Q: Does anyone know if it is possible for an HP e3000 running release 7.0 to have a host name (as in host.company.com) of more than 8 characters? If so, what is the limit?

A: Gavin Scott replied:

A HP 3000 can have many names. There's the NS node name and the local domain name configured in NMMGR, plus you can call it anything you darn well please in DNS.

The most restrictive is probably the NS node name, which is composed, of exactly three components of the form NODENAME.DOMAIN.ORGANIZATION. Most people make this the same as the local domain name when they can (i.e. somenodename.mycompany.com)

Each component of the NS nodename has always been limited to 16 characters (15?) I believe, so you should always have been able to use a name for the machine that is up to 16 characters long. But long names can be a pain to type, so I'd recommend something short and sweet for the physical NS node name and local domain name, and then if people want to call it something longer, just load up your DNS with as many aliases as you like.

Q: Can anyone help me determine how many memory controllers I have on my system?

A: Guy Paul replied:

Xeq sysinfo.prvxl.telesup 'mem' will return, among other things a value labelled "Number of Extenders". This will be your answer.

[Editor's note: it is always a good idea to run sysinfo on a quiet system. This is especially true of the "memory" command. I have seen this cause a system failure on a loaded system.]

Q: I'm trying to configure in some disc drives and am getting the error message 'path does not exist'. What subeltity am I missing here?

ioconfig:APATH 10/4/12.4.0 ID=ST39175LC
**error** iopath 10/4/12.4 does not exist

A: Steve Dirickson, Stan Sieler and Dennis Heidner replied:

You first need to add a path of PSEUDO and then add the device.

Q: I've got a customer who wants to put one DTC in each one of his 20 remote sites to run 2 serial printers. They have a frame relay network that uses Cisco routers configured for concurrent routing and bridging, and has no problem downloading to the one remote DTC they have today. Are there any "gotcha's" with this idea?

A: John Burke and Jim Phillips replied that their respective organizations have been successfully doing just this for a number of years.

Q: How can I tell who has a database open and in what mode?

A: Keven Miller and Steve Ellis replied:

Try DBUTIL

>>SHOW database USERS

Q: What is the name of the file that has the device ID values that are used in SYSGEN?

A: Doug Werth, John Clogg and Chuck Ciesinski replied:

IODFAULT.PUB.SYS

Q: Suppose I have two files, 1 perm and 1 temp, using the same name. If I run a program with a stdin=tempfile, does MPE look for a temp file first and if it doesn't find it, look for a permanent file?

A: Jeff Woods replied:

The FOPEN() and HPFOPEN() intrinsics allow the caller to specify the domain of the file to be opened (perm, temp or new). The default for a file open causes the file system to first check for a temporary file with the name and if there is none then to check for a permanant file. Of course, a :FILE command can specify the domain which will override the arguments to the intrinsic.

Q: I just upgraded from MPE/iX 6.0 to MPE/iX 6.5, applying some patches in the process. How do I get a list of the patches so I can verify what I have?

A: John Burke and John MacLarran replied:

Print the file HPSWINFO.PUB.SYS.

Stan Sieler pointed out that this file is not protected, and could be overwritten by, say, an incorrect RESTORE request.

Q: How does the DELROUTING command work in NETTOOL? I get 'unknown option' when I try it.

A: John Burke replied:

You must be reading the manual. I was told the command was removed from nettool some time ago (unfortunately) though the reason was unknown. About the only thing you can do is flush the entire routing table with:

netcontrol update=internet;net=lan1

Q: How do you execute a file of commands in ISQL?

A: Chris Sweeney and Mark Klein replied:

start <filename>;

Q: Can you use a SLT tape that has been created with a tape label?

A: Doug Werth replied:

Nope. While SYSGEN doesn't prevent you from writing to a labeled tape, the boot IODC will not recognize the label. Hence, you can't boot from it.

Q: I've got a system I can ping but can not connect to with ftp or telnet. The inetd job is running. What could be wrong?

A: Doug Werth replied:

Make sure telnet and ftp are configured in INETDCNF.NET.SYS and not commented out.

Q: How do I print a message file without records getting deleted by the destructive read?

A: John Clogg replied:

If you are simply trying to examine the contents of a message file using the PRINT command, for example, you can use the CI's COPY command to create a copy of the message file. This doesn't actually do a record-by-record read the way FCOPY does, so the original file is preserved. You can then print the copy.

Q: How can I reset the numbers used for spoolfiles? And what happens if there is already #On when "n" is the next number to be assigned to a spoolfile?

A: John Clogg replied:

:SETCOUNTER OUTSP;BASE=1

Any time a spoolfile ID is generated via incrementing the previous number, and an existing one is found to conflict, MPE simply keeps incrementing the

numbers until it finds an available one.

Q: I recently had to take over a system that I know has been updated in the past with PATCH/iX and STAGE/iX. How do I determine the current status?

A: John Burke replied:

Use the STAGEMAN program and the STATUS and LIST commands.