[Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

[Timothe Litt]

On 03-Mar-16 09:35, Joshua Overmiller wrote:
> I've built the ods2 tool and ods2reader from http://www.vms2linux.de/
> in order to try to read the simh disk files.
>
> However, trying "ods2 mount d0.dsk" responds with "Mount failed with
> 2312".
> Trying "ods2reader -l d0:[000000]"  gives:
>     d0:[000000] -- Bad block in file
>     d0:[000000] --- Cant't read index file header on d0
>
> d0.dsk corresponds to DAU0 which is a RA92 disk.
>
> Note there were some warnings when building both tools, but they both
> build.
>
> For ods2:
>
> ods2.c: In function ‘main’:
> ods2.c:1165:13: warning: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at
> /usr/include/stdio.h:638) [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
>              if (gets(str) == NULL) break;
> ods2.o: In function `main':
> ods2.c:(.text.startup+0x2d5): warning: the `gets' function is
> dangerous and should not be used.
>
> For ods2reader:
> Various warnings about implicit declaraions of builtin functions
> strlen, strcpy, and strcat.
>
>
Networking is your best option at this time.  It shouldn't be very
difficult to get running.

ODS2 has serious issues - as it turns out, reworking is is a subtask of
my current project.

The public version (the one you found) reads better than it writes - but
it has memory
corruption issues and problems with certain pointers in the Files-11 ODS.

Actually, writing is a disaster - don't try it.  It has two modes:
corrupt the disk and
crash.

You can try mounting an image on an loop device (losetup -rfv file &&
ods2 mount file), but
you'll run into problems.  Especially with disks as large as an RA92.

I have a version that will read a simulator image directly as well as
physical devices. 

    It seems to read individual disks OK, at least on windows and Linux.

    Volumesets are a work in progress, but improving.

    If you just mount a disk, take directories and read files, it works
    most of the time.

    But there are still bugs that will take quite some time to work
    out.  Errors (and dismount) are problematic.


I can push a snapshot to my repo on github, but it's very much a work in
progress & make no guarantees.

No ETA on a stable version - the more I look, the more I find to fix....
and the most annoying stuff turns out
to be involved.  If the snapshot would be useful to you, contact me
off-list.

I haven't done anything with ods2reader.  If relies on a strict
interpretation of the Files-11 spec, it needs
the physical disk geometry, which isn't in simulator disk images.

>
>
> More info to follow to get some insight into what my plans are.
>
> My end goal is to migrate a physical MicroVAX 3100-90 VMS 5.5 system
> to simh.
> I've been playing around with learning the BACKUP utility and
> Stand-Alone BACKUP under simh before I try anything out on the real
> system.  I can make an image backup of the system disk to a SAVE_SET
> on another disk.  The MicroVAX has the CMUIP installed so I can FTP
> the SAVE_SET off onto our network.  I plan to write the SAVE_SET to an
> iso image for simh VAX to mount and copy to a local disk.  I will then
> use BACKUP to restore the save set to a local disk.
>
> I will also want to get some files off the simh VAX.  Hence the need
> to mount the simh disk image files.
>
> I'm struggling with getting the networking running in simh, so I'm
> looking into this route.  However, other suggestions for getting files
> out of the simh disk image files are welcome.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Josh
> .
>
>

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