Subject: pthreads status in NetBSD/SPARC?
To: None <port-sparc@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Greg Earle <earle@isolar.DynDNS.ORG>
List: port-sparc
Date: 12/07/2003 15:42:46
I tried to build SpamAssassin and libmilter (to go with a Milter-enabled
Sendmail 8.12.8) in my wheezing old 1.4.2 setup, but when it runs,
sendmail and SpamAssassin's "spamd" talk to each other, but don't
communicate.  Took a look and I've got the GNU Portable Thread library
(pth-1.3.7) and the MIT POSIX threads library (mit-pthreads-1.60b6) installed.

I'm suspecting the reason they don't communicate (sendmail connects
to the UNIX domain socket to both spamass-milter and MIMEDefang,
sends 5 bytes to the socket, the other ends notice there's a ready
file descriptor, and then proceed to send themselves a SIGUSR1 (*!*)
and die) is because of having a really old/buggy/non-working pthreads.
(I had to change one pthreads call in libmilter just to get it to compile.)

I saw the following CHANGES comment about pthreads from January 2003:

  Merge nathanw_sa branch, implementing p1003.1 POSIX thread and Scheduler
  Activation thread interface. [thorpej 20030117]

but couldn't tell if this was in the NetBSD 1.6.1 release or not.

What is the current state of pthreads in the SPARC port?  Does 1.6.1
have a robust implementation?  Or does one have to go to -current?

(This is my mail server, so I'd prefer to use a regular/solid distribution
 instead of -current, if possible.)

	- Greg