ULTRIX-32 Programmer's Manual Sections 4 and 8

This document is the ULTRIX-32™ Programmer's Manual, Sections 4 and 8, published by Digital Equipment Corporation in May 1984. It is specifically identified as "Programmer's Manual Binder 3B - System Managers" within the broader ULTRIX-32 documentation set. The software and documentation are based in part on the Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution.

The manual is organized into two main sections:

1. Section 4 - Special Files (I/O devices and drivers): This section provides detailed descriptions of various special files, their associated device drivers, and networking support available in the ULTRIX-32 system. It covers how hardware devices are supported (character/block device drivers, network interface drivers) and the autoconfiguration process on VAX-11 systems (UNIBUS and MASSBUS). It also introduces networking facilities, including protocol families (like DARPA Internet protocols: IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP), addressing formats, routing mechanisms, and network interface manipulation via ioctl calls.
2. Section 8 - Maintenance Commands: This section details commands related to system operation and maintenance. It lists and describes numerous utilities for tasks such as file system management (e.g., fsck, newfs, mount, restore), user and accounting management (chown, getty, sa), process control (init, reboot, halt), network services (ftpd, sendmail, rshd, routed), and system diagnostics/dumps (dmesg, savecore).

Key Observation: A recurring and significant point throughout both sections is the "STATUS" line for individual entries. Many of the documented device drivers (Section 4) and system commands (Section 8) explicitly state: "STATUS: [Entry Name] currently is not supported by Digital Equipment Corporation."

While core system functions, basic I/O devices (like main memory, console, certain disks and tapes, terminal interfaces), and fundamental system management commands (e.g., chown, config, cron, dump, fsck, init, lpd, mount, reboot, restore, sendmail, shutdown, sync, update, vipw) are marked as "supported," a substantial number of network-related components, advanced diagnostic tools, and specific hardware interfaces are noted as "not supported" at the time of publication. This suggests that the manual may include documentation for components inherited from its BSD Unix lineage that were not fully implemented or maintained in the specific ULTRIX-32 release it covers.