®
As of August 7, 2002 IRIX 6.5.17 is releasing with
all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers.
The IRIX 6.5.17 release contains updates for both the maintenance (6.5.17m)
and feature (6.5.17f) streams. This release continues the
focus on stability, reliability, security and compatibility required
in the IRIX 6.5.X quarterly release process.
Approximately 150 customer reported incidents are fixed in this release.
In addition to bug fixes, the IRIX 6.5.17 maintenance path delivers
several software enhancements and additional installation improvements.
Since a major goal of the IRIX 6.5.X release process is to provide a
feature stream as stable as the maintenance stream, the same bug fixes
and software enhancements are also applied to the IRIX 6.5.17 feature path.
The general distribution process is through the online ordering system.
IRIX 6.5.17m and 6.5.17f images are also available for download off
Supportfolio.
Summary of Software Enhancements delivered by IRIX 6.5.17
New Hardware Platforms or Features:
Fibre Channel Adapters
Filesystems
- The firmware for the QLogic 2 Gb fibre channel adapters, the 2300,
2310 and 2342, is updated to version 3.01.07. With this firmware,
the amber led on the boards will flash when there is no cable
connected or there is no signal on a connected cable.
IRIX 6.5.17 Feature Stream:
Filesystems
- New XVM Manager Graphical User Interface (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.
- New XVM snapshot feature
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.
Use of the XVM snapshot features requires a FLEXlm license.
- Support for XVM volumes with FailSafe 2.1.3
This release includes support for the use of local XVM volumes as
FailSafe resources. FailSafe version 2.1.3 is required. XVM volumes
used in conjunction with CXFS should not be added as FailSafe resources.
- CXFS upgrade: filesystem definitions
The structure of the CXFS filesystem configuration was changed with
the release of IRIX 6.5.13f. Backward compatibility with earlier
versions is no longer maintained as of IRIX 6.5.14f, since all
nodes in the cluster must be running the same or adjacent releases.
- If you are upgrading from 6.5.13f to 6.5.14f or later, there
is no further impact.
- If you are upgrading from 6.5.12f or earlier, you must perform
a one-time manual conversion of your CXFS filesystem definitions.
- For CXFS customers, if you install IRIX 6.5.17f including
sysadm_base on a cluster node where the the 6.5.13f or earlier
version of CXFS is installed, you will need to upgrade to the
6.5.17f version CXFS (sysadm_cxfs) and install 6.5.17f sysadm_cluster.
IRIX 6.5.17 Maintenance and Feature Stream:
Online Documentation
- Online Documentation Tools/Books Upgrade
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".
NFS
- NFS Version 3 Client Update
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 certain heavy load conditions.
Cluster Management
The build_cmgr_script(1M) command generates a cmgr(1M) script
that can be used later to recreate the cluster database.
Device Drivers
- Device drivers now have the capability to create kernel threads
not associated with particular interrupts to act as daemons and
do background processing.
Resource Management
- New cpuset(1) options
Two new options have been added to the cpuset command.
These allow the user to move a process or group of processes
with or without their associated memory from one cpuset to another.
Networking
- New networking interface functions
Support for several new networking interface functions have been
added. They provide node name and/or a service name translation
in a protocol-independent manner to support both IPv4 and IPv6.
(Note, IPv6 support is not currently available.)
System Availability
- For FailSafe customers, if you install IRIX 6.5.17, including
sysadm_base, on a cluster node where FailSafe 2.1.1 is installed,
you will need to upgrade to FailSafe 2.1.2 (sysadm_failsafe2) and
install 6.5.17 sysadm_cluster.
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/news/support/index.html
Applications CD
The following products were added to the IRIX Applications CD:
- MPT 1.6 - Message Passing Toolkit
- SCSL 1.4.0.1 - Scientific Computing Software Library
- Teleffect 1.0 - Mouse and keyboard sharing service
The following products contain enhancements or new features:
- NEdit 5.2a
- SGImeeting 2.0.3
- SGI Webserver 1.3.26
- FLEXlm License Tools 3.4.7
- InSight 5.0
- InSight Dev 5.0
- Information Searching Execution Environment 6.5.17m
- SgSearch 4.0
Dynaweb has been removed from the IRIX Applications CD since
it's functionality has been integrated into InSight and InfoSearch.
IRIX 6.5 Application Compatibility Mandate
For those providers asking about quarterly recertification of
applications, please take a moment and become acquainted with the
application compatibility protections offered by IRIX 6.5. This is a
very powerful mandate that allows an application to be developed under
IRIX 6.5.X and be run on any IRIX 6.5.Y, regardless of whether
Y > X, Y == X, or Y < x.
The Mandate of Application Compatibility in SGI IRIX 6.5 is at URL:
http://techpubs.sgi.com/tpl.cgi/view/SGI_Developer/mandate_IRIX
Caveats to Read Before You Upgrade
Users are reminded to review the special "Caveats to Read Before You
Upgrade" section of the online Welcome document. Visit the
"Caveat and Release Note Updates" link at:
http://support.sgi.com/6.5/caveat_updates.html
for any late-breaking information.
IRIX 6.5.X Lookahead
IRIX 6.5.18 is in development and is planned to release mid-November, 2002
