Article 7440 of comp.org.decus: Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!eisner!mcmahon_b From: mcmahon_b@eisner.decus.org (Brian McMahon, Info-VAX Refugee) Newsgroups: comp.org.decus,vmsnet.decus.journal Subject: DECUServe Journal September 1995 Message-ID: <1995Sep26.220803.11367@eisner> Date: 26 Sep 95 22:08:03 -0400 Organization: DECUServe Approved: mcmahon_b@eisner.decus.org Lines: 3654 Xref: nntpd.lkg.dec.com comp.org.decus:7440 vmsnet.decus.journal:11 The DECUServe Journal --------------------- September, 1995 From the Editors' Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 What's Inside, Words to and from the Weary Large and Small Web Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 How Big is Too Big for On-line Browsing? Stripe/Shadow and Cacheing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Do Cacheing Products Help with RAID 0+1? TeamLinks SDK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Software Development Kit for TeamLinks Aliases for ALL-IN-1 Account Names . . . . . . . . 15 On Shortening Existing Usernames, and DDS PMDF and Message Router . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Experiences with PMDF V5.0 and ALL-IN-1 Reverse Linking of Shareable Images . . . . . . . 20 Implementing (or Avoiding) Circular Linking DCPS Memory Leak Fixed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 No More Memory Leak in DECprint Supervisor V1.2 800 bpi Tape Drive Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Remember Those? What If You Need One Now? Video for Alpha 2000-300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 What Video Can the 2000-300 Handle? RAID Options on OpenVMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Deciding Which RAID Is Best for You UAS/UAF Merge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Merging PATHWORKS UAS and OpenVMS UAF under NT DHU-11 Installation Problem . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Trouble Adding a Board to a PDP-11/84 UNIX and DOS on the Same Machine . . . . . . . . . 37 Or, "How to Have Your Linux and DOS, Too" POLYCENTER Console Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 PCM Experiences, Testimonials, and Tips Slow System Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 OpenVMS Startup Slowed by INSTALL OpenVMS System with Expired Licenses . . . . . . . 47 Or, How to Crack OpenVMS from the Console Windows NT or Windows 95 Clients? . . . . . . . . 49 What to Develop for? The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 2 From the Editors' Keyboard From the Editors' Keyboard ---- --- -------- -------- You might think of this issue as a buzzword grab-bag of sorts. A quick scan of the table of contents will reveal several articles relating to one or more "hot topics" in the computing industry. We have Web stuff, RAID, TeamLinks, Windows NT, e-mail integration, and finish up with a long discussion of whether one should target development for Windows 95 clients or not. But what, you might say, if you don't care for the cutting (bleeding) edge? Suppose glossy brochures and jargon-laden sales pitches give you a rash? Fear not -- the DECUServe subscribers (and your long-laboring editors) haven't forgotten the old reliables. Here, too, you can read about a problem with a hardware addition to a PDP-11, and a subscriber's quest for a working 800 bpi tape drive. In short, this issue's contents are about as varied as Iowa weather. We hope you enjoy the variety more than the farmers have been recently! * * * * * The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 3 Large and Small Web Graphics Large and Small Web Graphics ----- --- ----- --- -------- Abstract: When are graphic images in a Web page too big? When are they too small? As you might imagine, there is no simple answer. The following notes contain arguments in favor of "big" as well as "small," and your mileage is almost certain to vary. Participants: Gus Altobello, Charlie Byrne, Bob Hassinger, J.M. Ivler, Bart Lederman, Benjamin Pena. Conference: WWW Note 51.0, 31-Jul-1995 Lederman: IMG: What size pictures do you want to browse? -------------------------------------------------------- When you're browsing around for WWW stuff, how big can / should an image be? I realize this depends a lot on what's being shown, but I'm looking for general guidelines for limits. For example, if you've run across images that were too small to really tell you anything, or images which are too big and take too long to view. (This is for images in general WWW pages, not where there is a pointer that says "you can get a picture of this but it's xxx in size.) Also, this is for pictures of 'real' stuff, not drawings or symbols which can be made relatively small and still be recognizable. Note 51.1, 31-Jul-1995 Byrne: depends... ----------------- At midnight, 100k is fine. At noon, 1 byte is too big. (Sorry, I know that is no help, but that's how I feel). Don't forget resolution 75 .vs. 150 . vs. 300 etc increases size geometrically not linearly. Also consider multi-color .vs. grey scale. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 4 Large and Small Web Graphics Note 51.2, 1-Aug-1995 Lederman: I don't think colors or resolution counts here. --------------------------------------------------------- All of the images we are considering, and all the one's I've seen, are GIF files. This means a maximum of 256 colors, and it doesn't matter if they're 'real' colors, or shades of grey. And I believe that GIFs only specify the number of pixels vertically and horizontally: the number of pixels per inch depends on the device on which it is viewed. Note 51.3, 1-Aug-1995 Ivler: 1 meg of images loading over a 9600b line... --------------------------------------------------- I am from the thumbnail school... I think that a corporate logo is fine, as long as it doesn't take up 80% of the page and loads in less than a day. Remember, it's your corporate image that they get to see :-) Hmmm, consider it this way... almost 70% of the people browsing the web use readers that have connectivity at 9600-14.4. How long are you willing to sit there and wait as an image loads at that speed... Thumbnail the image and then provide a link from the thumbnail to a larger gif. This allows the viewer a chance to get a feel for the image and see it (partially) before deciding to download the entire image (it's also nice to include image size in there so they can determine if they want to load a 276K image at 9600). Of course, these are all personal opinions. I know of people that think imagemaps are wonderful (yeah, they are cute and all, but unless they can be kept "small and fast" (jpg) loading, they are a bust, not a wonderous thing...). So, before you create a page chockful of images and netscape enhancements (like complex backgrounds) consider the speed of access and the viewer, you know, they person that your trying to reach. One last note... I have received more compliments on the "low image" Magic Castle pages than requests for them to be "imaged". In fact, only Castle members who are on committees (like membership and marketing" seem to want to image enhance the pages... most of the readers like the fact that they contain "information" first... Note 51.4, 1-Aug-1995 Altobello: ...can't be bothered... ---------------------------------- Is there a reason folks go with .gif files rather than the smaller compressed .jpg files? The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 5 Large and Small Web Graphics I see this argument all the time in various binaries groups (and in some groups I suppose some folks would be more desperate to be able to download more... :-) but the ".gifs are better than .jpgs" line of argument makes no sense to me, based on my own comparisons. Is it that .jpg viewers are rarer than .gif viewers? FWIW, while I don't much care if little thumbnails are all over the page, what really annoys me (and often causes me to abort and go to another site) is some fool with several huge graphics on their top-level page that take forever (>1min) to load at 14.4k. I will go and look at such things (like the Nagasaki Remembered site, with over 20 photos), but only if I have a choice in the matter. From my point of view, there's too much out there to tolerate poor design. If the first page is set up poorly (weird fonts, strange "features" required of the browser, huge (and often stupid) graphics) there's a good chance the rest is more of the same, so why bother? Note 51.5, 1-Aug-1995 Altobello: I don't believe in "too small"; others disbelieve "too big". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BTW, in answer to another question in the .0 post, I've been at sites that had "real" images, paintings, as thumbnails. While I couldn't run an Art Appreciation course on these, they were certainly clear enough for me to identify the paintings I wanted to see more of, and clicking on them brought up the "big one". I can't say I've ever seen an image which was "too small", and have seen FAR too many that were either "too big" or "not needed". "Not needed" is the most annoying category. Go read those books that come with the HP color inkjet printers, the ones that say things like "use color sparingly", and apply it to pictures. Remember what happened when folks first started using TeX and produced memos and reports that looked like ransom notes, from the excessive use of font styles. KISS, y'know? Can't go much wrong there. Note 51.6, 2-Aug-1995 Pena: an idea.. --------------- Although.. sometimes I get annoyed when my machine is hanging off a T-1 line, and there's a zillion of itty bitty graphics :) when I'm perfectly capable of appreciating big/detailed images. I know this might be more work, but might satisfy more people overall: offer them two URL's: both with same text but different in The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 6 Large and Small Web Graphics size/detail/resolution of images. Communication is essentially trying to reach as many people as possible.. That's just my perspective. Take it as you will. :) Note 51.7, 3-Aug-1995 Hassinger: 64 by 128 - i.e. small for on-screen ----------------------------------------------- There is no one answer of course - but I know you know that. GIF vs JPEG - JPEG is nice because it gives high compression meaning lower transmission times. However it does introduce artifacts and degradation when you deal with high compression levels and higher quality presentation means on the receiving end (e.g. that let you see the degradation). Also the receiving end has a higher compute load to decompress the image - on slower Macs I see the gain in communication time lost in the time the Mac spends. You manage GIF differently - reduce the number of colors to 40 or 50 for example - it helps the browsers, particularly if you have more than one image on the browser screen that uses different color palettes, and it makes the files smaller in general. You get the transparency option and the interleaved, progressive display option in the bargain too. I think the real bottom line right now is that more browsers handle GIFs more easily and more gracefully. For on-screen, moderate size images, go with GIF. For high quality, larger image download for other uses than on-screen, JPEG may be best. And test your pages against the typical target browsers you expect to serve to, and try to do it over communications paths typical of what will be used. Then make it work so you are satisfied. (e.g. empirical evaluation of how long it takes...) This heuristic (holistic?) approach seems to be the only really viable way to answer these questions at this point in such a rapidly changing field with so much anarchy out there. Stripe/Shadow and Cacheing ------------- --- -------- Abstract: The question in the next series of notes concerns whether or not host-based cacheing products are beneficial in an environment featuring large database files and stripe/shadow sets (a.k.a. RAID 01). The poster asked for "knowledgeable sources," and promptly found them. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 7 Stripe/Shadow and Cacheing Participants: Larry Clegg, Jerry Evans, Keith Parris. Conference: 3RD_PARTY_VMS_SOFTWARE Note 412.0, 18-Aug-1995 Evans: Caching Question ----------------------- Dumb question time. I need some discussion from knowledgeable sources concerning disk-caching products in an environment (ALPHA 2100, VMS 6.1) where our primary application resides on a RAID-0+1 shadowed stripeset equivalent. The application is from EMS (Effective Management Systems, Milwaukee) and is an integrated business system, with accounting, inventory, shop floor, order processing, planning & etc Modules. I have heard that caching products have little or no impact when you have the stripe/shadow type setup for huuuge database-type files. Comments, Please. Thanks. Note 412.1, 18-Aug-1995 Clegg: Shadow Ok, Stripe Maybe ------------------------------ > Dumb question time. No such thing! > I have heard that caching products have little or no impact when you have > the stripe/shadow type setup for huuuge database-type files. I'm using PerfectCache from Raxco on my VAXen with shadowed disks. The shadowing doesn't really play into caching performance since caching, PerfectCache at least, is only caching read i/o's not the writes. I can see where using striped sets would affect caching performance since one read would have to be potentially satisfied by multi-spindle disk accesses. Unless the caching software was caching across all the volumes and had all the required data already in memory there wouldn't be a performance gain. Perhaps you should contact some of the cacheing software vendors and pose these questions. Note 412.2, 18-Aug-1995 Parris: Caching and RAID ------------------------ It's not clear from .0 whether you're doing the RAID and/or the caching in the host or a controller. Read caching (as host-based products provide) benefits performance in two ways: The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 8 Stripe/Shadow and Cacheing 1) when there is high locality of reference (re-reading the same stuff a lot of the time) 2) when the product supports pre-fetching, and access is sequential Read caching in controllers and in disks themselves has similar benefits. If a controller provides safe (non-volatile) write-back cache (like the option for the HSJ/HSD/HSZ series or the just-announced battery-backup option for the KZPSC), it can also help significantly with performance on writes. The performance effect of the RAID 0+1 array is somewhat orthogonal to the benefits provided by caching. 1) the availability of multiple members from which to satisfy a read can benefit read performance (but not all shadowing/mirroring/RAID-1 products do this; the KZESC/KZPSC/SWXCR have a "master" member from which all reads are done, while host-based volume shadowing selects members based on local-vs-remote location and queue depth). 2) having to update both members of a shadow set on a write cuts performance a little, unless the controller can hide this latency using write-back cache. Note that read caching tends to reduce the read/write ratio, so you get less of the benefit of (1) and more of the penalty of (2) when it is present up at the host level. 3) the disk striping (RAID-0) placement of data tends to spread the I/O load evenly across all the available spindles, resulting in lower average response times. This works even for totally random requests, where caching would be of little benefit. Database products tend to make larger I/Os than typical OpenVMS applications, so a larger chunk size may be appropriate for the RAID array. Locality of reference is something that seems to be much harder to guess at or measure than the I/O size or the read/write ratio, so it's a bit harder to guess whether read caching will help. Write caching should definitely help the write performance, since that works regardless of locality of reference. Complicating all this is the fact that many database packages do their own caching internally. TeamLinks SDK --------- --- Abstract: Where to get the TeamLinks Software Development Kit on the net, followed by a review of the SDK, provided by DECUServe's very own Don Vickers. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 9 TeamLinks SDK Participant: Don Vickers. Conference: ALL-IN-1 Note 1143.0, 15-Jul-1995 Vickers: TeamLinks SDK on the Internet -------------------------------------- The URL for the TeamLinks SDK is: ftp://ftp.service.digital.com/teamlink/tlftp/win/tl25/tlsdk/tlsdk.exe This is a rather long path and is subject to change so you may wish to start browsing at: ftp://ftp.service.digital.com/teamlink There is another file in the directory which contains just the documentation for the SDK. You do not need this unless you want to see what is in the SDK. It is included in the tlsdk.exe. The teamlink directory is the root for all the public TeamLinks files. For example, the latest ECO (5) for TeamLinks V2.1 is there. Note 1143.1, 7-Aug-1995 Vickers: TeamLinks V2.5 Software Development Kit - A review ----------------------------------------------------------- The TeamLinks SDK (Software Development Kit) is an indispensable tool for anyone implementing TeamLinks. Customizing and extending TeamLinks to best conform to each organization's needs is important. The SDK is a collection of software and documentation which includes: * Sample working programs written in C and Visual Basic * Definition files for C and Visual Basic * Help Files * Documentation covering the various aspects of the TeamLinks APIs * Software licenses The most complete document for programming TeamLinks is in "Working with TeamLinks, 2nd Edition", by Tony Redmond (Digital Press, part number EY-T080E-DP and ISBN: 1-55558-140-4). Tony Redmond is the 'editor' of the SDK as well as author of the book. The book refers to many parts of the SDK as examples. The book is almost as valuable as the SDK. My advice is to buy the book from someplace else if you wish to save a bit of money. Purchasing the book from Digital will cost a little more and might help us Digital stockholders. Constructive Criticisms The SDK is a most powerful tool in implementing TeamLinks. As with anything done by a human, it can be improved. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 10 TeamLinks SDK The text in the SDK claims a 'regular update' schedule. The definition of 'regular' may differ from country to country and person to person. Predicting the times may require a crystal ball. The most recent SDK, dated June 1995, still refers to V2.1 as the most recent version of TeamLinks in some key documents. Having a really regular update schedule would be a nice improvement. Clearly, there are finite resources in Digital for this sort of thing but making the SDK more predictable would seem to have a good return on their investment. The primary SDK document contains a list of contents but there is no indication of changes. Having a history or last update for each section of the SDK would be a most welcome addition. The SDK is not supported by Digital since the contents do not go through the engineering processes. The contents of the SDK have differing levels of completeness and quality. Most of the applications are solid but many also have small 'features' in various customer environments. The only current 'support' channels are through the DECPCI conference on CompuServe or via your local Digital office, if any. Having a more universally available support channel would be a good improvement. The SDK has recently been placed on the Internet which is a nice step. Adding a Web site and mail address would be a good step. Obtaining the SDK The SDK is free to anyone. The TeamLinks SDK is available on CompuServe, in the DECPCI conference, Library #6 (TeamLinks/Int Apps), TLSDK.EXE. It is also available via FTP at the following URL (universal resource locator): ftp://ftp.service.digital.com/teamlink/tlftp/win/tl25/tlsdk/tlsdk.exe This URL may change in the future to reduce the number of sub directories. Should this occur, you should be able to start your quest for the file at the teamlink directory. Installing the SDK The TeamLinks SDK is available as a self-extracting DOS executable (TLSDK.EXE). Place the TLSDK.EXE into a directory you will use as the base for the SDK. TLSDK is a popular choice for the directory name. At the DOS prompt invoke TLSDK.EXE using the /D qualifier to have the sub-directories created. I have forgotten this D detail a few times, so far. The top level directory will contain only the directories and the TLSDK.EXE file unless there were other files in the base directory before the explosion. If you are going to use the TeamLinks Visual Basic custom controls, you must copy the TLDEVO.LIC from the \TEAMLINK directory into the \WINDOWS directory. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 11 TeamLinks SDK You should submit a signed copy of the PAPER.LIC license agreement to your local Digital office if you are going to implement projects using these controls so that Digital is aware of this. Documentation The documentation should be your first stop when starting to use the SDK. Most of the documents are in Microsoft Word format but there are a few text files and one in PostScript just for fun. If you are foolish enough to not being on the "Let's help build the Gates mansion plan" and do not have Word, you can use the TeamLinks converters to change the format. The documentation describes the various APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) used by the various components of TeamLinks. The TLSDK.DOC document is the primary documentation for the SDK. It describes much of the content of the SDK and replaces much of the information in the CUSTOM.WRI document. Below are the documents currently in the SDK: TLSDK.DOC Overview of the SDK including language enhancements AIDA.TXT ALL-IN-1 Data Set Server functions (AIDA.DLL) FCS.TXT ALL-IN-1 File Cabinet Server functions. CONN25.DOC TeamLinks Connection Manager (CONNECT.DLL) FILECA25.DOC TeamLinks File Cabinet integration module (FILECAB.DLL) CFCAPI21.DOC API for the TeamLinks Common File Cabinet (CFC.DLL) ADDRES20.DOC Mail user address validation specification. (CFC API Supplement) TLNOTIFY.DOC Documentation for TLNOTIFY.VBX. PROFIL20.DOC Mail user profile access specification. (CFC API Supplement) RESERV20.DOC File Cabinet reservation specification. (CFC API Supplement) MAILDDE.DOC TeamLinks Messaging DDE Server DDS.PS Distributed Directory Services (DDS) API. (DDSX400.DLL) Supporting software There are a number of modules on the SDK that provide support for building applications that extend or enhance TeamLinks. These modules allow for creating applications that look and feel like TeamLinks and use the various services provided by TeamLinks. Applications There is range of applications provided on the SDK from complete and polished applications to rough examples. Each provides the source code so that you can see how the work is performed. This allows you to create your own applications using the samples as a base. There are over 30 complete and mostly operational applications in the SDK. This review is already longer than good tastes and writing allow so we will not discuss them all. I will mention a handful of the most powerful and useful applications right out of the box. The most common use of TeamLinks is for electronic mail and by far the most The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 12 TeamLinks SDK common request from most sites is to improve the way mail notification is performed. The TeamLinks engineers have done a nice job of improving the new mail notification over the past few releases. However, many folks still prefer to have a better view of the mail waiting their attention. Even folks who have been using ALL-IN-1 like to have a count of new messages that is automatic. There are two nice applications which provide added value in this area. MAILCNT in the \AIDA sub-directory provides an appearance that emulates the ALL-IN-1 forms that display the count of new mail and the person's name. MAILCNT will update the TeamLinks Information Manager window and icon caption text to show the count of new mail messages as well as the person's full name. If TeamLinks is not running, MAILCNT creates the world's smallest window that contains just the new mail count. TLNWMAIL in the \MAIL sub-directory provides a separate window which allows the person to display the new mail messages. The application allows for changing the windows contents and to read mail messages directly from the window. The IOSPrint application in the \IOSP sub-directory implements a means to allow TeamLinks clients to print to the queued printers on the ALL-IN-1 server. This can be most useful for sites migrating from ALL-IN-1 as it provides a means to allow clients to use the shared printers in the same manner as before the migration. It seems that virtually any site currently running ALL-IN-1 and implementing TeamLinks is concerned about being able to utilize the applications they have in ALL-IN-1 in the TeamLinks environments. It is rather easy to provide a TeamLinks version of some ALL-IN-1 applications which are implemented via FMS forms and scripts. The PHPENT application in the \AIDA sub-directory is a very nice example of how easy it is map an ALL-IN-1 Entry form to a Visual Basic panel. The name of the application is rather misleading. It is named after the ALL-IN-1 form, PHPENT, that defines the personal telephone directory. I assume this was the original form of interest when the application was first developed. The current version of the PHPENT allows you to select any available ALL-IN-1 Entry form along with the fields to be included. This can be used as the basis for developing 'real' applications that can perform direct mapping of data defined by Entry forms. The SUBSCRIP application also in the \AIDA sub-directory also suffers from a misleading name. At least my simple mind keeps thinking that SUBSCRIP refers to something relating to the Subscribers dataset or something related. In fact, SUBSCRIP is a concatenation of Submit Script. SUBSCRIP allows for a generalized means for submitting scripts to the ALL-IN-1 script symbiont from the PC. It serves as an example of how one can trigger significant events on the ALL-IN-1 server from PC clients. The TLPM application in the \PMEMOS also suffers from a naming 'feature'. The directory name is the same name as an old moderately popular ALL-IN-1 ASSETS package that provided the ability to send telephone messages to people via electronic mail. This application demonstrates a more complete and polished way to implement an ALL-IN-1 application in TeamLinks. It also provides a nice application which is useful and popular. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 13 TeamLinks SDK The CVRMEMO tool in the \CVRMEMO sub-directory allows you to customize mail cover memos. This allows sites to establish their own unique mail message formats just as is most popular in ALL-IN-1. The final application of special note is called TL3BTN in the \TLEASY sub-directory. The TL3BTN refers to the 3 active buttons this application uses to control this application that bills itself as "TeamLinks Simple Mail". Not only does it allow people to perform the most common mail functions in a very direct and simple manner but it provides a view how one can perform a range of key operations. Making a submission to the SDK The SDK Submissions for inclusion in the SDK are always welcome. New submissions should demonstrate how to use any of the TeamLinks APIs in a way that hasn't been done before. Send the source code for your submissions on a floppy diskette to: (External to Digital) Tony Redmond Digital Equipment Corporation Park House North Circular Road Dublin 7, Ireland Internet Tony.Redmond@dbo.mts.dec.com Rumour is that a large European customer is submitting some nice applications they have developed to help their clients migrate from ALL-IN-1 IOS to TeamLinks. If you have a good example, sending it in can help others. SDK Sub-directories Below are the SDK sub-directories in alphabetic order as stolen from the primary SDK documentation that escaped in June 1995: AIDA Sample programs showing how to request and fetch data held on an ALL-IN-1 server. APPBMP DLL source code to show how application-specific icons can be created and stored. CONNECT Sample program to show how to use the TeamLinks connection cache. DIRECT Sample program to show how to use TeamLinks directory services. DOC Documentation for APIs and other information relating to TeamLinks. EXTDLL DLL source code for many different types of functions that extend TeamLinks functionality. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 14 TeamLinks SDK FCCABSPY DLL source code for a program used to monitor event processing between TeamLinks and applications using FILECAB.DLL. FILECAB Many sample programs illustrating how to use FILECAB.DLL and CFC.DLL. IAD Sample application showing how to list available drawers on an ALL-IN-1 system. IOSP Sample application showing how to use the script symbiont and AIDA server to print documents using ALL-IN-1 resources. MAIL Sample programs showing how to use the TeamLinks DDE functionality. MAPI DLL to emulate Simple MAPI calls. MSAPPS Integrations for Microsoft applications offering new or extended functionality over the standard TeamLinks components. Applications include Access V2.0, Word V6.0, Excel V5.0, and Project V3.0. PCBROAD Utility programs that can be used to test broadcast transmissions to PCs. PCNOTIFY Sample application to manage the contents of the OA$PC_NOTIFY data set on an ALL-IN-1 server. PMEMOS Project showing how to use TeamLinks APIs to create a phone memos application. REFORMAT Source code for DLL functions that reformat text in the cover note text box. SHARED Shared global modules for use with Visual Basic programs. TEAMLINK Software licenses and other information about the product. TEAMROUT Sample code that can be used to build TeamRoute applications. TLEASY Source code for "TeamLinks Easy", a 4-button implementation of TeamLinks! TLINET Source code for utilities that make TeamLinks a little more "Internet aware". TLSAMPLE Source for a C program that exercises many of the TeamLinks file cabinet functions. VIEWDL Source code for a DLL function to expand and display the contents of a distribution list from the Create Message window WPSCOPY Source code for the utility program used to import files from WPS-PLUS for DOS file cabinets into TeamLinks. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 15 TeamLinks SDK Aliases for ALL-IN-1 Account Names ------- --- -------- ------- ----- Abstract: A discussion of changing ALL-IN-1 account names, specifically the problem of handling e-mail for the old address. One participant suggests DDS, which leads to a follow-up on an interesting method of maintaining the DDS database. Participants: Bruce Bowler, John Briggs, Gary Burke, Laurie Maytrott. Conference: ALL-IN-1 Note 1145.0, 9-Aug-1995 Maytrott: Where can I set an alias for an All-in-1 account name? ---------------------------------------------------------------- We're going through and standardizing (read "shortening") our longer usernames at my site. Is there a way we can have All-in-1 know that mail sent to MENICHINO should now go to MENICHIN, for example, without each user having to set nicknames to do this? Is there an option the user whose name has been shortened could use to do this? My guess is that the user-takes-care-of-it option is not available due to the security risk of someone "hijacking" some else's mail. Note 1145.1, 9-Aug-1995 Bowler: A&Q ----------- You could create a profile record for MENICHINO that autoforwards to MENICHIN. There are some problems with this, for example, if MENICHIN autoforwards their mail, mail addresses to MENICHINO won't make it past MENICHIN (ALL-IN-1 only autoforwards once to prevent loops). Why are you "standardizing"? Is it because you have a system "somewhere" that has an 8 character username limit? Are you aware that ALL-IN-1 username and VMS username don't have to be the same? The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 16 Aliases for ALL-IN-1 Account Names Note 1145.2, 9-Aug-1995 Briggs: DDS lookups can handle long usernames --------------------------------------------- If you're using DDS for your directory service, then references to the person's complete surname should get mapped properly -- user keys in MENICHINO at the TO: prompt and ALL-IN-1 does a directory lookup, discovering that MENICHINO points to MENICHIN. We use eight character usernames here and use the DDS for directory lookups. I just checked and verified that the behavior is as described above. Note: We maintain the DDS directory ourselves and don't let ALL-IN-1 get its grubby little paws in there. The program that does the maintenance makes sure that everyone has two surnames -- their username and their true surname (if they are different). Note 1145.3, 10-Aug-1995 Burke: How are you maintaining DDS? ----------------------------------- John, I have an interest in knowing what other ways folks are maintaining DDS databases (other than ALL-IN-1 and DSU). It sounds like you may be doing something different? Note 1145.4, 11-Aug-1995 Briggs: DDS update via Fortran and MBMAN ---------------------------------------- We maintain a separate database (using Datatrieve and an RMS indexed file). Every night, I run a Fortran program that looks for changes in the RMS database and creates an MBMAN script to update the DDS. The program updates all the standard fields (names, initials, address, phone, location, MHSORADDRESS/VMSORADDRESS, etc). It also updates one of the user fields (for use by our mail hub). We do the stupid trick of parsing a one-piece full name to produce given name, middle initial, surname, generation and title of respect. That part works surprisingly well. And, as mentioned in my previous reply, we set both the user's last name and his e-mail ID as surnames. And we set a unique UAID to distinguish our entries from those put in by any other user agent. I catch modifications to the RMS file by saving last night's copy and doing a record-by-record compare with this night's copy before saving the new file. I do a sanity check for deletions by comparing the output of MBMAN>SHOW DDS SUBSCRIBER /SUBID=* against the RMS file. It's all pretty much brute-force. We don't have any MRIF tools. It works well -- it's been six months since I've had to go tweak anything. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 17 Aliases for ALL-IN-1 Account Names Note 1145.5, 11-Aug-1995 Burke: Good info! ----------------- Thanks, John. That will be helpful. We're becoming the central routing point for all ALL-IN-1 mail for all the other KP ALL-IN-1 using regions (about 5) and also will handle dir-synch for them, so I'm looking for simple and best solutions. The reason for all of this is a top-down decision to use Mail*Hub for a wheel-and-spoke type interregional mail system. The implementation is being pushed through under sever time constraints which are having very negative effects on the way things are setup. They wanted us to give them access to a privileged account so their software could update our DDS directly. We said, as politely as we could, "No, thank you very much. Just send us a flat file and we'll send you the same". We're supposed to test the inbound (to them) synch next week, and I'm just getting into DSU, so ... more fun. Keeps life interesting, though. PMDF and Message Router ---- --- ------- ------ Abstract: A discussion of using PMDF's Message Router replacement for VAX-to-Alpha migration of ALL-IN-1; one site's experience, and lessons learned. Participants: Michael Connelly, Mike Lampson, Lynda Peach. Conference: ALL-IN-1 Note 1152.0, 24-Aug-1995 Peach: PMDF V5.0, no MsgRtr, PMDF-LAN ------------------------------------- Has anyone upgrade to PMDF 5.0? And if so, did you do so by selecting the configuration which no longer requires Message Router? Also PMDF-LAN? Is anyone running that? WE have found a bug in our current version of PMDF Version 4.3-10 and even upgrading the PMDFSHR.EXE patch did not resolve it. The only solution is to upgrade. And if we do that we want to stop using the VAX (we run ALL-IN-1 on alphas) and would like to take advantage of the PMDF-LAN. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 18 PMDF and Message Router I'm open to any suggestions, guidance, comments. Oh, the bug -- no mail moving out of the PMDF mailbox and the PMDF mr_local process taking as much as 100% of the CPU resulting in a CPU-bound system. Note 1152.1, 27-Aug-1995 Mark Lampson: work in progress ... ---------------------------------- I was helping a client set up PMDF-MR sans MR last week. We got it working after a couple of hours. But then when they went to move the rest of ALL-IN-1 off the VAX this weekend, the Sender (but not the Fetcher) stopped working. Still no resolution on this as I just found out about it a couple of minutes ago. This particular situation had an ALL-IN-1 system communicating with the Internet. No other gateways or ALL-IN-1 systems to worry about. Note 1152.2, 28-Aug-1995 Peach: Keep me posted --------------------- Hmmmmm...... Our Alphas are running ALL-IN-1 and the only thing the VAX runs is Message Router. Do you think what you are/were dealing with would happen to us? BTW, right now mail is moving fine so maybe the patch *did* help. Monday is always our worst mail day. Note 1152.3, 28-Aug-1995 Lampson: still in progress ... ------------------------------ Maybe. Are PMDF's Batch queues currently on the VAX or Alphas? My client's problem is still not resolved, but it seems that it has something to do with moving the PMDF batch jobs from the VAX to the Alpha. As you may guess, it isn't necessarily straight-forward - at least for VAX to Alpha moves. I would guess that if PMDF had originally been installed on the Alpha and not upgraded on the VAX, things would be easier. The documentation doesn't really explain any of this. It just shows an example of configuring with the MR replacement. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 19 PMDF and Message Router Note 1152.4, 28-Aug-1995 Peach: PMDF on VAX - wanna go to Alpha -------------------------------------- PMDF queues are on the VAX but seen on the Alphas and I can do a stop/que/rest from a priv'd account on the Alphas. Have you checked on PMDF's www to see what they have to say? I have to admit I haven't -- I'm still in the initial ck-it-out phase. Note 1152.5, 29-Aug-1995 Lampson: --------- No, I haven't checked out the WWW pages. I'm not directly involved in fixing the current problems. Last report was that PMDF Support was "stumped". Note 1152.6, 31-Aug-1995 Connelly: PMDF-MR works! ------------------------ Well, we're the ones Mike Lampson has been working with and, yes, PMDF-MR is now working beautifully as a replacement for Msg Rtr. Our Alpha-based ALL-IN-1 v3.1 email is flowing smoothly to and from the Internet. Here's the scenario - we're migrating from VAX to Alpha (both clustered) and Msg Router based email from ALL-IN-1 to PMDF-MR based. Important Lesson: Don't try to be too smart. We "tried" to keep Msg Router running on the VAX where our production users were while trying to bring up PMDF-MR to replace Msg Rtr on the Alpha installation of ALL-IN-1. Where we thought we had it working, it seems that PMDF-MR was configured just smart enough to take the email and hand it off to the Msg Router on the VAX. Since the mail was moving, we gratefully assumed that we had successfully installed PMDF-MR. Dumb! Later, when we then turned off Msg Rtr, the email stopped flowing. Our problems were further confused since we were also migrating batch and print queues as well as the ALL-IN-1 directory tree from the VAX to the Alpha. Unless you really are on top of this stuff, trust the folks at Innosoft (PMDF) and keep things simple. Once we understood what was going on, a simple change to the PMDF config file was all that was needed. Innosoft was a great help in this effort (although we did have them stumped when we swore to them that we had it working for awhile but then it stopped). Good Luck. I have absolutely no hesitation recommending the PMDF-MR route. PMDF is an excellent product and the folks at Innosoft are definitely on top of their game. (and my only interest is that of a The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 20 PMDF and Message Router satisfied customer). Note 1152.7, 31-Aug-1995 Peach: Vunderbar! ----------------- That is great news. I have confidence that it would all work out. I too have had wonderful experiences working with the Innosoft support group. Thanks for your info!!! Reverse Linking of Shareable Images ------- ------- -- --------- ------ Abstract: If you need to link with two shareable images, and routines in each of the shareable images depend on the other, you have what is commonly known as "a problem." Although sometimes these situations "just happen," there may also be good reasons for wanting to do this. One approach to solving the problem is circular linking of the shareables. Other possible solutions and workarounds are described as well. Participants: Milton Campbell, Henry Carmichael, Chris Wesling, Ray Whitmer. Conference: DEC_SOFTWARE Note 700.0, 5-Jul-1995 Carmichael: Reverse linking of Shareable Images ----------------------------------------------- "Double Reverse Linking" for Shareable Images I have looked for any references to the title subject in DECUServe, but have not found any. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction. I have need of the functionality on both VAX (V5.5-2) and AXP (V6.1). We use shareable images extensively in our VMS software. As currently implemented, if an executable image is linked with shareable images A and B, the main routine can call a routine in shareable A, which can, in its turn, call a routine in shareable B. However, the routine in shareable B cannot then call another routine in shareable A. There is supposed to be a way to get around this difficulty, The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 21 Reverse Linking of Shareable Images which we have called "double reverse linking". Briefly, it involves 1. Building shareable image A, which will have the routine in shareable B as an undefined symbol. 2. Building shareable B and including shareable A, so the routine in A is known to shareable B. 3. Rebuilding shareable A and now including shareable B, so the previously undefined symbol is now resolved. It sounds reasonable, but we have not been able to make it work. Have any of the VMS gurus or novices created a working "double reverse linkage, or has anyone heard of it being done? Note 700.1, 5-Jul-1995 Whitmer: More questions. ------------------------ It _almost_ defeats any purpose of separate RTLs if they are statically linked to each other. Object oriented analysis seems to assert that if there is a one-to-one unconditional relationship between two objects/entities, then you should strongly consider combining the objects. But this is only the analysis phase, not the design phase, which says to do it however it makes sense. I can think of reasons to keep the RTLs separate -- it might make it easier to replace one or the other either because of problems creating the thing as a whole all the time. I do not remember explicitly, but it seems like I may have tried reverse static linking like you are trying before and failed -- it just feels wrong to me. But if you make all your transfer vectors correctly, I cannot think of a specific reason why it would not work. The linker likes to keep track of images that had errors as they built, and I think that the error originated by the undefined symbols would probably be forever propagated between images as they link to each other unless you patch success into one of the images after the undefined symbols are gone. I think you need to tell us exactly what errors you are getting which prevent this from working. Also, are both images unbased, i.e. completely relocatable? Also, how many symbols are we talking about that typically need to be resolved? What kind of symbols? Only routines? etc. In this type of situation I have always opted for dynamic activation, like via LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL. In cases of tight back-linking like you are doing, I usually passed an array of back link pointers in an initialization call from one DLL to the other, which then places it into a global variable. Then I caused the RTL receiving the pointer array to reference indirect (*) through the appropriate offset in the array (the direction with the least dependencies). When there were many interdependencies to manage manually, I somewhat automated the process of binding the array on one side and using it on the other. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 22 Reverse Linking of Shareable Images Note 700.2, 5-Jul-1995 Wesling: Circular ("double reverse") linking not recommended ------------------------------------------------------------ We used to have some RTLs that were circularly linked to each other, more by accident than by design. We had to redo them to eliminate the circular calls when we began porting to AXP -- as I recall, the AXP linker just refused to do it at all. Generally, if image A could call image B's routines, we either moved routines from A to B so B wouldn't have to call A any more, or made image B use LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL to call image A's routines (which eliminates the need to link B to A). Eliminating circular linking also makes it much easier to install or upgrade the RTLs... we used to have to link image A as far as it would go, then link image B to what there was of image A, then relink image A to image B, or something like that. With one-way dependencies, all you have to do is link the first image, then link the image that depends on the first one -- *much* simpler process all around. Note 700.3, 5-Jul-1995 Campbell: Maybe this would work ------------------------------- While I have to join in not thinking this is a good idea. It seems like you might be able to short circuit some of the error stuff by linking image B first with dummy entry point for the A routines it calls. This should make the linker happy with B. Then link A (against B). A now is "real". Remove the dummy entry points from B, relink it against A. It seems like this might work, but the end result still looks like a wonderful booby trap for a future maintainer. Note 700.4, 7-Jul-1995 Carmichael: ...maybe it would. I'll try it. -------------------------------------------- We have separate shareables due to the wish to keep "universal" routines (shareable A) separated from "database specific" routines (shareable B). Each "flavor" of B will have the same routine names, but variable content depending on the database to be accessed (RMS, Vendor X relational database), as determined by the needs of the user. Applications will use the universal routines (A) for their generic needs, and access the database through generic routines. Database specific routines (B) will do what is needed on a lower level and return the result to the application. If a routine in B needs generic information, it can (we hope), call an A routine to get what it needs, thus, the reverse linking. WRT Ray's questions (.1), yes, both sharables are completely relocatable. We are talking about perhaps five symbols, routines only, which need resolution. I think that Milt's approach (.3) looks promising. I plan to try it, The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 23 Reverse Linking of Shareable Images and get back with results. I hope that the booby traps will all have been sprung (wishful thinking?) before a future maintainer comes along. As long as I am the booby, it's not too bad. My first try will be on AXP, since that's a more immediate need. VAX will follow, even if AXP doesn't seem to work. There may be a better way to accomplish this with an object oriented approach, but I don't know enough to approach it from that direction. If anyone could point to the path of OO righteousness, I would appreciate it. Note 700.5, 10-Jul-1995 Wesling: How about routine callbacks? ------------------------------------- Have you considered passing routine addresses to use as callbacks? The CMS callable interface uses that method very successfully to avoid exactly this kind of problem. Here's what it would look like in your situation: * Application calls generic routine in library A. * Generic routine calls database specific routine in library B. * One of the parameters that the A routine passes to the B routine is the address of another A routine that can be called by the B routine if/when it needs more generic info. This allows the B routine to call the A routine without having to link the B library to the A library. Having only used this method in situations where the B library was a DEC-supplied library, I'm not sure what gyrations your B routine would have to go through to call a routine given its address. In MACRO, I think it would just be a JSB to that address; in high-level languages, it would depend on the language. C should be able to handle it pretty easily, I believe. DCPS Memory Leak Fixed ---- ------ ---- ----- Abstract: In the past, a memory leak "feature" was discussed in the Notes topic dedicated to DECprint Supervisor. Recently, a subscriber asked for an update. In case you were wondering, too, here's the answer: it's fixed. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 24 DCPS Memory Leak Fixed Participants: Bob Graham, John Osudar, Alberto Zuniga. Conference: DEC_SOFTWARE Note 580.109, 23-Aug-1995 Zuniga: Version 1.2 ...bug fixes? --------------------------------- Does anyone know if the memory munching bug in DCPS V1.1 has been corrected yet. I noticed that V1.2 is out, but I don't have access to the release notes. Note 580.110, 24-Aug-1995 Graham: -------- Yes, the various memory "leaks" in v1.1 and v1.1A are supposed to be fixed in v1.2. I've been running v1.2 for over a month now with 50+ DCPS execution queues and haven't seen any noticeable memory creep in the symbionts. In addition, the v1.2 symbiont can be run multistreamed (more than one execution queue per symbiont process). By default, you get only the single streamed behavior, but you can define the logical DCPS$MAX_STREAMS to set the number of queues per processes. According to the release notes, setting the max streams to at least 4 should result in about the same memory consumption as DCPS v1.0C (fewer, but larger symbiont processes). Note 580.111, 24-Aug-1995 Osudar: multistream 1.2 works fine ---------------------------------- We're running DCPS 1.2 with 4 streams per process, with no problems. btw Digital says that 1.1 didn't have memory leaks (at least not unintentional ones). And multistream 1.2 symbionts still have to serialize translator access -- so if you use translators and one of the queues run by a multistream symbiont is translating a huge file, the others can't translate anything until it's done (but they can print untranslated jobs just fine). 800 bpi Tape Drive Needed --- --- ---- ----- ------ The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 25 800 bpi Tape Drive Needed Abstract: Some older equipment can be challenging to replace. The querent in the following topic has a need to read tapes at 800 bpi, which is lower than most currently-existing drives will handle. Not a problem for DECUServe, though. Participants: Barton Bruce, Lesley Gray, Terry Kennedy, Pete Sivia. Conference: HARDWARE_HELP Note 1907.0, 19-Jul-1995 Gray: Do you have an 800bpi tape drive? --------------------------------------- Help... I am in desperate need of an 800bpi tape drive. I'm willing to borrow, buy, rent, lease, etc. within reason. We only need the 800 bpi tape drive for about 5 months. Then the whole computer complex is being upgraded. We have an older flight simulator that compiles it's code off of an 800bpi tape drive and the two that we have on our VAX have both died. We've spent thousands trying to repair them with no success. We've tried to lease new ones but so far we've had one manufacturer drop out after we placed an order 2 months ago and another one that won't guarantee it will work for twice as much money. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Note 1907.1, 19-Jul-1995 Sivia: Did you try the used equipment dealers? ---------------------------------------------- Umm, you don't say **what** kind of drive interface you need, but try somebody like Midwest Systems (1-612-894-4020) or Newman (1-313-426-3200) see what they have used. Newman used to (about 2 years ago) have a huge warehouse full of older gear but what you want predates the old Tx78/79/81 families by a whole density so it might be tough... (No connection, just know that folks have bought good stuff from both of them in the past) Note 1907.2, 19-Jul-1995 Kennedy: --------- I don't think you want a TU77 (or earlier generation) drive. They're much too big and flakey. I have a Kennedy something-or-other (no relation) which The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 26 800 bpi Tape Drive Needed claims to do 800/1600/3200/6250 and be SCSI. I bought it used and I have no manuals. However, doing 800 is trivial on a modern "pizza oven" drive - it's about 1K of extra software (only - no hardware) in the drive. I'd suggest calling Overland Data or Qualstar - look in the back of PC Magazine in the red classifieds under "media conversion" or "9 track". Note 1907.3, 21-Jul-1995 Gray: Thanks! ------------- Thanks for all the hints!!! I'll let you know if I find one. If not, I'll be replacing the old computer system way ahead of schedule. :-) Note 1907.4, 22-Jul-1995 Bruce: ------- > too big and flakey. I have a Kennedy something-or-other (no relation) which > claims to do 800/1600/3200/6250 and be SCSI. I bought it used and I have no Probably 9612, or more common 9610 without SCSI. Should be very cheap on the used market. If you have a q-bus vax, you can get used tape controller so you won't need the scsi version. There are many notes on decuserve that talk about these. If you can make forwords behave, look for DQ152, DQ153, DQ142, DQ143 or DQ132. Some of those don't exist, but I can't remember which. Those are dilog numbers. there are good emulex ones, too. Note 1907.5, 9-Aug-1995 Gray: Got one. Thanks!! ----------------------- Thanks for all the help. I ended up with a new Kennedy 9612. It was a bit pricey but I'll let you know if it was worth it after it arrives. :-) Anything to get the Advanced Maneuvers up and flying in the sims! Video for Alpha 2000-300 ----- --- ----- -------- The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 27 Video for Alpha 2000-300 Abstract: Exactly what is "cheap" varies considerably. Putting together a system for home use tends to impose rather tight budget constraints. If you have your eye on an Alpha, a used 2000-300 (previously known as the AXP PC 150) might start to look pretty good. Video options, as discussed in the following notes, are limited, though. Participants: Duncan Brown, James Laferriere, Pete Sivia. Conference: HARDWARE_HELP Note 1915.0, 14-Aug-1995 Brown: Video options for the 2000-300 (AXP 150) ----------------------------------------------- The AXP 2000-300 isn't even sold anymore, but I'm looking at buying an AXP machine running VMS as a "home PC", and am trying to weigh all my options. All of the S&O Catalog type materials I have on the 2300 only ever mention the Qvision card, which is supposed to only be 1024x768. I want to run a 1280x1024 setup with a 19" monitor. Is there a card available (and supported under VMS) that will allow me to do this? Or do I have to scratch the 2300 from my list of potential machines? Note 1915.1, 15-Aug-1995 Sivia: Qvision is the one I've used ----------------------------------- The Qvision card is the only one I ever used on the -300 and it's the only one that works with VMS according to the January 1995 S&O. The cards available: PB2GA-AA 8bit EISA Qvision. 1024x768 (VMS, NT) PB2GA-CA 8bit ISA Number 9 GXE 1024x768, 1280x1024 (NT) PB2GA-EA 24plane ISA Matrox MGAI 1280x1024 (NT) I've got some notes back in my office from a Spring '95 Symposium talk by George ? who was/is doing DEC's video card driver work in this area. I'll find them later today and post what he had to said about additional graphics card support. FYI: if you are interested in a used DECpc 150 with NT license, Qvision, 32MB, E'net, 500MB or 1GB disk, send email. I think I know of one in excellent shape that the owner would sell at a quite reasonable price. This system has also run VMS using the SDK kits. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 28 Video for Alpha 2000-300 Note 1915.2, 15-Aug-1995 Brown: Close, but no PCIgar... ------------------------------ > The Qvision card is the only one I ever used on the -300 and it's the > only one that works with VMS according to the January 1995 S&O. The > cards available: ..which is what I was afraid of...but I may have just stumbled on something with my favorite friend, the wildcarded part number search on the E-store: -PB2GA-FA mach64 2D gfx, all OS's E/U Adj. % Service: 1 Year 2 Years 3Years Gross Net Gross Net Gross Net List: 399.00 Standard: Description: ATI mach64 WinTurbo "CX" (#30-44635-01), 2MB DRAM PCI graphics accelerator, to 1280x1024x8, all OS's. ..OH DRAT, I just remembered: no PCI bus in the AXP 150. Oh well. I figured since the part number format was similar it would work. Sigh. I wish DEC would come out with a PCI version of that computer for under $1000...yeah, that's the ticket! Note 1915.3, 16-Aug-1995 Sivia: Notes from Spring '95 Symposium -------------------------------------- I found my notes from the Spring '95 Symposium presentation on AXP graphics support given by Bill Hanley (OpenVMS Product Management) who was subbing for Fred Kleinsorge. Fred's doing the actual graphics adapter work and periodically appears in the news groups. Maybe you might consider sending him email at FRED@EXTASY.ENET.DEC.COM to see if he's got any additional info/ideas for you. Anyway, a couple of the notes I took during this session: - VMS V6.2 supports up to 8 of the Qvision cards for multi-head support. Using the EISA Qvision variant, this is one way to get more real estate for additional windows if that's what you wanted to do with the larger 19" monitor at 1280x1024 resolution. (Obviously if you wanted 1280x1024 in order to see the detail in one window, this option doesn't help.) - VMS V6.2 also supports multihead ATI Mach 64 CX PCI cards (2MB DRAM variants only). Does require new console firmware (which I'd guess is on the V3.2 firmware CD). - VMS V6.2 also supports the ATI Match 64 GX cards which the presenter The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 29 Video for Alpha 2000-300 said were better performers, but were in limited supply which is why DEC didn't sell them. - During "Summer '95" S3 Vision 864, Trio32, Trio64, DEC864 chip cards were to be supported in VMS (needs a patch kit). - Maybe late CY95 there would be support for large virtual screens such as 1280x1024 using a 640x480 monitor. Note 1915.4, 16-Aug-1995 Brown: Has some promise ----------------------- > - VMS V6.2 supports up to 8 of the Qvision cards for multi-head > support. Using the EISA Qvision variant, this is one way to get more This is actually not a bad fix. I do mostly just want the real estate for more windows, not bigger ones. Two problems, but I can probably live with them: -- More "real" real estate consumed on my desk -- "Flight" assumes 1280x1024 (heh heh heh...) > - During "Summer '95" S3 Vision 864, Trio32, Trio64, DEC864 chip cards > were to be supported in VMS (needs a patch kit). Are any of those EISA-based? I'll probably drop Fred a line and see what else he has to say. Note 1915.5, 16-Aug-1995 Laferriere: Compaq used 'em on system-pro series. ------------------------------------------------- Duncan, I am quite certain that there are eisa variants of the Qvision cards as Compaq used them on some/most of their eisa pc's ... Note 1915.6, 17-Aug-1995 Sivia: DEC's Qvision is EISA ---------------------------- Yes, DEC's Qvision card is EISA. See note .1 for the part number. Note 1915.7, 17-Aug-1995 Brown: From the Fred's mouth ---------------------------- Fred Kleinsorge sent me a nice return e-mail and explained why we're never going to see 1280x1024 support under VMS for that machine. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 30 Video for Alpha 2000-300 Amongst other reasons: -- There's a 1280x1024 Qvision card but it's at end-of-life so they don't feel the need to support it. (Let's never mind that the 2000/300 itself is no longer sold!) -- Limited memory support under VMS in the 2000/300 architecture (bigger screen = more contiguous memory required, of course!) He suggested a much better choice of machine would be one of the new small PCI ones, eg the Alphastation 4/100 or 4/266, etc. No kidding! DEC is really making some amazingly small, powerful, cheap machines these days. Since my interest is for home use I need to get it even cheaper than cheap, though, and only the 2000/300 seems to be getting down into the right price range... (Maybe I should convince the group here with a 2000/300 to dump that old obsolete hardware and replace it with a newer Alphastation, heh heh heh....) SO the definitive answer would seem to be: 1024x768 is high as you're going to get on a 2000/300. With VMS 6.2 you can add multiple 1024x768 screens but that's it. RAID Options on OpenVMS ---- ------- -- ------- Abstract: Which flavor of RAID makes the most sense will depend on the system and requirements in question. An analysis of one situation, compliments of one of Keith Parris in the StorageWorks group, follows. Participants: Keith Parris, Kent Poots. Conference: HARDWARE_HELP Note 1921.0, 21-Aug-1995 Poots: VMS Shadowing Options ?? ------------------------------- Any thoughts on the best way to RAID some Oracle database disks ? Choices are (under VMS) HSJ-based controller, or host-based (host is VAX currently, will be Alpha shortly). Feedback appreciated. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 31 RAID Options on OpenVMS Note 1921.1, 22-Aug-1995 Parris: -------- You'll need to decide first what your goals are in using RAID: o Better performance? (RAID-0) o Better availability? (RAID-1 or RAID-5) - RAID-5 costs less; RAID-1 has better write performance o Both? (RAID 0+1) In making this decision, it helps to know: o the read/write ratio o the average I/O size Do you already own any of the pieces, i.e. an HSJ controller, a set of disk drives, the host-based RAID software or host-based Volume Shadowing? Note 1921.2, 23-Aug-1995 Poots: Thanks ! - HSJ Questions... ---------------------------------- Thanks for your reply. Got an HSJ40, plus a spare on the shelf. Goals are performance and availability. Can buy more disks (plan to ). This is primarily an Oracle - based set of applications. Right now we've got 5 busy database disks. 3 on one SCSI channel and 2 on another SCSI channel. Not sure if HSJ40 is intended to overlap reads and writes on 1 channel very well. (I inherited this config !!). VPA complains of queues, so something is up. I'm also not quite sure how disks are normally allocated for RAID on an HSJ - spread members across different channels, I assume ? Thanks in advance for further comment !! Note 1921.3, 24-Aug-1995 Parris: -------- With both performance _and_ availability important, one would normally go for RAID 0+1 instead of RAID 5. However, if you have write-back cache in the HSJ40, and you aren't running near saturation, we're finding the write-back cache hides the extra RAID-5 write latency so well that the write performance is almost indistinguishable from the host's viewpoint. > This is primarily an Oracle - based set of applications. With Oracle, writes will probably tend to be around 16 blocks average size, a bit higher than the typical 4-8 block average I/O size for VMS in general, but The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 32 RAID Options on OpenVMS it's not so large as to be able to use multiple disks at once in a single transfer, so the performance advantage in using RAID is that you'll be spreading the I/Os evenly across the available spindles (no "hot" spindles, and as many spindles as you need to handle the load) for lower average response times. You'll just want to choose chunk sizes that are a bit larger than what you'd choose for typical VMS I/O sizes (say at least 16*20=320 blocks vs. 4*20=80 blocks). > Right now we've got 5 busy database disks. 3 on one SCSI channel and > 2 on another SCSI channel. Not sure if HSJ40 is intended to overlap > reads and writes on 1 channel very well. (I inherited this config !!). The HSJ40 supports disconnect/reconnect on the SCSI busses, so it can overlap seeks and data transfers among multiple disks on each SCSI bus. With typical Oracle I/O sizes, you're most likely spending much more of your time seeking than transferring. > VPA complains of queues, so something is up. Could just be that the individual disks are plugging away as fast as they can, and adding more spindles is the answer. > I'm also not quite sure how disks are normally allocated for RAID > on an HSJ - spread members across different channels, I assume ? As a rule of thumb, one would normally spread them across different SCSI busses on a round-robin basis. You have 6 busses in an HSJ40 -- might as well use them all, since you've already paid for them. :-) Note 1921.4, 24-Aug-1995 Poots: 2 HSJ's; Other Tuning Hints ? ------------------------------------ Thanks for your feedback !! RAID 0+1 using 2 HSJ40's will present any complications ? Any specific testing/performance measurements which might be appropriate before I go ahead and order several more disk drives ? I'm pretty sure that there are application issues here BUT I'm not a "big" Oracle person, and our applications group doesn't have the resources to do radical things with the database and/or code. (isn't this the lament of all system managers ?) Note 1921.5, 25-Aug-1995 Parris: -------- > RAID 0+1 using 2 HSJ40's will present any complications ? None that I can think of -- putting two HSJs in a dual-redundant configuration The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 33 RAID Options on OpenVMS just keeps an HSJ from being a single point of failure. Note that only one HSJ at a time will service requests to a given RAIDset; but considering that we don't think the HSJ is the bottleneck anyway, that shouldn't be of concern. > Any specific testing/performance measurements which might be > appropriate before I go ahead and order several more disk drives ? Might be useful to see what the I/O rate and average I/O size are before you conclude the disks are the bottleneck. The VTDPY utility on the HSJs might be helpful here, or DECps on the host. (Another trick is to temporarily reconfigure the cluster so the disks get MSCP-served and then use MONITOR MSCP and SHOW DEVICE/SERVED to get some visibility of the I/O workload.) UAS/UAF Merge ------- ----- Abstract: A discussion of a PATHWORKS for OpenVMS ECO that allows merging of an OpenVMS SYSUAF and a PATHWORKS UAS for the benefit of those folks who are dealing with NT servers and trying to keep lots of user accounts in synch. Participants: Dan Singleton, Michael Spatz. Conference: PATHWORKS Note 843.0, 18-Jul-1995 Spatz: UAS/UAF Merge -------------------- Pathworks for OpenVMS ECO#2 and a patch which will allow a UAS/UAF merge in an NT environment will be at our site on Monday. Note 843.1, 19-Jul-1995 Singleton: More Details Please on UAS/UAF -> NT SAM --------------------------------------------------- Mike, Are use saying that you can merge a UAS/UAF with a sam on an NT server? I am getting ready to transfer all accounts on a VAX cluster running PW Server 5.0 to an NT domain. I'm not sure what or how the best way to do this is? I have about 300 users on the cluster. Any additional information on this would be appreciated. TIA The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 34 UAS/UAF Merge Note 843.2, 20-Jul-1995 Spatz: UAS/UAF Merge ?? ----------------------- I will pull together the documentation once it is received from Digital. I can assume you are bringing your vax out of backward compatibility mode and become a BDC in a Domain. If this is the case then the patch and ECO Will make your life much easier. The MERGE as it stands now will corrupt the UAF database in about 15 min after the merge. The ECO kit will set the UAS and UAF passwords to be the same. Then a net password will give the user the ability of keeping the UAS/UAF databases in sync. It is a nightmare if the databases are out of sync. We pressured for this ECO since we have in excess of 1000 accounts. Note 843.3, 27-Jul-1995 Singleton: Interested in UAS -> SAM Merge ----------------------------------------- I am looking for a merge of the Pathworks UAS and SAM or a merge of the UAF and SAM. I'm not sure if this is the scenario that you are describing in -.1? If so, I am definitely interested. TIA Dan Note 843.4, 31-Jul-1995 Spatz: merge to NT ------------------ I expect to have the patch to ECO#2 later this week which will handle the merge. This merge is needed due to the fact that the PDC is an NT server which will corrupt the VMS passwords. Note 843.5, 4-Aug-1995 Spatz: ECO#2 ------------ Pathworks V5.01-ECO#2 is installed and in test mode. We are still waiting for the patch to this ECO which will allow migration into an NT domain without corrupting passwords. Currently they are having technical problems generating the patch kit for ECO#2. Will keep you informed during the NT merge in the near future. Note 843.6, 10-Aug-1995 Spatz: ECO#2 update #1 ---------------------- Just installed update #1 to Pathworks V5.0C ECO#2 which will allow a migration into an existing domain with an NT as a PDC. The Patch will allow the password to be set to the username. Migration into the domain will be tested this afternoon. Stay tuned for the results. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 35 UAS/UAF Merge Note 843.7, 11-Aug-1995 Spatz: UAS Merge in an NT Domain -------------------------------- Completed the UAF UAS merge with success. The ECO will set the UAS and UAF passwords to be the same as the username that is entered into the NT Domains database. Then the user has the ability to change the passwords from LANMAN or VMS. DHU-11 Installation Problem ------ ------------ ------- Abstract: DECUServe is a good place for cutting-edge information, but it's also a marvelous source of insight on systems that are, shall we say, not quite so new any more. Here, there is a problem with a newly-added DHU-11 module in an 11/84. And just what are those other two connectors for, anyway? Participants: Rob Brown, Arnold De Larisch, Terry Kennedy. Conference: PDP-11 Note 424.0, 9-Aug-1995 Brown: DHU-11 installation problem ---------------------------------- One of my customers is attempting to install a DHU-11 on a PDP-11/84 running RSX-11M-Plus V4.1. He did parts of a sysgen to add support for the device. After a couple of tries, he got the board installed so that the board's CSR matched the one specified in the sysgen. When he tried to test the DHU by broadcasting to one of its ports, all of secondary pool was consumed. I had him disconnect all ports on the distribution panel, try different ports, and even swap out the DHU board. The problem persisted. He is now doing a _complete_ sysgen to see if that straightens things out. If that doesn't work, ... ? Has anybody seen this failure mode before? I think we have eliminated hardware as the problem here. Could I be mistaken? Is there a switch on the board that makes it use up secondary pool? The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 36 DHU-11 Installation Problem Note 424.1, 9-Aug-1995 De Larisch: Sounds like classic WHAT?-Huh? RSX Loopback error ------------------------------------------------------------- This is a 'wild' stab in the dark ... but the broadcast to a port and all of pool going away is a classic "loop back" problem. The broadcast message is sent and MCR attempts to use it for login purposes ... MCR sends out an error message which is then interpreted as a login attempt (repeat until all of pool is exhausted with tt buffers). I don't have any DHU's or the manuals for them ... but double check that they aren't in "factory test mode" or something like that. By the way, are you able to get CON to put the ports ONLINE? If you have a two VT terminals ... you may want to hook them up to two of the ports and run kermit to see if you can successfully transmit or receive info thru them. Note 424.2, 9-Aug-1995 Brown: ... working ... ---------------------- > This is a 'wild' stab in the dark ... but the broadcast to a port and all of > pool going away is a classic "loop back" problem. Yes, I know. But where is it being looped back? That's why I asked him to remove all of the cables from the DHU ports (whether or not he did is another question, of course). > I don't have any DHU's or the manuals for them ... but double check that they > aren't in "factory test mode" or something like that. That's a good idea. I don't have any manuals myself, but my customer does. I'll have him check it out. > By the way, are you able to get CON to put the ports ONLINE? If you have a > two VT terminals ... you may want to hook them up to two of the ports and run > kermit to see if you can successfully transmit or receive info thru them. Yes, we can get them online. I had thought that broadcast was a good enough test, but I see your point. Slaving a port so that MCR doesn't get in the way could teach us something. Boy, I sure am out of practice at this. Note 424.3, 10-Aug-1995 Kennedy: Vector? ---------------- I don't speak RSX, but are you *sure* he got the csr/vector set right? If the CSR is right and the vector is wrong, all sorts of funny stuff happens. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 37 DHU-11 Installation Problem Note 424.4, 10-Aug-1995 Brown: ... added to list ... ---------------------------- I'll have him double check. I can't think of a way to confirm the vector on a running system, so I am not sure. Note 424.5, 14-Aug-1995 Brown: Problem Solved! ---------------------- This problem turned out to be a hardware installation problem. You are supposed to connect two ribbon cables to each H3029 distribution panels -- one for each half-panel of four ports. There are two connectors for ribbon cables coming from below, as well as two connectors for ribbon cables coming from above. My customer was using the upper pair of connectors. Switching the cables to the lower set of connectors solved the problem. If the distribution panels are supposed to work this way, I can't imagine what the upper set of connectors is for. Note 424.6, 15-Aug-1995 Kennedy: Loopback? ------------------ Newer DEC multiplexors (and I guess the DHU qualifies) put the loopback connectors on the distribution panel(s). [Older ones shipped a separate H-series loopback adapter which was always getting lost]. Note 424.7, 15-Aug-1995 Brown: Bingo! ------------- The original problem was that everything seemed to be getting looped back, so that would certainly explain it! UNIX and DOS on the Same Machine ---- --- --- -- --- ---- ------- Abstract: Various strategies for a multiple-OS PC; how to determine which one gets loaded at boot time, access across file systems, and so on. Featured buzzwords include Linux, OS/2, and Digital UNIX. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 38 UNIX and DOS on the Same Machine Participants: Petri Backstrom, Andrew Hill, Matt Holdrege, Bart Lederman, Bradford Lubell, Benjamin Pena, Kevin Roels. Conference: PERSONAL_COMPUTING Note 731.0, 9-Aug-1995 Holdrege: Unix and DOS coexistent --------------------------------- I just read an article on Linux. It seems that I could partition my PC disk and place a bootable Linux next to DOS. Has anyone tried this with Linux or FreeBSD? Another option would be to have two disks, Unix on one and DOS on the other. How would I tell which one to boot? Note 731.1, 9-Aug-1995 Hill: It can be done -------------------- I've got two disks in my PC, and the second one is partitioned between DOS and Linux (the first is just DOS). Booting is done via a program called LILO (LInux LOader, I believe). It's been a while since I configured it, but basically it replaces the boot sector on your boot drive, and you can set it up to boot DOS or Linux (or probably any other bootable system you've got). There is a config file for setting up the boot menu. Somewhere it keeps a copy of your original boot sector, but I don't remember where that somewhere is. Anyway, it's doable with either a single disk with multiple partitions, or multiple disks. LILO is the key. BTW you can access your DOS partitions from Linux. Note 731.2, 9-Aug-1995 Roels: Can use the OS/2 boot manager also ----------------------------------------- Some people here are doing Linux with OS/2, and DOS, in some cases. They say they prefer the OS/2 boot manager to LILO. Note 731.3, 9-Aug-1995 Lederman: Anyone tried the DOS environment within Linux? -------------------------------------------------------- I've also read in the Linux blurbs (but haven't tried it) that there is also a DOS environment or shell so you can run DOS programs under Linux. It would be interesting to know if anyone has actually tried The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 39 UNIX and DOS on the Same Machine it, though. Note 731.4, 10-Aug-1995 Pena: ------ re: -2 Can use OS/2 Boot manager to get to LILO to whatever OS... (as sort of a second chance to boot into other OSes than Linux at the LILO prompt) or go directly into Linux. Note 731.5, 10-Aug-1995 Pena: Linux isn't all that bad as a personal-use OS.. ----------------------------------------------------- re: -2 Program you're referring to is Dosemu... it's pretty nice, although on a 486DX2/66 it's kind of on the....slow side. Although I haven't fully fine-tuned it, though. But, worst case is a slow software-based emulator. Still... it does pretty good for what it does. I can pick up a floppy with, say, Procomm, and connect to the VAX: Linux->Dosemu->Procomm->VAX if I so desired. As for reading OS/2 filesystems, under Linux, it's the 'hpfs' filesystem, and to the best of my knowledge, it was read-only support. Note 731.6, 11-Aug-1995 Lubell: Multiboot Windows/NT & OSF/1 ------------------------------------ I have recently acquired an AlphaStation 250. It was pre-installed with Digital Unix (formerly OSF/1). This computer has two (2) disk drives. The users of this system would like to be able to boot either Unix or Windows/NT. They do not want to dedicate one disk to each operating system. What we would like to do is either share one of the drives between both operating systems. Unix would be on both drives, whereas, Windows/NT would only be on one drive. Does anybody know if this can be done? Does anybody have any suggestions on where to ask? Note 731.7, 12-Aug-1995 Backstrom: ----------- You have to install different operating systems on different disks on an Alpha. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 40 POLYCENTER Console Manager POLYCENTER Console Manager ---------- ------- ------- Abstract: A discussion of the virtues of POLYCENTER Console Manager (PCM), including several glowing customer testimonials. Also covered are OpenVMS versus UNIX, RS-232 versus network, MTI Stingrays, and filters available on the Freeware CD. Participants: Rob Aldridge, Larry Clegg, James Cristofero, Gary Gladstone, Frank Nagy, Pat Scopelliti, Glenn Zorn. Conference: VMS Note 2561.0, 25-Jul-1995 Clegg: PolyCenter Console Manager --------------------------------- Greetings Earthlings! I'm attempting to bring in the Polycenter Console Manager hardware/software to help reduce floor space in the datacenter for my five VAXen. I see that in note #1784 there was a discussion of the old VCS system but the last update was 25-Oct-92. I'm interested in anyone's experiences with this product as it stands today under VMS V6.x . TIA. Note 2561.1, 25-Jul-1995 Cristofero: USE VCS Extensively ------------------------------- Not sure what you're looking for Larry. I have a VMS 6.1 system running VCS 1.4 (prior to PCM). I have not upgraded yet as I'm awaiting memory or a new box to run it on (PCM requires more memory of course). VAX 3400 24 MB 1 RF73 2 RF71's one for VCS Logging one for user disk Maintains 32 clients (Vax's, HSC's and Stringray controllers) 4 clusters in two facilities 4 4100 in four states I have console access to a Vax in Indiana while sitting at home. I've used this product since 1986. Have little complaints. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 41 POLYCENTER Console Manager Note 2561.2, 25-Jul-1995 Clegg: More Specifics --------------------- I guess I should learn to be a little more specific in these questions. I'm looking for things like: how has it helped/hurt in your system management responsibilities? Now that you have it and knowing what you know about it would you purchase this product again? What limitations, if any, have you run into? Is there anything about it which surprised you - either positively or negatively. I'm really looking for any "good ammunition" to help justify me getting it - I *think* I want it but I want to be as sure as possible before recommending it to my boss. I want to make a very informed decision since I can't justify this purchase on any business application grounds - and just saying I want it cause it will help me to better manage the systems won't cut the mustard - that's way to nebulous. Thanks again. Note 2561.3, 25-Jul-1995 Clegg: Yet More Specifics ------------------------- I seem to really like to exit my editing sessions before I'm really ready! More info: My environment currently includes: 5 VAXen and 1 StingRay II, Infoserver 1000, and soon an RS/6000 AIX system. This fall will see a new UPS for the datacenter. There's also lots (250) PC's and some Novell servers. If I'm reading the PCM SPD correctly - most, if not all, of this could be accessed through the PCM. Note 2561.4, 25-Jul-1995 Gladstone: It has saved Me many Miles ------------------------------------- Real simple with the VAX's and PCM. We reboot our VAXs alternately on Sundays (our only downtime window). This past Sunday, our mail cluster was scheduled to be rebooted. Operations started the reboot on one of the VAX's and it went into a fatal bug check loop. After receiving a panic phone call at home (1 hours commute each way), I logged in and connected to our VCS node and did a review of the vcs console log for that system so I could see exactly what happened. I was also able to connect to the console so I could do a conversational boot with verify to see what the problem was. It has paid off many times for this type of work and has saved many miles commuting when there is a problem. We have one node that isn't on VCS and I cringe every time there is a problem as I have no console logs to review (kind of hard to read an LA75 printout with a bad ribbon from 60 miles away). I could probably go on and on, but hopefully this gives you some info. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 42 POLYCENTER Console Manager Note 2561.5, 25-Jul-1995 Scopelliti: Don't forget the pro-active event notification ---------------------------------------------------------- Another big plus is the event notification system. Once you've been saved by getting an alarm for "pagefile space critical" and having the time to install another pagefile before the production system hangs, you'll never want to be without it again. Pat - who's been saved more than once from having to get dressed, drive 1/2 hour, hit "B ", driving 1/2 hour, and getting back into bed at 3:00 AM Note 2561.6, 26-Jul-1995 Gladstone: ----------- I had wished I had it when I had to drive 1 hr. (each way) to press the Hold Screen button on the console monitor because someone accidentally leaned on it. Note 2561.7, 27-Jul-1995 Nagy: Experience with PCM under Digital UNIX? --------------------------------------------- Does any have experience with Polycenter Console Manager running under OSF/1 -- er, Digital UNIX, that is. I'd like to replace our outdated VCS systems (VS 3200s) with an Alpha and PCM but I won't be allowed to run VMS on the Alpha. Note, we have been using a number of VCS systems for years and are very happy with the product. Note 2561.8, 27-Jul-1995 Aldridge: Comments on Polycenter Console Manager (PCM) ------------------------------------------------------ re: .0 Polycenter Console Manager We switched from VCS/PCM on a VAXstation to PCM on an OSF/1 workstation. We did this because we wanted PCM to be on the same platform as our Polycenter NetView -- which never materialized for OpenVMS VAX. I don't know about PCM V1.5 for the VAX, but PCM V1.5 for OSF?1 is quite buggy. The OSF/1 workstation crashes which means that we lose console logging for that time period. We think the review/extract command does not obey before/since parameters correctly. It is a big time saver as far as the off-hours commuting goes! Also I cannot imagine using paper console logs for 10 different systems! The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 43 POLYCENTER Console Manager Unfortunately Digital has stopped giving away with the product the "filters" for the various operating systems/hardware platforms. There are some filters available via DSNlink but for the most part these are not for the most recent systems. That means you'll have to find nice DECUServe participants or review console messages and create your own filters. As an added value I would recommend finding a package such as RamPage (OpenVMS package) to use along with your PCM system. That way with just a little effort you can receive a "page" -- either numeric or full-text -- when a major problem occurs. (After a few of these you will be sure to resolve the problem, not just ignore the problem!) As far as the bugs are concerned, we hope some of these will go away with the newer version of PCM and also Digital Unix (OSF/1) V3.2. On the OpenVMS platforms I know that the initial version of PCM was just the next version of "VCS." But I don't know about the follow-on versions of PCM -- were they re-writes or did they build upon the VCS base? Note 2561.9, 27-Jul-1995 Aldridge: More on PCM for Unix ------------------------------ re: .7 -- Nagy I guess I posted at the same time as you did. A few more notes about the OSF/1 version of PCM -- 1 - All of our console connections are via terminal servers (typical configuration). We had been using an Emulex server with the VAX VCS, but had to switch to a DECserver because the LAT on OSF/1 would not automatically connect to the console ports. (We could get around it by manually creating the LTA ports [ala VCS] but this is not how PCM is normally used.) 2 - I would encourage you to get a loaner PAK for PCM and compare it side by side with VCS. I'm sure you will find things you don't like but there is something to be said to pick the product that is receiving more development/support from the vendor. Note 2561.10, 27-Jul-1995 Zorn: See Freeware CD --------------------- > Unfortunately Digital has stopped giving away with the product the > "filters" for the various operating systems/hardware platforms. I just purchased PCM for VMS/AXP and am in the process of setting it up. Filters are not included, but a large number of the are included The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 44 POLYCENTER Console Manager on the Freeware CD. I currently manage two data centers, one which is unmanned, the other which is manned only during business hours. I live an hour from one and 2 hours from the other. PCM has been nice for those times when there have been site problems. (Now if they would add in failover capability it would be better) Note 2561.11, 27-Jul-1995 Clegg: StingRays, AC, and UPS? ------------------------------ Re .1: You mentioned you have an MTI StingRay. I've got the StingRay II system. Is that manageable by PCM and if so is it worth it? In the past year and a half of having my StingRay I've never had to get into it for anything. I guess that's a good thing. :-) Thanks. Also, is anyone using PCM to watch/manage any datacenter environmental systems (AC) or UPS systems? Note 2561.12, 4-Aug-1995 Cristofero: Remote Support and Stingrays ---------------------------------------- 1. I have four systems (4105's ) in four separate states. Using reverse LAT connections I can have OPA0 functions at my home /office or other site by just logging into the VCS/PCM node. We also have a VXT terminal with all the pretty ICON's . 2. Stingrays: I have all my Stingrays (II's II+'s and III's) monitored. It helped us certify SCSI bus reset's the SRI's were getting from the I/O being pushed by the our 7000's. Now we have SRIII's. Note 2561.13, 4-Aug-1995 Clegg: Network -v- RS232C ------------------------- > 1. I have four systems (4105's ) in four separate states. Using reverse > LAT connections I can have OPA0 functions at my home /office or other > site by just logging into the VCS/PCM node. All the systems I'm targeting for PCM monitoring are local and are in the same data center. I find myself experiencing some reluctance in configuring PCM to communicate over the network, reverse lat, or whatever rather than via good ole RS232C - simply because if the network is down then I can't get to my systems. All of the VAXen except one can stay up and functioning without the network - if PCM is dependent on the network then it would be down too. I don't think that's a good idea. Does anyone else have any ideas or The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 45 POLYCENTER Console Manager suggestions or experiences in this area? Thanks. Note 2561.14, 4-Aug-1995 Gladstone: ----------- We have had the same argument and I said that if the net is down then the users can't get to the systems either. We keep a VT terminal in the data center with a long cord so we can connect directly to a system if needed. Note 2561.15, 8-Aug-1995 Clegg: VAXstation 4000/60 ------------------------- I'm now considering a used VAXstation 4000/60 with 1 GB of disk and 64 MB of memory. I'll use it to watch my 5 VAXen and new RS/6000 AIX system (either a J30 or an R30 - high-end will be two R30's!) I've considered the implications of going with network or RS232C connections and the network is definitely the easiest/cheapest/most flexible/etc. I've decided that my concerns over accessibility when the network is down are relatively minor. There's been no time in the last three years where I *-HAD-* to get into the VAXen when the network was down. Typically during network down times I am present and actively involved. Also, as a 7/24 shop we got a little redundancy built in; we can take down portions of the network and leave other portions up and going. Typically this meets all our needs for network hardware/software modifications and repair. Total network downtime is very rare and usually very short lived. The segments containing the VAXen haven't been down in more than a year - except for the total power outage during a storm one weekend. (The UPS system is coming in at the end of September.) I do like the idea of keeping a VT and cable handy for those potential times when I might have to use it. Thanks for all your input. Hopefully all this will go through with the powers that be and I'll get my PCM soon. Slow System Startup ---- ------ ------- Abstract: The original poster had noticed slow system startup times under OpenVMS V6.2, and traced the cause to an INSTALL in the startup process. A workaround involved frobbing DEADLOCKWAIT, but the ultimate answer turned out to be a pointer to a DSNlink patch. The DECUServe Journal September, 1995 Page 46 Slow System Startup Participants: Lee Gleason, Michael Mazzoni, Chuck McMichael. Conference: VMS Note 2556.0, 17-Jul-1995 Mazzoni: VMS v6.2 startup problem --------------------------------- I'm having a problem starting up a VMS v6.2 system. After doing the v6.1-6.2 upgrade, I noticed that the time it takes to start the system tripled. At startup, I put all the things that get done into a command file and submit it to batch, e.g.: @SYS$STARTUP:start_product_1.com @SYS$STARTUP:start_product_2.com @SYS$STARTUP:start_product_3.com @SYS$STARTUP:start_product_4.com etc. The batch job runs under the SYSTEM account. Now with v6.2, about 1/3 of the way through the process things slow down severely. If I do a $ SHOW PROCESS/CONTINUOUS on the batch process, I see that every time the INSTALL utility runs, it sits in an LEF state for 10-20 seconds. Before it hits the speed bump, an INSTALL takes 1-2 seconds. I think I've run out of a resource, but I'm having difficulty finding it. I've compared the v6.1 and v6.2 SYSGEN parameters and user quotas, and the only parameter/quota that's smaller on v6.2 is SCSBUFFCNT. Does anyone have any ideas what could be making INSTALL go into its long wait? Note 2556.1, 17-Jul-1995 Gleason: Let me know when you figure it out... ---------------------------------------------- Nope, but, I have the exact same problem under VMS V5.5, so it's not V6.2 specific...