 Impact™
• Indy® Power
• Challenge™ Power
• Indigo2™ Power
• Onyx™ Onyx®

Next release

IRIX 6.5.23

Previous release

IRIX 6.5.21

Network File System