[Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

[Johnny Billquist]

What does the physical disk geometry have to do with Files-11?
At least ODS-1 couldn't care less.

	Johnny

On 2016-03-03 17:05, Timothe Litt wrote:
>
>
> On 03-Mar-16 09:35, Joshua Overmiller wrote:
>> I've built the ods2 tool and ods2reader from
>> <http://www.vms2linux.de/>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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