[daip] Re: shared memory issue in 31DEC05 solaris

[Eric Greisen]

Kelley McDonald writes:

 > I have a new aips user that consistantly gets the following 
 > error when starting 31DEC05 aips for Sun Solaris...
 > 
 > XASERVERS: Start TV LOCK daemon TVSERV on coma
 > XASERVERS: Start XAS on coma, DISPLAY :0
 > XASERVERS: Start graphics server TEKSRV on coma, DISPLAY :0
 > XASERVERS: Start message server MSGSRV on coma, DISPLAY :0
 > XAS: ** TrueColor FOUND!!! 
 > XAS: Visual not = default, create 24-bit colormap
 > XAS: ***  Using shared memory option for speed ***
 > XAS: Using screen width height 1270 924, max grey level 255
 > Shared memory id failure: Invalid argument
 > TVSERVER: Starting AIPS TV locking, Inet domain
 > STARTPMON: [COMA] Starting TPMON1 with output SUPPRESSED
 > 
 > I start the same thing on my workstation, I know we
 > compiled aips so it would not use shared memory, and
 > my session does not have a problem and indeed says
 > it isn't using shared memory and starts XAS without
 > fail.
 > 

It is a large mistake to avoid the shared memory - it makes the aips
TV run much faster.

The selection of shared or not is a ~/.Xdefaults option described in
the HELP XAS file

AIPStv*useSharedMemory:        1

to use the memory or 0 to not use it.

Then 

xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults


The shared memory problem arises from large screens and is addressed
on our AIPS Manager FAQ page:

     http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/aips/aipsmgr/



 Shared memory id failure: Invalid Argument

    If you see this when the system is trying to fire up the AIPS TV
(XAS) on a Solaris system, then your X11 display does not support more
than the default of 1 Megabyte maximum for shared memory segment. If
your monitor displays 1280x1024 or larger, the sizes of the shared
memory segments XAS wants will exceed a Megabyte. Solution: have your
sysadmin edit /etc/system and put this line somewhere near the end:


        set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax=8388608

    While there, you may want to also add these if you have more than
64 Mbytes of real memory:

        set ufs:ufs_HW=6291456
        set ufs:ufs_LW=4194304
        set priority_paging=1 

    Only add the last one if you are running Solaris 7 or later. These
three settings will boost your overall AIPS performance.

Eric Greisen