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Windows 2003 R2 + Interix
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 Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Apr. 26, '05, 3:16:21 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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Well, today's the day that Microsoft has given approval to openly
discuss Windows 2003 R2 and how SFU is included !!
(Today is Tuesday, 26, April, 2005 BTW).
This matches with the release of 2003 R2 Beta 2 (which started last week).
Note: For those of you participating with R2 Beta2 there is a Beta "Daily
Chat" 8am-9am/PDT, 11am-12pm/EDT about this.
First SFU (Service for UNIX) goes away. It is no more. Version 3.5 of SFU
is the last version. The different parts that have been SFU (NFS client,
NFS server, Interix, etc.) are now included with the 2003 R2 distribution.
As Microsoft moves forward to Longhorn this is how things will be. As an
effect the changes/enhancements discussed with R2 will be available only on
future versions of Windows. Earlier versions of Windows (2000, XP, 2003)
will not have these changes/enhancements. As such SFU 3.5 will be the solution
for these earlier Windows platforms until their EOL.
Microsoft continues to support all of these products through Support/PSS as usual.
The Unix-like subsystem known as Interix (nee OpenNT) since the Softway Systems days
now gets a new name for whatever reasons. It's now called the SUA (Subsystem for Unix
Applications). We (/Tools) are still going to call it "Interix" unless there is some
specific reason. This should keep discussions clear as they span from SFU through to R2.
So what new?
Here are some key points. Feel free to add more or ask questions. Mark has played with
R2 (Beta1) quite a bit. I'm just getting R2 Beta2 installed.
- you need to explicitly load the SUA through the Add/Remove panel. You can no longer
install Interix on FAT filesystem. Only NTFS.
- System V utilities are available for users who want to use SV utilities. It is
expected the BSD-based utilities will continue being the default and used by
current SFU/Interix users. The choice is yours. It was explained to us that there
are users who want the SV utilities. So it's a customer request/driven thing.
- Large file systems are now supported. Over 2G lseek()'s and stat() calls returning
file sizes > 2G (or >4G if you know the trick). This also means stdio can do the same.
This is, I would say, the number one question for most users.
- Mixed mode. There is now a special "mixed mode" that allows for an application to link
with Interix libraries and Win32 libraries. The binary itself gets marked as Win32 and
has special library calls to communicate with the Interix subsystem. There are conditions
that you will want to avoid in some contexts. Big on this list is linking with Oracle's
Call Interface (OCI). You can link in this Mixed Mode with VS/VC and gcc.
- The utilities are not included as part of the R2 update. These need to be downloaded separately.
- support for VS/VC 7.1 and the next generation Whidbey (Beta) compiler (both C & C++)
- The subsystem is supported on 64-bit (Intel & AMD)
- gcc compiled programs can still be debugged with gdb. Code compiled with the SVR5 libraries
and VS can be debugged with WinDBG now (note this is in Mixed mode). You need to download the
latest WinDBG from MS separately.
- 64-bit compilation is only supported with VS (or Whidbey) using the SVR5 libraries.
- There are special instructions for setting up to run on IA64-bit machines
- most (if not all) /Tools packages for Interix 3.5 seem to work with R2, 32-bit. I haven't
tried anything on a 64-bit machine doing WOW/32-bit thunking.
- another series of letters to learn: "IdMU" == Identity Managment for Unix (formerly Server
for NIS, password sync and Admin components).
There's more, but I thought it best to start the discussion in a more formal sense rather than
it taking over another thread as an aside.
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - May 5, '05, 9:58:07 AM
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cygwinxp
Posts: 11
Joined: Feb. 2, '04,
Status: offline
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This looks pretty good. Any formal document available for the details ?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - May 5, '05, 11:42:04 AM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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> This looks pretty good. Any formal document available for the details ?
Alas, not really. There are other changes as well. But I don't know what they
are because of the lack of a comprehensive document. There's a short document
which covers the items I've mentioned, but I can't distribute it -- just talk/write
about it. Anyone who has R2 Beta 2 is also free to discuss what it does (unlike
R2 Beta 1).
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - May 10, '05, 7:51:02 AM
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breiter
Posts: 346
Joined: Jun. 14, '04,
From: Washington, DC
Status: online
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How difficult (possible) is the upgrade from Win2k3 SP1 w/ SFU 3.5 directly to Win2k3 R2 with SUA going to be?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - May 10, '05, 10:14:30 AM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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Through the Beta cycle you need to hve Windows 2003 with SP1 (at a certain build level)
installed before applying R2. I imagine that this will get smoothed out for the
final release as this part has been a pain in the ass because the "certain build level"
changed between beta 1 & 2.
I'm leaning towards recommending that you uninstall 3.5 before getting the SUA added.
It's the simplest way to organize things because it's a two step: add the SUA, then add
the utilities/libraries. I haven't done the combination of having 3.5 installed and then
doing/trying the R2 update since repeatedly installing Windows is not very stimulating.
But I'll give this a try and let you know (I have to do most of this anyway later today).
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 3:26:59 AM
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demyn
Posts: 34
Joined: Jun. 20, '05,
Status: offline
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From the initial summary:
> - Large file systems are now supported. Over 2G lseek()'s and stat() calls returning
> file sizes > 2G (or >4G if you know the trick). This also means stdio can do the same.
> This is, I would say, the number one question for most users.
What is the trick for >4G files?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 10:55:06 AM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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An ambigous reference to Interix 3.5 and 3.0. I should have written:
Over 2G lseek()'s and and stat() calls returning file size > 2G
(though on 3.0/3.5 if you knew the trick you can get to 4G).
The value returned by stat() in 3.0 and 3.5 is an off_t which
is a signed long. If you cast the return as unsigned
you get one more bit which gets you to the range of 4G instead of 2G.
If you don't cast and the file is >2G you get a negative size.
No trick done about lseek().
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 11:42:31 AM
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demyn
Posts: 34
Joined: Jun. 20, '05,
Status: offline
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Thanks for clarifying the file size limits.
- most (if not all) /Tools packages for Interix 3.5 seem to work with R2, 32-bit. I haven't
tried anything on a 64-bit machine doing WOW/32-bit thunking.
I tried installing some /Tools on W2K3 R2 Beta 2 and ran into issues (no details unfortunately; I didn't take notes or capture output). What are the plans for officially supporting /Tools on R2?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 12:36:32 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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We won't start putting up stuff for R2 until R2 is "officially" released.
The 32-bit will be looked at first. If the package from 3.5 can be used without
any issues then that will be used so that time can be spent on any package that
may have an issue. 64-bit will come after. Because there are two platforms (AMD64
and IA64) for 64-bit we'll have to see what happens at the time, but I expect it
will be a parallel thing.
Initially for R2 the packages that update what utilities Interix ships with just won't be needed.
Or least they won't be if a certain company/group stops dragging things out.
It'll happen in a mostly "what's the most used" order: so the installer, openssh, openssl, bash,...
There will be new directory locations based on the version/platform. So something like
ftp://ftp.interopsystems.com/pkgs/5.2-32 for the 32-bit versions.
(Yeah, on R2 the version is 5.2. I don't know what happened to 4.X).
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 1:18:39 PM
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demyn
Posts: 34
Joined: Jun. 20, '05,
Status: offline
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Sounds good. Some clarification, though, are you saying the installer, openssh, openssl, and bash might be part of the SDK for Unix-based Applications (SUA)?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 8, '05, 1:44:07 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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> ... might be part of the SDK for Unix-based Applications (SUA)?
No, I meant that these will be the first in order as "new packages".
For R2, if a certain company/group stops dragging things out, the utilities and libraries
that ship in R2 beta will be updated. So X11R6.6 to X11R6.8.2, csh/tcsh to 6.14.00, etc.
What has been updated on /Tools and plus others.
More details need a signature, some beer and a BBQ. 
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 10, '05, 4:06:57 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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A note about compiling on R2.
The binaries produced by gcc 3.3 seem to run okay.
The binaries produced by MSVC version prior to VS 2003 will occationally SEGV.
So if you are not using MSVC 2003 you should update to using it; it's free, the
download is referenced in the FAQ -- Does Interix come with a compiler?
The current release of the pkg installer was compiled with MSVC but not MSVC 2003.
The next release (pkg version 2.4) will be compiled using MSVC 2003.
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Jul. 20, '05, 12:35:41 AM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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With the release of pkg version 2.4 you should be able to
install any 32-bit package on the Interix 5.2 (R2/SUA) release.
It's not in the "offically supported" mode until R2 releases but
if you have a problem let us know.
The packages to use are the 3.5 packages for now. So the 5.2-x86
directory is a symlink to 3.5-x86.
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Aug. 6, '05, 8:31:51 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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About a month ago I posted and wrote:
> Initially for R2 the packages that update what utilities Interix ships with just won't be needed.
> Or least they won't be if a certain company/group stops dragging things out.
Well, this comment now joins the "dead as a doornail" pile.
We've been told that the updates would have no ROI for anyone. I guess that mean you, the user.
I can say I feel very "lead on" over the last 6 months that this work would happen.
And personally this has burned me as I kept "the deck clear" so I could do this work
in time for the R2 code freeze to RTM. As anyone who knows about life as a contractor,
"cleared decks" don't magically refill. But the bills keep coming.
There will be for R2/SUA no updates to the utilities. Any adjustments will be minor.
The utilities that ship with 3.5 will be unchanged. Except for the X11R6 libraries,
ftp and a couple of other utilities the 3.5 shipping was the same as the 3.0 release.
And I'll note that those updates were snarfed from the /Tools ftp site.
So Microsoft will continue to ship utilities missing a lot of functionality that other
Unix systems have. Additionally all of those security bugs that have accumulated over
the last 6 years will remain mostly unaddressed (except for the single RPC fix).
I forgot to mention a really funny story. The System V (SCO) utilities were ported to
Interix for SUA/R2 by outsourcing to another firm. That firm was so "skilled" that they
asked for free support from /Tools so they, who were getting paid, could complete the work.
At the time we didn't know what this firm was doing, so we asked "why?" and never heard from
them again. Inspires real confidence in the SV utilities work and the skill(s) of that firm.
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Aug. 8, '05, 3:26:15 PM
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demyn
Posts: 34
Joined: Jun. 20, '05,
Status: offline
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Sounds pretty sucky. Do you thinks Microsoft's commitment to SUA is underfunded ... or are they just inept?
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Aug. 8, '05, 5:21:54 PM
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Rodney
Posts: 3714
Joined: Jul. 9, '02,
From: /Tools lab
Status: offline
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*sigh*, it's hard to give a clear reply to that question.
My thoughts drift into set theory...
Given that MS is the universe (U)  and recalling that 'U' can contain the null set (or even sets).
How does set 'F', created by the intersection of sets 'A'..'E', become contained within
a null set, 'N' over time 't' without leaving set 'F', but is now disjunct? If you solve this 'F'-'N' problem
(use as much extra paper as you need), please finish the NP-complete problem as a bonus (har-har).
{Yeah, math humour is bad... }
Another set (continuing the theme), 'S', is providing some funding to /Tools which we do appreciate.
In the grande scheme it is a small amount unrelated to 'F'. So broad statements are hard to justify
when they might wack some nice people :-)
"Sucky" is certainly one of the terms that fit.
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RE: Windows 2003 R2 + Interix - Aug. 20, '05, 10:30:33 PM
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markfunk
Posts: 670
Joined: Mar. 31, '03,
Status: offline
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quote:
Sounds pretty sucky. Do you thinks Microsoft's commitment to SUA is underfunded ... or are they just inept?
Microsoft is a Windows company.
They really don't want to do UNIX stuff if they can help it.
It would appear that the only reason for any sort of UNIX product is so
that they can claim to have a UNIX offering so that they can talk
to new sales prospects that are currently UNIX based.
There are some Microsoft people (not many though) that are
totally committed to provide UNIX on Windows. But they seem to be
fighting a painful and underfunded battle. Just note that SFU and SUA
are being maintained by a dev group in India.
The dev team doesn't have many (if any) UNIX experienced people.
All the UNIX experts they had were replaced.
And if what Rodney says is true (that the SysV util port was outsourced)
it just highlights how inexperienced the dev team is.
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