Hidden Value – August 2002

 

Q: I understand that doing ABORTJOB on the Apache job is a "bad thing". How should I stop the Apache job?

 

A: Ted Ashton and Donna Garverick replied:

 

xeq sh.hpbin.sys "-c 'kill `cat /APACHEFW/PUB/logs/httpd.pid`'"

 

Note that the Apache job creates the file httpd.pid, which simply contains the PID for the Apache root process.

 

 

Q: How do I delete a database?

 

A: A number of people jumped all over this one:

 

Sign on as the creator of the database in the group where the database resides. Then use the PURGE command of DBUTIL.PUB.SYS.

 

 

Q: I've got a 9x7 system in production that's going to be exchanged with/for a 9x8. The current system has a DTC connected to it and the new box needs that information added to it. While I realize that I could painfully (risking numerous errors) type everything in by hand, I was wondering if there is a better way? I should add that the current system is running 5.5 and the replacement box is running 6.5.

 

A: John Burke, Denis St-Amand and Bill Titus replied:

 

Simply copy (or restore) nmconfig.pub.sys from the old system (you may want to rename it while working on it), run nmmgrver on it to "convert" to 6.5 format and then change any other information particular to the 9x8 (NIC path, nodename, etc). Use this to replace nmconfig on your 9x8. This will preserve all your DTC configurations.

 

 

Q: We had to restore several of the standard MPE POSIX directories and files, such as the POSIX directories under /BIND. The restore was done with ";CREATE=PATH". This appears to have created the POSIX directories (paths) with default permissions. This appears to be wrong.

 

Does anyone know of a way to get the POSIX directories distributed with MPE back to their correct permissions without messing up everything else? This is MPE 6.0 PP2.

 

A: Goetz Neumann replied:

 

ITRC document MPEKBRC00002551 shows how you can do that based on the 'tar' container which is on your OS releases' FOS tape.

 

 

Q: How do I set up anonymous FTP on my HP 3000?

 

A: Michael Berkowitz, Jerome Leproux and James Hofmeister replied;

 

See either the MPE/iX 6.0 Communicator or the latest version of Installing and Managing HP ARPA File Transfer, both of which should be available at docs.hp.com for the full explanation. Basically it just involves creating an FTPGUEST account with a user named USER. The anonymous FTP user is prevented from using the site command or accessing anything outside the /FTPGUEST/PUB directory path.

 

 

Q: Does anyone know if support for the VA7400 is out yet or planned for release?

 

A: Donna Garverick replied:

 

As far as I know, VA7400s will never be supported for MPE. The VA7100 is, however, supported once you're running MPE/iX 7.0 using a scsi-to-fibre router.

 

Steve Macsisak added that MPE/iX 7.5 would support native fibre connections to the VA7100, but did not supply any speculation as to eventual support for the VA7400.

 

 

Q: I'm not familiar with the HP 3000 at all. I'm the network manager. But I'd like to start monitoring a HP 3000 with SNMP for things like CPU util \ jobs running or whatever other cool stat I can SNMP grab from this box. The problem I have is I can't find the MIBs for it anywhere on HP's site.

 

A: Andreas Schmidt replied:

 

First of all, I do not recommend the use of SNMP on the HP e3000, for performance but also security reasons. SNMP is not the securest protocol, as you know.

 

Nevertheless, some hints:

 

·                     In the group NET.SYS you will find the SNMPUDC. This should be set in any case for MANAGER.SYS or on system level.

·                     Having set this, a SNMPCONTROL STATUS will show you the status of the SNMP subsystem.

·                     SNMPCONTROL START / STOP are self-explaining.

·                     The MIBs specific for MPE can be found in the document "HP SNMP/XL User's Guide" which is available on the HP Instant Information CD but also on http://www.docs.hp.com/.

 

[Editor's note: see Andreas' posting in the HP3000-L archives for an example command file to check the current MIstate and get the current cpu utilization.]

 

Elizabeth Thayer added that the MIBS are also in the file MPEIXMIB.NET.SYS and that there is a recent security patch for SNMP.

 

 

Q: I am puzzled! I have six jobs that always run simultaneously with each other, though that's not a requirement. I run them every six weeks. Running together they finish in about 20 minutes. Yesterday they never finished. Glance says 'other IO' as a wait state, and no CPU usage.

 

A: Ken Hirsch replied (the questioner later confirmed this was correct):

 

I bet that you are doing something like ECHO Done >>*X (Where X is a message file that is full.)

 

 

Q: Is it possible to download a PowerPatch "tape" from the ITRC?

 

A: Mark Bixby replied:

 

In a word, "no". However, my patchman script essentially allows you to do this, i.e. download all available patches that you don't already have:

 

http://www.bixby.org/ftp/pub/mpe/patchman-2.2.sh

or

ftp://ftp.bixby.org/pub/mpe/patchman-2.2.sh

 

Be sure to upload this to your e3000 as a POSIX bytestream file.

 

:HELLO MANAGER.SYS,INSTALL

:XEQ SH.HPBIN.SYS -L

$ /path/to/patchman -d -e your@email.address

$ exit

:PATCHIX

...etc...

 

 

Q: Does anybody know of an Intrinsic that could be called to determine if a particular job is running or not? Other suggestions for similar functionality are welcome.

 

A: Tom Brandt, Pat Shugart, Stan Sieler and Allen Porter jumped all over this one:

 

JOBINFO intrinsic. Or, from the CI, JINFO function.

 

 

Q: Does anyone know if the little flat beige transceivers that HP supplied with older HP3000 network cards have a standard AUI connector? I spent some time yesterday tracking down what I thought was a software problem, but it turned out to be the 15-year-old coax run connecting our 3000s to the network. Can I just replace these with 10BaseT transceivers from Fry's?

 

A: Jeff Woods replied:

 

In a word, "yes".

 

 

Q: Does anyone know if SWAT (Samba Web Admin Toolkit) is included with the latest version of Samba/iX?

 

A: Lars Appel replied:

 

Yes, SWAT is included with Samba 2.0.7 for MPE/iX and later versions.

 

The SWAT program that comes with the HP version of Samba 2.0.7 needs to be run in "demo mode" using the -a option in INETDCNF, so you might want to use INETDSEC to restrict access to selected client PC's.

 

The SWAT program that comes with the non-hp version of Samba 2.0.7 or 2.0.10 or 2.2.3a or 2.2.4 or 2.2.5 can be used without -a and prompts the web user for a valid MPE logon (user.acct and userpw,acctpw) before granting access to the smb.conf file (in read or write mode, depending on the user.acct entered).

 

 http://www.editcorp.com/personal/lars_appel/index.html -> Samba

 

On general note regarding SWAT, keep in mind that it rewrites the smb.conf file when you save changes. This will typically remove any comments or special formatting that you might have done manually.

 

 

[Editor's note: for those of you with SPL programs you may need to convert to C] Q: Does anyone have a program that would generate a cross-reference listing for SPL? The SPL manual indicates that such an animal was available, at some point, but I cannot find it on my system.

 

A: Duane Percox replied:

 

The reference in our SPL manual is that this program was from the CSL. I have CSL reference material that indicates SPLXREF ca. 1982 produces an SPL identifier cross-reference listing.

 

 

[Editor's note: Another question potentially useful for migrators.] Q: Now I'm trying to get softkeys to work on our screen handler running on Linux. It seems that commands do not get sent to Linux after a softkey is set up. Does anyone know why this might be? Do HP3000 terminal emulators use some form of proprietary 3000 communication to send the command? I assumed the softkey string would be passed as if it had been typed on the keyboard but unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case. Can a terminal guru enlighten me on how this thing works.

 

A: (terminal communications guru) Wirt Atmar replied by pointing to a complete description of the situation on his web site:

 

 http://aics-research.com/qcterm/manual.html#Using

 

Basically it boils down to this. Softkeys as defined in "HP" teminal emulators have three types of "transmission" mode: Normal, Transmit and Local. In "local" mode, the key string is executed locally and not transmitted at all. "Transmit" mode is for communication with MPE/iX and used special block transfer hand-shaking. To quote from the AICS web site, "normal mode is the function key mode you'll want to use with most computer operating systems."

Again, quoting from the AICS web site: "The user-specified key string is treated exactly as if it were typed from the keyboard. Of importance, a carriage return is not automatically transmitted at the end of the string. If you wish to have a carriage return be a part of the key string, put it into the string yourself."

 

 

Q: Transivers have an "SQE" switch. Should this be turned "on" or "off".

 

A: Goetz Neumann replied:

 

SQE should be switched ON on the transceiver on both the HPe3000 and all the transceivers on your DTCs. Otherwise, you might see excessive heartbeat loss logging occurring on the 3000 (or on a DTC manager PC).

 

 

Q: I am looking for HP3000 manuals on the web. Please, could you help me with information on where they are?

 

A: Denys Beauchemin and Lars Appel replied:

 

Besides http://docs.hp.com there is also http://docs.hp.com/mpeix/docs5/ with the latter being older manual versions in some cases, but due to the plain HTML and GIF structure, they can be fairly browser-friendly (speed).