INFO-VAX Wed, 28 May 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 296 Contents: Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Re: Another Flex/VMS example - Browsing the ACCOUNTNG.DAT file Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Re: Galaxy on ES45 Re: How secur is delete/erase ? Re: How secur is delete/erase ? Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Re: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also? Re: Looking for CSWS 1.2 for OpenVMS 7.2-1 in Alpha Re: ODS-5 space usage .vs. ODS-2 Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons RE: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Re: SFTP distorts certain types of files when moving them to Windows Re: VAX Media wwidmgr or how to replace server RE: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 16:02:00 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Message-ID: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > I'm trying to boot an old AlphaStation. The console initialization > countdown stops at F4. The LEDs on the rear apron of the AS200 also > mirror this code [**** o*oo] F4. I've googled and haven't found any > definitive answer on this code. One document said "reserved to DEC" > which is not very informative. > > Any pointers, help, etc. greatly appreciated. > Other than finding a copy of the service manual, or finding the "secret decoder ring", I think you're out of luck. Even if you knew what it meant it might not be economically repairable. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 13:23:28 -0700 (PDT) From: IanMiller Subject: Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Message-ID: <190e2438-3666-4aa7-9d85-5121f8d511fa@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On May 27, 6:22 pm, Rich Jordan wrote: > On May 27, 11:10 am, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > > > I'm trying to boot an old AlphaStation. The console initialization > > countdown stops at F4. The LEDs on the rear apron of the AS200 also > > mirror this code [**** o*oo] F4. I've googled and haven't found any > > definitive answer on this code. One document said "reserved to DEC" > > which is not very informative. > > > Any pointers, help, etc. greatly appreciated. > > > -- > > VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM > > > "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" > > >http://tmesis.com/drat.html > > The service doc I have shows the same; 'reserved for future use' but I > did find the following snippet: "When power is applied to the system, > the diagnostic LEDs start decrementing as tests complete successfully > If a test fails, the display does not change. Therefore, when a > failure occurs , the LED code is pointing to the test which last > passed." > > That means its test F3 that failed; the service guide says "Load the > DROM code into memory.". F2 apparently continues that, and F1 should > be "Successful load and checksum of DROM". > > The popup says that in the event the DROM load fails, SROM will > attempt to load the selected firmware (ARC or SRM), and failing that > will drop into a "mini console" that is apparently available to > manufacturing. Is that the serial port on the MLB in the back? The > docs do not say. > > There's also this note: "Check J3: If "normal", then HW_REI to PAL. > If J3 is set to S-Port, go to the SROM mini-console." > > That does happen after the test that failed but perhaps the J3 jumper > setting may be worth checking to see if you can get access to further > diagnostics. > > I wonder if you have had a firmware corruption. Perhaps even to the > point that you need to use a failsafe boot... and if by magic on Hoffman Labs AlphaStation 200 Firmware Failsafe Loader http://64.223.189.234/node/871 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 23:37:00 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kari_Uusim=E4ki?= Subject: Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Message-ID: <483c70f5$0$23850$9b536df3@news.fv.fi> Rich Jordan wrote: > On May 27, 11:10 am, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: >> I'm trying to boot an old AlphaStation. The console initialization >> countdown stops at F4. The LEDs on the rear apron of the AS200 also >> mirror this code [**** o*oo] F4. I've googled and haven't found any >> definitive answer on this code. One document said "reserved to DEC" >> which is not very informative. >> >> Any pointers, help, etc. greatly appreciated. >> >> -- >> VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM >> >> "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" >> >> http://tmesis.com/drat.html > > The service doc I have shows the same; 'reserved for future use' but I > did find the following snippet: "When power is applied to the system, > the diagnostic LEDs start decrementing as tests complete successfully > If a test fails, the display does not change. Therefore, when a > failure occurs , the LED code is pointing to the test which last > passed." > > That means its test F3 that failed; the service guide says "Load the > DROM code into memory.". F2 apparently continues that, and F1 should > be "Successful load and checksum of DROM". > > The popup says that in the event the DROM load fails, SROM will > attempt to load the selected firmware (ARC or SRM), and failing that > will drop into a "mini console" that is apparently available to > manufacturing. Is that the serial port on the MLB in the back? The > docs do not say. > > There's also this note: "Check J3: If "normal", then HW_REI to PAL. > If J3 is set to S-Port, go to the SROM mini-console." > > That does happen after the test that failed but perhaps the J3 jumper > setting may be worth checking to see if you can get access to further > diagnostics. > > I wonder if you have had a firmware corruption. Perhaps even to the > point that you need to use a failsafe boot... I agree. Try to reload the firmware first with the failsafe option. ------------------------------ Date: 28 May 2008 01:26:09 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: AlphaStation 200 F4 error Message-ID: <483cb4b1$0$15170$607ed4bc@cv.net> In article <483c325b$0$15183$607ed4bc@cv.net>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: >I'm trying to boot an old AlphaStation. The console initialization >countdown stops at F4. The LEDs on the rear apron of the AS200 also >mirror this code [**** o*oo] F4. I've googled and haven't found any >definitive answer on this code. One document said "reserved to DEC" >which is not very informative. > >Any pointers, help, etc. greatly appreciated. Thanks for the replies here and the private emails. Strangely, I have this machine working again. Don't ask how, I don't rightly know myself. On one of the teardowns, reconfigs and restarts, I did NOT connect the key- board up. The machine booted (configured with console=serial). I am not sure what went wrong here but after checking that the connections were all tight (this particular machine has a DECwand augmenting the keyboard), the keyboard was reconnected and the firmware test countdown continued past F4. It may have been something with the DECwand causing the countdown to hold. This machine was completely torn apart in this effort. It's now clean like a brand new machine. It also has a new power supply. It's been in use for 13 years. I wonder if it can run 13 more! :) -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: 28 May 2008 05:15:16 GMT From: "David Weatherall" Subject: Re: Another Flex/VMS example - Browsing the ACCOUNTNG.DAT file Message-ID: <6a4834F35gcspU1@mid.individual.net> Arne Vajhøj wrote: > Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote: > > B.t.w., the page says "(ZIP, 38 MB)" about the SDK, but I got > > a 80 MB ZIP file after download... > > Mine is 80 MB too. > > Arne Too many big bytes makes one fat. It's a great to worry health authorities... Cheers - Dave -- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 16:30:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Sue Subject: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Message-ID: <10811393-931c-4bd7-9ead-5f9fdb7cbe17@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On May 26, 5:00=A0pm, JF Mezei wrote: > While Las Vegas brags about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", they > also like to break that rule by showing in TV ads what actually happens > in Vegas :-) :-) :-) > > I find it interesting that there hasn't been a peep of information about > =A0Bootcamp. In the past, there were "live" postings of various pictures > of people and events. All one can find now is an article by Ian Miller > on openvms.org > > Even if they had announced a secret plan to port VMS services to HP-UX > and help developpers migrate their software to HP-UX (aka: announce the > death of VMS), I would think that there would still be various unrelated > news on the event itself, pictures of Sue helping everyone and still > smiling etc etc. > > Or was the NDA so much stricter this years than in years past ? It was a great week. We had 100% attendance and a couple of extra walk in's. I am already missing everyone. Unless you have been its hard to explain but to have that many people that love VMS in room at one time is a real rush. Sue ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 16:55:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Sue Subject: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Message-ID: On May 26, 5:00=A0pm, JF Mezei wrote: > While Las Vegas brags about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", they > also like to break that rule by showing in TV ads what actually happens > in Vegas :-) :-) :-) > > I find it interesting that there hasn't been a peep of information about > =A0Bootcamp. In the past, there were "live" postings of various pictures > of people and events. All one can find now is an article by Ian Miller > on openvms.org > > Even if they had announced a secret plan to port VMS services to HP-UX > and help developpers migrate their software to HP-UX (aka: announce the > death of VMS), I would think that there would still be various unrelated > news on the event itself, pictures of Sue helping everyone and still > smiling etc etc. > > Or was the NDA so much stricter this years than in years past ? Here is another update from Camiel http://www.es40.org/Bootcamp_2008_Review sue ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:48:55 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Message-ID: IanMiller wrote: > On May 27, 3:26 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" > wrote: >> Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote: >>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote: >>>> marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote: >>>>> I am talking to some ops people to find out how our internally used >>>>> product can be improved. One area they have mentioned is that there is >>>>> a job that is currently launched manually. As we know, easily >>>>> automated tedious boring repeatative jobs that are done manually are >>>>> very errorprone, AFAICS this is crying out to be automated. In Unix I >>>>> would make it a cron job. What do I do on OpenVMS? (we are using 7.3 >>>>> btw). I know that cron has been ported to the known universe but I >>>>> want to propose a solution that uses native VMS facilities if >>>>> possible. I have heard that VMS has a scheduled job facility but that >>>>> it is more like at than cron. Can someone provide more details please? >>>>> Obviously, at wont cut it coz if there is a problem the job may not >>>>> run the next time you want it to. >>>>> Regards, >>>>> Andrew Marlow >>>> As others have mentioned, there is at least one port of cron available. >>>> I'd like to recommend a product called JAMS from Argent Software. >>>> Where cron will run a job every day at 11:45, JAMS will accept >>>> specifications like "11:45 every weekday except holidays". Execution >>>> can be made conditional on the success or failure of some other job. >>> And, what happend to DEC-Scheduler ? >> Could that have been renamed to "Polycenter Scheduler" and then sold to CAI? >> >> I'd rather swim with sharks than do business with CAI again! > > > It was sold to CA - say no more :-( > > There are enterprise scheduling packages available e.g JAMS. As I said! I found JAMS to be an extremely useful tool for managing my batch jobs! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 13:23:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Keith Cayemberg Subject: Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Message-ID: On May 27, 6:42 pm, Alfred Falk wrote: > marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote in news:7f1ab094-5e0d-455a-88af- > 7b7172b2a...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com: > > > I am talking to some ops people to find out how our internally used > > product can be improved. One area they have mentioned is that there is > > a job that is currently launched manually. As we know, easily > > automated tedious boring repeatative jobs that are done manually are > > very errorprone, AFAICS this is crying out to be automated. In Unix I > > would make it a cron job. What do I do on OpenVMS? (we are using 7.3 > > btw). I know that cron has been ported to the known universe but I > > want to propose a solution that uses native VMS facilities if > > possible. I have heard that VMS has a scheduled job facility but that > > it is more like at than cron. Can someone provide more details please? > > Obviously, at wont cut it coz if there is a problem the job may not > > run the next time you want it to. > > There are several versions of cron available for VMS. VMS has a built- > in batch queueing system which works very well. Many sites simply use > self-submitting batch jobs along these lines: > > $! An example of a self-submitting batch job > $ SUBMIT/AFTER="Tomorrow+8:00" 'F$ENVIRONMENT("PROCEDURE")' > ... do the work > > This generally works well. There are situations under which jobs may > fail to run - such as disk failures. Then the next submission won't > happen and you have to manually re-submit the job. A "cron" facility > can be more robust. In reference to the robustness of the OpenVMS Batch Facility: There are three aspects of the OpenVMS Batch Facility which I rarely see being mentioned when this theme comes up. First, the OpenVMS Batch Facility will leverage OpenVMS Cluster capability by performing job fail-over when the execution queues are bundled as AUTOSTART queues. See... http://zinser.no-ip.info/HELP/INITIALIZE/_QUEUE/QUALIFIERS#AUTOSTART_ON http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/aa-pv5mj-tk/aa-pv5mj-tk.HTMl We have had good experience with this capability in our customer's mission-critical OpenVMS Computer Integrate Manufacturing systems in several factories throughout Europe. Second, the OpenVMS Batch Facility supports Job Checkpoints and resumption of processing at the point where a job was stopped. See... http://zinser.no-ip.info/HELP/SET/RESTART_VALUE http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_036.html#index_x_1589 Third the Batch Facility also supports cluster-wide Job Synchronization... http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_046.html#114_synchronizingbatchjobexecut Cheers! Keith Cayemberg ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 2008 17:22:22 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Message-ID: <+g6KSj+W7ZYE@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <7f1ab094-5e0d-455a-88af-7b7172b2a9bf@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: > I am talking to some ops people to find out how our internally used > product can be improved. One area they have mentioned is that there is > a job that is currently launched manually. As we know, easily > automated tedious boring repeatative jobs that are done manually are > very errorprone, AFAICS this is crying out to be automated. In Unix I > would make it a cron job. What do I do on OpenVMS? (we are using 7.3 > btw). I know that cron has been ported to the known universe but I > want to propose a solution that uses native VMS facilities if > possible. I have heard that VMS has a scheduled job facility but that > it is more like at than cron. Can someone provide more details please? > Obviously, at wont cut it coz if there is a problem the job may not > run the next time you want it to. You can get cron for VMS. Generally most of us just setup batch jobs that resubmit themselves (kind of like at). The error handling you can build into such jobs is very powerfull. See the SUBMIT command in HELP for a starting place. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:24:33 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Message-ID: <483CA641.88ED52CE@spam.comcast.net> wayne.sewell@gmail.com wrote: > [snip] > I am not likely to do that, since I maintain a competing > product. :-) Now that I understand the situation, it is easy enough > to add such locking to tapesys and JB. SLS is, as you know, descended from an early TapeSys. One thing SLS does wrong is it does not poll DCSC drives through DCSC before attempting to assign them to a process issuing a STORAGE ALLOCATE command. That said, the idea of a central server with disrtibuted clients is likely what may be needed here. The server would mete out drives and media to the clients, while the clients would send data directly to the drives. The server would, of necessity, need to support non-VMS clients. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:06:29 -0700 (PDT) From: wayne.sewell@gmail.com Subject: Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Message-ID: <841f598a-aed0-46e6-87ba-fbb8278960bc@f24g2000prh.googlegroups.com> On May 26, 3:41 pm, Kari Uusim=E4ki wrote: > Colin Butcher wrote: > > The FC protocol moves data between devices. That's all it's designed to = do. > > > The way you set the infrastructure up determines which systems can see w= hich > > devices. That's what "zoning" in the FC switches does (it's analogous to= > > VLANs in a data network). In a SAN infrastructure where the zoning allow= s > > all HBAs to see all tape devices then you will have to implement some fo= rm > > of access control to ensure synchronised and serialised access to the > > available pool of tape drives. > > > Do beware of having Windows boxes capable of seeing the tape and robot > > devices as well as your VMS systems - the Windows removable storage serv= ice > > and the device drivers have a nasty habit of probing the tape and robot > > devices every so often, which can play havoc with operations in progress= . > > It's easy enough to fix - just disable the relevant services and device > > drivers in the Windows boxes, or set up the zoning so that the Windows b= oxes > > cannot see the tape devices. > > > If you choose to have all your systems see all your storage devices or t= ape > > devices then you have to deal with the consequences by ensuring that you= > > don't have multiple systems attempting to access the same device at the = same > > time. It's not a problem that's unique to tapes. Disc storage arrays > > implement "device presentation" that describe which HBA WWIDs (systems) = can > > access which available storage units (see the EVA Vdisk presentations or= > > look at selective presentation in HSGs). Tapes don't implement device > > presentation as far as I'm aware - and while it might be a useful concep= t > > (presentations being a little easier to work with than SAN zoning) you'd= > > still have to arbitrate access to the tapes if more than one system can = see > > the tapes at any given instant in time. > > > In a VMS environment that's what ABS/MDMS does for you. ABS uses network= > > communications to arbitrate access to the tape devices by having one (or= > > more for redundancy) ABS servers allocate tape devices to client systems= , > > the ABS servers manage the tapes and moving them around using the robot,= > > then the ABS clients perform the backup functions directly to the tapes,= > > then the ABS servers take care of the tape moving again. > > > Alternatively you should be able to write something pretty simple to > > synchronise access to the tape devices and robots, then used BACKUP as a= nd > > when you need to. All you need to do is keep track of the tapes, robots = and > > backup jobs across the separate clusters. > > > You could also control tape access by using SAN zoning in the SAN switch= es, > > thus restricting access from a single cluster to a single known set of > > tapes, however you'd have to change the SAN zoning if you needed to make= > > those tapes available to other nodes / clusters. > > > However, why bother doing all that when you can buy the ABS server and > > client components? It's what I've done for the big systems I've been > > designing and building recently. ABS has been around for a good few year= s > > now. It works pretty well on the whole. > > > It's also worth reading the SAN design reference guide to understand SAN= > > zoning and a few other things. See here: > >http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?co... > > > It's not that difficult once you understand what's going on and why it a= ll > > works as it does, then figure out what mechanisms you need to use to ach= ieve > > what's needed. > > With modern tape libraries you can do also do selective presentation of > the tape drives (and the robotic). That will help somewhat. Then there > is also a possibility to use different zoning for different needs. E.g. > when you want to backup your VMS cluster you use one zone configuration > and when you are done with that you change the zoning configuration to > another one which will give access to the tape library for a winbloze > cluster and so on. That kind of a zoning reconfiguration can be > automated. There aren't many other means of synchronizing tape drive > access in a heterogenous SAN on the SAN or OS level. Backup applications > like ABS can keep track of tape drive access on the application level. Yes, I understand about the zoning and reconfiguration and such. This particular customer refuses to do that, wants all jukeboxes available to all vmsclusters simultaneously. He doesn't have any foreign systems in the SAN. Basically I will need to add the tape drive locking to tapesys. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:15:43 -0700 (PDT) From: wayne.sewell@gmail.com Subject: Re: fibre channel tape drives accessed from multiple clusters Message-ID: On May 27, 7:24 pm, David J Dachtera wrote: > wayne.sew...@gmail.com wrote: > > [snip] > > That said, the idea of a central server with disrtibuted clients is > likely what may be needed here. The server would mete out drives and > media to the clients, while the clients would send data directly to the > drives. > Yes, that is my plan. Fortunately, tapesys already has such a server, so it would be a case of adding a network-wide lock function for drives. Media are already under control. > The server would, of necessity, need to support non-VMS clients. Eventually, but for the first cut it will be vms-only, because this particular customer has only vmsclusters connected to the SAN. Once I have him happy, I can expand to deal with foreign system types. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 17:43:03 -0400 From: Robert Deininger Subject: Re: Galaxy on ES45 Message-ID: In article , "Colin Butcher" wrote: > Galaxy does not work on the ES45, which is one reason why I don't have one > of them. > > I think it's either console or IO bus related (you need a console per > instance, plus you need the ability to split the IO buses as on the ES47, > ES40 and the 4100), but I don't know for certain. Galaxy support was in the original plan for the ES45. The firmware work necessary to support it was postponed due to time-to-market pressure. After ES45 shipped, the FW work was postponed again, and eventually cancelled completely. Contributing factors include (in no particular order): 1. Marvel FW work was higher priority. 2. The Marvel systems, including ES47, were clearly better Galaxy systems than ES45. Once ES47 shipped, ES45 became much less interesting as a Galaxy platform. 3. ES40 has serious limitations as a Galaxy platform, at least for some usage models. You can make 2 Galaxy instances (partitions), but their I/O resources are somewhat coupled. Bus resets and other events in one instance can spill over into the other instance. This is a hardware limitation; the FW and OS have to deal with it as best they can. ES45 Galaxy would have reduced, but not eliminated, these problems. 4. There was little perceived demand for Galaxy at the time. Lack of publicity and pricing problems may well have contributed. Most of the visible demand was better matched to Marvel than to ES45. Given the perceived level of demand and the difficulty making Galaxy well work on ES40/ES45, management decided not to finish the engineering (and subsequent testing) work on ES45. I was the engineering project leader for VMS on ES45 at the time. The model 1 system had already shipped, and we were working on the model 2 upgrades, including the 1.25 GHz CPUs. The Alphaserver group was mainly focused on DS25, DS15, and the Marvel systems. VMS engineering was working on all sorts of stuff, but the platform support group had Marvel and Itanium work at much higher priority than Galaxy on ES45. I remember it being an easy decision for product management to cancel Galaxy on ES45. And, unless there was a lot of demand out there that the managers didn't see, it was the right choice. If anyone needs a smallish Galaxy-capable system today, I recommend ES47. Or a refurbished ES40 if the price must be very low. -- Robert ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:57:43 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: How secur is delete/erase ? Message-ID: Klaus-D. Bohn wrote: > Hello, > > i hope, i have a very simply question. > > How secur is "delete/erase" ? After this command, no other program can > recover these informations? > > Thank you very much! > > Klaus > > Nothing on your VMS system will ever read that information. If someone got his hands on your disk and had unlimited resources, it is possible that some information could be recovered. The only way to be certain that no one will EVER read your data from that disk is to destroy the media! If you are not protecting information classified "burn before reading" DELETE /ERASE is probably sufficient. ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 2008 17:32:13 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: How secur is delete/erase ? Message-ID: In article <483c2cbc$0$1515$9b622d9e@news.freenet.de>, "Klaus-D. Bohn" writes: > Hello, > > i hope, i have a very simply question. > > How secur is "delete/erase" ? After this command, no other program can > recover these informations? That's the idea. I use anywhere I want to make sure no one else can recover the data. The erase algorithm uses what was at one time a "DoD approved" pattern (what it was approved for, I don't know). I've used it for old VAXen that were being excessed to make sure no sensitive or licensed data remained on the drives. That said, there may be data in blocks that went bad and were revectored that is physically possible to restore. And as a disk runs it's seek head position varies slightly so that it is possible that the some data can be recovered from shadows of old tracks. This is not as perfect as deguassing the media, but generally leaves the drive still useable without needing a low level format. And often in DoD, you have to run the drive through a shredder to meet requirements. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 13:51:42 -0700 (PDT) From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: <865a176d-52dd-4e39-ab25-658782abaa2d@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On May 27, 9:09=A0am, marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote: > I don't know VMS so please excuse my ignorance. I am reasonably > familiar with Unix so I cannot help describing my problem in Unix > terms. > > My client uses VMS v7.3.1 and gets a VMS session using WRQ Reflection. > This basically gives them an xterm session. From there they run the sw > they need to use. This particular sw uses a lock such that only one > user at a time can do a particular task (dont ask). If a second user > needs to do it then the first user has to finish the session cleanly. > The problem is that sometimes they kill the xterm whilst the VMS sw is > still running. Apparently VMS does not spot this so other sw instances > that want to get a look in cannot. My question is: how can the ops > staff track down the process associated with the killed xterm? In unix > the process would become an orphan and get adopted by init. All > orphans can be found easily by grep'ing the output of ps. Maybe there > is some kind of filtering that can be done with SHOW USERS or > something like that. I asked the ops people and they did not know of a > way. > > Regards, > > Andrew Marlow You can loop thru process ids and look at their atributes. Try: HELP LEX (or you can use SHOW SYSTEM/OUT=3DX.X and then copy X.X over to a unix system and process it there!) Here is an example of looping thru: $! Check for EES system processes in the same group as the user $! issuing the shopcs command. $! $ on control_y then goto fnl_exit $ say :=3D=3D write sys$output $ say "VMS on node ''f$trnlnm("SYS$NODE")' ''f$time()'" $ say - " Pid Process Name State Pri I/O CPU Page flts" $ prcnum =3D 0 $! $! Turn on priviliges. $! $ setoff =3D f$privilege("nogroup") $ set process/privilege=3Dgroup $ seton =3D f$privilege("world") $ set process/privilege=3Dnoworld $! $! Loop over all pids and for all processes in the group that match the $! EES process names then write the process data to sys$output. $! $ warning =3D "********** PRCSMP IS NOT RUNNING *********" $ ctx =3D "" $ loop: $ pid =3D f$pid(ctx) $ if pid .eqs. "" $ then $ goto endloop $ else $ pid =3D f$getjpi(pid, "PID") $ prcnam =3D f$getjpi(pid, "PRCNAM") $ state =3D f$getjpi(pid, "STATE") $ pri =3D f$getjpi(pid, "PRI") $ dirio =3D f$getjpi(pid, "DIRIO") $ bufio =3D f$getjpi(pid, "BUFIO") $ io =3D dirio + bufio $ cputim =3D f$getjpi(pid, "CPUTIM") $ cputimss =3D cputim/100 $ cputimts =3D cputim - 100*cputimss $ cputimmm =3D cputimss/60 $ cputims =3D cputimss - 60*cputimmm $ cputimhh =3D cputimmm/60 $ cputimm =3D cputimmm - 60*cputimhh $ cputimd =3D cputimhh/24 $ cputimh =3D cputimhh - 24*cputimd $ pageflts =3D f$getjpi(pid, "PAGEFLTS") $ if (prcnam .eqs. "AUDSYS" .or. prcnam .eqs. "CODDSP" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "PRCCAL" .or. prcnam .eqs. "PRCENV" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMP" .or. prcnam .eqs. "XFRDBS" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "UPDMON" .or. prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMP" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "SNDALT" .or. prcnam .eqs. "TSTMGR" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "UPDDBS" .or. prcnam .eqs. "HMNENV") $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ if (prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMP" ) $ then $ warning =3D " " $ endif $ if (prcnam .eqs. "HENENV" .or. prcnam .eqs. "HESENV" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "HELENV" .or. prcnam .eqs. "TRUCK") $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ if (prcnam .eqs. "UPDRPTDBS" .or. prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMPALT" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMPMSG" .or. prcnam .eqs. "SEQSYSINI" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "WRTLOGMSG" .or. prcnam .eqs. "PRCSMPSIM" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "SPTB" .or. - prcnam .eqs. "HUMCTL" .or. prcnam .eqs. "METLNK") $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ prcnamsht =3D f$extract( 0, 3, prcnam ) $ if (prcnamsht .eqs. "ICB" ) $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ if (prcnamsht .eqs. "SHF" ) $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ prcnamsht =3D f$extract( 1, 2, prcnam ) $ if (prcnamsht .eqs. "NX" .or. prcnamsht .eqs. "HC" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "SU" .or. prcnamsht .eqs. "OZ" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "AP" .or. prcnamsht .eqs. "DP" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "DR" .or. prcnamsht .eqs. "QM" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "CL" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "TE" .or. - prcnamsht .eqs. "CO" .or. prcnamsht .eqs. "HP" ) $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ if (prcnamsht .eqs. "CP" ) $ then $ say f$fao("!8AS !15AS !4AS !4UL !10UL !4UL !2ZL:!2ZL:!2ZL.! 2ZL !9UL",- f $string(pid),prcnam,state,pri,io,cputimd,cputimh,cputimm,- cputims,cputimts,pageflts) $ prcnum =3D prcnum + 1 $ endif $ goto loop $ endif $ endloop: $! $! Turn off priviliges. $! $ if setoff then set process/privilege =3D nogroup $ if seton then set process/privilege =3D world $ write sys$output "------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------" $! $ say f$fao("Number of processes =3D !5UL",prcnum) $ eesprcnum =3D=3D prcnum $ if (warning .nes. " " ) $ then $ say warning $ endif $! $ fnl_exit: $ if f$search ("pcs_dir_scratch:search.tmp") .nes. "" then - delete/noconfirm pcs_dir_scratch:search.tmp;* $ exit ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 2008 17:20:43 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: In article <5773516c-7176-490b-8dbe-874295521a40@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: > I don't know VMS so please excuse my ignorance. I am reasonably > familiar with Unix so I cannot help describing my problem in Unix > terms. > > My client uses VMS v7.3.1 and gets a VMS session using WRQ Reflection. > This basically gives them an xterm session. From there they run the sw > they need to use. This particular sw uses a lock such that only one > user at a time can do a particular task (dont ask). If a second user > needs to do it then the first user has to finish the session cleanly. > The problem is that sometimes they kill the xterm whilst the VMS sw is > still running. Apparently VMS does not spot this so other sw instances > that want to get a look in cannot. My question is: how can the ops > staff track down the process associated with the killed xterm? In unix > the process would become an orphan and get adopted by init. All > orphans can be found easily by grep'ing the output of ps. Maybe there > is some kind of filtering that can be done with SHOW USERS or > something like that. I asked the ops people and they did not know of a > way. With a properly working IP stack and a properly working application, when the Xterm is killed the process should get killed. Improperly designed applications can intentionally or accidentally prevent this. An output of SHOW SYSTEM might show a process in resource wait due to either of these, but that is not guarranteed, it depends on how the process deletion is prevented. OBTW, are you sure it's an Xterm connection they're using to access the application? Maybe its a serial connection or some such. (I'm assuming by "xterm" your using it generically to indicate some kind of IP based terminal emulation.) There are many ways to track down the process, but it will depend on what "lock" means. There's a very good chance that only one process is running the affected application and that can be found via $getjpi querries by a suitably privileged user or program. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 22:10:25 GMT From: Rob Brown Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: On Tue, 27 May 2008, Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <5773516c-7176-490b-8dbe-874295521a40@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: >> >> ... If a second user needs to do it then the first user has to >> finish the session cleanly. The problem is that sometimes they kill >> the xterm whilst the VMS sw is still running. Apparently VMS does >> not spot this so other sw instances that want to get a look in >> cannot. My question is: how can the ops staff track down the >> process associated with the killed xterm? > There are many ways to track down the process, but it will depend on > what "lock" means. There's a very good chance that only one process > is running the affected application and that can be found via > $getjpi querries by a suitably privileged user or program. To expand on this: Are you sure that it is the case that the previous process is still running and holding the "lock"? Another possibility is that the process did get deleted, but since it did not exit cleanly, it did not do whatever it was supposed to do to release the "lock". -- Rob Brown b r o w n a t g m c l d o t c o m G. Michaels Consulting Ltd. (780)438-9343 (voice) Edmonton (780)437-3367 (FAX) http://gmcl.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 22:48:26 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: <_c0%j.11550$tF1.476@trnddc01> Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <5773516c-7176-490b-8dbe-874295521a40@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: > >>I don't know VMS so please excuse my ignorance. I am reasonably >>familiar with Unix so I cannot help describing my problem in Unix >>terms. >> >>My client uses VMS v7.3.1 and gets a VMS session using WRQ Reflection. >>This basically gives them an xterm session. From there they run the sw >>they need to use. This particular sw uses a lock such that only one >>user at a time can do a particular task (dont ask). If a second user >>needs to do it then the first user has to finish the session cleanly. >>The problem is that sometimes they kill the xterm whilst the VMS sw is >>still running. Apparently VMS does not spot this so other sw instances >>that want to get a look in cannot. My question is: how can the ops >>staff track down the process associated with the killed xterm? In unix >>the process would become an orphan and get adopted by init. All >>orphans can be found easily by grep'ing the output of ps. Maybe there >>is some kind of filtering that can be done with SHOW USERS or >>something like that. I asked the ops people and they did not know of a >>way. > > > With a properly working IP stack and a properly working application, > when the Xterm is killed the process should get killed. > > Improperly designed applications can intentionally or accidentally > prevent this. An output of SHOW SYSTEM might show a process in > resource wait due to either of these, but that is not guarranteed, > it depends on how the process deletion is prevented. > > OBTW, are you sure it's an Xterm connection they're using to access > the application? Maybe its a serial connection or some such. (I'm > assuming by "xterm" your using it generically to indicate some kind > of IP based terminal emulation.) > > There are many ways to track down the process, but it will depend > on what "lock" means. There's a very good chance that only one > process is running the affected application and that can be > found via $getjpi querries by a suitably privileged user or program. > If the process looks to VMS like it is running on a serial terminal (virtual, telnet, ssh, LAT, etc.) then possibly the process is getting disconnected when the user closes the window. This would show up in SHOW USER/FULL as a disconnected session. The user could reconnect to the process and resume where he had left off by logging into the system again (or starting up another "xterm" session) and then using the CONNECT command to reconnect to the virtual terminal (VTAxxx: device displayed in the "SHOW USER/FULL" output.) If you login using the normal "LOGINOUT" program, it will ask you if you want to connect to any existing disconnected processes when you log in, but some process connection mechanisms might bypass this, forcing you to manually reconnect. You can only connect to a disconnected terminal from the same account it was originally logged into. Disconnected processes go away after a timeout, determined by a sysgen parameter, TTY_TIMEOUT, default value 900 seconds (15 minutes.) HTH. -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:36:31 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: <483CA90F.12DE9F16@spam.comcast.net> marlow.andrew@googlemail.com wrote: > > I don't know VMS so please excuse my ignorance. I am reasonably > familiar with Unix so I cannot help describing my problem in Unix > terms. > > My client uses VMS v7.3.1 and gets a VMS session using WRQ Reflection. > This basically gives them an xterm session. From there they run the sw > they need to use. This particular sw uses a lock such that only one > user at a time can do a particular task (dont ask). If a second user > needs to do it then the first user has to finish the session cleanly. > The problem is that sometimes they kill the xterm whilst the VMS sw is > still running. Apparently VMS does not spot this so other sw instances > that want to get a look in cannot. My question is: how can the ops > staff track down the process associated with the killed xterm? In unix > the process would become an orphan and get adopted by init. All > orphans can be found easily by grep'ing the output of ps. Maybe there > is some kind of filtering that can be done with SHOW USERS or > something like that. I asked the ops people and they did not know of a > way. This is one of theose cases where the differences between UNX* and VMS while pose a challenge. While VMS process trees are started by the Job COntroller (process JOB_CONTROL), JBC is not the parent to any other process on the system. This differs from UN*X where the INIT process is the parent of all others. So, by that definition, EVERY parent process on VMS is an "orphan". Key factors you may be interested in, however, might be whether or not the process is connected to some kind of controlling terminal. See the output of SHOW USERS/INTERACTIVE/FULL and note any processes where "DISCONNECTED" displays in the column where the terminal device name would otherwise be displayed. That's one possibility, but is not definitive - "disconnected" processes may be in that state intentionally (Cerner Classic Radnet is one example). Sorry - I know this doesn't help much. You'll need to become accustomed to a whole new paraidgm. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 01:23:36 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: > This particular sw uses a lock such that only one >user at a time can do a particular task (dont ask). How is this lock implemented? Many Unix applications will use a temporary file as a lock; if the file exists, the thing being locked is not available to another user or whatever. There are various methods of dealing with the situation of the locking process being deleted without removing the lock file. This is a rather hackish method. It may be that the application was ported from Unix or elsewhere, and the lock cleanup method didn't port to VMS properly, assuming it even exists. VMS doesn't really have an "orphan" concept like Unix. A process is either a subprocess or it isn't. A non-subprocess either exists or it doesn't. It has no parent, not even the process that creates it, which may or may not still exist. On the other hand, a subprocess cannot exist without its parent process. Period. Sometimes a parent process can get into a funky state waiting for its subprocess(es) to exit, but as long as the subprocess exists, the parent does as well. A sort-of exception is that sometimes a device (always a tape, it seems) can get allocated to a process that no longer exists. I suspect that these are driver bugs. There is probably a long-standing tape driver bug that does this that nobody has ever tracked down that sometimes keeps a tape allocated to a process that no longer exists. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 11:47:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Keith Cayemberg Subject: Re: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also? Message-ID: On May 24, 5:27 pm, "Michael D. Ober" wrote: > "Bob Koehler" wrote in message > > news:RwadSWyBEpSA@eisner.encompasserve.org... > > > In article , Ron Johnson > > writes: > > >> And how things used to on Unix. Remember, it *is* a timesharing OS, > >> just like VMS. > > > Wrong. VMS is a general purpose OS. It has designed-in timesharing > > and realtime capabilities. > > VMS is not a real-time OS. It can be configured to act like one, but there > are no guarantees that VMS will respond to events in a timely fashion, which > is a requirement for RTOS's. > > Mike. I also beg to differ. I looked at this many years ago, but I have heard of nothing that has fundamentally changed in OpenVMS architecture to change this for the VAX and Alpha platforms. (perhaps the new EFI, PMI firmware etc.on the Integrity platform could be an issue). OpenVMS is capable of being configured and used as a "Hard Real-Time OS" right out of the box. By "Hard" meaning that response times are fully determinant. The conditions to achieve this include, but are not limited to programming to use only code and services running at a priority and interrupt level above that of the OpenVMS scheduler, and locking your code and services in physical memory, and also configuring your system to not be within a cluster, which would otherwise introduce a "relatively" indeterminant cluster wait state to the system. Although I haven't yet seen a table for standard operation and function code path timings for the various OpenVMS HW platforms it should be possible to build one, and then even write a RT analysis tool that can look at a properly programmed and configured RT image and reliably calculate its code path timings (critical or otherwise) perhaps in the form of a Petri-Net operational specification/ simulation. I once heard a rumor of a major telecommunications company in the 1980's that used OpenVMS as their central super fast communications switch by programming a Real-Time in-Memory Database running at high priority in Kernel Mode. I believe this qualified as important company secret which was not patented to avoid having to publicize the technique for competitor's eyes. It would be interesting hear more about this from someone who knows, assuming the firm (which still exists, and is quite successful) doesn't still consider it to be their special secret. I don't claim to be an RTOS expert, so if anyone knows any other relevant corrections or specifics to the configuration of an RT image on any of the VMS platforms, then I'm all ears. Cheers! Keith Cayemberg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:10:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Edwood Subject: Re: Looking for CSWS 1.2 for OpenVMS 7.2-1 in Alpha Message-ID: On May 27, 1:23 pm, "warren sander" wrote: > CPQ AXPVMS CSWS V1.3-1 is at: > > ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/openvms/apache/CPQ-AXPVMS-CSWS-V0103-1-1.PCSI_SF... > > "Edwood" wrote in message > > news:05689548-6432-4518-8b03-6f25e1c0f7eb@34g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > > >I have searched the HP ftp site looking for CSWS 1.2 without success: > > > ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/openvms/apache > > > The only advertised versions are those appearing in this url: > > > http://www.openvms.compaq.com/openvms/products/ips/apache/csws.html > > > Any one with an alternative url? > > > Thank you. Thank you. I found that one but I am looking for CSWS 1.2 which seems to be compatible with our OpenVMS 7.2-1. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:27:12 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: ODS-5 space usage .vs. ODS-2 Message-ID: <483CA6E0.D20D6221@spam.comcast.net> FrankS wrote: > [snip] > Ken's comment about using /TRUNCATE on the restore command was on > target. I wrote a procedure to do $SET FILE/TRUNCATE on all > sequential files on the ODS-5 disk and the majority of the space that > had been lost is now available again. ...and now, DFU may tell you that your freespace fragmentation is considerable. If you repeat the exercise to BACKUP/IMAGE to (saveset) and then reINIT the drive and restore again using BACKUP/IMAGE/NOINIT/TRUNCATE, you'll have contiguous files -AND- contiguous freespace. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 2008 17:26:31 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: In article <5a32bef6-9882-4036-8aa1-7128e150f92c@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, marlow.andrew@googlemail.com writes: > I am considering the cost benefits or otherwise of moving some sw off > OpenVMS to Linux. I would like to hear about the pros and cons. > Hopefully this will not start a flamewar, I really do want to know! > > Here, as I see it, are the main issues: > > OpenVMS does not support the latest version of third party products we > use (e.g only Oracle 10g is supported). Yep, that's common. > Most companies wont train people in VMS even if they use VMS kit. This > makes developers shy away (they prefer to know about they platform > they work on). VMS is so easy to learn, and there are so many people who already know it, that that is just an excuse, not a reason. > OpenVMS offers better reliability due to clustering. And better security by design. > VMS hardware is very reliable. You can't prove that by my old VAX 11/780. But later VAXen and all my Alphas have been good. > A port away from VMS would be a generic Unix port rather than a port > that ties it to Linux. This would enable commercial unix > implementations such as Solaris to be used. The big issue is to find out whether the application is using any VMS specific features, and how close you can come to them on some other platform. > Unix SAs are very thin on the ground these days. At least my client > already has the VMS ops people it needs. A very good reason not to port! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 21:09:59 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: <483cb0e1$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> marlow.andrew@googlemail.com wrote: > I am considering the cost benefits or otherwise of moving some sw off > OpenVMS to Linux. I would like to hear about the pros and cons. > Hopefully this will not start a flamewar, I really do want to know! > > Here, as I see it, are the main issues: > > OpenVMS does not support the latest version of third party products we > use (e.g only Oracle 10g is supported). > > Most companies wont train people in VMS even if they use VMS kit. This > makes developers shy away (they prefer to know about they platform > they work on). > > OpenVMS offers better reliability due to clustering. > > VMS hardware is very reliable. > > A port away from VMS would be a generic Unix port rather than a port > that ties it to Linux. This would enable commercial unix > implementations such as Solaris to be used. > > Unix SAs are very thin on the ground these days. At least my client > already has the VMS ops people it needs. If you need some third party software that is no longer available on VMS, then you need to move from VMS to *nix. If you have sufficient customers that want your stuff on *nix and will not accept it on VMS, then you need to add *nix as supported platform. If not then do nothing (porting is about as much fun as visiting the dentist). But you should not be surprised if one the two first is the case. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 02:43:53 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Arne Vajh=F8j [mailto:arne@vajhoej.dk] > Sent: May 27, 2008 9:10 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons > > marlow.andrew@googlemail.com wrote: > > I am considering the cost benefits or otherwise of moving some sw off > > OpenVMS to Linux. I would like to hear about the pros and cons. > > Hopefully this will not start a flamewar, I really do want to know! > > > > Here, as I see it, are the main issues: > > > > OpenVMS does not support the latest version of third party products > we > > use (e.g only Oracle 10g is supported). > > > > Most companies wont train people in VMS even if they use VMS kit. > This > > makes developers shy away (they prefer to know about they platform > > they work on). > > > > OpenVMS offers better reliability due to clustering. > > > > VMS hardware is very reliable. > > > > A port away from VMS would be a generic Unix port rather than a port > > that ties it to Linux. This would enable commercial unix > > implementations such as Solaris to be used. > > > > Unix SAs are very thin on the ground these days. At least my client > > already has the VMS ops people it needs. > > If you need some third party software that is no longer available > on VMS, then you need to move from VMS to *nix. > > If you have sufficient customers that want your stuff on *nix > and will not accept it on VMS, then you need to add *nix as > supported platform. > > If not then do nothing (porting is about as much fun as > visiting the dentist). > > But you should not be surprised if one the two first is the case. > > Arne Arne, You forgot one scenario under the current scenario. Instead of "do nothing"= , you could also add - upgrade current environment to use latest gui mgmt tools which will simpl= ify the Operational support environment such that any Operator who can handle a= mouse can manage an OpenVMS system. Other consideration as well- - is your management under extreme pressures to reduce IT costs and have in place a 2-3 year plan to consolidate servers, OS instances (where biggest staff costs are hidden) and Data Centers? If yes, one bus app per OS instance platforms may not be the right target environment. There are cultural and technical challenges to be considered which will make it extremely difficult to consolidate at some future point. As Wayne Gretzsky used to say "skate to where the puck will be, not where i= t is right now." :-) Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-254-8911 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:20:06 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: SFTP distorts certain types of files when moving them to Windows Message-ID: <483CA535.AFC619D9@spam.comcast.net> Verne wrote: > > On May 22, 9:54 pm, David J Dachtera > wrote: > > ami.kurt...@gmail.com wrote: > > > > > On May 21, 4:53 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob > > > Koehler) wrote: > > > > In article <831908ac-b5e8-49a8-89c5-ecdc70b46...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, ami.kurt...@gmail.com writes: > > > > > > > We tried it also with and without the "binary" command. > > > > > > I've not had any problem using Filezilla. You _must_ transfer > > > > the file as _binary_ at every step. What are you using to get > > > > these Windows executables onto the VMS system to begin with? > > > > > To all the responders: > > > > > 1. These Windows executables arrived to the VMS system using > > > pathworks. > > > They are just fine, and untill now they were moved to the set of > > > Windows servers using a product called > > > FastCopy. Since the company behind FastCopy stopped supporting it > > > for the newest versions of > > > OpenVMS, we're trying to prepare an alternative solution. Please > > > note, as I wrote before, that using ftp > > > was successful (that is: the executables remained legitimate > > > windows executables). > > > 2. We used binary, as I noted. Didn't help. > > > 3. There are files which contain binary data and was sent OK with > > > sftp. On the other hand, all executable > > > were corrupted when using sftp (and were sent OK when using > > > ftp...). That's as far as I was able to > > > observe about it. > > > 4. The TCP/IP stack we are running on VMS is TCP/IP Servcies for > > > openVMS (replying to > > > David J Dachtera's question). > > > > ...and, as I mentioned off-line, if you have a support contract, be sure > > to open a ticket with support. The key people you need are likely at the > > VMS BootCamp this week, however. > > > > D.J.D.- Hide quoted text - > > > > - Show quoted text - > > what about ZIPing the executables on the Alpha, then SFTP that file > over ?? > > Verne First guess time is that he needs something more "transparent" (no user action/awareness required). D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 21:17:09 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483cb28e$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <483a17fc$0$90264$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: >> I would expect the Java one's to run on VMS. Are you saying that >> they don't ? > > He was speaking specific to VAXen. There's no Java engine for VAXen. I know it was VMS VAX media - I did not see JF's remark being specifically about VMS VAX - but it is correct that VAX => no Java. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 18:19:34 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: I have a DS10L that boots off a SAN and I decided to replace it with an ES45. When I run wwidmgr 18 ids are listed with the wwidmgr -show wwid command I tried running quickset on each of those and ran out of ev's after 8. What do I need to set up so that I can boot off the HSG80?. I have two HBAs, each connected to a separate switch, each of which is connected to both controllers. Anybody recall the incantations? TIA Tom -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 20:42:20 -0500 From: "Forster, Michael" Subject: RE: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: <84e701c8c064$1385f8ef$36146a8d@mcwcorp.net> Can you see the boot device as to set it's udid paths? -----Original Message----- From: "Tom Linden" To: "Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com" Sent: 05/27/08 8:20 PM Subject: wwidmgr or how to replace server I have a DS10L that boots off a SAN and I decided to replace it with an ES45. When I run wwidmgr 18 ids are listed with the wwidmgr -show wwid command I tried running quickset on each of those and ran out of ev's after 8. What do I need to set up so that I can boot off the HSG80?. I have two HBAs, each connected to a separate switch, each of which is connected to both controllers. Anybody recall the incantations? TIA Tom -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 20:55:22 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: <483CBB8A.86D396AE@spam.comcast.net> Tom Linden wrote: > > I have a DS10L that boots off a SAN and I decided to replace it with > an ES45. When I run wwidmgr 18 ids are listed with the > wwidmgr -show wwid command I tried running quickset on each of those > and ran out of ev's after 8. What do I need to set up so that I can boot > off the HSG80?. I have two HBAs, each connected to a separate switch, > each of which is connected to both controllers. > > Anybody recall the incantations? You need only quickset the boot candidates. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 18:56:02 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: On Tue, 27 May 2008 18:42:20 -0700, Forster, Michael wrote: > Can you see the boot device as to set it's udid paths? No, but I suppose I could do a quickset on the specific boot devices, but shouldn't the SRM SHOW DEV command show all the available devices? > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Tom Linden" > To: "Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com" > Sent: 05/27/08 8:20 PM > Subject: wwidmgr or how to replace server > > I have a DS10L that boots off a SAN and I decided to replace it with > an ES45. When I run wwidmgr 18 ids are listed with the > wwidmgr -show wwid command I tried running quickset on each of those > and ran out of ev's after 8. What do I need to set up so that I can boot > off the HSG80?. I have two HBAs, each connected to a separate switch, > each of which is connected to both controllers. > > Anybody recall the incantations? > > TIA > Tom > -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 19:10:28 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: On Tue, 27 May 2008 18:55:22 -0700, David J Dachtera wrote: > Tom Linden wrote: >> >> I have a DS10L that boots off a SAN and I decided to replace it with >> an ES45. When I run wwidmgr 18 ids are listed with the >> wwidmgr -show wwid command I tried running quickset on each of those >> and ran out of ev's after 8. What do I need to set up so that I can >> boot >> off the HSG80?. I have two HBAs, each connected to a separate switch, >> each of which is connected to both controllers. >> >> Anybody recall the incantations? > > You need only quickset the boot candidates. > > D.J.D. OK, I di that, and when I do a SHO DEV from the console I see (11 and 12 are shadow set members) P00>>>sho dev dga11.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F dga11.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F dga12.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F dga12.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F dgb11.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F dgb11.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F dgb12.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F dgb12.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F so what do I put in bootdef_dev? all of the above? -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 03:22:21 GMT From: Malcolm Dunnett Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: Tom Linden wrote: > OK, I di that, and when I do a SHO DEV from the console I see > (11 and 12 are shadow set members) > > P00>>>sho dev > dga11.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F > dga11.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F > dga12.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F > dga12.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F > dgb11.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F > dgb11.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F > dgb12.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F > dgb12.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F > > so what do I put in bootdef_dev? all of the above? > >>> SET BOOTDEF_DEV dg*11,dg*12 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 21:25:16 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: On Tue, 27 May 2008 20:22:21 -0700, Malcolm Dunnett wrote: > Tom Linden wrote: > >> OK, I di that, and when I do a SHO DEV from the console I see >> (11 and 12 are shadow set members) >> P00>>>sho dev >> dga11.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >> dga11.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >> dga12.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >> dga12.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >> dgb11.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >> dgb11.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >> dgb12.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >> dgb12.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >> so what do I put in bootdef_dev? all of the above? >> > >>> SET BOOTDEF_DEV dg*11,dg*12 > Well after a few tires I got it, I think:-) P00>>>set bootdef_dev dg*11,dg*12 device dg*11 is invalid device dg*12 is invalid P00>>>set bootdef_dev dga11 dga12 dga12 dgb12 device dga11 is ambiguous device dga12 is ambiguous device dga12 is ambiguous device dgb12 is ambiguous P00>>>set bootdef_dev dga11* dga12* dga12* dgb12* P00>>>sho bootdef_dev bootdef_dev dga11.1001.0.1.2 dga11.1002.0.1.2 dga12.1001.0.1.2 dga12.1002.0.1.2 dga12.1001.0.1.2 dga12.1002.0.1.2 dgb12.1003.0.2.2 dgb12.1004.0.2.2 -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 21:28:05 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: wwidmgr or how to replace server Message-ID: On Tue, 27 May 2008 21:25:16 -0700, Tom Linden wrote: > On Tue, 27 May 2008 20:22:21 -0700, Malcolm Dunnett > wrote: > >> Tom Linden wrote: >> >>> OK, I di that, and when I do a SHO DEV from the console I see >>> (11 and 12 are shadow set members) >>> P00>>>sho dev >>> dga11.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >>> dga11.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >>> dga12.1001.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >>> dga12.1002.0.1.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >>> dgb11.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >>> dgb11.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA11 HSG80 V88F >>> dgb12.1003.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >>> dgb12.1004.0.2.2 $1$DGA12 HSG80 V88F >>> so what do I put in bootdef_dev? all of the above? >>> >> >>> SET BOOTDEF_DEV dg*11,dg*12 >> > > Well after a few tires I got it, I think:-) > > P00>>>set bootdef_dev dg*11,dg*12 > device dg*11 is invalid > device dg*12 is invalid > > P00>>>set bootdef_dev dga11 dga12 dga12 dgb12 > device dga11 is ambiguous > device dga12 is ambiguous > device dga12 is ambiguous > device dgb12 is ambiguous > P00>>>set bootdef_dev dga11* dga12* dga12* dgb12* > P00>>>sho bootdef_dev > bootdef_dev dga11.1001.0.1.2 dga11.1002.0.1.2 > dga12.1001.0.1.2 dga12.1002.0.1.2 dga12.1001.0.1.2 dga12.1002.0.1.2 > dgb12.1003.0.2.2 dgb12.1004.0.2.2 > Well as you can see, I made a typo, this is a piss-poor interface, grrr. -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.296 ************************