Q: Does anyone know, if we can use one of
the new DAT 72 drives with a HP 3000 A-class and, if yes, is it possible to
boot from the drive?
A: Goetz Neumann replied:
DAT72 is equivalent to DDS-5. The answers to the questions are "no" and "no". DDS-5 is not supported or certified yet.
Q: I do this: echo <esc>H to do a "home up". This works
fine, except that the echo command does an automatic LF CR after it sends the
"home" escape sequence to the terminal [emulator]. The net result is
that, instead of getting the cursor at "home", I get the cursor
"one line below home". Any tricks for asking echo to NOT issue the LF
CR? Alternatively, is there another way
to specify "home" (not programmatically but from the MPE/iX CI)?
A: Ted Bochan and Keven Miller replied:
:INPUT
X;PROMPT=chr(27)+"H";READCNT=0
or, equivalently,
:INPUT
X;PROMPT="![chr(27)]H";READCNT=0
Q: We changed our backups from DLT4000 to
DLT8000. Is there a utility on the HP e3000 to erase, reformat, and
reinitialize DLT tapes so that the DLT8000 will not "switch" to the
DLT4000 "compatibility mode" automatically?
A: Thomas Root replied:
When you mount a (DLT IV) tape that was previously written on a DLT4000 drive, press the density override button to select 40 Gb compressed and then write to the tape. Once it has been written on the DLT8000 it will automatically select the higher density.
Q: I've recently discovered that DDS tapes
store information about themselves, including some error stats and use count. I
would like to use this information to help manage our tapes (discard after so
many uses, etc.) but am having trouble accessing the information. Searching the
3000-L archives and the ITRC reveals that the information (the "Tape
Log") can be viewed using the expert scsi tool in cstm, or the SCSIDDS
tool in SYSDIAG; but both of these require passwords that I don't have. Are
there any other tools to access the tape log?
A: Goetz Neumann replied:
As far as I know,
no. However, if your DDS is an external model, you could get yourself a SCSI
card for a PC and use the LTT (Library and Tape Tools), which you can download
from www.hp.com. It is available for Windows (I checked for XP) and Linux
RedHat. [http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/ltt/index.html] I have
not checked it in detail, but I think the LTT has at least the same diagnostic
features as cstm, including firmware management.
[Editor's note:
The passworded diagnostic tools have been a sore point for years with HP 3000
customers. Many list members were around when Rich Sevcik promised this would
not happen. Of course, he is long gone, but the passwords remain. If you have
support from HP, you can get the passwords, but even that may not help.
Sometime early in the release cycle for MPE/iX 6.0, SCSIDDS stopped being able
to read the tape log. Try as I might I could never get HP to address the issue,
at least in part because it was planning to change to cstm with MPE/iX 6.5. I
never got around to trying cstm because I did not have an MPE/iX 6.5 or greater
system on support at the time. HP has indicated a willingness to do something
about the passwords at end of support.]
Q: Is there any way to see a file label's
create, modify, etc. times down to the second? We are trying to determine if
certain files are being FTP'd up to us in the correct order. Unfortunately a
listf only shows to the minute and all are the same.
A: James Reynolds replied:
Use FINFO parameter -60 for the create time as an integer in the form HHMMSS.
Q: Is there a way to force FINFO to report
on only temp files? I am trying to bulletproof a command-file that is supposed
to work on a temp file. There should not be a permanent file of the same name,
but I am trying to be sure.
A: Stan Sieler replied:
:file xx, oldtemp
:calc finfo ("*xx", "exists")
Note the "*" in the filename given to FINFO. If no temp "xx" exists, I get "FALSE" regardless of whether or not a perm "xx" exists.
Q: I normally do an MPEX ALTFILE to increase
the file limit of a KSAM/XL file when the end of file approaches the file
limit. I did this today to a KSAM/XL file, but then I started thinking that
there must be a better way of removing deleted records than by just increasing
the file limit each time the file starts to fill up. Can anyone offer me a
simple way of removing deleted records from a KSAM/XL file without increasing
its flimit?
A: Ron Horner replied:
In the building of the KSAM/XL file, you can add an option ";reuse". This will allow the system to reuse any space left by deleted records.
Q: How do I retrieve the local node name
programmatically? I do not want to have to hard code the node name value into
the program I am writing.
A: Keven Miller replied:
NSINFO items 18 and 19 (http://docs.hp.com/mpeix/onlinedocs/36920-90008/36920-90008.html).
Tracy Pierce added:
Reasonable KSAM maintenance includes, in my opinion, an occasional reorganization, which will make the file run more efficiently by placing records in physical sequence. This simple procedure doesn't care if your KSAM is XL or Classic, and doesn't address the issue of fullness.
PURGE FLATFILE
FCOPY FROM=KSAMFILE;TO=FLATFILE;NEW
PURGE KSAMFILE
BUILD
KSAMFILE;KSAMXL;REC=-96,8,F,ASCII;KSAMXL;KEY=(B,3,6);REUSE
FCOPY FROM=FLATFILE;TO=KSAMFILE
Q: We would like to limit the VT-MGR
connections (NS/VT) coming from the network to a range of LDEV's (or at least
specifying the beginning device range). Is there a way to do this?
A: James Hofmeister replied:
It is possible to control the starting ldev for NS-VT and telnet by configuring all ldev up to your selected starting point with nailed ldevs (bogus dtc ldevs as an example) or other configured sysgen devices. It is then possible to limit the number of inbound NS-VT connections with the nscontrol command:
NSCONTROL
START;SERVER={servername}[,minservers][,maxservers]
:nscontrol start;server=vtserver,0,2
Here I set the maximum to #2 and when I attempt to log on the third session I get the following error at the console:
** NS/3000 RESOURCE ERROR IN DSDAD; Job: 0;
PIN: 69; Info: 0
- Error: 18; Number of servers exceeds max
servers limit
- Miscellaneous : 2
Q: I have two LANICs, one is the 100MBit the
other is the old 10MBit. I had nominally abandoned the old LANIC. However I got
a wild burr today and decided to try and add it in to the same segment the
100MBit card is on:
B 172.20.11.5 LAN1
B 172.20.11.6 LAN2
But when I VALIDATE in NMMGR, it complains with an error that:
"DUPLICATE NETWORK PARTS OF IP
ADDRESSES DETECTED (VALERR 119)
I thought this should not be a problem, as long as I configure the last octet of the IP to be a different number. What is wrong?
A: Various people replied, the gist of which
is that the HP e3000 does not support multiple LANICs on the same (logical)
network. Never did and never will. From James Hofmeister, “Sorry for the news,
but the HP-e3k does not, and will not support the functionality of Multiple IP
address for NI (SR 8606154769) or the multiple NI per network (no SR
submitted).”
Q: I wanted to load the latest FTP patch for
MPE/iX and went through the needed steps to get the files onto my system.
However when I ran PATCHIX, it said the patch did NOT qualify. The patch's
documentation on the web does not list any hardware or software dependencies. I
know I could 'force' the patch, but I'm puzzled why the patch does not qualify
in the first place.
A: Guy Paul replied:
Make sure you are
on the latest Patch/iX version first. If it still won't qualify there is a
f-key you can press that should give you more details on why it won't qualify.
Most likely it is a checksum problem. If you made any changes to the catalog or
help file this would change the checksum. Forcing it should be okay in this
case and you can always back it out with STAGEMAN.
[Editor's note:
Another common cause for checksum failure, in addition to changing the catalog
or help file (which turned out to be the cause in this case) is applying a
lockword to the file or renaming something. I often did both these with QUERY.
The lockword was to prevent normal users from accessing it and the rename was
used before NM QUERY became QUERY. Both caused checksum failures when patching.
Forcing the patch worked just fine.]
Q: I would like to set up an hp3000 as a
fileserver. In one of my accounts I want to have a share for each user (more
than 100) pointing to a separate directory in this account. The homes section
in smb.conf normally points to the home group of the user, which is the same
for all of them and is not helpful. Is there another way of solving the
problem, or must I configure more the 100 shares?
A: Mark Wonsil replied:
I saw a clever little trick in Unix that should work on MPE:
[%U]
path = /ACCT/SHARES/%U
This creates a share name that is the same as the username and then it points the files to a directory under the SHARES group. I haven't tested it but it may do the trick.
Q: What things count against a system’s user
license?
A: Gavin Scott replied:
This has been well
documented and vetted in the HP 3000 FAQ: http://www.3k.com/faq/hpfaq03.html#3.10.
Q: Does anyone know if the SuperDLT Tape
drives are supported on HP3000 N-Class boxes?
A: Giles Schipper replied:
According to the 2003 MPE I/O roadmap presented at HPWorld by Jim Hawkins, "SDLT with SDLT data cartridges stores 110GB uncompressed and achieves 11MB/sec sustained I/O rate. It is able to READ DLT IV cartridges written by DLT4/7/8000 devices. During our initial evaluation of SDLT devices we found some minor incompatibilities with our existing tape drivers. These incompatibilities along with uncertainty (at that time) about HP's Tape Roadmap and the fact that they are not 100% media compatible with existing DLTs led us to the decision to not invest in these devices." The bottom line is that SuperDLT is not supported by HP. Whether or not they will work with the N-class is unclear to me.
Q: Is it possible to
store files to tape using tar on the HP 3000?
A: Denys Beauchemin
replied: Yes.