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1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
2see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
3specifically designed to be readable as is.
4
5=head1 NAME
6
7README.solaris - Perl version 5 on Solaris systems
8
9=head1 DESCRIPTION
10
11This document describes various features of Sun's Solaris operating system
12that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just perl) is
13compiled and/or runs.  Some issues relating to the older SunOS 4.x are
14also discussed, though they may be out of date.
15
16For the most part, everything should just work.
17
18Starting with Solaris 8, perl5.00503 (or higher) is supplied with the
19operating system, so you might not even need to build a newer version
20of perl at all.  The Sun-supplied version is installed in /usr/perl5
21with /usr/bin/perl pointing to /usr/perl5/bin/perl.  Do not disturb
22that installation unless you really know what you are doing.  If you
23remove the perl supplied with the OS, you will render some bits of
24your system inoperable.  If you wish to install a newer version of perl,
25install it under a different prefix from /usr/perl5.  Common prefixes
26to use are /usr/local and /opt/perl.
27
28You may wish to put your version of perl in the PATH of all users by
29changing the link /usr/bin/perl.  This is OK, as all perl scripts
30shipped with Solaris use an explicit path.  Solaris ships with a
31range of Solaris-specific modules.  If you choose to install your own
32version of perl you will find the source of many of these modules is
33available on CPAN under the Sun::Solaris:: namespace.
34
35Solaris may include two versions of perl, e.g. Solaris 9 includes
36both 5.005_03 and 5.6.1.  This is to provide stability across Solaris
37releases, in cases where a later perl version has incompatibilities
38with the version included in the preceeding Solaris release.  The
39default perl version will always be the most recent, and in general
40the old version will only be retained for one Solaris release.  Note
41also that the default perl will NOT be configured to search for modules
42in the older version, again due to compatibility/stability concerns.
43As a consequence if you upgrade Solaris, you will have to
44rebuild/reinstall any additional CPAN modules that you installed for
45the previous Solaris version.  See the CPAN manpage under 'autobundle'
46for a quick way of doing this.
47
48As an interim measure, you may either change the #! line of your
49scripts to specifically refer to the old perl version, e.g. on
50Solaris 9 use #!/usr/perl5/5.00503/bin/perl to use the perl version
51that was the default for Solaris 8, or if you have a large number of
52scripts it may be more convenient to make the old version of perl the
53default on your system.  You can do this by changing the appropriate
54symlinks under /usr/perl5 as follows (example for Solaris 9):
55
56 # cd /usr/perl5
57 # rm bin man pod
58 # ln -s ./5.00503/bin
59 # ln -s ./5.00503/man
60 # ln -s ./5.00503/lib/pod
61 # rm /usr/bin/perl
62 # ln -s ../perl5/5.00503/bin/perl /usr/bin/perl
63
64In both cases this should only be considered to be a temporary
65measure - you should upgrade to the later version of perl as soon as
66is practicable.
67
68Note also that the perl command-line utilities (e.g. perldoc) and any
69that are added by modules that you install will be under
70/usr/perl5/bin, so that directory should be added to your PATH.
71
72=head2 Solaris Version Numbers.
73
74For consistency with common usage, perl's Configure script performs
75some minor manipulations on the operating system name and version
76number as reported by uname.  Here's a partial translation table:
77
78          Sun:                      perl's Configure:
79 uname    uname -r   Name           osname     osvers
80 SunOS    4.1.3     Solaris 1.1     sunos      4.1.3
81 SunOS    5.6       Solaris 2.6     solaris    2.6
82 SunOS    5.8       Solaris 8       solaris    2.8
83 SunOS    5.9       Solaris 9       solaris    2.9
84 SunOS    5.10      Solaris 10      solaris    2.10
85
86The complete table can be found in the Sun Managers' FAQ
87L<ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq> under
88"9.1) Which Sun models run which versions of SunOS?".
89
90=head1 RESOURCES
91
92There are many, many sources for Solaris information.  A few of the
93important ones for perl:
94
95=over 4
96
97=item Solaris FAQ
98
99The Solaris FAQ is available at
100L<http://www.science.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>.
101
102The Sun Managers' FAQ is available at
103L<ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq>
104
105=item Precompiled Binaries
106
107Precompiled binaries, links to many sites, and much, much more are
108available at L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/> and
109L<http://www.blastwave.org/>.
110
111=item Solaris Documentation
112
113All Solaris documentation is available on-line at L<http://docs.sun.com/>.
114
115=back
116
117=head1 SETTING UP
118
119=head2 File Extraction Problems on Solaris.
120
121Be sure to use a tar program compiled under Solaris (not SunOS 4.x)
122to extract the perl-5.x.x.tar.gz file.  Do not use GNU tar compiled
123for SunOS4 on Solaris.  (GNU tar compiled for Solaris should be fine.)
124When you run SunOS4 binaries on Solaris, the run-time system magically
125alters pathnames matching m#lib/locale# so that when tar tries to create
126lib/locale.pm, a file named lib/oldlocale.pm gets created instead.
127If you found this advice too late and used a SunOS4-compiled tar
128anyway, you must find the incorrectly renamed file and move it back
129to lib/locale.pm.
130
131=head2 Compiler and Related Tools on Solaris.
132
133You must use an ANSI C compiler to build perl.  Perl can be compiled
134with either Sun's add-on C compiler or with gcc.  The C compiler that
135shipped with SunOS4 will not do.
136
137=head3 Include /usr/ccs/bin/ in your PATH.
138
139Several tools needed to build perl are located in /usr/ccs/bin/:  ar,
140as, ld, and make.  Make sure that /usr/ccs/bin/ is in your PATH.
141
142You need to make sure the following packages are installed
143(this info is extracted from the Solaris FAQ):
144
145for tools (sccs, lex, yacc, make, nm, truss, ld, as): SUNWbtool,
146SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo
147
148for libraries & headers: SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms, SUNWdfbh,
149SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc, SUNWolinc
150
151for 64 bit development: SUNWarcx, SUNWbtoox, SUNWdplx, SUNWscpux,
152SUNWsprox, SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUNWlibCx
153
154If you are in doubt which package contains a file you are missing,
155try to find an installation that has that file. Then do a
156
157 $ grep /my/missing/file /var/sadm/install/contents
158
159This will display a line like this:
160
161/usr/include/sys/errno.h f none 0644 root bin 7471 37605 956241356 SUNWhea
162
163The last item listed (SUNWhea in this example) is the package you need.
164
165=head3 Avoid /usr/ucb/cc.
166
167You don't need to have /usr/ucb/ in your PATH to build perl.  If you
168want /usr/ucb/ in your PATH anyway, make sure that /usr/ucb/ is NOT
169in your PATH before the directory containing the right C compiler.
170
171=head3 Sun's C Compiler
172
173If you use Sun's C compiler, make sure the correct directory
174(usually /opt/SUNWspro/bin/) is in your PATH (before /usr/ucb/).
175
176=head3 GCC
177
178If you use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and complete.
179perl versions since 5.6.0 build fine with gcc > 2.8.1 on Solaris >=
1802.6.
181
182You must Configure perl with
183
184 $ sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
185
186If you don't, you may experience strange build errors.
187
188If you have updated your Solaris version, you may also have to update
189your gcc.  For example, if you are running Solaris 2.6 and your gcc is
190installed under /usr/local, check in /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib and make
191sure you have the appropriate directory, sparc-sun-solaris2.6/ or
192i386-pc-solaris2.6/.  If gcc's directory is for a different version of
193Solaris than you are running, then you will need to rebuild gcc for
194your new version of Solaris.
195
196You can get a precompiled version of gcc from
197L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/> or L<http://www.blastwave.org/>. Make
198sure you pick up the package for your Solaris release.
199
200If you wish to use gcc to build add-on modules for use with the perl
201shipped with Solaris, you should use the Solaris::PerlGcc module
202which is available from CPAN.  The perl shipped with Solaris
203is configured and built with the Sun compilers, and the compiler
204configuration information stored in Config.pm is therefore only
205relevant to the Sun compilers.  The Solaris:PerlGcc module contains a
206replacement Config.pm that is correct for gcc - see the module for
207details.
208
209=head3 GNU as and GNU ld
210
211The following information applies to gcc version 2.  Volunteers to
212update it as appropropriate for gcc version 3 would be appreciated.
213
214The versions of as and ld supplied with Solaris work fine for building
215perl.  There is normally no need to install the GNU versions to
216compile perl.
217
218If you decide to ignore this advice and use the GNU versions anyway,
219then be sure that they are relatively recent.  Versions newer than 2.7
220are apparently new enough.  Older versions may have trouble with
221dynamic loading.
222
223If you wish to use GNU ld, then you need to pass it the -Wl,-E flag.
224The hints/solaris_2.sh file tries to do this automatically by setting
225the following Configure variables:
226
227 ccdlflags="$ccdlflags -Wl,-E"
228 lddlflags="$lddlflags -Wl,-E -G"
229
230However, over the years, changes in gcc, GNU ld, and Solaris ld have made
231it difficult to automatically detect which ld ultimately gets called.
232You may have to manually edit config.sh and add the -Wl,-E flags
233yourself, or else run Configure interactively and add the flags at the
234appropriate prompts.
235
236If your gcc is configured to use GNU as and ld but you want to use the
237Solaris ones instead to build perl, then you'll need to add
238-B/usr/ccs/bin/ to the gcc command line.  One convenient way to do
239that is with
240
241 $ sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
242
243Note that the trailing slash is required.  This will result in some
244harmless warnings as Configure is run:
245
246 gcc: file path prefix `/usr/ccs/bin/' never used
247
248These messages may safely be ignored.
249(Note that for a SunOS4 system, you must use -B/bin/ instead.)
250
251Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment variable to
252ensure that Sun's as and ld are used.  Consult your gcc documentation
253for further information on the -B option and the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
254
255=head3 Sun and GNU make
256
257The make under /usr/ccs/bin works fine for building perl.  If you
258have the Sun C compilers, you will also have a parallel version of
259make (dmake).  This works fine to build perl, but can sometimes cause
260problems when running 'make test' due to underspecified dependencies
261between the different test harness files.  The same problem can also
262affect the building of some add-on modules, so in those cases either
263specify '-m serial' on the dmake command line, or use
264/usr/ccs/bin/make instead.  If you wish to use GNU make, be sure that
265the set-group-id bit is not set.  If it is, then arrange your PATH so
266that /usr/ccs/bin/make is before GNU make or else have the system
267administrator disable the set-group-id bit on GNU make.
268
269=head3 Avoid libucb.
270
271Solaris provides some BSD-compatibility functions in /usr/ucblib/libucb.a.
272Perl will not build and run correctly if linked against -lucb since it
273contains routines that are incompatible with the standard Solaris libc.
274Normally this is not a problem since the solaris hints file prevents
275Configure from even looking in /usr/ucblib for libraries, and also
276explicitly omits -lucb.
277
278=head2 Environment for Compiling perl on Solaris
279
280=head3 PATH
281
282Make sure your PATH includes the compiler (/opt/SUNWspro/bin/ if you're
283using Sun's compiler) as well as /usr/ccs/bin/ to pick up the other
284development tools (such as make, ar, as, and ld).  Make sure your path
285either doesn't include /usr/ucb or that it includes it after the
286compiler and compiler tools and other standard Solaris directories.
287You definitely don't want /usr/ucb/cc.
288
289=head3 LD_LIBRARY_PATH
290
291If you have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable set, be sure that
292it does NOT include /lib or /usr/lib.  If you will be building
293extensions that call third-party shared libraries (e.g. Berkeley DB)
294then make sure that your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes
295the directory with that library (e.g. /usr/local/lib).
296
297If you get an error message
298
299 dlopen: stub interception failed
300
301it is probably because your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
302includes a directory which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
303The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle.  The file
304libdl.so.1.0 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub
305interception failed' errors!  The runtime linker intercepts links to
306"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementations of those
307functions instead.  [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
308
309=head1 RUN CONFIGURE.
310
311See the INSTALL file for general information regarding Configure.
312Only Solaris-specific issues are discussed here.  Usually, the
313defaults should be fine.
314
315=head2 64-bit perl on Solaris.
316
317See the INSTALL file for general information regarding 64-bit compiles.
318In general, the defaults should be fine for most people.
319
320By default, perl-5.6.0 (or later) is compiled as a 32-bit application
321with largefile and long-long support.
322
323=head3 General 32-bit vs. 64-bit issues.
324
325Solaris 7 and above will run in either 32 bit or 64 bit mode on SPARC
326CPUs, via a reboot. You can build 64 bit apps whilst running 32 bit
327mode and vice-versa. 32 bit apps will run under Solaris running in
328either 32 or 64 bit mode.  64 bit apps require Solaris to be running
32964 bit mode.
330
331Existing 32 bit apps are properly known as LP32, i.e. Longs and
332Pointers are 32 bit.  64-bit apps are more properly known as LP64.
333The discriminating feature of a LP64 bit app is its ability to utilise a
33464-bit address space.  It is perfectly possible to have a LP32 bit app
335that supports both 64-bit integers (long long) and largefiles (> 2GB),
336and this is the default for perl-5.6.0.
337
338For a more complete explanation of 64-bit issues, see the
339"Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide" at L<http://docs.sun.com/>
340
341You can detect the OS mode using "isainfo -v", e.g.
342
343 $ isainfo -v   # Ultra 30 in 64 bit mode
344 64-bit sparcv9 applications
345 32-bit sparc applications
346
347By default, perl will be compiled as a 32-bit application.  Unless
348you want to allocate more than ~ 4GB of memory inside perl, or unless
349you need more than 255 open file descriptors, you probably don't need
350perl to be a 64-bit app.
351
352=head3 Large File Support
353
354For Solaris 2.6 and onwards, there are two different ways for 32-bit
355applications to manipulate large files (files whose size is > 2GByte).
356(A 64-bit application automatically has largefile support built in
357by default.)
358
359First is the "transitional compilation environment", described in
360lfcompile64(5).  According to the man page,
361
362 The transitional compilation  environment  exports  all  the
363 explicit 64-bit functions (xxx64()) and types in addition to
364 all the regular functions (xxx()) and types. Both xxx()  and
365 xxx64()  functions  are  available to the program source.  A
366 32-bit application must use the xxx64() functions in  order
367 to  access  large  files.  See the lf64(5) manual page for a
368 complete listing of the 64-bit transitional interfaces.
369
370The transitional compilation environment is obtained with the
371following compiler and linker flags:
372
373 getconf LFS64_CFLAGS        -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
374 getconf LFS64_LDFLAG        # nothing special needed
375 getconf LFS64_LIBS          # nothing special needed
376
377Second is the "large file compilation environment", described in
378lfcompile(5).  According to the man page,
379
380 Each interface named xxx() that needs to access 64-bit entities
381 to  access  large  files maps to a xxx64() call in the
382 resulting binary. All relevant data types are defined to  be
383 of correct size (for example, off_t has a typedef definition
384 for a 64-bit entity).
385
386 An application compiled in this environment is able  to  use
387 the  xxx()  source interfaces to access both large and small
388 files, rather than having to explicitly utilize the  transitional
389 xxx64()  interface  calls to access large files.
390
391Two exceptions are fseek() and ftell().  32-bit applications should
392use fseeko(3C) and ftello(3C).  These will get automatically mapped
393to fseeko64() and ftello64().
394
395The large file compilation environment is obtained with
396
397 getconf LFS_CFLAGS      -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
398 getconf LFS_LDFLAGS     # nothing special needed
399 getconf LFS_LIBS        # nothing special needed
400
401By default, perl uses the large file compilation environment and
402relies on Solaris to do the underlying mapping of interfaces.
403
404=head3 Building an LP64 perl
405
406To compile a 64-bit application on an UltraSparc with a recent Sun Compiler,
407you need to use the flag "-xarch=v9".  getconf(1) will tell you this, e.g.
408
409 $ getconf -a | grep v9
410 XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:         -xarch=v9
411 XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
412 XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
413 XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
414 XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
415 XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:    -xarch=v9
416 _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
417 _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
418 _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
419 _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
420 _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
421 _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:   -xarch=v9
422
423This flag is supported in Sun WorkShop Compilers 5.0 and onwards
424(now marketed under the name Forte) when used on Solaris 7 or later on
425UltraSparc systems.
426
427If you are using gcc, you would need to use -mcpu=v9 -m64 instead.  This
428option is not yet supported as of gcc 2.95.2; from install/SPECIFIC
429in that release:
430
431 GCC version 2.95 is not able to compile code correctly for sparc64
432 targets. Users of the Linux kernel, at least, can use the sparc32
433 program to start up a new shell invocation with an environment that
434 causes configure to recognize (via uname -a) the system as sparc-*-*
435 instead.
436
437All this should be handled automatically by the hints file, if
438requested.
439
440=head3 Long Doubles.
441
442As of 5.8.1, long doubles are working if you use the Sun compilers
443(needed for additional math routines not included in libm).
444
445=head2 Threads in perl on Solaris.
446
447It is possible to build a threaded version of perl on Solaris.  The entire
448perl thread implementation is still experimental, however, so beware.
449
450=head2 Malloc Issues with perl on Solaris.
451
452Starting from perl 5.7.1 perl uses the Solaris malloc, since the perl
453malloc breaks when dealing with more than 2GB of memory, and the Solaris
454malloc also seems to be faster.
455
456If you for some reason (such as binary backward compatibility) really
457need to use perl's malloc, you can rebuild perl from the sources
458and Configure the build with
459
460 $ sh Configure -Dusemymalloc
461
462You should not use perl's malloc if you are building with gcc.  There
463are reports of core dumps, especially in the PDL module.  The problem
464appears to go away under -DDEBUGGING, so it has been difficult to
465track down.  Sun's compiler appears to be okay with or without perl's
466malloc. [XXX further investigation is needed here.]
467
468=head1 MAKE PROBLEMS.
469
470=over 4
471
472=item Dynamic Loading Problems With GNU as and GNU ld
473
474If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
475Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, see the section
476L<"GNU as and GNU ld"> above.
477
478=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
479
480If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
481it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
482L<"GNU as and GNU ld">.
483
484=item dlopen: stub interception failed
485
486The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
487that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
488which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).  See
489L<"LD_LIBRARY_PATH"> above.
490
491=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
492
493This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
494gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1.  The Solaris header files
495changed, so you need to update your gcc installation.  You can either
496rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
497update your gcc installation.
498
499=item sh: ar: not found
500
501This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
502was not found.  You need to check your PATH environment variable to
503make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command.  This
504is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin/
505directory.
506
507=back
508
509=head1 MAKE TEST
510
511=head2 op/stat.t test 4 in Solaris
512
513op/stat.t test 4 may fail if you are on a tmpfs of some sort.
514Building in /tmp sometimes shows this behavior.  The
515test suite detects if you are building in /tmp, but it may not be able
516to catch all tmpfs situations.
517
518=head2 nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
519
520See L<perlhpux/"nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent">.
521
522=head1 PREBUILT BINARIES OF PERL FOR SOLARIS.
523
524You can pick up prebuilt binaries for Solaris from
525L<http://www.sunfreeware.com/>, L<http://www.blastwave.org>,
526ActiveState L<http://www.activestate.com/>, and
527L<http://www.perl.com/> under the Binaries list at the top of the
528page.  There are probably other sources as well.  Please note that
529these sites are under the control of their respective owners, not the
530perl developers.
531
532=head1 RUNTIME ISSUES FOR PERL ON SOLARIS.
533
534=head2 Limits on Numbers of Open Files on Solaris.
535
536The stdio(3C) manpage notes that for LP32 applications, only 255
537files may be opened using fopen(), and only file descriptors 0
538through 255 can be used in a stream.  Since perl calls open() and
539then fdopen(3C) with the resulting file descriptor, perl is limited
540to 255 simultaneous open files, even if sysopen() is used.  If this
541proves to be an insurmountable problem, you can compile perl as a
542LP64 application, see L<Building an LP64 perl> for details.  Note
543also that the default resource limit for open file descriptors on
544Solaris is 255, so you will have to modify your ulimit or rctl
545(Solaris 9 onwards) appropriately.
546
547=head1 SOLARIS-SPECIFIC MODULES.
548
549See the modules under the Solaris:: and Sun::Solaris namespaces on CPAN,
550see L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Solaris/> and
551L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Sun/>.
552
553=head1 SOLARIS-SPECIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MODULES.
554
555=head2 Proc::ProcessTable on Solaris
556
557Proc::ProcessTable does not compile on Solaris with perl5.6.0 and higher
558if you have LARGEFILES defined.  Since largefile support is the
559default in 5.6.0 and later, you have to take special steps to use this
560module.
561
562The problem is that various structures visible via procfs use off_t,
563and if you compile with largefile support these change from 32 bits to
56464 bits.  Thus what you get back from procfs doesn't match up with
565the structures in perl, resulting in garbage.  See proc(4) for further
566discussion.
567
568A fix for Proc::ProcessTable is to edit Makefile to
569explicitly remove the largefile flags from the ones MakeMaker picks up
570from Config.pm.  This will result in Proc::ProcessTable being built
571under the correct environment.  Everything should then be OK as long as
572Proc::ProcessTable doesn't try to share off_t's with the rest of perl,
573or if it does they should be explicitly specified as off64_t.
574
575=head2 BSD::Resource on Solaris
576
577BSD::Resource versions earlier than 1.09 do not compile on Solaris
578with perl 5.6.0 and higher, for the same reasons as Proc::ProcessTable.
579BSD::Resource versions starting from 1.09 have a workaround for the problem.
580
581=head2 Net::SSLeay on Solaris
582
583Net::SSLeay requires a /dev/urandom to be present. This device is
584available from Solaris 9 onwards.  For earlier Solaris versions you
585can either get the package SUNWski (packaged with several Sun
586software products, for example the Sun WebServer, which is part of
587the Solaris Server Intranet Extension, or the Sun Directory Services,
588part of Solaris for ISPs) or download the ANDIrand package from
589L<http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~andi/>. If you use SUNWski, make a
590symbolic link /dev/urandom pointing to /dev/random.
591
592It may be possible to use the Entropy Gathering Daemon (written in
593Perl!), available from L<http://www.lothar.com/tech/crypto/>.
594
595=head1 SunOS 4.x
596
597In SunOS 4.x you most probably want to use the SunOS ld, /usr/bin/ld,
598since the more recent versions of GNU ld (like 2.13) do not seem to
599work for building Perl anymore.  When linking the extensions, the
600GNU ld gets very unhappy and spews a lot of errors like this
601
602  ... relocation truncated to fit: BASE13 ...
603
604and dies.  Therefore the SunOS 4.1 hints file explicitly sets the
605ld to be /usr/bin/ld.
606
607As of Perl 5.8.1 the dynamic loading of libraries (DynaLoader, XSLoader)
608also seems to have become broken in in SunOS 4.x.  Therefore the default
609is to build Perl statically.
610
611Running the test suite in SunOS 4.1 is a bit tricky since the
612F<lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs> test hangs (subtest #51, FWIW) for some
613unknown reason.  Just stop the test and kill that particular Perl
614process.
615
616There are various other failures, that as of SunOS 4.1.4 and gcc 3.2.2
617look a lot like gcc bugs.  Many of the failures happen in the Encode
618tests, where for example when the test expects "0" you get "&#48;"
619which should after a little squinting look very odd indeed.
620Another example is earlier in F<t/run/fresh_perl> where chr(0xff) is
621expected but the test fails because the result is chr(0xff).  Exactly.
622
623This is the "make test" result from the said combination:
624
625  Failed 27 test scripts out of 745, 96.38% okay.
626
627Running the C<harness> is painful because of the many failing
628Unicode-related tests will output megabytes of failure messages,
629but if one patiently waits, one gets these results:
630
631 Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
632 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
633 ...
634 ../ext/Encode/t/at-cn.t            4  1024    29    4  13.79%  14-17
635 ../ext/Encode/t/at-tw.t           10  2560    17   10  58.82%  2 4 6 8 10 12
636                                                                14-17
637 ../ext/Encode/t/enc_data.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
638 ../ext/Encode/t/enc_eucjp.t       29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
639 ../ext/Encode/t/enc_module.t      29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
640 ../ext/Encode/t/encoding.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
641 ../ext/Encode/t/grow.t            12  3072    24   12  50.00%  2 4 6 8 10 12 14
642                                                                16 18 20 22 24
643  Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
644 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
645 ../ext/Encode/t/guess.t          255 65280    29   40 137.93%  10-29
646 ../ext/Encode/t/jperl.t           29  7424    15   30 200.00%  1-15
647 ../ext/Encode/t/mime-header.t      2   512    10    2  20.00%  2-3
648 ../ext/Encode/t/perlio.t          22  5632    38   22  57.89%  1-4 9-16 19-20
649                                                                23-24 27-32
650 ../ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t       0   139    ??   ??       %  ??
651 ../ext/PerlIO/t/encoding.t                    14    1   7.14%  11
652 ../ext/PerlIO/t/fallback.t                     9    2  22.22%  3 5
653 ../ext/Socket/t/socketpair.t       0     2    45   70 155.56%  11-45
654 ../lib/CPAN/t/vcmp.t                          30    1   3.33%  25
655 ../lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs.t      0    15    ??   ??       %  ??
656 ../lib/Unicode/Collate/t/test.t              199   30  15.08%  7 26-27 71-75
657                                                                81-88 95 101
658                                                                103-104 106 108-
659                                                                109 122 124 161
660                                                                169-172
661 ../lib/sort.t                      0   139   119   26  21.85%  107-119
662 op/alarm.t                                     4    1  25.00%  4
663 op/utfhash.t                                  97    1   1.03%  31
664 run/fresh_perl.t                              91    1   1.10%  32
665 uni/tr_7jis.t                                 ??   ??       %  ??
666 uni/tr_eucjp.t                    29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
667 uni/tr_sjis.t                     29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
668 56 tests and 467 subtests skipped.
669 Failed 27/811 test scripts, 96.67% okay. 1383/75399 subtests failed, 98.17% okay.
670
671The alarm() test failure is caused by system() apparently blocking
672alarm().  That is probably a libc bug, and given that SunOS 4.x
673has been end-of-lifed years ago, don't hold your breath for a fix.
674In addition to that, don't try anything too Unicode-y, especially
675with Encode, and you should be fine in SunOS 4.x.
676
677=head1 AUTHOR
678
679The original was written by Andy Dougherty F<doughera@lafayette.edu>
680drawing heavily on advice from Alan Burlison, Nick Ing-Simmons, Tim Bunce,
681and many other Solaris users over the years.
682
683Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to F<perlbug@perl.org>.
684
685=head1 LAST MODIFIED
686
687$Id: README.solaris,v 1.1.1.3 2004-02-09 19:04:17 zacheiss Exp $
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