Hidden Value – December 2001

Q: We've had a drive go bad on our System Volume set. I have the full backup tapes, last night's incremental (from the full backup), and the CSLT. We use the "directory" option on the STORE command. It's been years since I've had to do this. Any and all pointers would be appreciated.

A: Rich Trapp replied:

The Software Maintenance Manual checklist "J" is your friend! Find it at http://docs.hp.com

Q: We're running into a problem with remsh and quotes. Here's an example:

run remsh.net.sys;info="uxb -l ctmsrv ctmjobs -cf jbtest/pabcx60u -n 'uxb axa'"
Error: This command takes no arguments except switch arguments.
Argument: axa not allowed.

ctmjobs [-aAbcDtx] [-d {date}] [-f|-l|-o|-v {fileset}] [-n {node}] [-V {numversions}]

A: Jon Diercks replied:

run remsh.net.sys;info='uxb -l ctmsrv ctmjobs -cf jbtest/pabcx60u -n """uxb axa"""'

Basically, you have to figure out where the quotes are getting sucked away and then triple-escape them to ensure they are passed as literals to the next level.

Q: Our backup routine runs automatically in the evening using the STORE command. However, if there is no tape in the drive, it will wait until there is a tape. The backup process is within a day-end routine and unless the backup completes, the application cannot be started the next morning. Ideally, I would like to check if there is a tape in the DAT drive before the rest of the day-end process runs. How I you can check if there is a tape in the drive?

A: Numerous people suggested they deal with this very problem by using a script that does a SHOWDEV to a file and then checks the result to see if a tape is loaded.

However, it was pointed out that if a tape is loaded and then the eject button pressed, MPE still thinks there is a tape loaded and the SHOWDEV script will give erroneous results. Jon Diercks noted that from the backup job, you can stream a second job that attempts to put the drive online using Orbit's tool, Stan Sieler's "ONLINE", or devctrl.mpexl.telesup. The first job then uses :pause;job= to wait an appropriate amount of time for the job to complete. If it does not complete, then have the original job do an :ABORTJOB on it and also cancel the backup, notifying the operator. If the second job completes, the "online" was successful and the backup can continue.

Q: Does anyone know if a DDS-4 works with MPE/iX (any version of the OS)?

A: John MacLerran replied:

Yes, it's supported on Express 1 of 7.0. We have 2 DDS-4 drives in our new N4000. Be aware though that the hardware doesn't support older DDS-1 type tapes (the drive doesn't even mount the tape). I've had to request that our vendors only send 90-meter and longer tapes.

Q: Is there a way to enlarge HPUID? I can't add any more users.

A: Jon Bachus replied:

There isn't a feature in the PXUTIL to expand the system file HPUID.PUB.SYS. It's being accessed all the time anyway, so I don't see a way to expand it. I ran into this problem working for a catalog fulfillment house where every employee using the 3000 was replicated into 10 - 20 accounts per 3000. I had to maintain a very close eye the number of users and be very proactive about purging off employees that left.

David Darnell noted that if you have a security product that allows you to create unigue signons based on a combination of user, account and session name, then instead of john.gl, mary.gl, susan.gl, etc., you would need only one HP user, user.gl and distinguish among real users by "john,user.gl", "mary,user.gl", etc.

Q: I am looking at allowing a MS Windows user FTP access to our HP 3000. In testing, I can connect to any user.account for which I know the passwords. OK. What scares me, though, is that once logged on, I can 'cd ..' up above the account level and then 'cd' back down into any other account. This is possible even when connecting to an account with minimal capabilities. Is there a way to prevent users from getting where they are not wanted, while connected via FTP?

A: Andreas Schmidt replied:

Don't worry too much, FTP respects the normal MPE security. So, if you can access a file with a session you can access it via FTP, and vice versa. This demonstrates, though, the need to restrict the access rights always to the minimum really needed.

Q: We are having a problem in ftp doing a cd to a directory (NT or UNIX box) with space in the name. We have tried enclosing the name in double quotes, single quotes, back ticks, but no luck. Anyone know how to do this?

A: Doug Werth replied:

Try using the cd command with no parameters. When FTP prompts you for the directory it won't use the space as a delimiter like it does when it parses the command.

John Glogg replied with a different trick:

Try cd xxxxx_20_xxxxxx

20 is the hexadecimal value of the ASCII space character.

Q: I want to check if a file exists, then execute a set of FCOPY commands and, if it does not exist, execute another set of FCOPY commands. I want to achieve this in a single job. Can I do this?

A: Barry Lake replied:

At the MPE prompt do

:help finfo

What you probably need to do in your job is something like

!if finfo('YYY', 'exists')
! # do one set of commands
!else
! # do something else
!endif

Q: DISCFREE C gives me the number of sectors. How do I convert that to bytes?

A: Jeff Woods replied:

A sector on MPE is 256 bytes so multiply sectors by 256 to get bytes or divide sectors by 4096 to get MB.

Q: I'm trying to copy a KSAM file with the "copy" command, but it will not let me.

A: Lars Appel and John Pollard replied:

You are probably trying to copy a CM KSAM file. Because a CM KSAM file is really a pair of linked files, you can only copy a CM KSAM file using a special syntax with FCOPY as in:

:fcopy from=cmksam; to=(newfile,newkeyf); new

A NM KSAM file can be copied successfully with the "copy" command.

Q: How do I view the system log files?

A: John Clogg and Denis St-Amand replied:

Use LOGTOOL. If you are on 6.5 or later, it is a stand-alone program. On earlier releases, it runs under SYSDIAG.

Q: We have this third party VB application that accesses some datasets through the ODBCSE driver (the free one) and we are having some problems that we cannot get to the bottom of. When we run it, it does a read, performs a task but then gives us the following error in the ODBCLOG file on our attempt to write back.

[Allbase] IMAGE/SQL error164; TurboIMAGE error -242; TurboIMAGE intrinsic
420, & Auxiliary error 6554488. (DBERR 13552)

What does this mean?

A: Doug Werth replied:

This error typically means you have a corrupted TURBOGTX.PUB.SYS. Purge the file and the next DBOPEN will be rebuild it. You may need to get exclusive access to the file by logging users.

Q: How do you ping by name on the HP3000?

A: John Clogg replied:

Although PING.NET.SYS won't ping by name, the ping function in NETTOOL.NET.SYS will.

John Burke added:

For some reason name resolution with nettool is dog slow. A better solution is to use nslookup from the bind port for name resolution and ping.net.sys, both bundled up in a CI command file wrapper. If you get the version of ping off jazz that does not require extra capabilities then you can have a very nice ping command file usable by just about anyone; in particular, by operations and help desk personnel.

Lars Appel and James Hofmeister noted that the reason name resolution is slower in nettool is that it tries to resolve first with NS/3000 rules and then arpa/dns rules, whereas nslookup only deals with arpa/dns rules.

Q: I'm migrating from a hp e3000 969ks/200 to a hp e3000 N4000-100-330. I still use a few terminals connected to DTC and managed by Openview DTC Manager. Everything is working except the terminals. When I try to connect, I get:

Connection refused due to a communication failure (DTC15)

Any ideas?

A: Giles Schipper replied:

At DTC prompt, try the following in order to reset the DTC internal cache:

>dtc c computername -d

Q: I'm having a problem with Samba/iX 2.0.7 running under MPE/iX 6.5 (all reactive patches) in that it is passing a corrupted file to a PC running Windoze 95 and 98SE. I start out building a fixed length record file ...

A: Mark Bixby and Lars Appel replied:

Stay away from non-bytestream files when using Samba/iX. In your case, I'd probably try using /bin/tobyte for copying the data to the desired HFS directory (instead of plain copy or /bin/cp). This should take care of the record-to-bytestream conversion. Use tobyte -a or -at options, depending on your needs.

Q: I have an account with links in it. For example, if acct and othracct are two accounts and othrgrp is a group in othracct, then I have a link:

newlink /ACCT/OTHRGRP,/OTHRACCT/GRP

What happens to GRP.OTHRACCT if I issue "purgeacct acct"?

A: Mark Bixby and Craig Fairchild replied:

Nothing. Unlike the :PURGE command the :PURGEGROUP, :PURGEACCT, and :PURGEDIR commands all work on the objects in the directory without opening them first. This means that when you issue these commands, the directory and all its contents are removed, without any symbolic links being followed.

The :PURGE command, on the other hand, will purge that target that the link points to. This is because it first opens the file, which causes the link to be followed to the target file. When the FCLOSE(purge) is done, it is done on the target file, not the symbolic link.

Q: In preparing for an install of new disk drives I am looking at moving some IO cards around to take advantage of the IO bus and wanted to ask this question. Suppose a private volume currently resides on disc 23,25 and 28 with a path of 10/4/12. I want to move the discs to path 10/16/8. Do I need to scratchvol on these discs or could I leave the data intact and simply add the discs to the new path?

A: Gilles Schipper and Denis St-Amand replied:

You can change a disc drive's path by

No need at all for disturbing data in any way. And, this would apply to system domain discs as well.

Q: I'm removing the HP-IB card from my system this weekend. This will remove one occurence of LP. One of my network printers is also called LP. Is this going to be a problem that the only definition of LP is a network printer that isn't there at startup?

A: Doug Werth and Lars Appel replied:

You can have a network printer as the only defined device in class LP. Even if networking is not started you can OPENQ LP to create a spool queue and satisfy the batch job output.

Q: I attempted to restore some files (2700 of them) last night. The job was run under a user who did not have SF capabilities. All the files that were part of the restore list disappeared from disc. I got them back by running the job interactively as manager.sys. But I am blown away as to why they simply disappeared. Any one have any ideas?

A: John Clogg replied:

Restore writes the file to disc as a temporary file. If it is successful, it purges the old file and saves the new one. Without SF capability, it was not able to complete the last step. I consider this a bug; it should verify

the correct capability before performing the purge. I suggest submitting an SR for this.

Q: How can I determine what is stored in a store-to-disk file?

A: Ron Wuerth replied:

MPEiX: file ds=diskfile;dev=disc
MPEiX: restore *ds;@.@.@;listdir

Works on tapes too with the correct file equation.