freeware for hp-ux

[synack]

Looking for a software site much like Sunfreeware.com, only for HP-UX. I would like to install things such as BASH 2.0, Apache, SSH etc. on my HP-UX box. Anything out there?

[Cheryl Griffin]

http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/

[Pete Randall]

Go here:

http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/


Pete

[Sundar_7]

Hi,

http://software.hp.com has some free softwares.

If you have 11i, download the Internet express from the site, it contains Apache, SSH etc.

-- Sundar

[synack]

Thanks!

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

One very important point: As much as you may like bash, absolutely, positively do not use it as root's shell. It is essential that root's shell remain /sbin/sh (a fully functional POSIX shell) so that a statically linked shell is available. The machine will not be able to complete the boot cycle otherwise.

[synack]

Wow. That's the goofiest thing I've ever heard (coming from a *BSD and Linux background). Thanks so much for the excellent tip!

[synack]

woah..i hadn't realized until just now, but i already changed my shell for root to /usr/bin/ksh....no problems yet...i guess this version of KSH is POSIX compatible enough for HP-UX not to complain?

[Sundar_7]

It wont complain until you try to reboot the system. System wont boot. As Clay said, /sbin/sh is a statically linked binary and doesnt depend on the shared libaries in /usr/lib.

Change root shell back to /sbin/sh or find a way to create a statically linked version of bash, copy it to /sbin and update /etc/passwd.

[synack]

Um...it's been rebooted several times with the root shell set as /usr/bin/ksh. Maybe I'm living in some sort of bizarro, space and time warped world where HP-UX boots with KSH as root's shell. CRAZY!!

[Jeff Schussele]

Are you saying that field 7 of root's /etc/passwd field is /usr/bin/ksh?

I doubt it as the system absolutely won't boot.
I'll bet that root's .profile is flipping root's shell to ksh *after* the boot's complete *when* root logs in.
Remember that /usr has not yet been mounted when root must run stuff at boot time, so the system does *not* run root's .profile. It simply relies on root's shell entry in the passwd file.

The other possibility is that there's *another* UID=0 account in the passwd file ahead of root and it has /sbin/sh for it's shell.
The system is not looking for username=root - it's looking for UID=0.

My $0.02,
Jeff

[A. Clay Stephenson]

It's simply not possible that your root shell is /usr/bin anything. Ask yourself, how would the rc commands execute to mount /usr when the shell needs the shared libraries in /usr to execute?

There is absolutely no reason to use ksh on HP-UX. /usr/bin/sh (as well as its statically linked cousin, /sbin/sh) is a POSIX shell -- not a Bourne shell and as such is a superset of the Korn shell.

[Sundar_7]

I agree with Jeff and Clay - there is no way your system is going to boot with root shell set to /usr/bin/ksh.

the common misconception is that sometimes /usr/bin/sh is mistaken for bourne shell. /usr/bin/sh is posix shell and can do everything your /usr/bin/ksh can do - /usr/old/bin/sh is the bourne shell binary.

[Joseph C. Denman]

Maybe he did not build a separate filesystem for /usr.

my guess???


...jcd...

[Jeff Schussele]

You know jcd - you might be right!
I didn't think of that.
See...that's thinking out of the box - in a backwards way if you think about it.
We senior SAs are *so* used to thinking in the "how's it *supposed* to be done" mode.

But then again if we had 1 minute on the console......

Later,
Jeff

[Bill Hassell]

It may sound goofy that ksh can't be root's shell (or BASH or tcsh or csh or...) but the reason is quite simple: /usr is *NOT* mounted in single user mode. NOTE: any shell will work for a normal boot (as others have reported). That's because root's shell is not invoked until root logs in. In single user mode, there is no login, just some initialization and root's shell is run. However, /usr (which contains /usr/bin and /usr/lib) is not mounted. So /usr/bin/ksh isn't available. Sure, you can copy ksh to /sbin which is available in the / directory but the first thing ksh wants is access to a shared library and there are none (/usr/lib is not mounted).

As far as freeware, there are two categories, HP-provided packages of open source programs, and the Liverpool archive at http://hpux.connect.org.uk/ (and several mirrors). The largest array of new freeware packages has just been made available this year as the Internet Express package at: http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=HPUXIEXP1111 (these are 11.11 packages)

Note that 10.20 packages are being systematically removed from the HP websites and 11.0 is starting to slow down a lot (after all, it is a Nov 1997 product). You'll find most of the new software packages are being ported only to 11.11 at software.hp.com as well as the Internet Express.

[synack]

Alright, I understand needing a statically linked shell for *single-user* mode, but the replies here sounded as if I would never, ever, ever be able to boot my system normally using KSH as root's default shell.

However, I am able to boot my system normally with root's shell being /usr/bin/ksh. Yes root is the only entry in /etc/passwd with UID 0, and /usr is mounted as a separate partition (same disk, different slice), and there is nothing in my .profile that executes the korn shell...phew..did I address everything? Maybe hell has frozen over...or wait..maybe pigs are flying! Trust me guys, I didn't do this on purpose, I'm just telling you what I see :)

[Mohanasundaram_1]

This is not about the freeware but about the interesting discussion on /sbin/sh.

I have seen that HP-UX 10.20 does not boot if you change the root shell to /usr/bin/ksh. But I have tested this in 2 HP-UX 11.11 systems and they are booting without any problem.

And there is no other UID 0 in passwd file. I too did not believe until I had tested this myself. I tried working on this a bit and then got diverted with other things.

Maybe, some body having test systems on 11i can verify this.
The logic stated is very correct about /usr/bin . I still believe that it is very logical that system should not boot. But it is also a fact that the system boots with root's shell as /usr/bin/ksh in HP-UX 11i.

Cheers,
Mohan.

[Bill Hassell]

Just to clarify, all versions of HP-UX (from 7.0 and higher - including 11i) will bootup *NORMALLY* with any shell for root. As long as you never need to boot into single user mode, there won't be a problem. You could even specify a non-existant shell program (/usr/bin/trash) and the system will boot up. However, root cannot login without a valid shell, but the system will be booted and users can login normally.

The reason for the concerns over a statically linked shell is for single user mode...almost never used but when single user mode is needed, it is usually a critical situation and that's not the time to find out root's shell is not available. This is one of those hidden time bombs, like removing /stand/vmunix...the system seems to run just fine until you reboot. Keeping root's shell as /sbin/sh is simply good sysadmin practice.

[synack]

Wow this thread certainly got off topic! Thanks Bill for clarifying things for all of us. I'll be sure to leave root's shell as /sbin/sh and I'll install sudo when I need to do any of root's dirty work. Thanks again!