Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[Edouard Klein]

sirjofri  writes:

> Hi,
>
> 05.03.2024 22:38:59 Edouard Klein :
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Thank you for your answer.
>>
>>
>> sirjofri  writes:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I don't use /rc/bin/service anymore, but I use /cfg/machinename/service 
>>> instead. My contents are copies of what's in /rc/bin/service or my own 
>>> scripts:
>>
>> I assume that you then bind-mount /cfg/machinename/service to that
>> machine's /rc/bin/service ?
>
> Nope, because bind would only change my own namespace (or I have to bind it 
> becore aux/listen starts).
>
> In fact, it's much easier. I don't know if it's a 9front feature or if it's 
> also
> in plan 9, but if there is a /cfg/$sysname/service directory it will use that
> instead of /rc/bin/service (see the cpurc file,
> https://git.9front.org/plan9front/plan9front/36478171be59721dcc5252043fe2955cb37fc9b3/rc/bin/cpurc/f.html
> ).
>
Thanks, I had missed it because there is no /cfg in the source. Do you
happen to know how the /cfg dir is first populated during install ? Is
it all hand-written by the user ?

>
> If you think about how plan 9 should run on a network, imagine a single fs 
> with
> many cpu servers all using the same fs. All the configuration is on the fs, 
> and
> the service directories are in the /cfg/machinename/service. The cpu servers
> will run their individual configuration automatically using that mechanism. It
> just makes sense.
>

Indeed it does.

>>>
>>> tcp80 - web server
>>> tcp443 - web server but wrapped in tls
>>> ...
>>>
>>> I have some cifd running, some irc server that translates to grid chat, my 
>>> mail
>>> server (smtp and imap4), and fingerd, the files follow the usual scheme 
>>> tcpXXX.
>>> I probably missed one service or the other, but aux/listen is simple enough 
>>> to
>>> set up custom servers with arbitrary functionality.
>>>
>>
>> Would you mind sharing your fingerd and irc server ? For finger my plan
>> is to turn this one:
>> https://github.com/michael-lazar/finger2020/blob/master/finger2020 into
>> a multi-user version, but if there already is one I won't bother.
>
> Sure, here it is:
>
> https://shithub.us/sirjofri/fingerd/HEAD/info.html
>
> Note that I got some notice of potential .. path issues and I'm not sure if I
> fixed that, but just in case, you might want to fix that (and maybe send me a
> patch). Fix could be as easy as a newns or what it is in C.
>

I'll try to compile it on Linux and will let you know :)

>>> If you have exact questions about aux/listen functionality or you don't 
>>> understand something, just ask :)
>>>
>>
>> - I noticed some tcpXXX files use exec for their last line, and some
>> don't. Is there a reason ? My understanding is that exec saves one call
>> to fork per connection, and thus it would be best if it was always used.
>
> There might be some difference, maybe with log redirectors or something, but I
> don't know about that. I guess someone else can tell us more about this (and 
> the
> following topic, which is very similar)
>
>> - I noticed Inferno makes great use of servers that speak 9P on their
>>   stdstream, with its
>>   mount {some-program} /mnt/toto
>>   These programs are trivial to expose thanks to listen:
>>    listen -v 'tcp!*!toto' {some-program&}
>>   On Plan9, I ran into rc's cmd <[0=1] | echo 0 > /srv/name, then mount
>>   /srv/name /n/toto.
>>   - Is there a inferno-like shorthand for Plan 9 ?
>>   - Why the "echo 0" ? (I'm not familiar with rc).
>>
>>> Btw it's quite common to "deactivate" services by renaming the files to 
>>> have a
>>> leading "!". In general, everything that follows the naming scheme
>>>  and is executable will work.
>>>
>> why not just chmod -x them ? In a multiuser system, users may not have
>> the right to rename them.
>
> I think that _would_ work, but I think it's about readability in this case. I
> can just lc in that directory and immediately see what's relevant and what 
> not.
> With executable flag I have to run ls -l to see what's executable, and it's 
> also
> harder to parse it (sorting and filtering). A simple ! is easier to read, and
> also probably more stable in case of copying files via different filesystem
> types (like, copying the file to fat32 and back, or even having a filesystem
> without executable flags, which often results in all files bein executable).
>

Thanks for all this info !

> 
> sirjofri

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Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[Edouard Klein]

a...@9srv.net writes:

> I wonder what percentage of people who reply are going to be running a finger 
> server they wrote. :-)
Indeed, it may be why I can't seem to find a good, standard
implementation: there are as many implementations as servers.

> My tcp79 comes from my implementation, here:
> http://txtpunk.com/finger/index.html
>

Your finger program is a nice illustration of /net usage. Hard to port
to Linux though ;)

Thanks for making me aware of twtxt.

>
> I think we've got enough interoperable unicode-aware implementations we can 
> start working on the update to the RFC now.
>
> I have a service which allows some unix hosts I run to submit vac scores 
> after they perform a backup to my venti; a slightly outdated version is here:
> https://9p.io/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/tcp17038
>

Nice :)

Your tcp80 is also short and to the point.

>
> tcp411 calls pqsrv, I think the same version as on the "extra" page: 
> http://9p.io/sources/extra/
>
> I usually have at least one "poor man's nat traversal" thing running with 
> aux/trampoline.
>

What an aptly named program.

>
> I love how easy aux/listen makes sticking trivial little services up on the 
> net. I used to have one that provided a menu of MUDs to connect to. Another 
> gave the weather, as the telnet
> service at Weather Underground started to go unmaintained (of course, mine 
> used darksky, which is now also defunct). I made a little text-based zine 
> server (inspired by Cara Esten's
> https://github.com/caraesten/dial_a_zine, which powered the things at 
> anewsession.com); that's up, although very lightly used: 
> http://txtpunk.com/zine/
>

Well, one more thing on the to-read queue...
>
> Before life got away from me last year, I was trying to get a VoIP bridge 
> working so I could plug a POTS line into my modem and get telcodata working 
> again. I think 'cp tcp2323
> telcodata' should be enough to make that zine server dialable. (Sadly, I've 
> only gotten the bridge to *place* calls over my crummy DSL line.)
>
> As a young unix sysadmin back in the 1900s, aux/listen was one of the first 
> things that caught my eye about Plan 9, in comparison to inetd and the 
> direction everyone else was headed
> from there. Certainly the growth (in multiple senses) of systemd has only 
> tightened my grip on that particular tool.
> 9fans / 9fans / see discussions + participants + delivery options Permalink

Thank you for all these pointers :)

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Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[Edouard Klein]

hiro <23h...@gmail.com> writes:

> all this makes sense. thank you.
> i might be dense, but what's the problem with inetd exactly?
>

I have two main gripes with it:
- it runs as root, in order to switch users when launching a server, and
therefore is a security risk.
- it can be configured only by root, or if you share the file with a
group, there's no fine-grained control over who can do what. In
contrast, files in a dir can be chowned to individual users, or
different groups, allowing a per-port per-user attribution scheme, which
is very handy on a multi-user system :)




> On 3/5/24, a...@9srv.net  wrote:
>> I wonder what percentage of people who reply are going to be running a
>> finger server they wrote. :-) My tcp79 comes from my implementation,
>> here: http://txtpunk.com/finger/index.html
>>
>> I think we've got enough interoperable unicode-aware implementations we can
>> start working on the update to the RFC now.
>>
>> I have a service which allows some unix hosts I run to submit vac scores
>> after they perform a backup to my venti; a slightly outdated version is
>> here: https://9p.io/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/tcp17038
>>
>> tcp411 calls pqsrv, I think the same version as on the "extra"
>> page: http://9p.io/sources/extra/
>>
>> I usually have at least one "poor man's nat traversal" thing running with
>> aux/trampoline.
>>
>> I love how easy aux/listen makes sticking trivial little services up on the
>> net. I used to have one that provided a menu of MUDs to connect to. Another
>> gave the weather, as the telnet service at Weather Underground started to go
>> unmaintained (of course, mine used darksky, which is now also defunct). I
>> made a little text-based zine server (inspired by Cara
>> Esten's https://github.com/caraesten/dial_a_zine, which powered the things
>> at anewsession.com); that's up, although very lightly
>> used: http://txtpunk.com/zine/ 
>>
>> Before life got away from me last year, I was trying to get a VoIP bridge
>> working so I could plug a POTS line into my modem and get telcodata working
>> again. I think 'cp tcp2323 telcodata' should be enough to make that zine
>> server dialable. (Sadly, I've only gotten the bridge to *place* calls over
>> my crummy DSL line.)
>>
>> As a young unix sysadmin back in the 1900s, aux/listen was one of the first
>> things that caught my eye about Plan 9, in comparison to inetd and the
>> direction everyone else was headed from there. Certainly the growth (in
>> multiple senses) of systemd has only tightened my grip on that particular
>> tool.

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Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[Edouard Klein]

a...@9srv.net writes:

> I wonder what percentage of people who reply are going to be running a finger 
> server they wrote. :-) My tcp79 comes from my implementation, here:
> http://txtpunk.com/finger/index.html
>
> I think we've got enough interoperable unicode-aware implementations we can 
> start working on the update to the RFC now.
>
> I have a service which allows some unix hosts I run to submit vac scores 
> after they perform a backup to my venti; a slightly outdated version is here:
> https://9p.io/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/tcp17038
>
> tcp411 calls pqsrv, I think the same version as on the "extra" page: 
> http://9p.io/sources/extra/
>
> I usually have at least one "poor man's nat traversal" thing running with 
> aux/trampoline.
>
> I love how easy aux/listen makes sticking trivial little services up on the 
> net. I used to have one that provided a menu of MUDs to connect to. Another 
> gave the weather, as the telnet
> service at Weather Underground started to go unmaintained (of course, mine 
> used darksky, which is now also defunct).

I forgot to mention: you may be interested about:

finger pa...@graph.no

>I made a little text-based zine server (inspired by Cara Esten's
> https://github.com/caraesten/dial_a_zine, which powered the things at 
> anewsession.com); that's up, although very lightly used: 
> http://txtpunk.com/zine/
>
> Before life got away from me last year, I was trying to get a VoIP bridge 
> working so I could plug a POTS line into my modem and get telcodata working 
> again. I think 'cp tcp2323
> telcodata' should be enough to make that zine server dialable. (Sadly, I've 
> only gotten the bridge to *place* calls over my crummy DSL line.)
>
> As a young unix sysadmin back in the 1900s, aux/listen was one of the first 
> things that caught my eye about Plan 9, in comparison to inetd and the 
> direction everyone else was headed
> from there. Certainly the growth (in multiple senses) of systemd has only 
> tightened my grip on that particular tool.
> 9fans / 9fans / see discussions + participants + delivery options Permalink

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Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[sirjofri]

06.03.2024 11:36:39 Edouard Klein :

>
> sirjofri  writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 05.03.2024 22:38:59 Edouard Klein :
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your answer.
>>>
>>>
>>> sirjofri  writes:
>>>
 Hello,

 I don't use /rc/bin/service anymore, but I use /cfg/machinename/service 
 instead. My contents are copies of what's in /rc/bin/service or my own 
 scripts:
>>>
>>> I assume that you then bind-mount /cfg/machinename/service to that
>>> machine's /rc/bin/service ?
>>
>> Nope, because bind would only change my own namespace (or I have to bind it 
>> becore aux/listen starts).
>>
>> In fact, it's much easier. I don't know if it's a 9front feature or if it's 
>> also
>> in plan 9, but if there is a /cfg/$sysname/service directory it will use that
>> instead of /rc/bin/service (see the cpurc file,
>> https://git.9front.org/plan9front/plan9front/36478171be59721dcc5252043fe2955cb37fc9b3/rc/bin/cpurc/f.html
>> ).
>>
> Thanks, I had missed it because there is no /cfg in the source. Do you
> happen to know how the /cfg dir is first populated during install ? Is
> it all hand-written by the user ?

I think it is all hand-written, yes. Take a look at cpurc and what the options 
are. Most notably, the service directory, cpustart, and the plan9.ini file for 
tftp booting (iirc, I never tried it).

>> If you think about how plan 9 should run on a network, imagine a single fs 
>> with
>> many cpu servers all using the same fs. All the configuration is on the fs, 
>> and
>> the service directories are in the /cfg/machinename/service. The cpu servers
>> will run their individual configuration automatically using that mechanism. 
>> It
>> just makes sense.
>>
>
> Indeed it does.
>

 tcp80 - web server
 tcp443 - web server but wrapped in tls
 ...

 I have some cifd running, some irc server that translates to grid chat, my 
 mail
 server (smtp and imap4), and fingerd, the files follow the usual scheme 
 tcpXXX.
 I probably missed one service or the other, but aux/listen is simple 
 enough to
 set up custom servers with arbitrary functionality.

>>>
>>> Would you mind sharing your fingerd and irc server ? For finger my plan
>>> is to turn this one:
>>> https://github.com/michael-lazar/finger2020/blob/master/finger2020 into
>>> a multi-user version, but if there already is one I won't bother.
>>
>> Sure, here it is:
>>
>> https://shithub.us/sirjofri/fingerd/HEAD/info.html
>>
>> Note that I got some notice of potential .. path issues and I'm not sure if I
>> fixed that, but just in case, you might want to fix that (and maybe send me a
>> patch). Fix could be as easy as a newns or what it is in C.
>>
>
> I'll try to compile it on Linux and will let you know :)

Well, it's designed for plan 9 systems, so you're probably out of luck on 
linux, except you try it with plan9ports.

While we're talking about finger, I wrote some simple android app called 
"FingerList" some time ago (on F-droid). It displays a list of fingers in a 
list format, it's intended for micro social networking with status pages and 
whatever people want to use it for.

sirjofri

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Re: [9fans] Content of your /rc/bin/service or /dis/svc ?

[Edouard Klein]

sirjofri  writes:

> 06.03.2024 11:36:39 Edouard Klein :
>
...
>>
>> I'll try to compile it on Linux and will let you know :)
>
> Well, it's designed for plan 9 systems, so you're probably out of luck on 
> linux, except you try it with plan9ports.
>

That was the plan.

> While we're talking about finger, I wrote some simple android app called
> "FingerList" some time ago (on F-droid). It displays a list of fingers in a 
> list
> format, it's intended for micro social networking with status pages and 
> whatever
> people want to use it for.
>

Installed :) Thanks !

> sirjofri

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