Article 168807 of comp.os.vms:
Hi

I'm running OpenVMS AXP V6.2-1H3 on two nodes, each with DCPS 1.3 loaded.  I
have a single PrintServer 32 plus running DECnet that I want to implement
fail-over to the remaining node in case of a node shutdown, so I figure I
need the /AUTOSTART_ON queue qualifier in there somewhere.

Problem is, DCPS does an INIT /QUEUE in DCPS$EXECUTION_QUEUES.COM (which is
called from DCPS$STARTUP.COM), and there doesn't seem to be any way to
specify /AUTOSTART_ON from within the DCPS framework.

First, the INIT /QUEUE will cancel jobs running on the queue already.

Second, the /ON qualifier is not what I require, I need the /AUTOSTART_ON
qualifier (which it doesn't support).

Although DCPS$EXECUTION_QUEUES says "!! DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE !!" I see no
way of achieving the desired effect WITHOUT modifying it.  I'd need to
change the INIT /QUEUE to a START /QUEUE command, change the /ON to
/AUTOSTART_ON and maybe it would work.

The only thing I could do is to set up the execution queue once, remove the
line from SYSTARTUP_VMS which calls DCPS$STARTUP, and then do the enabling
of AUTOSTART manually.  Once an ENABLE AUTOSTART /QUEUES command is added
(and DECnet, TCP/IP, LAT etc are already running), it should work I think.

Maybe DCPS Engineering and their documentation group can come up with a
nicely documented way to do this without such *hacks*.  A search of the DCPS
CD-ROM documentation revealed one mention of AUTOSTART, in the release notes
section for a LAT queue problem fixed in V1.3.  Surely, there could be a bit
of documentation written on how to set up a DCPS cluster queue fail-over
configuration, and the startup/setup procedures modified accordingly.  Since
most AlphaServers now have DCPS as part of their NET-APP-SUP-xxx licenses,
and clusters are quite common (not to mention VMS is *THE* cluster operating
system), this would make very good sense IMHO.

I hope Paul Anderson is listening in on this thread !!!   :)    PS: Paul,
how's V1.4 of DCPS coming along ?

Maybe I'll have to put this forward to my local CSC as an advisory query for
which they could put it to DCPS group, although if Paul is listening, I'd
prefer to do it direct and save the red tape.

Mind you, if I've missed some part of the documentation, I wholeheartedly
apologise up front and would appreciate a delicate pointer to the right FM !

Regards

Jason Armistead
[Really:otis@magna.com.au - Headers munged to avoid SPAM e-mail]
DECUS Australia Internetworking/Pathworks SIG chairman
Check out http://www.decus.org.au for more info

At work: OTIS Engineering Centre, Minto, Australia
Check out http://www.otis.com to learn about the Odyssey system !

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