START_APPLIC(8)

NAME
start_applic - generic application startup procedures

SYNOPSIS
/usr/etc/start_applic

AVAILABILITY

Available only on Sun 386i systems running a SunOS 4.0.x release or earlier. Not a SunOS 4.1 release feature.

DESCRIPTION

start_applic is a short generic shell script that can be copied or symbolically linked into either /vol/local/bin/application or /usr/local/bin/application. When invoked as application, an application installed as described below will be correctly invoked on systems of any supported processor architecture. Installing start_applic (or a customized version of it) in one of these locations ensures that no user's or system's environment needs to be modified just to run the application. Applications are stored in a single tree which is not shared with any other applications. This tree may be available on different systems in different places; if the application needs to reference its distribution tree, this should be determined from the application_ROOT environment variable.

The application startup script arranges that the PATH and application_ROOT environment variables are set correctly while the application is running. If the application's distribution tree (placed into /vol/application or /usr/local/application) does not have an executable binary with the name of the application (for example, /vol/application/bin.arch/application), then start_applic can not be used, and a customized application startup script must be used instead. Such scripts must also allow users to invoke the application from systems of any architecture, without requiring them to customize their own environments.

Note that there are two contrasting models of software installation. The heterogeneous model assumes general availability of the software, and solves the “which binaries to use” problem with no administrative overhead. The homogeneous model assumes very limited availability of software, requires administrative procedures to ensure that /usr/local only contains binaries of the local architecture, and does not really account for networked installations. It is easier to add support for additional architectures using a heterogeneous network model of software installation from the beginning.

  Heterogeneous Networked Installations

Applications available on the network are available through /vol/application and exported either to all systems or just to selected ones, as licensing restrictions allow. The export point is /export/vol/application, which is a symbolic link to the actual installation point, typically the /files/vol/application directory. All subdirectories not explicitly tagged with a processor architecture are shared among all processor architectures; thus while the .../bin.sun386 and .../lib.sun386 subdirectories contain, respectively, binaries and libraries executable only on systems of the Sun386i architecture, the .../bin directory contains executables that run on any architecture (typically using an interpreter such as /bin/sh), and the .../etc directory only contains sharable configuration files.

  Homogeneous Single Machine Installations

Applications available only on a specific machine and its boot clients of the same architecture are installed into /usr/local/application. This directory supports only a single architecture, so /usr/local/application/bin contains binaries executable only on the local architecture, and /usr/local/application/lib contains libraries executable only on the local architecture. Any sharable files are grouped in /usr/local/application/share.

To install an application onto a boot server to serve boot clients with other architectures, place the application in /usr/local/application on the clients, as described above. The installation point (on the server) for application binaries of architecture arch is /export/local/arch/application. When the architecture is the server architecture, this case is identical with the one above.

  Other Installations

Smaller applications (of only one or two files) may be installed into the appropriate /vol/local/bin.arch directory, or possibly into /export/local/arch/bin. These directories are in user's default paths, so the application does not need to be registered using start_applic.

FILES
/files<n>/vol/application
/export/vol/application
/vol/application
/vol/application/bin.arch/application
/usr/local/application
/export/local/arch/application

SEE ALSO
auto.vol(5), exports(5), automount(8), exportfs(8)

Sun386i SNAP Administration

Sun386i Advanced Administration