Key New Features and Changes

The goal of the IRIX 6.5 release family is to provide a high quality and stable operating system for all SGI systems. This release family supports all SGI hardware platforms supported by IRIX 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4, except for Crimson. Significant additional software has been packaged with IRIX 6.5, including some important system and network management and interoperability tools.

The page contains a partial list of the key new features and changes for:

IRIX 6.5.7

IRIX 6.5

Look for information about the IRIX 6.5 release family on Supportfolio Online (http://support.sgi.com) and www.sgi.com.

For details on any of these new features and changes, refer to the release notes.

Please be aware that some features listed here are only applicable for certain software bundles or hardware configurations.

IRIX 6.5.7 Key New Features

The following features are in the core 6.5.7 overlays.

New Hardware Supported

• R12KS CPU on sgi2200, sgi2400, and sgi2800 systems (pending overall product release)
• QLA2200 (both copper and optical) is supported for FC-AL, FC-AL via the Emulex hub or Fabric attach via the Brocade Silkworm 2000 switches (initially supported in 6.5.5)
• 270 Mhz processor for O2 and Silicon Graphics Octane (initially supported in 6.5.4)
• HDTV XIO Board for Silicon Graphics Onyx2 and SGI Origin 2000 systems (this includes systems formerly known as Cray Origin2000 systems) (initially supported in 6.5.4)
• Systems using the MIPS R12000 processor (initially supported in 6.5.3)
• Digital Video Multiplexer option board (DPLEX) for Silicon Graphics Onyx (initially supported in 6.5.3)
• Redundant Power Supply (RPS) (initially supported in 6.5.3)
• 21" Monitor Support for O2 and Octane (initially supported in 6.5.3)
• Flat Panel Monitor for O2 systems (initially supported in 6.5.2)
• 16 pipe InfiniteReality2E systems (initially supported in 6.5.2)
• GSN network adapter (initially supported in 6.5.2)
• Gigabit Ethernet for Octane and SGI Origin systems (initially supported in 6.5.1)
• 128p Metarouter for Origin 2000 systems (formerly known as Cray Origin2000 systems) (initially supported in 6.5.1)
• Dual Channel Display option for O2 systems (initially supported in 6.5.1)
• XR hardware for InfiniteReality2E (initially supported in 6.5.1)
• 225QC for SGI Origin 200 (initially supported in 6.5.1)

Software

Feature Stream Only:

• Support for job limits. You can use this feature if you want to prevent individual users from exceeding specified usage limits; this can improve system throughput and utilization by restricting how much of the machine each user can access. For more information, see IRIX Admin: Resource Administration and the jstat(1), jlimit(1), genlimits(1M), and showlimits(1) man pages.
• Support for the Scheduled Transfers (ST) protocol. The ST protocol is an ANSI Standard level two through four protocol suite designed to support extremely high performance data movement. ST provides a socket-based interface to applications, which lets you directly port the existing networking applications to ST. ST also supports the OS Bypass mode of operation, which allows smaller messages to be sent and received with extremely low latencies. In this initial release of ST, only the Gigabyte System Network (GSN) network adapter is supported. This feature was initially added in 6.5.6.
• Support for the CXFS product, which provides a cluster file system that allows file sharing between machines. CXFS includes the following capabilities:
  • High resiliency and availability
  • Reduced storage costs
  • Scalable high performance

  The 6.5.7 release contains metadata server recovery. See the CXFS Software Installation and Administration Guide for the administrative shutdown procedures and additional troubleshooting information. This feature was initially added in 6.5.6.

• Motif 2.1/ViewKit 2.1 (initially added in 6.5.2)
• IRIX Oplock Support (initially added in 6.5.2)
• Support for Non EUC encoding and locales (sjis/big5/gbk/utf8) (initially added in 6.5.2)

Maintenance and Feature Stream:

• Support for the IRIX sendmail mail system based on sendmail version 8.8.8, which is the version supplied on previous IRIX 6.5.x releases. Due to customer demand, the current sendmail.org release, which is sendmail version 8.9.3 (see http://www.sendmail.org), is supplied via patch 3865. SGI intends to support sendmail 8.9.3 (or above) as the standard released sendmail in a future IRIX release (tentatively planned for IRIX 6.5.9).

  There are many differences between IRIX sendmail version 8.8.8 and version 8.9.3. Some of the new functions in version 8.9.3 are as follows:

  • The major difference between sendmail versions 8.8.8 and 8.9.3 is their configuration file. The configuration file in sendmail version 8.9.3 is configured with the sendmail.mc file which is processed with the m4 macro processor to create the sendmail.cf file.
  • A new version of configmail configures the sendmail.mc file and provides features similar to the configmail utility in previous versions of IRIX. This version of configmail also processes the sendmail.mc file into sendmail.cf by using the m4 macro processor.
  • Sendmail 8.9.3 includes many new features requested by IRIX users, such as anti-relay features which can be used to control spam messages.

  For more information on the 8.9.3 version of sendmail, see the IRIX Administration: Networking and Mail manual provided with the patch. For more information on how to configure sendmail 8.9.3, see http://www.sendmail.org/m4/readme.html.

• Integration of the fsr_xfs(1M) command into the fsr(1M) command. With previous releases of IRIX, the fsr command could be run only on EFS filesystems and the fsr_xfs command could be run only on XFS filesystems. Both commands reorganize filesystems so that the layout of the extents is improved. This improves the performance of mounted filesystems that have become fragmented over time. With this release, the fsr command invokes fsr_xfs when it encounters XFS filesystems. With this change, the default crontab(1M) entry that calls fsr, also reorganizes XFS filesystems. For information on the fsr command and the fsr_xfs and fsr_efs options, see the fsr(1M), fsr_xfs(1M), and fsr_efs(1M) man pages.
• Support for the -u option of the sat_interpret utility that writes unbuffered output. You can use this new option if you are using the sat_interpret utility to process system audit trail data, and then you can pipe this output to another filter utility. For more information, see the sat_interpret(1M) man page.
• Support for bzero error recovery; this RAS feature prevents the kernel from panicking when a memory Multiple Bit Error (MBE) is encountered while the kernel is zeroing out a new page in the virtual memory fault handler (vfault). The kernel will now discard the page with the memory error, grab a new page, and continue its task.
• Support for the 66 MHz qLogic 2200 controller. This feature provides fibre channel disk connectivity for the O2 systems, for both arbitrated loops and Storage Area Networks (SANs). This capability already exists on the SGI Origin systems.
• Support for the FC-Tape on a Storage Area Network (fabric) using the qLogic 2200 fibre channel controller to the tpsc driver. This feature lets you attach tape drives with the fibre channel interface to the fibre channel switch and use these tape drives. For more information on the fibre channel tapes, see the tps(7M) man page.
• Support for a multithreaded version of the automatic filesystem mount daemon autofsd. This enhanced functionality allows for simultaneous multiple automounts. If a particular server for an automounted filesystem is not running or is slow to respond, one autofsd thread can wait for that server while other autofsd threads mount filesystems from other servers. This capability improves the automount performance and simultaneously provides longer wait times for downed servers, which should lead to a decrease in automount failures. This feature was initially added in 6.5.6.
• Embedded Support Partner, which is an integral part of the IRIX operating system, provides system administrators with a way to monitor various events (such as system events, changes in system hardware and software configuration, and system performance) that can occur on their system. Embedded Support Partner consists of a set of daemons that perform the monitoring activities. These include an event monitoring daemon (eventmond), an event management daemon (espemd), and a database daemon (espdbd). Embedded Support Partner provides single system monitoring capabilities as a standard part of IRIX. Optionally, Embedded Support Partner can be configured to receive event and system configuration data from all systems contained within a system group. Embedded Support Partner is controlled through a Web browser that is connected to the Configurable Web Server that is included in the Embedded Support Partner package. For more information, see the Embedded Support Partner Overview, the Embedded Support Partner User's Guide, and the Embedded Support Partner man pages. This feature was initially added in 6.5.5.
• Support for the version 2 XFS directory format; this format provides you with the capability to choose a filesystem block size to match the distribution of data file sizes without adversely affecting directory operation performance. The directory format is specified with the -n parameter of the mkfs command. For more information, see the IRIX Admin: Disks and Filesystems and the mkfs_xfs(1M) man page. This feature was initially added in 6.5.5.
• SCSL is widely used in scientific and technical compute intensive applications and is intended to be a follow on product to Challengecomplib on all supported IRIX platforms at the next major IRIX release. Features such as convolution/correlation and filter routines to the Signal Processing functionality previously only available in Challengecomplib are now incorporated into the SCSL version 1.2 release. Additional IRIX features added to SCSL for this release are improved ordering techniques for the sparse linear solvers, performance enhancements for the MIPS R12000 processor, rollup bug fixes from SCSL 1.1, and all other Challengecomplib 3.1 functionality. SCSL can be downloaded free of charge from the Download Cool Software page at http://www.sgi.com/Products/Evaluation/. For customers who do not have web access and are enrolled under a valid support contract, CD media can be requested free of charge from their local support center. Non-contract customers can order SCSL from their local sales representative. For more information on SCSL, see http://www.sgi.com/software/scsl.html. This feature was initially added in 6.5.5.
• Support for Automated Performance Monitoring. Together with Embedded Support Partner, the base performance monitoring services in the pcp_eoe product have been extended to include an inference engine for evaluating rules about system-level performance and raising alarms. Also provided is a parameterized set of standard rules that can be selectively enabled and tuned to meet local requirements and to choose alternative alarm notification mechanisms. These features are of most value to operations staff running production IRIX systems. For more information, see the pmie(1) and pmieconf(1) man pages, and the Performance Co-Pilot(TM) IRIX Base Software Administrator's Guide. This feature was initially added in 6.5.5.
• Two new options were added to the "miser_create_cpuset" command. These options allow additional restrictions on memory assignment for processes running on a cpuset. These options are documented in the miser_cpuset(4) man pages. This feature was initially added in 6.5.5.
• Support for SAN addressing (initially added in 6.5.5)
• Support for the Miser queue repack policy. When a job finishes execution prior to the end of its schedule, the system resources it was using are released. This policy attempts to reschedule the jobs using earlier start and end times in order to take advantage of these released system resources. The order of the scheduled jobs will be maintained. This feature can be used by all Miser users running IRIX 6.5.4m or f. For more information, see the miser(4) and miser(5) man pages, and the IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation, Chapter 7 "Managing User Processes." (initially added in 6.5.4)
• Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Client for accessing shared resources in distributed computing DCE/DFS serving environments (initially added in 6.5.4)
  • Kernel libraries only
  • Requires installation of DCE/DFS 1.2.2a software for full functionality
• (Octane systems only) The worst-case interrupt response time is guaranteed to be less than one millisecond on properly configured Octane systems (initially added in 6.5.3)
• Support for the X security and appgroup extensions (combined with a new Netscape plugin, these allow the embedding of X applications in Web pages) (initially added in 6.5.3)
• Extra support for European fonts, including the new Euro currency symbol (initially added in 6.5.3)
• New Software Manager and Inst commands to simplify selections for upgrades (initially added in 6.5.3)
• New Software Manager and Inst configuration variable to more easily handle cases where configuration files are upgraded. See the "smart_config_handling" preference in inst or swmgr for more information (initially added in 6.5.4)
• LDAP 3.0 now supported (initially added in 6.5.3)
• AutoFS extended to use UNS for map information (initially added in 6.5.2)
• Support for DCShare application sharing extension (initially added in 6.5.2)
• Fibre channel support to Dmnet (initially added in 6.5.2)
• Three new HP printer drivers (initially added in 6.5.2)

Applications CD:

• SGImeeting and SGImeeting Extensions are now both licensed products and are no longer available on the Applications CD. For more information on SGImeeting, see http://www.sgi.com/software/sgimeeting. The latest version can be obtained from http://www.sgi.com/Products/Evaluation. For additional assistance, contact your local SGI sales representative.
• Upgrade to Netscape Communicator 4.7; for details, see http://home.netscape.com/communicator/v4.5/tour/index.html (initially added in 6.5.6)
• CosmoPlayer 2.1.1 release (initially added in 6.5.5)
• Netscape FastTrack Server 3.03 contains an updated version of the Administration Server 3.52 (initially added in 6.5.5)
• WebViewer Library Execution only Environment 3.0 release (initially added in 6.5.5)

  For more information about the bundled software that is included with this release, see CD Contents and the Bundled Software and Licenses web page that you can access from the Welcome web page.

IRIX 6.5 Key New Features

IRIX 6.5 feature categories:

Binary Compatibility

Includes both a 32-bit and a 64-bit runtime environment. Systems that use the 64-bit runtime environment support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications; systems that use the 32-bit runtime environment, such as the O2, will only support 32-bit applications.

Desktop

Products:

• Site Manager 1.1, for web content validation and version control, workflow support, 3D visualization, and server traffic statistics
• Adobe Acrobat 3.0, for viewing PDF documents
• Nedit, new default text editor; jot is also available
• Accessibility Panel, new graphical interface for AccessX software, allowing movement-impaired users to use the keyboard and mouse more efficiently
• WebViewer 3.0 now supports CSS1 Style sheets, Netscape plug-ins, JavaScript, history mechanism, animated GIFs (WebViewer is embedded in System Manager, File Manager, Software Manager, InfoSearch, EZ-setup, Site Manager, Out of Box Experience, and SGIHelp)
• Netscape Communicator 4.05 provides support for Navigator (browser), Messenger (e-mail), Composer (content creation), and Collabra (news reader); MediaMail no longer supported-see preinstallation caveat
• Netscape Communicator Lite 4.05 provides support for Navigator (browser) only

General Changes:

• Desktop now called IRIX Interactive Desktop (previously Indigo Magic)
• For security, ability to display applications that are running on other systems is now off by default (see the online Desktop User's Guide, "About the Remote Display Feature," for details)
• Performance improvements in application startup
• Impressario now supports PostScript Printer Description (PPD); HP and Lexmark PPD drivers are included with software

Digital Media

• Media Player now supports movies played to video output
• Movielib file now supports Quicktime MJPEG-A files
• Movielib, Media Player, and Movie Maker now support DV DIF files
• Sony DAT Qualification (LibDatAudio)
• Support new Audio Subcode I/O
• Hardware generated audio events, sample rate changes
• O2 and Octane Digital Media Buffers (dmbuffers) now support the same interface--the Octane 6.4 interface (for compatibility, the O2 IRIX 6.3 interface will continue to be supported)
• For compatibility, VL Buffers continues to be supported for IRIX 6.2 and earlier applications (dmbuffers are recommended for new application development)

Documentation Content and Delivery

• InfoSearch, new and improved online viewer and search engine for books, man pages, and Release Notes
• New on the Toolchest: Help > Quick Answers; Help > Hints and Shortcuts
• See Resources section for comprehensive overview of useful information and support

Graphics

• Support for OpenGL 1.1 on all systems
• Imaging performance increased for O2
  • Increased performance for luminance (8 and 16-bit) and RGB images
  • Increased performance for general and separable convolves
  • Increased throughput through the imaging engine

I/O

• Guaranteed Rate I/O (GRIO) support
• Project quotas
• User space serial I/O
• Fibre channel Arbitrated Loop Topology (AL)

Networking

• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) version 2
• (Origin systems only) HP-UX MIB/SNMP provides network manageability in enterprise environments
• Unified Name Service now supports yp services
• NFS for data-serving
• (Origin systems only) Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Client for accessing shared resources in distributed computing DCE/DFS serving environments

Origin Database

• Database Accelerator (DBA)

Origin Enterprise System Management

• Computer Associates Unicenter® TNG(TM) Framework(TM)

Origin Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS)

• SBE reporting mechanism
• Automatic disabling of failing components while booting
• Extended memory error handling

Origin Scalability Features

• Single system environment consisting of up to 128 processors
  • Single system image
  • Support for balanced batch and timeshare workloads
  • Single administrative entity
• Partitioned system environment consisting of up to 128 processors
  • Partitioned system image with firewalls between each origin partition
  • Application availability with Failsafe (option)
  • Administration through IRIS Console

PC & Macintosh Interoperability

• (O2 systems only) SoftWindows 95 for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 terminal emulation on IRIX
• Xinet Appletalk for Macintosh file and print sharing
• Novell Netware
• (Origin systems only) Syntax TAS provides instant interoperability with Windows 95 (Server Message Block), Macintosh, and Novell clients
• SAMBA (on Freeware CD) provides interoperability with Server Message Block (SMB) clients

PCI

• Support for multifunction cards
• User-level PCI drivers can now be developed for Octane

Personal System Management

Products:

• New and improved personal system administration interactive guides and tools (accessible from the System Manager)
• Process Manager, graphical tool to manage processes
• Hosts Guide, graphical tool to setup your network

General Changes:

• Startup login screen is user configurable (for example, user icons can be replaced with any image)
• Support for personal filetypes--allows users to create custom icons for their desktops
• Keyword search now supported in System Manager
• Backup and Restore graphical tool now uses cpio

Scheduling 

• (Origin systems, Onyx2 systems only) The worst-case interrupt response time is guaranteed to be less than one millisecond on properly configured Origin and Onyx2 systems with up to eight CPUs
• Miser predictive batch scheduler
• Share II resource manager (option)

Security

• Most features of the Commercial Security Pack are now bundled into IRIX 6.5
• Least Privilege (POSIX P1003.1e), which allows allocation of system privileges individually (rather than setuid)
• Access Control List
• Single Sign-on via Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) 

Software Distribution Features

• Inst now supports ISO 9660 CDs 

Standards

Standards compliance under IRIX 6.4 will be extended, with the addition of:

• Year 2000 compliance as defined by the X/Open group
• UNIX 95 Certified Single UNIX Specification - Spec 1170/UNIX 95
• DII-COE Kernel Version 3.2 available for development projects
• Full pthreads support, including system scope

Workgroup System Management

• (Origin systems only) EnlightenDSM Workgroup Server provides Distributed System Management for small enterprises and workgroups.
• (O2, Octane, Onyx2 systems only) EnlightenDSM Workgroup Client provides Distributed System Management for small enterprises and workgroups

X11/Motif

• Improved performance for X11 and Motif
• Thread-safe Xlib and Xt
• Support for X11R6.3 server and libraries (previously X11R6.1), including support for Low-Bandwidth X
• Continue to support Motif 1.2.4
• Improvements to the hardware colormap implementation minimizes colormap flashing for Impact and Octane graphics systems