Q: We are still on MPE/iX 5.5 PP7. Is it
possible to upgrade directly to MPE/iX 7.0?
A: Paul Edwards replied:
No, you have to go to 6.0 or 6.5 first and
then to 7.0. Why not go to 7.5 and be on the latest and last release. Note, you
may have hardware issues depending on the HP 3000 you have, so be sure to check
compatibility first.
Q: Is traceroute available for MPE/iX 6.0?
A: Michael Berkowitz replied:
Try the patch NSTGDK3A available from the
ITRC.
Q: Is there any way to find out if a job is
scheduled BY NAME, other than brute force parsing a :showjob output? JINFO only takes job numbers.
For example, if you want to see if a named
job is running, you can:
:tell foo.bar Are you there?
:if cierror=1627 then
since the tell generates "J2
FOO.BAR" not interactive. Message
not sent to job. (CIWARN 1627).
This little trick doesn't work if the job
exists but is scheduled, you get There was no session found that matched this
ID. (CIWARN 1619)
SHOWJOB doesn't set any return codes whether
it exists or not. Is there an crafty workaround, or do you have to parse
SHOWJOB output?
A: Gary Paveza replied:
To tell if a job is around, you could always
use the JOBCNT function.
Q: I have an older A-class box with a
flashing attention light. Does this mean anything or should I ignore it, like
the oil light in my truck?
A: Gary Jackson replied:
Do a control B, read the ERror log (at least
one record) and then the flashing light should disappear. At the prompt, type
in CO to go back to console mode.
David Sims added:
In our case it was the GSP (General Service
Processor) telling us that there is an error code that had not been accessed in
its store. This happens when you power down the e3000 and then power it back up
again. Most of the time it is a message
that can be ignored, but you will need to access the GSP's error messages and
display it to stop the annoying flashing.
Q: How much will a DLT8000 store before it
requires a second tape? Is it data dependant?
A: Denys Beauchemin and Jeff Woods replied:
The DLT8000 drive, using a DLT IV tape will
record 40GN of native (uncompressed) data. With hardware compression enabled,
this number can grow up to 80GB. Depending on the data, this number can be high
or low but is a fairly reliable measure for data consisting of databases and
programs and such stuff. If the data is mainly incompressible stuff, you will
get less than 80GB, but not less than 40GB.
Q: How do I know what my MPE/iX version is?
When I log on I get the message:
HP3000
Release: C.60.00 User Version:
C.60.02
MON, DEC 16, 2002, 11:44 AM
MPE/iX
HP31900 C.16.01 Copyright
Hewlett-Packard 1987. All rights reserved.
A: Gilles Schipper replied:
You are running MPE/iX 6.0 with PowerPatch
2.
John Burke added:
Examine HPSWINFO.PUB.SYS to determine what
patches beyond PowerPatch 2 have been applied.
Q: Is there a version of zip/unzip that runs
on MPE/iX?
A: From Jens von Bulow of Neil Harvey &
Associates:
http://ftp.nha.co.za/hp3000/zip/
Q: How do I configure Windows XP to use
clear text passwords so I can communicate with Samba/iX?
A: Lane Rollins replied:
On Windows 2000 and Windows XP,
Control Panel -> Administrative Tools
-> Local Security Policy
In the tree inside the MMC snap in go to
Security Settings -> Local Policies ->
Security Options
Then change the entry "Microsoft
network client: Send unencrypted password to third-party SMB servers" to
enabled.
Reboot the box and you're done.
Q: My DLT 4000 was not detected at reboot by
my HP 3000 (MPE/iX 6.0). The message was:
...... configured but not available
What can I do?
A: Giles Schipper replied:
You can try DOWNing and then UPing the
device as well as power-cycling it. However, you are probably going to have to
reboot.
This time, make absolutely sure that the
DLT4000 is completely inactive (i.e., not in the process of loading a tape).
You might have a SCSI address conflict - you can verify your actual SCSI
addresses with ODE MAPPER.
To get into ODE MAPPER,
- perform a boot (from primary path),
- answer Y to interact with IPL
- type ODE at isl prompt
- type RUN MAPPER at ODE prompt
[Editor's note: The problem turned out to be
a faulty SCSI selector on the DLT and the drive had to be replaced.]
Q: Can anyone tell me what the NMLGxxxx log
files in PUB.SYS are used for, and how long they should be kept? They seem to
fill up and start new files almost daily and I've just discovered that I've got
over 800 of them.
A: Donna Garverick replied:
They are the network log files, somewhat
similar to the log#### files, but strictly for network logging. As far as how
long to keep them, that is up to you. Right now, because networking life is
good, I'm only keeping 10 days worth of network log files.
Craig Lalley added:
Two things could be happening here.
1) You have a problem with you network and
excessive errors are being logged, in which case use NMDUMP to read the log
files.
2) There are just informational messages
being logged and nothing to worry about.
Personally I purge them on a regular basis.
You can determine if there are errors in
your network by doing
:LINKCONTROL @;STATUS=all
This will let you know if the last 5 or 6
logs are worth saving.
Q: We need to hook up 2 DTC's again. We want
these DTC's to be on there own lan card.
A: Jeff Kell replied:
Assuming you have two LAN cards, leave the
TCP/IP one alone. Set up the second one's hardware address in the DTSLINK
configuration of NMMGR.
You will then need the MAC addresses of the
DTCs. Configure these in NMMGR, host-based DTC management, including their MAC
addresses, and configure the card(s)/port(s) as necessary. Validate and exit
(you probably don't want to add all this online).
For cabling, you didn't say which DTCs. If
they are DTC48s setup by default, they will want to use the BNC connectors
unless you open them up and change jumpers to use the AUI connector instead.
Enable SQE heartbeat on the transceivers (DTCs and 3000). If using BNC, be sure
you have both ends terminated, and use "T" connectors throughout (no
shortcuts BNC-to-BNC).
Reboot and pray.
Lars Appel added:
Before resorting to reboot, I would probably
first try if the dynamic configuration changes inside NMMGR (when it prompts
whether to activate the changes now or later) or with DTCCNTRL FUNC=DYNCONF
work as needed.
If that does not help, you could still use
DTCCNTRL FUNC=SHUTDOWN and FUNC=RESTART to selectively restart the DTS
subsystem instead of the whole machine. Can save quite some time.
Q: Does anyone know why HP gave up on
HP-Eloquence?
A: Gavin Scott replied:
I believe everyone involved considers this
change to be a Good Thing(tm). The product will now be directly owned by the
company that wrote it and supports it, who will not have to deal with the HP
bureaucracy when it comes to deciding what enhancements to fund, etc.
There were also concerns by a number of
people that they could not be sure that HP wouldn't suddenly stop supporting
Eloquence the way that they stopped supporting MPE. The irony is that the only
way to completely allay people's fears that HP would stop supporting it was to
get HP to stop supporting it.
In fact I think you'll find that significant
forces are in motion to provide expanding worldwide support and accelerating
growth for the Eloquence product, especially in terms of its use as a
TurboImage replacement. Some URLs that
may be interesting:
http://www.eloquence3000.com/
http://www.mbfoster.com/enews/press_releases.cfm?Open=152
as well as:
http://www.hp-eloquence.com/transition/
Q: We have been concerned here with increasing
backup times recently and have been having a closer look at our backup
procedures as a result. We're using plain old STORE to 2 DDS-3 drives (one
internal, the other external). One of the things we've been looking at is
interleaving (i.e. using the :INTERLEAVE option of store), and wondering
whether it would be worthwhile to do it?
A: John Burke replied:
It is mostly safe, but I've never been a big
fan of ;INTERLEAVE for the reasons you mention. DDS is just too flaky for my
tastes.
I had five DDS drives and actually
configured five separate, non-intersecting, backups to run simultaneously. This
way, if a problem occurred on any one drive, it did not affect the other four
tapes and I was at least partially backed up. The length of the full "backup"
was the length of the longest individual store. With occasional adjustment, the
backup could be kept reasonably in balance.
The downside to this approach is that you
must be in control of system account management and (possibly) make manual
adjustments to your backup scheme every time there are account/group additions.
On some systems this could be daunting. However, I used the above scheme for
over five years and never lost a file.
Gavin Scott added:
Well, one issue to consider is that the more
"weird" TurboStore options you use, the more difficult it may be in
the future to recover data from those tapes in the event that one or more reels
is damaged/lost/overwritten, or if you need to get the data off the tapes and
you no longer have a 3000 to read them on.
Q:
Recently we have been encountering the following error almost every
night on our backup jobs:
STORE
ENCOUNTERED MEDIA WRITE ERROR ON LDEV 7
(S/R 1454)
...
WARNING:
STORE EXPERIENCED ERROR WHILE MARKING MEDIA BAD ON LDEV 7 (S/R 1466)
SPECIFICALLY,
STORE RECEIVED ERROR -100 FROM SUBSYS TS_TAPE_DEVICE_CONTROL (S/R 1556)
We're not sure if this is our tape drive
going bad, our tapes getting too old or what. The System is a 979/400 running
MPE/ix 5.5 and the drive is an HP DDS3 DAT24i drive. The drive is about 6 years
old. It does get cleaned regularly. Our tapes in rotation are fairly old, too.
However, we are receiving this error even when we use brand new tapes. The new
tapes, however, are Fuji media, not HP like our old ones. I don't know if the
drive can tell the difference. What should we do?
A: John Burke replied:
Replace the drive. DDS drives are notorious
for failing. I have never had a DDS drive come close to lasting through 6 years
of daily use, so you should consider yourself lucky. Also, the drive cannot
tell whether or not you are using HP branded tapes. I've used Fuji DDS tapes
and have found them to be just as good as HP branded tapes (note that HP does
not actually manufacture the tapes). I have also gotten into the habit of
replacing DDS tapes after about 25 uses. When compared to the value of a
backup, this is a small expense to pay.
Q: From the manual and some experience with
MPE I realize that when I create a new file it goes into the "new file domain"
and can be put into the "permanent domain" with the FCLOSE statement.
But reading about FCLOSE and some of the
options makes me wonder what happens when you FOPEN an existing permanent file.
At the point of opening, is some sort of copy made to the new file domain? So
when the FCLOSE happens the new copy can be made back to the original file? Or
does it just work with the file in the permanent domain once it's there?
A: John Clogg replied:
Most file access is with permanent files.
Probably the most typical scenario is to build a file with the BUILD command,
and then access it with your program. As you have seen, you can create the file
with an FOPEN, which places it in the NEW domain, which simply means that it is
not added to the directory. When you close a NEW file, it will be deleted,
unless you specify a disposition of TEMP or SAVE. A TEMP file is also not
cataloged in the system directory, and is therefore known only to the job or
session that created it. It will be deleted at the end of the job or session
unless it is SAVEd. No temporary copy is made when accessing permanent files.
They are identical to NEW or TEMP files except for their disposition. For
example, the PURGE command accomplishes its function by opening the file and
then closing it with a disposition of DELETE.
Q: According to the 7.0 PowerPatch 1
Communicator, the BIGPIN feature can be enabled only on "N" Class
servers. Now that MPE/iX 7.5 is out, is this restriction still in place? I
wasn't able to determine from a brief search of the MPE/iX 7.5 communicator. We
have a 979 and a 989 (both currently running MPE/iX 6.5) that are bumping up
against the current maximum number of processes. If the restriction is still in
place, is it a hardware constraint or an HP marketing constraint?
A: Stan Seiler replied:
You ask an excellent question, and one that
I asked (without an answer) when BIGPIN was first being discussed. Dave Snow,
since departed from MPE-land, declined to answer. It's possible for HP to
provide you with a patch to allow BIGPIN to work on your system. I'd suggest
submitting a bug report / enhancement request / something via the HP ITRC to
request it.