From: MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX" 2-DEC-1992 05:42:42.06 To: info-vax@kl.sri.com CC: Subj: Re: OPCOM messages took over DECwindows console I reported that my DECwindows display froze after it was pre-empted by a console message from OPCOM, and asked for help. Here is what I learned. What appeared on my screen is the "operator window." Ctrl-F2 is a toggle which opens and closes it. This only works when logged in. Choosing "Keyboard..." from the Session Manager's Customize menu permits you to change the key combination. You may use Shift instead of Ctrl, and F1 instead of F2. When I tried it, the display returned to normal. There was a queue maintained of the various keyboard and mouse operations I had tried before, and the display was quite animated for a few seconds catching up, with windows moving and commands producing output. It was amusing, but vaguely disturbing because I had been in the middle of running VMSINSTAL . . . Fortunately that process was unaffected. Ctrl-F2 is mentioned briefly in the /VMS DECwindows Users Guide,/ Chapter 7, "Using the Session Manager," with the other parts of the Customize Keyboard dialog box. Three sentences explain only how to "change how you open the operator window" with no elaboration on what this might mean. :) Chapter 3, "Using DECwindows," explains the Compose key and Ctrl-F3 ("keyboard mode") but do not explain Ctrl-F2. Looking up "operator window" in the index, I found only a reference to what I had already discovered. Respondents told me they had learned it from the net, found it by trial and error, or had forgotten the source . . . All systems display OPCOM messages on the console except workstations in a VAXcluster. To override the default enabled message classes, edit SYS$MANAGER:SYLOGICALS.COM and reboot. The details are given as comments in the file. When I tried this, it worked as advertised. The SYSGEN parameter WS_OPA0 is supposed to control console output to the display. According to a respondent, it controls whether the the top few lines or the whole screen are used. According to SYSGEN's help file, it causes console output to be ignored (1) instead of displayed (0). In any case, it had no apparent effect on my VS3100. The Session Manager's Message Window can be made an OPCOM terminal (presumably only if the user has OPER privilege). I do not have anyone's notes on the process and haven't experimented. Thanks to Brian Reed, Rick Murphy, Szymon Sokol, John Briggs, Carl Lydick, Eric Sosman, Robert Gezelter, Matt Madison, John McMahon, and Mike at UCNV. Regards, Ed -- Ed McGuire 1603 LBJ Freeway, Suite 780 Systems Administrator/ Dallas, Texas 75234 Member of Technical Staff 214/620-2100, FAX 214/484-8110 Intellection, Inc.