Xinu7/contrib/distodt/README

		Distributed Odt/Download README File
		------------------------------------

This is the beta version of the Distributed Odt/Download software.
The software runs on both SUNs and VAXes, however downloading to
non-sun backends is not yet possible.

These are the directories and their contents:

./src		contains all the Dist Odt/Download software and Makefile
./h		header files for Dist Odt/Download
./sunbin	directory for sun binaries when compiled
./vaxbin	directory for vax binaries when compiled
./man		manual pages for using the new Dist Odt/Download software


To compile the system and get it running you need to change a few of
the constants in the header files to suit your system.  Look in the
file ./h/bed.h and modify the constants at the top - there are
comments indicating which constants need to be modified.  The BED
server needs to read a machines database and so you should find a
directory to place the machines database in.  There is an example
machines database in the file ./src/machines that you can modify and
place in the correct directory.  The only fields of the machines database
that are currently used be the software are the 'ttyline',
'be-name', 'baud', and 'class'.  The other fields must be there but
can be anything. You also will have to specify the 
directory to use for storing lock files.  Since lock files are
temporary the constant in ./h/bed.h currently specifies /tmp/xinu as
the directory for lock files, but you may want to change this.
Each frontend running the BED server must have a machines database
that specifies the backends connected to it, and each frontend must
have a directory reserved for the lock files.  These must be set up on
each frontend before you start up the BED process.

Another constant that probably needs explaining is STATTIMEOUT.  Status
messages are broadcast to all frontends to find out if they have a backend
available.  The program then waits for status responses from all the BED
servers.  It will wait accept status responses for the next STATTIMEOUT
seconds and then it will assume that it has heared from all the BED
servers.  Currently STATTIMEOUT is set to 2 seconds.  On our system here at
Purdue a 1 second timeout is long enough, but you will have to adjust this
to fit your network.

Once you have modified ./h/bed.h to fit your configuration you can
compile the system.  You can compile either the sun or the vax
version.  First cd to ./src and edit the Makefile there.  You should
edit the lines at the top of the Makefile which indicate which
architecture you are compiling for.  Then typing 'make all' will make
the entire system and store the executables in ./sunbin or ./vaxbin
depending on the architecture you have selected in the Makefile.

To run the BED server, simply log into the frontend you want to run it
on, cd to the correct {sun/vax}bin directory and type 'bed'.

See the manual pages for other commands and their usage.