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   1  If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
   2  see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
   3  specifically designed to be readable as is.
   4  
   5  =head1 NAME
   6  
   7  README.solaris - Perl version 5 on Solaris systems
   8  
   9  =head1 DESCRIPTION
  10  
  11  This document describes various features of Sun's Solaris operating system
  12  that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just perl) is
  13  compiled and/or runs.  Some issues relating to the older SunOS 4.x are
  14  also discussed, though they may be out of date.
  15  
  16  For the most part, everything should just work.
  17  
  18  Starting with Solaris 8, perl5.00503 (or higher) is supplied with the
  19  operating system, so you might not even need to build a newer version
  20  of perl at all.  The Sun-supplied version is installed in /usr/perl5
  21  with /usr/bin/perl pointing to /usr/perl5/bin/perl.  Do not disturb
  22  that installation unless you really know what you are doing.  If you
  23  remove the perl supplied with the OS, you will render some bits of
  24  your system inoperable.  If you wish to install a newer version of perl,
  25  install it under a different prefix from /usr/perl5.  Common prefixes
  26  to use are /usr/local and /opt/perl.
  27  
  28  You may wish to put your version of perl in the PATH of all users by
  29  changing the link /usr/bin/perl.  This is probably OK, as most perl
  30  scripts shipped with Solaris use an explicit path.  (There are a few
  31  exceptions, such as /usr/bin/rpm2cpio and /etc/rcm/scripts/README, but
  32  these are also sufficiently generic that the actual version of perl
  33  probably doesn't matter too much.)
  34  
  35  Solaris ships with a range of Solaris-specific modules.  If you choose
  36  to install your own version of perl you will find the source of many of
  37  these modules is available on CPAN under the Sun::Solaris:: namespace.
  38  
  39  Solaris may include two versions of perl, e.g. Solaris 9 includes
  40  both 5.005_03 and 5.6.1.  This is to provide stability across Solaris
  41  releases, in cases where a later perl version has incompatibilities
  42  with the version included in the preceeding Solaris release.  The
  43  default perl version will always be the most recent, and in general
  44  the old version will only be retained for one Solaris release.  Note
  45  also that the default perl will NOT be configured to search for modules
  46  in the older version, again due to compatibility/stability concerns.
  47  As a consequence if you upgrade Solaris, you will have to
  48  rebuild/reinstall any additional CPAN modules that you installed for
  49  the previous Solaris version.  See the CPAN manpage under 'autobundle'
  50  for a quick way of doing this.
  51  
  52  As an interim measure, you may either change the #! line of your
  53  scripts to specifically refer to the old perl version, e.g. on
  54  Solaris 9 use #!/usr/perl5/5.00503/bin/perl to use the perl version
  55  that was the default for Solaris 8, or if you have a large number of
  56  scripts it may be more convenient to make the old version of perl the
  57  default on your system.  You can do this by changing the appropriate
  58  symlinks under /usr/perl5 as follows (example for Solaris 9):
  59  
  60   # cd /usr/perl5
  61   # rm bin man pod
  62   # ln -s ./5.00503/bin
  63   # ln -s ./5.00503/man
  64   # ln -s ./5.00503/lib/pod
  65   # rm /usr/bin/perl
  66   # ln -s ../perl5/5.00503/bin/perl /usr/bin/perl
  67  
  68  In both cases this should only be considered to be a temporary
  69  measure - you should upgrade to the later version of perl as soon as
  70  is practicable.
  71  
  72  Note also that the perl command-line utilities (e.g. perldoc) and any
  73  that are added by modules that you install will be under
  74  /usr/perl5/bin, so that directory should be added to your PATH.
  75  
  76  =head2 Solaris Version Numbers.
  77  
  78  For consistency with common usage, perl's Configure script performs
  79  some minor manipulations on the operating system name and version
  80  number as reported by uname.  Here's a partial translation table:
  81  
  82            Sun:                      perl's Configure:
  83   uname    uname -r   Name           osname     osvers
  84   SunOS    4.1.3     Solaris 1.1     sunos      4.1.3
  85   SunOS    5.6       Solaris 2.6     solaris    2.6
  86   SunOS    5.8       Solaris 8       solaris    2.8
  87   SunOS    5.9       Solaris 9       solaris    2.9
  88   SunOS    5.10      Solaris 10      solaris    2.10
  89  
  90  The complete table can be found in the Sun Managers' FAQ
  91  L<ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq> under
  92  "9.1) Which Sun models run which versions of SunOS?".
  93  
  94  =head1 RESOURCES
  95  
  96  There are many, many sources for Solaris information.  A few of the
  97  important ones for perl:
  98  
  99  =over 4
 100  
 101  =item Solaris FAQ
 102  
 103  The Solaris FAQ is available at
 104  L<http://www.science.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>.
 105  
 106  The Sun Managers' FAQ is available at
 107  L<ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq>
 108  
 109  =item Precompiled Binaries
 110  
 111  Precompiled binaries, links to many sites, and much, much more are
 112  available at L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/> and
 113  L<http://www.blastwave.org/>.
 114  
 115  =item Solaris Documentation
 116  
 117  All Solaris documentation is available on-line at L<http://docs.sun.com/>.
 118  
 119  =back
 120  
 121  =head1 SETTING UP
 122  
 123  =head2 File Extraction Problems on Solaris.
 124  
 125  Be sure to use a tar program compiled under Solaris (not SunOS 4.x)
 126  to extract the perl-5.x.x.tar.gz file.  Do not use GNU tar compiled
 127  for SunOS4 on Solaris.  (GNU tar compiled for Solaris should be fine.)
 128  When you run SunOS4 binaries on Solaris, the run-time system magically
 129  alters pathnames matching m#lib/locale# so that when tar tries to create
 130  lib/locale.pm, a file named lib/oldlocale.pm gets created instead.
 131  If you found this advice too late and used a SunOS4-compiled tar
 132  anyway, you must find the incorrectly renamed file and move it back
 133  to lib/locale.pm.
 134  
 135  =head2 Compiler and Related Tools on Solaris.
 136  
 137  You must use an ANSI C compiler to build perl.  Perl can be compiled
 138  with either Sun's add-on C compiler or with gcc.  The C compiler that
 139  shipped with SunOS4 will not do.
 140  
 141  =head3 Include /usr/ccs/bin/ in your PATH.
 142  
 143  Several tools needed to build perl are located in /usr/ccs/bin/:  ar,
 144  as, ld, and make.  Make sure that /usr/ccs/bin/ is in your PATH.
 145  
 146  You need to make sure the following packages are installed
 147  (this info is extracted from the Solaris FAQ):
 148  
 149  for tools (sccs, lex, yacc, make, nm, truss, ld, as): SUNWbtool,
 150  SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo
 151  
 152  for libraries & headers: SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms, SUNWdfbh,
 153  SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc, SUNWolinc
 154  
 155  for 64 bit development: SUNWarcx, SUNWbtoox, SUNWdplx, SUNWscpux,
 156  SUNWsprox, SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUNWlibCx
 157  
 158  If you are in doubt which package contains a file you are missing,
 159  try to find an installation that has that file. Then do a
 160  
 161   $ grep /my/missing/file /var/sadm/install/contents
 162  
 163  This will display a line like this:
 164  
 165  /usr/include/sys/errno.h f none 0644 root bin 7471 37605 956241356 SUNWhea
 166  
 167  The last item listed (SUNWhea in this example) is the package you need.
 168  
 169  =head3 Avoid /usr/ucb/cc.
 170  
 171  You don't need to have /usr/ucb/ in your PATH to build perl.  If you
 172  want /usr/ucb/ in your PATH anyway, make sure that /usr/ucb/ is NOT
 173  in your PATH before the directory containing the right C compiler.
 174  
 175  =head3 Sun's C Compiler
 176  
 177  If you use Sun's C compiler, make sure the correct directory
 178  (usually /opt/SUNWspro/bin/) is in your PATH (before /usr/ucb/).
 179  
 180  =head3 GCC
 181  
 182  If you use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and complete.
 183  perl versions since 5.6.0 build fine with gcc > 2.8.1 on Solaris >=
 184  2.6.
 185  
 186  You must Configure perl with
 187  
 188   $ sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
 189  
 190  If you don't, you may experience strange build errors.
 191  
 192  If you have updated your Solaris version, you may also have to update
 193  your gcc.  For example, if you are running Solaris 2.6 and your gcc is
 194  installed under /usr/local, check in /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib and make
 195  sure you have the appropriate directory, sparc-sun-solaris2.6/ or
 196  i386-pc-solaris2.6/.  If gcc's directory is for a different version of
 197  Solaris than you are running, then you will need to rebuild gcc for
 198  your new version of Solaris.
 199  
 200  You can get a precompiled version of gcc from
 201  L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/> or L<http://www.blastwave.org/>. Make
 202  sure you pick up the package for your Solaris release.
 203  
 204  If you wish to use gcc to build add-on modules for use with the perl
 205  shipped with Solaris, you should use the Solaris::PerlGcc module
 206  which is available from CPAN.  The perl shipped with Solaris
 207  is configured and built with the Sun compilers, and the compiler
 208  configuration information stored in Config.pm is therefore only
 209  relevant to the Sun compilers.  The Solaris:PerlGcc module contains a
 210  replacement Config.pm that is correct for gcc - see the module for
 211  details.
 212  
 213  =head3 GNU as and GNU ld
 214  
 215  The following information applies to gcc version 2.  Volunteers to
 216  update it as appropropriate for gcc version 3 would be appreciated.
 217  
 218  The versions of as and ld supplied with Solaris work fine for building
 219  perl.  There is normally no need to install the GNU versions to
 220  compile perl.
 221  
 222  If you decide to ignore this advice and use the GNU versions anyway,
 223  then be sure that they are relatively recent.  Versions newer than 2.7
 224  are apparently new enough.  Older versions may have trouble with
 225  dynamic loading.
 226  
 227  If you wish to use GNU ld, then you need to pass it the -Wl,-E flag.
 228  The hints/solaris_2.sh file tries to do this automatically by setting
 229  the following Configure variables:
 230  
 231   ccdlflags="$ccdlflags -Wl,-E"
 232   lddlflags="$lddlflags -Wl,-E -G"
 233  
 234  However, over the years, changes in gcc, GNU ld, and Solaris ld have made
 235  it difficult to automatically detect which ld ultimately gets called.
 236  You may have to manually edit config.sh and add the -Wl,-E flags
 237  yourself, or else run Configure interactively and add the flags at the
 238  appropriate prompts.
 239  
 240  If your gcc is configured to use GNU as and ld but you want to use the
 241  Solaris ones instead to build perl, then you'll need to add
 242  -B/usr/ccs/bin/ to the gcc command line.  One convenient way to do
 243  that is with
 244  
 245   $ sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
 246  
 247  Note that the trailing slash is required.  This will result in some
 248  harmless warnings as Configure is run:
 249  
 250   gcc: file path prefix `/usr/ccs/bin/' never used
 251  
 252  These messages may safely be ignored.
 253  (Note that for a SunOS4 system, you must use -B/bin/ instead.)
 254  
 255  Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment variable to
 256  ensure that Sun's as and ld are used.  Consult your gcc documentation
 257  for further information on the -B option and the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
 258  
 259  =head3 Sun and GNU make
 260  
 261  The make under /usr/ccs/bin works fine for building perl.  If you
 262  have the Sun C compilers, you will also have a parallel version of
 263  make (dmake).  This works fine to build perl, but can sometimes cause
 264  problems when running 'make test' due to underspecified dependencies
 265  between the different test harness files.  The same problem can also
 266  affect the building of some add-on modules, so in those cases either
 267  specify '-m serial' on the dmake command line, or use
 268  /usr/ccs/bin/make instead.  If you wish to use GNU make, be sure that
 269  the set-group-id bit is not set.  If it is, then arrange your PATH so
 270  that /usr/ccs/bin/make is before GNU make or else have the system
 271  administrator disable the set-group-id bit on GNU make.
 272  
 273  =head3 Avoid libucb.
 274  
 275  Solaris provides some BSD-compatibility functions in /usr/ucblib/libucb.a.
 276  Perl will not build and run correctly if linked against -lucb since it
 277  contains routines that are incompatible with the standard Solaris libc.
 278  Normally this is not a problem since the solaris hints file prevents
 279  Configure from even looking in /usr/ucblib for libraries, and also
 280  explicitly omits -lucb.
 281  
 282  =head2 Environment for Compiling perl on Solaris
 283  
 284  =head3 PATH
 285  
 286  Make sure your PATH includes the compiler (/opt/SUNWspro/bin/ if you're
 287  using Sun's compiler) as well as /usr/ccs/bin/ to pick up the other
 288  development tools (such as make, ar, as, and ld).  Make sure your path
 289  either doesn't include /usr/ucb or that it includes it after the
 290  compiler and compiler tools and other standard Solaris directories.
 291  You definitely don't want /usr/ucb/cc.
 292  
 293  =head3 LD_LIBRARY_PATH
 294  
 295  If you have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable set, be sure that
 296  it does NOT include /lib or /usr/lib.  If you will be building
 297  extensions that call third-party shared libraries (e.g. Berkeley DB)
 298  then make sure that your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes
 299  the directory with that library (e.g. /usr/local/lib).
 300  
 301  If you get an error message
 302  
 303   dlopen: stub interception failed
 304  
 305  it is probably because your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
 306  includes a directory which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
 307  The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle.  The file
 308  libdl.so.1.0 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub
 309  interception failed' errors!  The runtime linker intercepts links to
 310  "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementations of those
 311  functions instead.  [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
 312  
 313  =head1 RUN CONFIGURE.
 314  
 315  See the INSTALL file for general information regarding Configure.
 316  Only Solaris-specific issues are discussed here.  Usually, the
 317  defaults should be fine.
 318  
 319  =head2 64-bit perl on Solaris.
 320  
 321  See the INSTALL file for general information regarding 64-bit compiles.
 322  In general, the defaults should be fine for most people.
 323  
 324  By default, perl-5.6.0 (or later) is compiled as a 32-bit application
 325  with largefile and long-long support.
 326  
 327  =head3 General 32-bit vs. 64-bit issues.
 328  
 329  Solaris 7 and above will run in either 32 bit or 64 bit mode on SPARC
 330  CPUs, via a reboot. You can build 64 bit apps whilst running 32 bit
 331  mode and vice-versa. 32 bit apps will run under Solaris running in
 332  either 32 or 64 bit mode.  64 bit apps require Solaris to be running
 333  64 bit mode.
 334  
 335  Existing 32 bit apps are properly known as LP32, i.e. Longs and
 336  Pointers are 32 bit.  64-bit apps are more properly known as LP64.
 337  The discriminating feature of a LP64 bit app is its ability to utilise a
 338  64-bit address space.  It is perfectly possible to have a LP32 bit app
 339  that supports both 64-bit integers (long long) and largefiles (> 2GB),
 340  and this is the default for perl-5.6.0.
 341  
 342  For a more complete explanation of 64-bit issues, see the
 343  "Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide" at L<http://docs.sun.com/>
 344  
 345  You can detect the OS mode using "isainfo -v", e.g.
 346  
 347   $ isainfo -v   # Ultra 30 in 64 bit mode
 348   64-bit sparcv9 applications
 349   32-bit sparc applications
 350  
 351  By default, perl will be compiled as a 32-bit application.  Unless
 352  you want to allocate more than ~ 4GB of memory inside perl, or unless
 353  you need more than 255 open file descriptors, you probably don't need
 354  perl to be a 64-bit app.
 355  
 356  =head3 Large File Support
 357  
 358  For Solaris 2.6 and onwards, there are two different ways for 32-bit
 359  applications to manipulate large files (files whose size is > 2GByte).
 360  (A 64-bit application automatically has largefile support built in
 361  by default.)
 362  
 363  First is the "transitional compilation environment", described in
 364  lfcompile64(5).  According to the man page,
 365  
 366   The transitional compilation  environment  exports  all  the
 367   explicit 64-bit functions (xxx64()) and types in addition to
 368   all the regular functions (xxx()) and types. Both xxx()  and
 369   xxx64()  functions  are  available to the program source.  A
 370   32-bit application must use the xxx64() functions in  order
 371   to  access  large  files.  See the lf64(5) manual page for a
 372   complete listing of the 64-bit transitional interfaces.
 373  
 374  The transitional compilation environment is obtained with the
 375  following compiler and linker flags:
 376  
 377   getconf LFS64_CFLAGS        -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
 378   getconf LFS64_LDFLAG        # nothing special needed
 379   getconf LFS64_LIBS          # nothing special needed
 380  
 381  Second is the "large file compilation environment", described in
 382  lfcompile(5).  According to the man page,
 383  
 384   Each interface named xxx() that needs to access 64-bit entities
 385   to  access  large  files maps to a xxx64() call in the
 386   resulting binary. All relevant data types are defined to  be
 387   of correct size (for example, off_t has a typedef definition
 388   for a 64-bit entity).
 389  
 390   An application compiled in this environment is able  to  use
 391   the  xxx()  source interfaces to access both large and small
 392   files, rather than having to explicitly utilize the  transitional
 393   xxx64()  interface  calls to access large files.
 394  
 395  Two exceptions are fseek() and ftell().  32-bit applications should
 396  use fseeko(3C) and ftello(3C).  These will get automatically mapped
 397  to fseeko64() and ftello64().
 398  
 399  The large file compilation environment is obtained with
 400  
 401   getconf LFS_CFLAGS      -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
 402   getconf LFS_LDFLAGS     # nothing special needed
 403   getconf LFS_LIBS        # nothing special needed
 404  
 405  By default, perl uses the large file compilation environment and
 406  relies on Solaris to do the underlying mapping of interfaces.
 407  
 408  =head3 Building an LP64 perl
 409  
 410  To compile a 64-bit application on an UltraSparc with a recent Sun Compiler,
 411  you need to use the flag "-xarch=v9".  getconf(1) will tell you this, e.g.
 412  
 413   $ getconf -a | grep v9
 414   XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:         -xarch=v9
 415   XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
 416   XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
 417   XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
 418   XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
 419   XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:    -xarch=v9
 420   _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
 421   _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
 422   _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
 423   _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
 424   _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
 425   _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:   -xarch=v9
 426  
 427  This flag is supported in Sun WorkShop Compilers 5.0 and onwards
 428  (now marketed under the name Forte) when used on Solaris 7 or later on
 429  UltraSparc systems.
 430  
 431  If you are using gcc, you would need to use -mcpu=v9 -m64 instead.  This
 432  option is not yet supported as of gcc 2.95.2; from install/SPECIFIC
 433  in that release:
 434  
 435   GCC version 2.95 is not able to compile code correctly for sparc64
 436   targets. Users of the Linux kernel, at least, can use the sparc32
 437   program to start up a new shell invocation with an environment that
 438   causes configure to recognize (via uname -a) the system as sparc-*-*
 439   instead.
 440  
 441  All this should be handled automatically by the hints file, if
 442  requested.
 443  
 444  =head3 Long Doubles.
 445  
 446  As of 5.8.1, long doubles are working if you use the Sun compilers
 447  (needed for additional math routines not included in libm).
 448  
 449  =head2 Threads in perl on Solaris.
 450  
 451  It is possible to build a threaded version of perl on Solaris.  The entire
 452  perl thread implementation is still experimental, however, so beware.
 453  
 454  =head2 Malloc Issues with perl on Solaris.
 455  
 456  Starting from perl 5.7.1 perl uses the Solaris malloc, since the perl
 457  malloc breaks when dealing with more than 2GB of memory, and the Solaris
 458  malloc also seems to be faster.
 459  
 460  If you for some reason (such as binary backward compatibility) really
 461  need to use perl's malloc, you can rebuild perl from the sources
 462  and Configure the build with 
 463  
 464   $ sh Configure -Dusemymalloc
 465  
 466  You should not use perl's malloc if you are building with gcc.  There
 467  are reports of core dumps, especially in the PDL module.  The problem
 468  appears to go away under -DDEBUGGING, so it has been difficult to
 469  track down.  Sun's compiler appears to be okay with or without perl's
 470  malloc. [XXX further investigation is needed here.]
 471  
 472  =head1 MAKE PROBLEMS.
 473  
 474  =over 4
 475  
 476  =item Dynamic Loading Problems With GNU as and GNU ld
 477  
 478  If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
 479  Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, see the section
 480  L<"GNU as and GNU ld"> above.
 481  
 482  =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
 483  
 484  If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
 485  it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
 486  L<"GNU as and GNU ld">.
 487  
 488  =item dlopen: stub interception failed
 489  
 490  The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
 491  that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
 492  which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).  See
 493  L<"LD_LIBRARY_PATH"> above.
 494  
 495  =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
 496  
 497  This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
 498  gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1.  The Solaris header files
 499  changed, so you need to update your gcc installation.  You can either
 500  rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
 501  update your gcc installation.
 502  
 503  =item sh: ar: not found
 504  
 505  This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
 506  was not found.  You need to check your PATH environment variable to
 507  make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command.  This
 508  is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin/
 509  directory.
 510  
 511  =back
 512  
 513  =head1 MAKE TEST
 514  
 515  =head2 op/stat.t test 4 in Solaris
 516  
 517  op/stat.t test 4 may fail if you are on a tmpfs of some sort.
 518  Building in /tmp sometimes shows this behavior.  The
 519  test suite detects if you are building in /tmp, but it may not be able
 520  to catch all tmpfs situations.
 521  
 522  =head2 nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
 523  
 524  See L<perlhpux/"nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent">.
 525  
 526  =head1 PREBUILT BINARIES OF PERL FOR SOLARIS.
 527  
 528  You can pick up prebuilt binaries for Solaris from
 529  L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/>, L<http://www.blastwave.org>,
 530  ActiveState L<http://www.activestate.com/>, and
 531  L<http://www.perl.com/> under the Binaries list at the top of the
 532  page.  There are probably other sources as well.  Please note that
 533  these sites are under the control of their respective owners, not the
 534  perl developers.
 535  
 536  =head1 RUNTIME ISSUES FOR PERL ON SOLARIS.
 537  
 538  =head2 Limits on Numbers of Open Files on Solaris.
 539  
 540  The stdio(3C) manpage notes that for LP32 applications, only 255
 541  files may be opened using fopen(), and only file descriptors 0
 542  through 255 can be used in a stream.  Since perl calls open() and
 543  then fdopen(3C) with the resulting file descriptor, perl is limited
 544  to 255 simultaneous open files, even if sysopen() is used.  If this
 545  proves to be an insurmountable problem, you can compile perl as a
 546  LP64 application, see L<Building an LP64 perl> for details.  Note
 547  also that the default resource limit for open file descriptors on
 548  Solaris is 255, so you will have to modify your ulimit or rctl
 549  (Solaris 9 onwards) appropriately.
 550  
 551  =head1 SOLARIS-SPECIFIC MODULES.
 552  
 553  See the modules under the Solaris:: and Sun::Solaris namespaces on CPAN,
 554  see L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Solaris/> and
 555  L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Sun/>.
 556  
 557  =head1 SOLARIS-SPECIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MODULES.
 558  
 559  =head2 Proc::ProcessTable on Solaris
 560  
 561  Proc::ProcessTable does not compile on Solaris with perl5.6.0 and higher
 562  if you have LARGEFILES defined.  Since largefile support is the
 563  default in 5.6.0 and later, you have to take special steps to use this
 564  module.
 565  
 566  The problem is that various structures visible via procfs use off_t,
 567  and if you compile with largefile support these change from 32 bits to
 568  64 bits.  Thus what you get back from procfs doesn't match up with
 569  the structures in perl, resulting in garbage.  See proc(4) for further
 570  discussion.
 571  
 572  A fix for Proc::ProcessTable is to edit Makefile to
 573  explicitly remove the largefile flags from the ones MakeMaker picks up
 574  from Config.pm.  This will result in Proc::ProcessTable being built
 575  under the correct environment.  Everything should then be OK as long as
 576  Proc::ProcessTable doesn't try to share off_t's with the rest of perl,
 577  or if it does they should be explicitly specified as off64_t.
 578  
 579  =head2 BSD::Resource on Solaris
 580  
 581  BSD::Resource versions earlier than 1.09 do not compile on Solaris
 582  with perl 5.6.0 and higher, for the same reasons as Proc::ProcessTable.
 583  BSD::Resource versions starting from 1.09 have a workaround for the problem.
 584  
 585  =head2 Net::SSLeay on Solaris
 586  
 587  Net::SSLeay requires a /dev/urandom to be present. This device is
 588  available from Solaris 9 onwards.  For earlier Solaris versions you
 589  can either get the package SUNWski (packaged with several Sun
 590  software products, for example the Sun WebServer, which is part of
 591  the Solaris Server Intranet Extension, or the Sun Directory Services,
 592  part of Solaris for ISPs) or download the ANDIrand package from
 593  L<http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~andi/>. If you use SUNWski, make a
 594  symbolic link /dev/urandom pointing to /dev/random.  For more details,
 595  see Document ID27606 entitled "Differing /dev/random support requirements
 596  within Solaris[TM] Operating Environments", available at
 597  http://sunsolve.sun.com .
 598  
 599  It may be possible to use the Entropy Gathering Daemon (written in
 600  Perl!), available from L<http://www.lothar.com/tech/crypto/>.
 601  
 602  =head1 SunOS 4.x
 603  
 604  In SunOS 4.x you most probably want to use the SunOS ld, /usr/bin/ld,
 605  since the more recent versions of GNU ld (like 2.13) do not seem to
 606  work for building Perl anymore.  When linking the extensions, the
 607  GNU ld gets very unhappy and spews a lot of errors like this
 608  
 609    ... relocation truncated to fit: BASE13 ...
 610  
 611  and dies.  Therefore the SunOS 4.1 hints file explicitly sets the
 612  ld to be /usr/bin/ld.
 613  
 614  As of Perl 5.8.1 the dynamic loading of libraries (DynaLoader, XSLoader)
 615  also seems to have become broken in in SunOS 4.x.  Therefore the default
 616  is to build Perl statically.
 617  
 618  Running the test suite in SunOS 4.1 is a bit tricky since the
 619  F<lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs> test hangs (subtest #51, FWIW) for some
 620  unknown reason.  Just stop the test and kill that particular Perl
 621  process.
 622  
 623  There are various other failures, that as of SunOS 4.1.4 and gcc 3.2.2
 624  look a lot like gcc bugs.  Many of the failures happen in the Encode
 625  tests, where for example when the test expects "0" you get "&#48;"
 626  which should after a little squinting look very odd indeed.
 627  Another example is earlier in F<t/run/fresh_perl> where chr(0xff) is
 628  expected but the test fails because the result is chr(0xff).  Exactly.
 629  
 630  This is the "make test" result from the said combination:
 631  
 632    Failed 27 test scripts out of 745, 96.38% okay.
 633  
 634  Running the C<harness> is painful because of the many failing
 635  Unicode-related tests will output megabytes of failure messages,
 636  but if one patiently waits, one gets these results:
 637  
 638   Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
 639   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 640   ...
 641   ../ext/Encode/t/at-cn.t            4  1024    29    4  13.79%  14-17
 642   ../ext/Encode/t/at-tw.t           10  2560    17   10  58.82%  2 4 6 8 10 12
 643                                                                  14-17
 644   ../ext/Encode/t/enc_data.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
 645   ../ext/Encode/t/enc_eucjp.t       29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
 646   ../ext/Encode/t/enc_module.t      29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
 647   ../ext/Encode/t/encoding.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
 648   ../ext/Encode/t/grow.t            12  3072    24   12  50.00%  2 4 6 8 10 12 14
 649                                                                  16 18 20 22 24
 650    Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
 651   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 652   ../ext/Encode/t/guess.t          255 65280    29   40 137.93%  10-29
 653   ../ext/Encode/t/jperl.t           29  7424    15   30 200.00%  1-15
 654   ../ext/Encode/t/mime-header.t      2   512    10    2  20.00%  2-3
 655   ../ext/Encode/t/perlio.t          22  5632    38   22  57.89%  1-4 9-16 19-20
 656                                                                  23-24 27-32
 657   ../ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t       0   139    ??   ??       %  ??
 658   ../ext/PerlIO/t/encoding.t                    14    1   7.14%  11
 659   ../ext/PerlIO/t/fallback.t                     9    2  22.22%  3 5
 660   ../ext/Socket/t/socketpair.t       0     2    45   70 155.56%  11-45
 661   ../lib/CPAN/t/vcmp.t                          30    1   3.33%  25
 662   ../lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs.t      0    15    ??   ??       %  ??
 663   ../lib/Unicode/Collate/t/test.t              199   30  15.08%  7 26-27 71-75
 664                                                                  81-88 95 101
 665                                                                  103-104 106 108-
 666                                                                  109 122 124 161
 667                                                                  169-172
 668   ../lib/sort.t                      0   139   119   26  21.85%  107-119
 669   op/alarm.t                                     4    1  25.00%  4
 670   op/utfhash.t                                  97    1   1.03%  31
 671   run/fresh_perl.t                              91    1   1.10%  32
 672   uni/tr_7jis.t                                 ??   ??       %  ??
 673   uni/tr_eucjp.t                    29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
 674   uni/tr_sjis.t                     29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
 675   56 tests and 467 subtests skipped.
 676   Failed 27/811 test scripts, 96.67% okay. 1383/75399 subtests failed, 98.17% okay.
 677  
 678  The alarm() test failure is caused by system() apparently blocking
 679  alarm().  That is probably a libc bug, and given that SunOS 4.x
 680  has been end-of-lifed years ago, don't hold your breath for a fix.
 681  In addition to that, don't try anything too Unicode-y, especially
 682  with Encode, and you should be fine in SunOS 4.x.
 683  
 684  =head1 AUTHOR
 685  
 686  The original was written by Andy Dougherty F<doughera@lafayette.edu>
 687  drawing heavily on advice from Alan Burlison, Nick Ing-Simmons, Tim Bunce,
 688  and many other Solaris users over the years.
 689  
 690  Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to F<perlbug@perl.org>.