--On Thursday, September 18, 2003 11:51:26 -0400 Brian Cuttler <brian AT 
wadsworth DOT org> wrote:

> 
> Hello All,
> 
> I'm running amanda on multiple servers, both Solaris and IRIX
> (well, SunOS too...) and have client systems of Solaris/SunOs
> and IRIX.
> 
> On Solaris we run amanda server as "bin", I'd like to migrate
> to "amanda" but either way its not root.
> 
> On irix we continue to run amanda as root, I don't call why this
> began, it predates me but today's work is making me ask a few
> questions. I believe at least some of the answers are related to
> the way Solaris and IRIX differ in how they handle NFS mounts.
> 
> Where ever possible we utilize common disk, NFS mounting the
> /usr/local tree (/usr/local/sbin  /usr/local/libexec) from
> single platforms for each architecture.
> 
> I'm running 2.4.2p2 on SGI, today attempting to upgrade to 2.4.4(p1)
> so that I would have the current platform to establish tar based DLE
> for some of my larger partitions (see thread: "amanda span tapes").
> 
> I had some problems with my build (problem with # install from
># make install but we can skip those, probably fallout from doing
> a copy of my Solaris install tree to my irix install tree and not
> running # make distclean, though I did run # configure and # make,
> seemingly successfully).
> 
> On SGI I was unable to get dumper to run correctly, its set suid
> root but it wasn't picking up on it from the nfs clients.

You might want to check your export options. Most OSs disable suid
root over NFS and/or map root to nobody by default.  Look for options
like root= and suid.  Also check your mount options, suid can be
suppressed there as well.

> Also I
> had problems with exec format errors, I suspect because the
> binaries where built on 6.5.19 and I was running on another server
> that was a lower release number 6.5.14. I wouldn't have thought
> that downwards compattibility was as large an issue (its only a guess).

If you need to run a program on different versions of the same OS,
it is generally safer to build it on the oldest version, or build
a separate one for each version if necessary.
 
> I eventually had to set o+rx on the suid programs (yes, I know that
> this is _strongly discouraged_ but didn't see a choice).

Don't forget to fix that later.

> I'm finally back where I started 2.4.2p2 on SGI. Things seem to be
> back to normal. I'm wondering if I compile 2.4.4p1 on an older
> release of IRIX and chmod the suid programs...
> 
> I could maintain software somewhere other than /usr/local for the
> irix systems but that becomes a non-standard installation that I
> have to service on all the clients and all the servers.

Hopefully you have a separate /usr/local tree for each OS.  If not,
you run the risk of running a program on the wrong architecture,
which can be nasty if you are running it as root.
   You might want to look into using cfengine to help manage your
collection of disparate servers.

Frank


> Has anyone solved these problems on SGI ? I'm can't be breaking
> new ground, can I ?

 
> 
> Thanks for any input.
> 
>                                               thanks,
> 
>                                               Brian
> 
> ---
>    Brian R Cuttler                 brian.cuttler AT wadsworth DOT org
>    Computer Systems Support        (v) 518 486-1697
>    Wadsworth Center                (f) 518 473-6384
>    NYS Department of Health        Help Desk 518 473-0773
> 



-- 
Frank Smith                                      fsmith AT hoovers DOT com
Systems Administrator                           Voice: 512-374-4673
Hoover's Online                                   Fax: 512-374-4501