IRIX^® 6.5.24 Release Announcement

As of May 5, 2004 IRIX® 6.5.24 is releasing with all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers.

The IRIX 6.5.24 release continues the focus on stability, reliability, security and compatibility required in the IRIX® 6.5.xx quarterly release process.

The IRIX 6.5.24 release delivers several software enhancements, extensions and improvements requested by our customers. Approximately 71 customer reported incidents are also resolved in this release.

The general distribution process is through the online ordering system. IRIX 6.5.24 images are also available for download off Supportfolio.

IRIX 6.5.24 Highlights

The IRIX 6.5.24 release added support for GRIO version 2, the next-generation guaranteed-rate I/O product from SGI. GRIO version 2 supports CXFS™ filesystems shared among nodes in a cluster as well as locally attached XFS® filesystems.

The IRIX 6.5.24 release added support for XVM multi-host failover. When using XVM multi-host failover, you can manually specify the attributes associated with a storage path by using the failover2.conf file.

In support of XVM multi-host failover, XVM now supports the xvm foconfig and the xvm foswitch commands. The xvm foconfig command parses a failover2.conf file on a running system. The xvm foswitch command switches the path used to access an XVM physvol.

Administrators can now create a special cpuset for kernel daemons to run in called the "system" cpuset. This will help keep the daemons responsive even under high load.

The top and ps commands can now display information about particular cpusets or what cpusets processes belong to.

IRIXview™ and the rtmond tools can now report more meaningful information for kernel interrupt handlers threads. Running rtmond with the new -H option will cause the name of reported threads to be more descriptive.

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

• Changes to Support Mode Status
  The following workstations, graphics and scalable server systems have transitioned to retired support mode for the IRIX® 6.5.23 release. IRIX 6.5.23 and subsequent releases do not support installation on these systems.
  • Challenge® S, Challenge® M, Challenge® DM, Challenge® L, Challenge® XL
  • Indigo®, Indigo2™, Indigo2™ Extreme, Indigo2 Impact™
  • Indy®
  • Power Challenge™, Power Indigo2™, Power Onyx™
  • Onyx®

Contact your local sales representative to discuss options for replacement or upgrade products.

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/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi/0650/bks/SGI_Developer/books/mandate_IRIX/sgi_html/pr01.html

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/irix/6.5 for any late-breaking information.

Important note if you do live installs of the IRIX quarterly releases

Installation

• Updated Inst program
  New installation features were used starting with IRIX® 6.5.21 that necessitate an updated version of the Inst program. If you plan to install using the miniroot, then you may do so by the usual method. However, if you plan to upgrade by 'live' install and are running IRIX® 6.5.19 or earlier, you must first install patch 5086.

IRIX 6.5.xx Look-ahead

IRIX® 6.5.25 is in development and is planned to release mid-August, 2004.