Database recovery delivered

All databases can become useless. That is, they suffer some kind of corruption or acquire an unwanted flag. The latter problem came to visit an HP 3000 site over the weekend. The solution to repair a 3000 database ultimately arrived from Adager, the resource the 3000 community calls when trouble needs fixing pronto. James Dunlap called out to the community, via the 3000 newsgroup:

I was increasing a dataset’s capacity using DBCPLUS and thought my (remote) session had hung after already doing PER COM, so I aborted the session.  The bad news was that we don’t have a current backup of the database, and now the “restructuring” flag is set and the DB is “bad.”

That's HP's DBChange Plus utility that Dunlap is using, a tool HP obsoleted. In this situation, DBCPlus played a part in making the database bad. Old tools might be better than no tools; HP tried to put its customers in touch with third parties in 2000 when it dropped DBCPlus.

Dunlap tried to make a copy of the database too, and the copy was also “bad”. He reached out to the community through the Web, although finally the solution came through a call to Adager.

Resetting the database flag advice came from Craig Lalley of EchoTech:

You can reset the "restructuring" flag. There are several ways to do it, none come to mind here in the airport, but I would start with DBUTIL. Do you have Adager, or [Bradmark's] DBGeneral? It is a two bit marker that you should be able to find with DEBUG.

But if you're not familiar with running DEBUG on an HP 3000, the tool can become a tar pit. You'll want expert advice to fix a database problem using DEBUG, a tool on every HP 3000. Custom programming might have solved the problem, according to Brian Donaldson. But he couldn't resist fundamental advice on database procedure: "I don't mean to sound unfeeling about your predicament, but you are getting everything you asked for -—"

1) Not having a backup copy of the DB prior to making structural changes
2) Not using Adager for structural changes to begin with
3) Doing these structural changes across a remote line is just asking for trouble!

You can write a quickie Privileged Mode program to FOPEN the Image root file, read label zero and reset offset zero to a value of "FW" (which means database okay and accessible.) Definition of the root file is in the blue Image/3000 Handbook.

Donaldson's fix carried three notable pieces of information. First, there's the use of a Priv Mode program, written to work in the deepest level of MPE/iX. A process not for many a 3000 owner. Then there's the Image/3000 Handbook, a community resource long out of print but on the shelf of savvy, seasoned 3000 experts.

Then there's that FW flag. The FW stands for Fred White, co-creator of Image. After leaving HP, White worked at Adager for many years before retiring. And so Dunlap found his answer at Adager:

Rene Woc at Adager walked me through the necessary steps to fix via Debug.  (FW did the trick.)  That was not only kind of him, but downright gracious, considering that we don’t have Adager (yet!). Thanks to all who helped.

HP 3000 help remains available through the Web. It is likely to be around long after HP closes its support doors for the system, delivered by way of third parties like Adager. "We remain surprisingly busy," Woc told me in a call last week. He monitored HP's Webcast last week online, staying up to date with HP's plans to curtail 3000 support.

Dunlap reported his repair process, a resolution via Adager expertise:

Database recovery delivered

All databases can become useless. That is, they suffer some kind of corruption or acquire an unwanted flag. The latter problem came to visit an HP 3000 site over the weekend. The solution to repair a 3000 database ultimately arrived from Adager, the resource the 3000 community calls when trouble needs fixing pronto. James Dunlap called out to the community, via the 3000 newsgroup:

I was increasing a dataset’s capacity using DBCPLUS and thought my (remote) session had hung after already doing PER COM, so I aborted the session.  The bad news was that we don’t have a current backup of the database, and now the “restructuring” flag is set and the DB is “bad.”

That's HP's DBChange Plus utility that Dunlap is using, a tool HP obsoleted. In this situation, DBCPlus played a part in making the database bad. Old tools might be better than no tools; HP tried to put its customers in touch with third parties in 2000 when it dropped DBCPlus.

Dunlap tried to make a copy of the database too, and the copy was also “bad”. He reached out to the community through the Web, although finally the solution came through a call to Adager.

Resetting the database flag advice came from Craig Lalley of EchoTech:

You can reset the "restructuring" flag. There are several ways to do it, none come to mind here in the airport, but I would start with DBUTIL. Do you have Adager, or [Bradmark's] DBGeneral? It is a two bit marker that you should be able to find with DEBUG.

But if you're not familiar with running DEBUG on an HP 3000, the tool can become a tar pit. You'll want expert advice to fix a database problem using DEBUG, a tool on every HP 3000. Custom programming might have solved the problem, according to Brian Donaldson. But he couldn't resist fundamental advice on database procedure: "I don't mean to sound unfeeling about your predicament, but you are getting everything you asked for -—"

1) Not having a backup copy of the DB prior to making structural changes
2) Not using Adager for structural changes to begin with
3) Doing these structural changes across a remote line is just asking for trouble!

You can write a quickie Privileged Mode program to FOPEN the Image root file, read label zero and reset offset zero to a value of "FW" (which means database okay and accessible.) Definition of the root file is in the blue Image/3000 Handbook.

Donaldson's fix carried three notable pieces of information. First, there's the use of a Priv Mode program, written to work in the deepest level of MPE/iX. A process not for many a 3000 owner. Then there's the Image/3000 Handbook, a community resource long out of print but on the shelf of savvy, seasoned 3000 experts.

Then there's that FW flag. The FW stands for Fred White, co-creator of Image. After leaving HP, White worked at Adager for many years before retiring. And so Dunlap found his answer at Adager:

Rene Woc at Adager walked me through the necessary steps to fix via Debug.  (FW did the trick.)  That was not only kind of him, but downright gracious, considering that we don’t have Adager (yet!). Thanks to all who helped.

HP 3000 help remains available through the Web. It is likely to be around long after HP closes its support doors for the system, delivered by way of third parties like Adager. "We remain surprisingly busy," Woc told me in a call last week. He monitored HP's Webcast last week online, staying up to date with HP's plans to curtail 3000 support.

Dunlap reported his repair process, a resolution via Adager expertise:

Escaping an HP 3000

We’re having trouble entering an escape character in MPE’s editor. Is there a trick to it?  We’re trying to change the instructions it sends to a printer.

Lars Appel replies:

I typically use some form of change or changeQ command when texting a file that contains escape characters and before saving it again.

:editor
/text myfile
/changeQ ‘27 to ‘126 in all
... edit file ...
/changeQ ‘126 to ‘27 in all
/keep
/exit

Using something like ~ (ASCII code 126) during the edit session. Of course, it only works if there is no ~ normally in the file.

Dave Powell adds:

Nowdays I keep permanent human-readable env files in a separate group, so conversions are one-way only and I never have to change esc back into ~.  When I got tired of changing ~ into esc I wrote a simple COBOL program to do it. It also knows how to filter out my comments, so I can make my human-readable env files even more readable.

Craig Lalley adds:

Turn on display functions first.

Linear advice saves tape storage solution

A 3000 community member who is obviously homesteading asked for help installing a Digital Linear Tape device today. His question to the HP 3000 newsgroup was "Why can't my Series 939 see the DLT8000 I just brought into the shop and mounted successfully?"

A couple of tape experts had good solutions to assist Joe Barnett, but both storage guru Denys Beauchemin and HP's Jim Hawkins couldn't resist much bigger advice: Migrate off that HP 3000. While Barnett contemplates that outsized project, he's got little to spark such an adventure — if his only problem is storing more data from a growing disk farm.

The experts shared a wide range of counsel, from the basic of "check that media" and "tape heads wear out on DLT8000s" to "they haven't made that generation of DLT drive in five years" (a period Beauchemin likes to call a lustrum, accurate but arcane English.)

When Hawkins stepped in to comment on Beauchemin's advice, the combination of counsel was another reason to believe in the power of the 3000 community.

Beauchemin, who's best known as Denys in the 3000 world, set off with an opinion, then followed with details. JIM of HP commented.

Denys: Unfortunately, this is the exact issue facing homesteaders and others who are delaying the migration off the HP3000, especially if they have pre-PCI machines.  The hardware to run it can only be found in antique stores and can be of varying level of readiness. You have many options open to you, but as time goes by they will more difficult to implement.

1- Look for another DLT8000 or a DLT7000, either one will work and you will not get any performance benefit from either one over the DDS-3, just more storage on one tape.

JIM >> Agreed.   Also make sure it has HP branded firmware; within the last two years had a painful set of System Aborts at a large customer due to semi-random walks through driver state machines initiated by non-certified firmware.

Denys: 2- Consider getting more DDS-3 drives.

JIM >> Agreed.  We have one medium size N-Class with something like 12 DAT24 drives -- they do either a 4x3 or 3x4 parallel storeset.   No messing with “reel” switches.

Denys: 3- Consider getting an HVD to SE/LVD SCSI converter and then trying a DDS-4 device.

JIM >> Don’t think that is an option since about 5.5/6.0  the “scsi_tape_dm” DDS driver will not “bind” to the F/W SCSI driver.   I think you may only configure the DLT (scsi_tape2_dm) driver “under” the NIO F/W SCSI HBA (fwscsi_dam).  As previously posted DAT40 with DAT24 media has worked well for some sites but DAT40 with DAT40 media is only supported on A/N-Class.

Denys: 4- Move to a PCI HP 3000 (the crippled A series or a small N-Class), then use newer LVD devices.

JIM >> Agree that PCI Systems will at least enable the usage of much newer “used” equipment and even some new stuff, if you want to buy a XP10k/12k ;-).

Denys: 5- Consider migrating from the HP 3000.  (This is the only long term solution and where I have been spending my time for the last several years. The newer server technology is light-years ahead of where the 3000 stopped and the new storage devices are incredible, fast and cheap.  The companies that we migrate are just amazed at the new hardware.)

JIM >> Agreed

Hardware, of course, is not the biggest challenge in migration. Moving programs, processes, training for new environments— that's where the work really begins. Besides, backing away from DLT is not all that uncommon in the 3000 community. At one point Denys told Joe about a needed interface, "HVD-SCSI is so last century." True enough. But storing to tape has its creaky looks, too. STORE To Disk is successful and better at carrying a 3000 into the next decade.

Deleting bad system disks

As HP 3000s age their disks go bad, the fate of any component with moving parts. Even after replacing a faulty drive — which is not expensive at today's prices — there are a few software steps to perform. Wyell Grunwald explains of the failed system (bootup) disk

Our disk was a MEMBER in MPEXL_SYSTEM_VOLUME_SET. I am trying to delete the disk off the system.  Upon startup of the machine is says that LDEV 4 is not available.  When going into SYSGEN, then IO, then DDEV 4 it gives me a warning that it is part of the system volume set — cannot be deleted.  I have done an INSTALL from tape (because some of the system files were on that device), which worked successfully. How do I get rid of this disk?

Gilles Schipper of support provider GSA said that INSTALL is something to watch while resetting 3000 system disks.

Sounds like the install did not leave you with only a single MPEXL_SYSTEM_VOLUME_SET disk.

Could it be that you have more than one system volume after INSTALL because other, non-LDEV 1 volumes were added with the AVOL command of SYSGEN - instead of the more traditional way of adding system volumes via th VOLUTIL utility?

You can check as follows:

SYSGEN
IO
LVOL

If the resulting output shows more than one volume, that's the answer.

He offers a repair solution as well.

The solution would be as follows:

1. reboot with:

START NORECOVERY SINGLE-DISC SINGLE-USER

2. with SYSGEN, perform a DVOL for all non-ldev1 volumes

3. HOLD, then KEEP CONFIG.SYS

4. create new SLT.

5. perform INSTALL from newly-created SLT.

6. add any non-ldev1 system volumes with VOLUTIL. This will avoid such problems in future.

If you do see only 1 system volume with the LVOL command, the only thing I can think of is that VOLUTIL was used to add ldev 4 to the MPEXL_SYSTEM_VOLUME_SET after the install.

Tape backup: Set DLT to beat DDS

Backing up enterprise-grade 3000s presents more interesting choices today than 5-10 years ago. Back then DDS had only two generations, neither of which were reliable for certain. A DDS tape used to be the common coin for OS updates and software upgrades. The media has advanced to a DDS-5 generation, but Digital Linear Tape (DLT) has a higher capacity and more reliability than DDS.

When a DDS tape backup runs slower than a DLT, however, something is amiss. DLT is supposed to supply a native transfer rate of 15 MBps in the SureStore line of tape libraries. You can look over at an HP PDF datasheet on the SureStore, even certified by HP for MPE/iX, at this link.

HP 3000 community partners such as Genisys and Bay Pointe and Pivital Solutions offer these DLTs, and Orbit Software has an "order with our backup software" option, too. But at an estimated cost of about $1,300 or more per DLT device, you'll expect them to beat the DDS-4 transfers of 5 MBps.

HP 3000 customer Ray Shahan didn't see the speed he expected after moving to DLT and asked the 3000 newsgroup community what might be wrong. Advice ranged from TurboStore commands, to channels where the drives are installed, to the 3000's bandwidth and CPU power to deliver data to the DLT. HP's MPE/iX IO expert Jim Hawkins weighed in among the answers, while users and third-party support providers gave advice on how to get the speed you pay extra for in DLT.

Dave Gale wrote in an answer that device configuration and CPU are potential problems:

If you are using a DLT it likes to get data in a timely manner. Otherwise it will do the old 'shoe shine'. This means that other devices on the line can affect the bandwidth on the channel and starve the DLT. If you are using something like RoadRunner, then the CPU can be a real factor in this equation (especially single-CPU machines). So, you may not only want to check the statistics portion of the report, but monitor your machine during backup with Glance or SOS.

Gilles Schipper of support company GSA said that a TurboStore command is essential. "If HP TurboStore, are you using MAXTAPEBUF option on STORE command?"

HP's Hawkins said channel configurations of backup devices are key to ensuring that DLT tops the DDS speed:

Generally this shouldn’t happen. It might happen if the DLT and disc are on the same channel while the DAT/DDS was on a separate one. Might also happen with large numbers of small files on semi-busy system as some DAT are better at start/stop than DLT. If you are running STORE the STATISTICS option can give a broad indication of throughput for A/B comparison.

EchoTech's Craig Lalley, who's made a business out of upgrading HP 3000 storage devices, said that even when a DLT is moved to a different channel than the disk drive, you can do more. "The easiest thing to do is run the backup in the C-queue. Also, try turning software compression off."

Allegro Consultants' Stan Sieler offered a basic remedy. "I'd try a new DLT tape. I've found that helps at times."

3000 user Jack Connor testified to how much faster a DLT backup becomes with the best software parameters for backup commands. "MAXTAPEBUF and INTER can make a major difference," he said. "I recently had a backup to DLT cut from 7 hours to under 2 by just adding these parms."

We recently ran an article about ScreenJet's advice about large backups which skip the tapes altogether. STORE-to-disk (STD) counts on the reliability of a second disk mechanism, but DLT tapes have moving parts and magnetic properties, too. They just seem to cost a good deal more than disks which hold 40 times more than a DLT tape.

More storage tips from Houston

ScreenJet's Alan Yeo had advice for 3000 storage solutions at this month's GHRUG International Technology Conference, counsel for those with limited budgets or no budget at all. Disk drive prices have fallen so far that a half-terabyte $600 RAID-class drive can be had for HP 3000 use, he said.

Even an HP-branded drive for the HP 3000 costs under $500 by now, although it will offer less than a tenth of that capacity. A 36GB HP drive is priced at about $400 on the community's market, "so long as you don't want it tomorrow. Getting enough disk space to do a STORE to Disk should not be a problem," he said.

Backup techniques can have an impact on costs to upgrade storage options, too. "You can always look at splitting your backup up, if you don't have enough disk space. Instead of doing @.@.@ you split it into chunks, if you don't even want to spend $400 for more disk."

3000 managers can get around the problem of backing up files of 4GB or more with some backup products "which let you specify extent size you want to use, so they won't go up to 4GB," Yeo said. "The other approach we've adopted with HP STORE is to actually split up the backup, so the backup runs in three or four steps, each one of them not exceeding the 4GB limit."

Breaking a backup into chunks also means "it's an awful lot quicker to get something back," Yeo added.

How to do a final 3000 shutdown

A few weeks ago, a customer asked how to turn off an HP 3000 once and for all. While this is a sad time for the IT expert who's built a career on MPE knowledge, doing a shutdown by the numbers is in keeping with the rest of the professional skill-set you can expect from a 3000 manager.

Chris Bartram, who has launched and stocks a Technical Wikipedia (TWiki) for the 3000, offered all the details of turning off an HP 3000. "I have just performed last rites for a 9x8 server at a customer site," he replied, "and have been through the exercise a couple times before."

His steps did not include SOX requirements, but "might be useful," he said in his usual modest introduction. There are 10 steps Bartram details before switching off the 3000's power button.

Bartram reported that he first purged all accounts except sys, hpspool, and 3000devs (and had to log off all jobs, shut down the network, and disable system UDCs to do that). Then:

2) Reset/blanked all system passwords (groups, users, accounts)

3) Purged all groups from SYS account that I could (aside from in-use groups) as well as all users except MANAGER.SYS,OPERATOR.SYS, MANAGER.HPSPOOL.

4) Went through PUB.SYS listf (file by file) looking for anything that might be a job stream or contain user data (or anything not critical to keeping the system up) and PURGEd it

5) Went into VOLUTIL and condensed my discs

6) Created a group called JUNK.SYS (you would need to do this on each volset; this box only had the system vol set)

7) Wrote and ran a short script that copied NL.PUB.SYS (the largest file remaining on the system) into JUNK.SYS in a loop using filenames A####### and X####### until all disc space was used up

8) Typed the command PURGEGROUP JUNK.SYS

9) Went into NMMGR and changed IP addresses on the box to something bland/different; including the default gateway (also deleted any entries in the NS directory if there are any)

10) Sequentially PURGE @.GROUP.ACCT for all groups (leaving PUB.SYS until last)

11) Shut down the box.

I am reminded of the line from Citizen Kane, which I enjoyed on Turner Classic Movies this week. "Then, as it must for every man, death came to Charles Foster Kane." Nothing escapes death, but a proper burial seems in order for such a legendary system.

HP releases critical patches to prevent corruption

HP released critical patches today which repair problems in the HP 3000 file system, a fix for any Large Files — which in rare circumstances, can corrupt data on a 3000. While the odds of the bug corrupting data in one case are technically 800 million to 1, HP is recommending that all customers who use MPE/iX 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 install one or both of the patches at the earliest opportunity. The patches can be staged, but they will require a reboot of the 3000, an event that is rare at many sites.

The HP repairs, announced today just after 10 AM Pacific time through the HP 3000 newsgroup, the OpenMPE mailing list and HP Web pages, include the first fix for the 3000's millicode in 16 years, according to Bill Cadier of HP's MPE/iX labs. The millicode patch, which replaces the MILL.LIB.SYS file, is only needed if a customer's applications access mapped files and utilize Large Files.

Large Files are any which are 4GB or greater in size. HP introduced the feature in March, 2000. Applications which have not been modified since March 29, 2000 should be safe from the potential corruption. The possible corruption can occur if any one of five of the last six bytes of a Large File fail to transfer correctly.

Customers who sort these types of files, using calls to HSORTOUTPUT or SORT.PUB.SYS, are at risk according to the HP notice for the patches. The potential risk and the repair surfaced when an HP 3000 customer notified HP of a data corruption issue.

Some customers will have applications which must be recompiled and re-linked to eliminate the problem. An application that uses the HPFOPEN intrinsic, and creates or uses Large Files, is a candidate for this kind of repair. In some instances a customer must locate and use the application's source code for this kind of re-compile. HP defined the procedure as an install of the millicode patch, then a recompile of the application in some cases.

The majority of the 3000 community will be installing patch MPENX11, which is available to all 3000 sites at HP's IT Response Center Web site and also through telephone support. Customers with applications using Large Files will install patch MILNX10. But the millicode patch is important, too, because a sort of a Large File of 2-3 GB will create a temporary Large File of more than 4GB, where the risk of corruption is at hand.

HP's strong advice is for customers to install both patches. [There is] a high priority for MPENX11, since it is the patch that addresses the issues with SORT and the MPE/iX OS. However, MILNX10 is also important to address the possibility of continuing to use the millicode in question. Even if a customer is not using Large Files today, there is no guarantee that they won't experience growth that will cause their files to cross into the large range at some later time.

The primary link to details of the critical process has been posted at HP's e3000 Web site, www.hp.com/go/e3000. At that page, a customer letter link as well as a link to the HP Jazz Web server provides a detailed page with explicit instructions — as well as a new HP-built utility to detect Large Files on an HP 3000.

HP's announcement takes place four years to the day that the company ended sales of the HP 3000. The development of this type of patch, a binary-level repair, will continue throughout 2009 and 2010, according to HP's 3000 community liaison Craig Fairchild.

While it might be easy to overstate the crucial directives for the patches — HP has rarely announced this kind of bug with repairs and white papers already available — the data corruption is very rare, Fairchild said.

In our evaluation, we've been looking at this problem and analyzing HP's [own] code to try to determine what's at risk," he said. "It's very uncommon to be working with Large Files. It's even more uncommon  to be working with Large Files using user-mapped access to those files. It's even more rare yet again to be doing these very small data movements that happen to be at the very end of a space."

Fairchild explained that what an application is doing IO to a large file, "you're not doing it in six-byte chunks, or five bytes or four bytes, three or two." Most common is IO one page at a time, which presents no risk for corruption at a minimum of 4,000 bytes.

HP has a FILECHEK utility, just developed, to scan for the Large Files on a system. But the LINKEDIT tool, already on every 3000, can help assess the risk to customers with home-grown or in-house applications.

"LINKEDIT can provide a list of all the external procedures, calls by a program, or an XL or RL library," Fairchild said. "If when looking through the procedures, HPFOPEN is not called by a program, then you know that application is not at risk."

Comparing next solutions for 3000s

When a 3000 utility goes dark — because its creator has dropped MPE/iX operations, or the trail to the support business for the tool has grown faint — the 3000 community can serve up alternatives quickly. A mature operating system and experienced users offer options that are hard to beat.

Such was the case last week when Walter Murray, a former HP development engineer now with the California Dept. of Corrections IT staff, wondered about an alternative for Aldon Computing's SCOMPARE. That development tool has compared source files for more than 15 years in the HP 3000 world. There was no record of a valid license on the Murray's server for How now to compare, Murray wondered.

Not for long. Within 24 hours the experts on the HP 3000 mailing list offered six alternatives to the now-defunct SCOMPARE. Resource 3000 partner Allegro Consultants offers a free MPE/iX solution in SCOM, as verified by Allegro's Steve Cooper:

And, it's free, too!

www.allegro.com/software/hp3000/allegro.html

and scroll down to "SCOM."

Other candidates included a compare UDC from Robelle, GNU Diff, diff in the HP 3000's Posix environment, DiffDaff on Windows, and more.

Bruce Collins of Softvoyage offered details on using diff in Posix:

run diff.hpbin.sys;info="FILE1 FILE2"

The file names use HFS syntax so they should be entered in upper case. If the files aren't in the current account or group they should be entered as /ACCOUNT/GROUP/FILE

Donna Garverick-Hofmeister, after verifying that Aldon is still in business, but not the MPE/iX business, offered a tip on using Robelle's compare UDC:

Regarding Robelle's compare.  Being a scripting advocate, I strongly recommend adapting their UDC into a script.... and take a few seconds to add a wee bit of help text to the script, to make life more enjoyable for all (which *is* the reason for scripting, yes?)

In Microsoft's Visual Studio lies a tool called windiff, reported Larry Simonsen. Another former HP engineer, Lars Appel, brought up a Linux option in the KDE development environment:

On Linux, if you are using KDE, you might also find Kompare handy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompare (see screenshot)

On MPE, as others mentioned, there is still the Posix diff in two flavours: the HP supplied in /bin and the GNU version that lives in /usr/local/bin. The former allows two output formats (diff and diff -c), the latter also allows “diff -u” in addition.

Oh, regarding /bin/diff on MPE... I sometimes got “strange” errors (like “file too big”) from it when trying to compare MPE record oriented files. A workaround was to use tobyte (with -at options) to created bytestream files for diff’ing.

Appel was even able to address a concern of Murray's: "Then there’s the problem of comparing numbered files, like COBOL source files, when one or both files have been renumbered."

With Posix tools, one might use cut(1) with -c option to “peel off” the line number columns before using diff(1) for comparing the “meat”. Something in the line of ... /bin/cut -c7-72 SourceFile1 > BodyText1.

Murrary reported back at the end of the 24 hours to say that Aldon knew of HP 3000s and the licensing mechanisms, "and it sounds as though they are still willing to sell SCOMPARE and support contract for it." Which says something about the vigor of the 3000's ecosystem, six years after HP predicted its demise.

Audit-proofing IMAGE databases

Since HP 3000s work as mission-critical servers, the systems must weather IT and regulatory audits. The 3000 is capable of passing, of course, even in the era of HIPAA and SOX challenges which are more stern than audits of the past.

But establishing a database update procedure can lead to a gap in the security of an MPE/iX system. A discussion this week on the HP 3000 newsgroup identified the problem and searched for a solution. But many HP 3000 managers must take a hard look at how their users employ System Manager (SM) privileges. In the most strict accounting, SM privileges can expose a database.

Privileges can become a neglected aspect of 3000 operations, especially if the system's admin experts have moved on to other companies or duties. Mike Hornsby of Beechglen explained that the SM users which his support company serves have disturbed the integrity of 3000 databases. It's easy to do accidentally. The SM user can also update a 3000 database — a capability that can run afoul of some audits.

The database's security might be compromised through SM privileges, Hornsby explained, but it depends on the meaning of "update."

This term can be construed to be as restrictive as using DBUPDATE to  change an entry. It can also refer to UPDATE access DBOPEN MODE 2. Very rarely seen. To get very specific, update can mean that the modify date [has been] changed in the file label of one or more IMAGE related files. To get very general, of course an SM user can ‘update’ the database via a restore from tape.

Auditors sometimes ask broad questions, the sort of inquiry that fits better with the everyday use of HP 3000s in an enterprise. But for an expert like Hornsby — who wrote The TurboIMAGE Handbook — update means any kind of modification capability.

So you can answer "no, SM doesn't permit a user to update a database in another 3000 account." This answer is truthful to the extent that an auditor's concern is changing data, it appears, not just making a minor date change or using DBOPEN MODE 2. Auditors without 3000 expertise, well, they might not go this far in their examinations.

As for the SM user's ability to muck up an IMAGE database, Hornsby said this mistake is not difficult to make.

As we have unfortunately seen, it is not uncommon for an SM user [who has obtained a database password]  to corrupt an IMAGE database using the restore command ("Oops, I thought I was signed onto the test  account.")

Making GZIP work on a 3000

I have a copy of GZIP on my HP3000 947 which I put on back in 2000/2001,  now I need a copy for use on my a500 box, but do think I can remember were I got it from or how to install.

I have a client that sends me a file once a month in this format and I am  transferring the application from the 947 to A box. All I can find on HP's Jazz Web site is the GNU tool; is it part of this. How do I get going with GZIP?

Mike Caplin replies,

I had a similar situation with PKZIP. It was a pain to get it installed, and once it was on an A-Class HP 3000 I had to do the same on an N-Class.  The HP SE told me I couldn’t just move the executable, that it had to be installed again. That didn’t make sense, so I FTPd the executable to the other box five years ago and it’s worked fine ever since.

Matthew Purdue of the OpenMPE board adds,

If you have NS3000 on both systems, issue a DSLINE command, then a DSCOPY command.

Brent Moore offered a way to get the program onto the 3000 via Reflection:

If you have reflection, you can download a copy from the other box (labels format) then upload it to the new box.

You can also just pull a WRQ-label format copy of the file from

www.3k.com/other/native_hp3000_software.html

Then upload it (be sure to use LABELS format) to your new host.

On my boxes, gzip lives in /SYS/HPBIN/

Update to keep the link to IMAGE open

Every HP 3000 contains an ODBC database link tool. ODBCLink/SE was engineered by MBFA, then bundled in with the HP 3000 operating system. The software has been available since MPE/iX 6.0, so that covers close to a decade's worth of releases. MB Foster has offered an upgrade to the 3000 community to expand the tool's power, an upgrade at a discount.

Keeping ODBCLink/SE running isn't complex, but it can require more than just keeping the 3000 plugged in to your building's power source. You have to keep up with some patches if things change in your environment. Current HP support customers can get updates, online, for the bundled software.

On the HP 3000 Internet newsgroup, one 3000 user was trying to keep the link tool from hanging up. HP's Cathlene McRae, Senior Response Center Engineer, offered a few solutions to the problem.

If you are getting a number of hangs from the ODBCLink/SE driver you may need  to do one of the following:

1) Update the version of the ODBCLink/SE driver. The current version is g04.05. Run odbcutse.odbcse.sys to discover your current version.

If the version is f.xx or e.xx,  you should update.  If you need a newer version  of ODBCLink/SE you will need to open a case with the HP Response Center. ODBC  patches are not available on the HP IT Response Center web site.

2) The problem may be network configuration.  emr_na-c01003546 documents these issues.  The hangs may be waits. 

It is possible by adjusting the values on your DBE or TCP configurations, the problems will go away.

Which RAID to recommend

By Gilles Schipper
Homesteading Editor, 3000 NewsWire

Yesterday I introduced the strategy of using RAID storage, starting a low-cost MOD20 array, to improve a 3000's performance. Here's a few other things to consider if you will be acquiring a MOD20.

Although possible, I would not recommend utilizing RAID5 LUNs in an HP 3000 environment — unless your greatest priority is to maximize disk space availability at the expense of performance.

RAID5 offers fail-safe functionality over a group of disks (minimum of three) by means of one disk of the RAID5 disk being allocated as a parity disc. The benefit of RAID5 over RAID1 is that it results in a greater amount of overall usable disk space than RAID1. However, it performs poorly in an HP 3000 environment, and cannot be booted from if specified as the system disk (LDEV 1).

Although the supported maximum memory configuration of each Storage Processor (SP) unit is 64MB, 128MB works best (although not all of it can be used).

Each SP has 4 memory slots. You can maximize the performance of the MOD20 by populating each SP with four 32MB memory SIMMs, 72-pin, FPM with parity, 60ns.

The NIKE MOD20 is a very capable and useful solution to the fragile environment afforded by a JBOD environment — particularly because most 3000 JBOD disk systems tend to be very mature and consequently relatively unreliable and prone to failure.

And, although the MOD20 disk system itself is also quite long in the tooth, it’s got built-in fail-safe mechanisms. Also, the MOD20 would appeal to those with very limited budgets, since the devices are quite inexpensive in the used-equipment market.

There are other, more advanced RAID systems available that also support the HP 3000 environment. These include the HP Autoraid12H system, various VA7nnn systems, some of the HP XP-family members, as well as EMC systems.

The list above are presents in order of increasing cost, for the most part.

The bottom line is that if you are not already utilizing RAID technology for your 3000, now would be a good time to consider it seriously.

Spread out to max storage upgrades

Ron Keiper of the Nielsen Company asked how to maximize storage performance in his upgrade to HP’s XP series of disk arrays, linked to an HP 3000. This kind of upgrade is common in a site which is either homesteading or buying more time during a migration project.

We are in the process of migrating our HVD10 storage to an XP256 via FW-SCSI and IO Expansion (1828A) cabinets. Our performance testing thus far shows a large increase in CPU pause and disk queuing on the XP256 system. Job run time is similar, within 5-10 minutes on a one-hour job. I have seen many reports about the XP being a great deal faster, but we are not seeing that and have concerns about moving forward with our storage migration. I am wondering if it is set up properly for best performance.

The XP is set up Raid 1, I believe, (OPEN-9 in DSTAT) and are set up as HPDARRAY in SYSGEN. Is that the correct sysgen ID for the XP? There are a similar number of drives/LUNs on both of our test volume sets. The HVD is setup as Mirror/iX.

Craig Lalley of Echo Tech responds:

The XP256 is a decent box, but only half the speed of the XP512. The LDEV assignment within the XP is very important when it comes to performance.  Did you spread your LDEVs across ACPs and raidgroups?

You didn’t mention how much Array Cache you have in the XP256. Keep in mind the XP storage array is cache centric, meaning everything goes through cache. With the XP256, I would max out the array cache.

Lalley, who specializes in this kind of configuration upgrade, adds 

Remember, always spread your IO...  across XP ports, XP cards, XP array groups, XP ACPs, host HBAs, Host System Bus Adapters and switch ports.

Network advice on sockets, gateways and uptime

Is there a way to scan all the ports on my HP 3000 Series 996: How many are being used, and how many are available?

Mark Bixby of HP replies:

SOCKINFO.NET.SYS can tell you which programs have opened which sockets.

NETTOOL.NET.SYS STATUS,TCPSTAT and STATUS,UDPSTAT can also give you useful information about sockets, particularly STATUS,TCPSTAT and CONNTABLE.

Or you can run any external hacker tool (Nessus, etc) and do a port scan against your 3000.  This is not recommended during production hours, since such ports cans can sometimes confuse network applications.

When I try to configure a  on our MPE/iX 7.5 system, I get the following error when I try to validate my new NMMGR gateway configuration.

Searching for subsystem validation routine VALIDATENETXPOR
---> VALIDATION OF NETXPORT SUBSYSTEM STARTED  <---
*** VALIDATE ERROR --> PATHNAME : NETXPORT.NI.LAN1.INTERNET
CONFIGURED GATEWAYS (1) MUST BE <= IPU MAX GATES (0). (VALERR 32)
---> VALIDATION OF NETXPORT SUBSYSTEM FINISHED <---

There are no other gateways configured so the CONFIGURED GATEWAYS (1) value look okay to me — so how can I increase the IPU MAX GATES value?

James Hofmeister of HP replies:

In MPE/iX 5.5 and 6.0 (unpatched) the limit was 14 gateways. This was increased to 255 gateways with patches, and was included in base 6.5 and 7.x.

The fact that validate says “IPU MAX GATES (0)” would indicate to me that you have corruption of your configuration file in “at least” the field that holds this value.

I would suggest that you want to first keep a copy of this config file, then purge NMCONFIG.PUB.SYS and then rebuild your configuration with guided config.

Note:  You could do a copy subtree of the NETXPORT.PROT.IPU field from NMAUX1.PUB.SYS to NMCONFIG.PUB.SYS to update this field — but at this point I would expect problems in this config file with more than just this one field.

Is there a way to use the 3000's networking to check how long your system has been up?

James Hofmeister replies:

If you have SNMP running, a query to check system uptime is:

: snmpget ector.atl.hp.com public system.sysUpTime.0
Name: system.sysUpTime.0
Timeticks: (418638300) 48 days, 10:53:03

I get no awards for 48 days uptime, but I use my machines to duplicate, beta test and verify repair of customer network problems.

Sorting out Sort key strategy

I (we) am loading a lot of data into a detail data set in IMAGE with a sort key.  Do I presort the data by the sort key only? Or do I presort by the Automatic key then the sort key?

As in:

Entry                    Offset

BP-EXPLODE#        X10     1  (!BP-EXPLODE-A(PRIORITY))
BP-BENEFIT           X10    11  (BP-BENEFIT-A)
COMPONENT          X4     21
RIDER-TITLE           X8     25
YMDEFF                  X8     33
YMDEND                 X8     41
PRIORITY               X2     49

I know this really improves performance.

Ray Shahan replies:

Since your sort key is at the end of the data set, then you need only sort by the sort key value.

Denys Beauchemin adds:

Sort by BP-EXPLODE# as the first key and PRIORITY as the second key within BP-EXPLODE#.

Tricks with spoolfile redirection

Robert Holtz writes:

We have our 911 interface running on our HP 3000 24x7.  Once a week, we abort the Public Safety Systems Incorporated (PSSI) application to close out the spoolfile that the application generates.  Is there a way to keep the application running and redirect the output to a new spoolfile?  We are running MPE/IX 7.0 PP2 and this is on an N-Class e3000 system.

Our Homesteading Editor Gilles Schipper replies:

I think the only way you could do that would be to actually modify the application program to periodically (say, for example, every 10 pages or every 100 pages) close then re-open the print file.

Olav Kappert of IOMIT International adds:

If the program can be slightly modified, then I would suggest creating a message file as a conduit to the application. The program would do a read of the message file with the nowait option every once and awhile.  If the application encounters a keyword indicating a new spoolfile, then the program would close the spoolfile and reopen it.

An alternate method would involve the application being modified to close and open the file at a particular day and time during the week.

Robert Schlosser of Global Business Systems adds:

Short of closing and reopening the after n number of pages, you could have the application read (without wait and checking status codes) a message file. It could then close and open the output file on demand and possibly even close down the application gracefully (no abort). I do not know if you have access to the source, nor do I know if you want to tinker with the innards of a working program.

Web Console: A good left arm for 3000s?

I'm in the process of installing my first Secure Web Console and have a question. The installation instructions look like the SWC will replace the current 700/92 terminal, as there is only one serial port on the console/LAN card in the server. It feels like I'll be cutting off my right arm in doing away with the "console." Not that we use it that much in day-to-day operations — but it has become a bit of an old friend over the years, and I feel a bit of pending loss.

Since this is the case, could there be problems from not having the physical console there, and having to fly with the SWC? And if the SWC dies for any reason, can you just put the serial cable back on the terminal?

— John Bawden

Craig Lalley replied to the final question about putting the serial cable back on, "Yes, you can." Wes Setree added very recent information about an installation just today. "Actually, I just configured a SWC a few minutes ago."

We keep our old terminal and keyboard on the cabinet and could switch the cable from the SWC to the terminal in case I need to use the terminal while sitting right there at the server (reboot perhaps). So far I have not had any need to switch the cable back and forth between them, since the SWC allows for a remote reboot if necessary.

Large Transaction Tip for HP 3000s

Is there a way to allow large transactions on the HP 3000?  I am getting an error message because the transactions I am trying to put into the TurboIMAGE database exceed the 4MB limit of the Transaction Manager.

Gilles Schipper of GSA replies:

You could try enabling the database for autodefer, as:

Log on as database creator, then

:dbutil
enable databaserootfilenamefor for autodefer
exit

This will effectively detach the database from the transaction manager.

You will run the risk (a very small one, I would think) of database corruption in the event of a system failure.

You could mitigate the risk by ensuring you have a good backup of this database prior to the execution of this high transaction volume batch job.

To later reverse the transaction manager detachment if you wish, simply

:dbutil
disable databaserootfilename for autodefer
exit

A Wiki arrives to teach 3000 skills

Chris Bartram, the HP 3000 veteran who's been at the center of the Web and Internet community for the system, has just opened up the first Technical Wiki for users, fans and customers of your redoubtable system.

This Twiki permits any registered user to edit or post articles about the use of the HP 3000. Bartram, a friend to the NewsWire since our newsletter's inception and even before, invited me to post the HP 3000 entry as a way of defining what the whole TWiki will be about.

This is a cutting-edge way to gather information and advice about the 3000 from community experts and veterans. Today, as a way of explaining what's so special about this server, I put up the start of a history of the system, marked with a few high points. Users are already registering to contribute to the 3000's TWiki. You can sign up to edit and post, or simply view the Wiki without registering, at twiki.3k.com/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/HP3000FAQ

Bartram said he has been working on a way to make the deep knowledge of the 3000's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file more accessible in a more modern era.

I’ve been working on re-vamping the FAQ for some time; one of the major features I’d been looking for was the ability for others to contribute easily. Easy inter-linking of topics was another. Spreading the topics out a bit (to aid finding things from the search engines) was another. A wiki was a natural choice. “TWiki” was an implementation I found that came highly recommended, and turned out to be pretty easily to install and configure.

I’ve ported most of the current FAQ documents into the new wiki; anyone that’s interested in filling in gaps or adding topics of your own, help yourself! All you need to do is register (which is free and automated) and you can update or add any topic you like.

There’s one link from our home page (www.3k.com) currently; I’ll be replacing the links to the old format FAQ in the coming weeks. There’s no google presence of the new site yet, but it should be crawled and indexed soon.

Since Chris asked, I have started the ball rolling on the definition of what an HP 3000 is:

" The HP 3000 was the first minicomputer — a type of business computer smaller and easier to manage than a mainframe — to include a database from some of its earliest versions onward. This distinction helped to set the stage for success for this system, which boasted 70,000 working systems at its peak in the late 1980s. The HP 3000 continues to work in major corporations and modest-sized companies today, more than 30 years after that database was included."

But you can have your say and edit the start that Chris began and that I've expanded. Register today and help make the 3000 knowledge as easy to consume as the legendary Wikipedia. The technology behind the 3000's TWiki and that online encylopedia are very much the same.

Learning about your 3000's database

I'd guess that fewer than 1,000 IT professionals are reading the 3000 mailing list and newsgroup these days. But just like at the end of a sporting event, the people left in these stands are the most knowledgeable and ardent in the game. They know what it has taken 20 years and more to learn. Today, like many days in the 3000 community, these biggest fans pass along what they know for free.

Today's subject on "the L," as it's called by its longest residents, is IMAGE, the database that made your HP 3000 famous. (And the best in the business, at least once, when Datamation ran a contest to determine which database won among contenders like Oracle, Informix, Ingres, Sybase, DB2, and a raft of others. Datamation is published no more, and some of those databases not survived. either. IMAGE, in its newer generations of TurboIMAGE and then IMAGE/SQL, rolls on.)

An IT pro posting to the mailing list was misunderstanding how Adager, the IMAGE/SQL all-purpose tool, was keeping him from corrupting his database.  He asked, "When I try to change a dataset capacity in Adager, it tells me the minimum acceptable capacity is higher than I’m trying to set it at. Why?"

The answer gave the community a chance to teach IMAGE/SQL, instruction that's not only hard to purchase these days, but a great resource for a developer or somebody who maintains HP 3000 apps. A free resource, from the Web.

Wes, our confused IT pro, reported on 3000-L that Adager's dialogue was:

Present : 9763397
New ?5500000
The minimum acceptable capacity is 9763396

The answers rolled in on the 3000-L, right away. First an overview:

I would venture to say that you are dealing with a detail dataset and you can’t reduce it without performing a reorganization of the set.  There are detail records in entries above 5,500,000 and without updating all the pointers in the detail entries and the corresponding master entries, you simply can’t do that and hope to have a working database.

Adager prevented you from mangling your database.

Denys Beauchemin

Is it a detail dataset that you are trying to change? If so, you cannot make the capacity less than the high water mark unless you first detpack the set.

John Bawden

You need to pack the detail dataset to remove entries in the dataset that are marked as deleted logically, but not physically deleted, then you can reduce the capacity.

When a DBDELETE call is made to a detail dataset, in order to save processing time, the entry is logically flagged as being deleted, and any pointers to that entry are changed to bypass the entry in the chain.  The entry is NOT physically deleted from the PRIV file that represents that detail dataset.  By performing a detail pack, either with Adager, DBGENERAL, or DBUNLOAD/DBLOAD, the logically deleted (flagged as being deleted) entries are physically removed, leaving only the active, live entries.

When adding entries to a detail dataset, a highwater mark is kept that indicates the maximum number of entries in the dataset.  For example, if I add 1,000 entries and delete 100 afterwards, my highwater mark remains at 1,000 because that is the most number of entries ever in the detail dataset.  Adager, in such a case, is telling the user that you cannot change the capacity below 1,000 (the highwater), because there are physically 1,000 entries in the file (100 are logically deleted, but are physically still there).

Wyell Grunwald

Read can the entire thread for yourself to get a fine education on IMAGE, the database that makes your 3000 sparkle in the enterprise. Subscribe to get the messages by e-mail, if you prefer. It sure makes it easier to participate and learn.

Copy tapes, patching FTP and more

Is there a way in MPE to copy a tape from one drive to another drive?

John Pitman replies:

I have done this before. Use the biggest number that is accepted by file equate for the device to cover the biggest blocksize used. I'm a bit hazy about using 1 as recs/block. I used something like this to copy reel tape backups to either DDS or QIC 120 tapes once long ago.

File tapin;dev=7;rec=32768,1,f,binary
File tapout;dev=8;rec=32768,1,f,binary
Fcopy from=*tapin;to=*tapout;files=all

Robert Mills adds:

Go to HP's Jazz Web site and have a look at TAPECOPY and TCPY.

I would like to patch my Series 969 6.0 system. When I browse HP's patches database, it lists several patches depending on the version of FTP. I can't tell what version I run. Also, can I do this update with people on the system, or do I really need exclusive access for PATCHIX to finish just the FTP patches?

Craig Lalley replies:

You should be able to update as long as no one is accessing FTP and the JINETD job is not running.

The current GR patches for FTP as of 8/25/06:
FTP 7.5: FTPHDG4 for C.75.00 (A0012-G)  11/21/05
FTP 7.0: FTPHDE9 for C.70.00 (A0012-E4) 08/01/05
FTP 6.5: FTPHDF6 for C.65.00 (A0012-F)  09/30/05

HP's James Hofmeister adds:

The latest general release patch for MPE/iX 6.0 is FTPGDN1 (R) 2/4/2004 and you should still be able to pull this patch from the HP-ITRC.

Sorry, the 6.5 patch for FTP/iX will not work on MPE/iX 6.0.  I will leave the answer as to why as a trivia question.

After John Burke offered an answer of "Large file support," Hofmeister replied:

Congratulations John, that is the correct answer!

The 6.5 FTP client and server both touch the file system below the standard F'intrinsic interface we all know and love...  thus FTP was recoded for the new "large file" internal procedure calls on MPE/iX 6.5.  If you try the FTP/iX 6.5 FTP client and server code on an MPE/iX 6.0 system, FTP will report missing externals and terminate.

Our HP 3000 Series 979 needs some help. When I was rebooting it Monday, I got this error:

Bad System Logical Sector number 0x3ad0 on LDEV 32

I removed the drive and the system came up fine, as the drive is software mirrored. But when I try to suspendmirrvol on pending drive, the system goes dead immediately. What command do I use to suspend mirroring?

Bob J of Ideal Computer replies:

Normally there is no need to suspend mirroring for a failed disk drive. The system should have realized a drive is missing from a mirrored pair and sent a message to the console. The mirroring would have automatically been disabled for the affected pair. Use :mirvutil, then showset (set_name) mirror to confirm. When you reply to the operator request you will stop getting the console messages. You will need to manually replacemirrvol after you replace the hardware to rebuild the mirror.

Making Unix equate with MPE

File equations are a 3000 speciality in an IT operation, "the commands that redefine the attributes of a file, including perhaps the actual filename," according to our friends at Robelle. Since Unix doesn't have file equations, customers who are making their transition need to learn how to make Unix's symbolic links report what a 3000 manager once learned from a LISTEQ command.

Up on the 3000-L newsgroup a customer asked what he might use to do the work of LISTEQ on a Unix system. 3000 managers are used to checking file equations when something mysterious happens with an MPE file.

Dave Oksner of 3000 application vendor Computer And Software Enterprises (CASE) offered the 'find' command as a substitute in Unix/Posix, telling it to only process files of type "symbolic link."

Oksner's example of substituting find for LISTEQ:

find /tmp/ -type l -exec ls -l {} \;

which would start from the /tmp directory, look for symbolic links, and execute “ls -l” on the filenames it finds. You could, of course, eliminate the last part if you only wanted to know what the filenames were and get

find /tmp/ -type l

(I believe it’s the same as using ‘-print’ instead of ‘-exec [command]’)

Beware of output to stderr (if you don’t have permission to read a directory, you’ll get errors) getting interspersed.

HP's Jeff Vance added that the command interpreter in MPE also can deliver file information through a listfile command:

Don't forget the CI where you can do:

:listfile @,2;seleq=[object=symlink]

:help listfile all shows other options.

HP's come up with a MPE-to-Unix command resource online to help with this sort of thing. Our former Inside COBOL columnist and product reviewer Shawn Gordon offers his own MPE vs. Unix paper, and Robelle's experts wrote a column contrasting Unix shell scripts with MPE tools in Robelle Tech in the NewsWire.

HP's also got free training available to help make these comparisons. John Burke reviewed the options in a 2002 column for the NewsWire. These online classes are still free

MPE upgrade carries bonus gigabytes

HP is offering an upgrade to the world of HP 3000 disks in the form of a revised version of MPE.

Some MPE revisions bring subtle changes. But none of them, until now, have increased the available storage space on the 3000's boot drive. Moving from MPE/iX 6.5 to 7.5 will do that, because HP's final version of MPE recognizes space greater than 4 GB on the system's startup volume.

HP engineered the change for maximum flexibility, according to users and vendors doing upgrades these days. HP's early discussions about the design would have made the liberated space only available for a user volume.

HP found a way to restrict the files that needed to be in the 4 GB section of drives while leaving the remainder of the space available transparently. For customers whose LDEV 1 is an 18 GB device — and it should be, since those are the newer generation of HP's smallest 3000 drives — recovering those gigabytes could be a way to induce an upgrade.

Customers get the extra space back which they paid for on their drives without extra hassles like an INSTALL. The retesting involved with upgrading needs to have an obvious benefit, for some 3000 customers.

No OS upgrade for MPE up to now has ever had the potential to quadruple the amount of free space on the 3000. Even a 918LX with a 9GB disk drive as LDEV 1, and after the update can use all of the greater than 4GB space.  "Automagically," as some vets like to say, without that INSTALL>

HP's 3000 group has delivered something very rare: an OS upgrade that doesn’t take up more space than the one it replaces.

HP's also worked to give "big disks" the ability to work with MPE/iX, up to half a terabyte, with 300 GB volumes available for use with the 3000.

Taking time change into your own hands

Last month we posted a story about the changes to Daylight Saving Time coming up in the US. A few customers have asked HP to make changes in the TZTAB.LIB.SYS file in MPE/iX, because DST will  start and end on different weekends in 2007 than it has up to now. TZTAB carries the keys to the HP 3000's time zone information. The HP-UX environment already has its zone patches.

But our advice which told users they'd need a C compiler to make these changes themselves was off base, according to one customer. A well-informed customer at that. Walter Murray used to work in HP's languages lab on the 3000 and other servers, including expertise on HP's COBOL II. Murray cleared up the confusion for us.

In the article “OpenMPE thinks far ahead of time changes” (August, 2006), you imply that a customer would need a C compiler to make the necessary changes to the file TZTAB.LIB.SYS to accommodate the change in Daylight Saving Time rules.

Not so! TZTAB is an ordinary ASCII file. You can update it with the editor of your choice.

Another important point is that it’s not just C programs that are likely to rely on the TZTAB file. For example, COBOL programs that use the CURRENT-DATE function will also want the TZTAB file to be correct.

Thanks to Walter for making this issue clear. HP still has a little while to apply such a patch to MPE/iX TZTAB —  a change that ought to take place for all supported MPE versions, 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5.

But it's good to know that the capability to do the work yourself lies in the hands of many users who don't have C compilers on hand.

SWAT team arrives on 3000-L

Although the HP 3000 mailing list 3000-L only goes out to 581 e-mail subscribers today, many more use and contribute to this online resource through the Web or newsgroup readers. This ready resource for 3000 help acts as a virtual support team for the community, and it swung into action for users of Samba this week.

Our entry yesterday on Samba included references to use the Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT). In the last 24 hours the 3000-L experts added even more detail. Frank Gribbin, whose company was one of the Java pioneers in the 3000 world, posted his experiences with SWAT. Then OpenMPE director Donna Hofmeister added some updated testing of SWAT on her 3000.

Gribbin put his useful info online, then Donna commented and updated:

Here's some useful info when getting SWAT going. In SERVICES.NET you'll want a line that reads:
swat   901/tcp   # Samba/iX Web Admin Tool

In INETDCNF.NET you'll want:
swat  stream tcp nowait.400 SAMBA.ORG /SYS/SAMBA/SWAT207L swat
-a
(adjust the path to your SWAT NMPRG)

The above comments for inetdcnf.net seem to be pretty old. If you're running 2.2.8, you'll want:

swat stream tcp nowait MANAGER.SYS /usr/local/samba/SWAT swat

Donna continues, "If you’re running an older version of Samba, you’ll need to modify ‘/usr/local....’ to point to where SWAT actually lives (and case is important).  I believe the user needs to match the user in your samba daemon jobs. (For me, it’s MANAGER.SYS, for you it may be MGR.SAMBA)  I also think you do not want to use the -a switch.  Here’s what the SWAT documentation has to say:

-a
This option disables authentication and puts swat in demo mode. In that mode anyone will be able to modify the smb.conf file.

Do not enable this option on a production server.

When I connected to my MPE/Samba server (Running SWAT without -a) through a browser to access SWAT, I was asked for a logon and password... which I figure is a good thing.

I reboot the 3000 at this point.

You shouldn’t need to do that. After changing your services and inetdcnf files, all that you should have to do is give inetd a swift kick (e,g,  :inetd.net -c  ) Check inetd’s $stdlist after doing that and you should see that it brought in the new configuration.

In your Web browser point to http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:901/(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP of your 3000)

Or you can use the name of your 3000 too.

Donna tested the -a option, too. "The first time I connected to my MPE/Samba server through SWAT I logged on as MANAGER.SYS (and gave the appropriate passwords). I had full access to all of Samba’s smb.conf file. The second time I connected, I logged on as a different (non-sm, non-pm) user -- this time I only had a limited view. I could check Samba’s status, view the smb.conf file -- but not make any changes! I vote for no -a."

Gribbin noted that when updating Samba and Apache config files, some are picky about how their records are terminated. Robelle's Qedit and Programmer Studio from Whisper Technology make the needed adjustments. "Be sure to know what version of MPE/iX you have installed, including patches," noted Gary Jackson.

So in less than a day, a 3000 manager got two options for tools to modify Samba's tools, and a team of 20-year 3000 experts giving fundamental answers to a how-to tech question. It might be hard to get that level of 3000 experience on an support call to HP this year.

Taking a SWAT at Samba

For many years HP 3000 sites wished they had what they saw on other systems. Then in the late 1990s the community got a lot of what it wanted. By 1999 the platform got the Samba file sharing system, a universal utility you find on nearly every computer.

Samba arrived because of two community coding kings: Lars Appel, who ported the Samba open source package to the 3000, and Mark Klein, who ported the bootstrap toolbox to make such ports possible. As John Burke said in the sunnier year of 1999:

Without Mark Klein’s initial porting of and continued attention to the Gnu C++ compiler and utilities on the HP 3000, there would be no Apache/iX, syslog/iX, sendmail/iX, bind/iX, etc. from Mark Bixby, and no Samba/iX from Lars Appel. And the HP 3000 would still be trying to hang on for dear life, rather than being a player in the new e-commerce arena.

So Samba is there on your HP 3000, so long as you've got an MPE version minted in the last six years or so. But getting started with it might perplex a few managers, like the one who just asked how to get Samba up on its feet on his 3000. One superb addition is SWAT, the Samba administration tool. Yup, the 3000's got that, too.

As a total network newbie, I tried to get Samba up and running from the directions at docs.hp.com, but failed miserably. Do you need Samba running before you can run SWAT? Where can I find the instructions for Samba on the 3000 for the complete idiot?

When this user asked how to Samba, OpenMPE director Donna Garverick-Hofmeister showed off some steps (her reply here de-Donna-ized with capital letters)

I’ve not tried SWAT. I remember a HP World presentation on Samba that included how to get SWAT to work. The presenter said something about having to add certain ports to your services file (maybe... It’s been a long time... and I think I glazed over at that point.

1. What OS version are you on?  And Samba’s version?
2. When you click on explore your network on your PC (aka network neighborhood, in old-speak) is there a domain/workgroup name?  Did you add that to your smb.conf file?  Is your MPE server on the same network as the rest of your servers?
3. Did you edit smb.conf with vi or another bytestream-friendly editor?
4. In smb.conf, is interfaces set correctly to your MPE system’s IP address and mask?
5. You probably don’t want to be a domain master or preferred master.

Samba is generally pretty easy to get started.  There’s not a whole lot to change in the smb.conf file (adding logons is a bit different though). A few minor changes and Samba should start up.

In addition to Donna's advice, we can add a few pointers to help. First, SWAT runs on the HP 3000 fine. Have a look at the HP Jazz Web page about the last version of Samba to see a SWAT confirmation. SWAT's been around since we took note of when Appel ported it, in 2002.

HP's Jazz page also includes links to Samba resources. SWAT has its worldwide features cataloged on a Web page at Samba.org.

So Samba and SWAT still help the 3000 play in the now-not-so-new e-commerce arena, as well in other neighborhoods.

The Long and Short of Copying Tape

Is there a way in MPE to copy a tape from one drive to another drive?

Stan Sieler, co-founder of Resource3000 tech resource Allegro Consultants, gives both long and short answers to this fundamental question. Turns out one of the answers is to look to Allegro for its TapeDisk product, which includes a program called TapeTape.

Short answer: It’s easy to copy a tape, for free, if you don’t care about accuracy/completeness.

Longer answer: There are two “gotchas” in copying tapes ... on any platform.

#1: Long tape records

You have to tell a tape drive how long a record you with to read.  If the record is larger, you will silently lose the extra data.

Thus, for any computer platform, one always wants to ask for at least one byte more than the expected maximum record — and if you get that extra byte, strongly warn the user that they may be losing data.  (The application should then have the internal buffer increased, and the attempted read size increased, and the copy tried again.)

One factor complicates this on MPE: the file system limits the size of a tape record you can read.  STORE, on the other hand, generally bypasses the file system when writing to tape and it is willing to write larger records (particularly if you specify the MAXTAPEBUF option).

In short, STORE is capable of writing tapes with records too long to read via file system access. The free programs (e.g., TAPECOPY on Jazz) use the file system; thus, there are tapes they cannot  correctly copy.

#2: Setmarks on DDS tapes

Some software creates DDS tapes and writes “setmarks” (think of them as super-EOFs). Normal file system access on the 3000 will not see setmarks, nor be able to write them.

Our TapeDisk product for MPE/iX (which includes TapeTape) solves both of the above problems. As far as I know, it’s the only program that can safely and correctly copy arbitrary tapes on an HP 3000.

Thinking way ahead of time (changes)

Diligent HP 3000 managers think ahead. This may be a habit of learning IT skills in an era when changes took longer and created more disruption. This week some in the 3000 community are thinking of next spring, when the Daylight Saving Time dates in North America will shift. There's going to be a few extra weeks of DST in 2007.

Customers have begun to ask HP for support in preparing for the change. (Yes, it's still seven months away. See the paragraph above.) While most customers handle this shift with a batch job, which can be modified easily, there's a part of MPE/iX that will need tweaking: the time zone table, also known as TZTAB.LIB.SYS.

OpenMPE director Donna Garverick posed the question about next spring's time shift, including a swell Web page that tells the whole story on Daylight Saving. (To start, it's called Daylight Saving, not Savings, since it saves daylight, a thing that's singular, not plural.) But after reading a few "I use this batch job" replies, Garverick got more specific:

Our TZTAB file will not be correct when the new Daylight Savings Time rules take effect.  HP-UX, for example, has already released a patch to correct the TZTAB file.  I'm concerned that there's an [HP 3000] exposure with no plans to fix the problem.

Others have agreed, and fellow OpenMPE director Paul Edwards has sent a request for HP's plans to fix TZTAB. After all, as customer Dave Powell noted, "Since HP is now supporting the 3000 thru end-2008, I nominate them."

TZTAB has come up for discussion in the 3000 community before now, usually in relation to another program like Samba. In a 1999 entry from our Hidden Value column, a customer asked about how to manipulate TZTAB:

As I look at the tztab.lib.sys file, I see that there are many time zones which are not listed in the file. Where do I get the rest of the :time zone definitions?

HP’s Walter Murray replied:
Make sure you have the complete file. The EOF should be 285. If you need to customize the file with additional time zones, refer to Appendix A of the HP C/iX Library Reference Manual.

Making changes to a lib.sys file in MPE/iX may not be for the faint of heart or feeble of budget, however. To start, a customer would need that HP C/iX compiler, unless the open source gnu C compiler could be made to do the job.

Powell added, "TZTAB scares me... [changing it] looks like something that should be done just once by someone who really knows it, not re-invented site by site."

As for HP staff who know how to work on the problem, Murray now works for the California Correctional System's IT services group. Any intrepid 3000 customer with a compatible C compiler who wants a look at that Appendix can download the PDF file from HP's docs.com Web page.

The request is a good example of why the 3000 community needs a virtual lab — and the only entity that's willing to set that up is OpenMPE. Which takes this entry full circle: the OpenMPE directors are looking way ahead and still looking for customer commitments. The future is a place where many HP 3000s will still be critical resources.

Making a big leap to the latest OS

Since HP 3000 users rely on the "ain't broke — don't fix it" maxim, many of these sites still use much older versions of the MPE/iX operating system. Sooner or later these 6.0 and earlier customers find a reason to upgrade — to keep pace with a third party application, fix a problem with network software, or take advantage of FTP features. Whatever the cause, it can seem like a large leap to go from a 1997 OS to one that HP first released in 2002.

It's not a complicated journey, according to HP 3000 support expert Gilles Schipper. The founder of GSA — the oldest third party 3000 support firm in North America — guided a customer through the necessary steps recently.

Schipper shared his experience with the community in a posting on the 3000-L newsgroup:

A. Is 7.5 the latest and last HP 3000 version?

Yes. And PowerPatch 2 is the latest (although not necessarily the last) PowerPatch for 7.5 (I believe).

B. Can I go directly to 7.5 or do I have to go to 6.5, then 7.0 then 7.5?

No, you've got to get onto 6.5 first to make the shift to 7.5.

According to the "HP e3000 MPE/iX System Software Mainteneance Manual (Release C.75.00)" (Order Part No. 30216-90342 E0802), Chapter 3, Page 60, you need to be at minimum Release Version 6.5 to be able to update to 7.5.

If you are on release 6.0, you must first update to 6.5 or 7.0 before you can update to 7.5.

Also, you cannot update to 7.0 or 7.5 with certain older models of HP3000 - such as 9x7 models.

You can get the manual at:

www.docs.hp.com/en/30216-90344/30216-90344.pdf

(The above link downloads a PDF file from HP's server.)

C. Is there a list of changes from 6 to 7.5?

Yes. Best to see the 6.5, 7.0, and 7.5 Communicators:

Tracy Johnson added an important hardware note:

Don't forget to remove any HP-IB cards.

Kill a job, if it's already running

We have loads of jobs that would cause damage if more than one copy was run. To prevent this we have the following code at the start of them:

  !if jobcnt('jobname,user.account') > 1 then
  !  tellop WARNING: Job is already running. I'm terminating.
  !  eoj
  !  endif

A couple of system problems have resulted in a large backlog of jobs waiting to run. One of our jobs is never getting past the above check — because by the time it moves from WAIT to EXEC, our scheduler has streamed the next copy which joins the WAIT queue.

One way I can see around this is to do the following instead (we have VEsoft's MPEX):

  !setjcw mpexfaststart 1
  !mpex
  %if jscount('jobname,user.account&EXEC') > 1 then
  %  tellop WARNING: Job is already running. I'm terminating.
  %  eoj
  %  endif
  %exit
  !setjcw mpexfaststart 0

But how do we terminate a job already running, if we don't have MPEX?

Tony Summers replies:

One method is to build a file at the start of each job and/or check for the file's existence in the same job.

Here’s a clip (MPE information removed for security) of one of our job streams that ensures that certain jobs run in a particular order, but there are ways of adapting it to suit your requirement.

Also remember that a job will normally flush/terminate if any line of JCL fails — thus it might be just as effective to build a named file at the start of the job and purge it as the job logs off. You have to ensure that autocontinue is NOT turned on.

!JOB STEODPT7,user.account;OUTCLASS=LP,1,1;SPSAVE;INPRI=02
!comment
!comment start up
!comment
!IF  NOT FINFO("STEODPT6.group.account",0)
!    UDCFAIL "Part 6 has not run "
!    EOJ
!ENDIF
!IF  FINFO("SEEODPT6.group.account",0)
!    UDCFAIL "Part 6 did not complete "
!    EOJ
!ENDIF
!comment
!BUILD STEODPT7.group.account
!BUILD SEEODPT7.group.account
!comment
!comment <add your code here >
!comment
!PURGE SEEODPT7.group.account
!EOJ
:

A Multitude of Ways to Move Your Console

There's plenty of change in the 3000 manager's life these days. Some of it might involve changing the location of HP 3000s from one part of the IT shop to another. Users and support experts have discussed the many ways to adjust a 3000 console's location. The method you choose depends on budget, experience and technical skills depth.

Kent Wallace, a 3000 manager for Idaho-Oregon healthcare delivery system Primary Health, needed to move his 3000 console:

I was asked to move the console another 10 feet (more) from the rack (it's an N-Class HP 3000/N4000-100-22). What are the 3 pin positions on the wire that I need to extend this RS-232 cable?

Reid Baxter of JP Chase offered the most direct answer, for those willing to modify cables. "Pins 2, 3 and 7."

Tracy Johnson of Measurement Specialties added:

In addition to what Reid said, you can also get a 3-pin mini-din extension cord and extend the other end.

Our blog contributing editor Gilles Schipper chipped in with a solution offering even farther movement:

If you want to extend the range of the console to anywhere on the planet (at least where there’s Internet access) you could consider the HP Secure Web Console to replace the physical console.

Depending upon the condition of your physical console, this solution may also save a bit of wear and tear on your eyeballs.

(Schipper wrote us a great article on setting up such a web console in November.)

Former HP support engineer Lars Appel offered another take on Schipper's strategy:

While Gilles is right about the possibility of using the web console, it would probably be easier to use the already built-in dedicated LAN port of the N-Class systems that gives access to the GSP by telnet.

I prefer the “telnet console” over the “web console” because it gives more freedom in the choice of terminal emulator — whereas the web console typically lacks features like “easy cut and paste” or special key mappings (e.g. German language ;-) or something similar.

This prompted Schipper to clarify his suggestion:

Lars is absolutely right about the built-in “secure-web-console” that comes with all N-Class and all but the earliest A-Class e3000s.

And, yes, the built-in is definitely more functional, allowing cut-and-paste as well as telnet access, whereas the external variety has only Java access to it via a web browser and no cut-and-paste.

So, if one has a choice, the built-in is definitely superior and available with only proper configuration.
However, the external secure web console is available for all HP 3000s, and would still be most useful where is internal secure web console is not an option.

Jeff Kell, curator of the 3000 newsgroup where the advice appeared, added the last word and a little joke:

The internal one isn't really "secure" — it's plaintext telnet. The GSP "documents" some secure access mode (ssh? https?) but I could never get it to work on our A-Class.  Maybe it's an HP-UX thing. 

The external web console was the really insecure "secure" web console.  It used a secret decoder ring :-)

Tricks with command files

I'm working on a command file on my HP 3000. Is there any way to have it copy part of itself into a separate (temporary) file?

HP's Jeff Vance replies:

MPE does not support the Unix concept of ‘here’ files, where input data for the command can reside in the same file as the command, except in the case of jobs. But even in a job, you may not include inline data for a script or UDC invoked by that job.

The SPOOKHELP script on Jazz may be of some use. This single script contains the help text for all of the SPOOK commands plus the code to search for and display that text once HELP xyzzy is entered.

How can we execute a command after a user enters the :bye command in MPE?

Olav Kappert replies:

It is possible to execute many commands after the bye has been entered.  Simply create a UDC (maybe a cmd file) called bye.

The contents of the UDC for the command bye is up to you.  This would be useful if you want to do statistics before the session terminates.

John Pittman adds:

Don’t let them do a bye. We don’t allow any users access to OP system prompt at all. They get a logon no break UDC that runs a menu, and when they end the menu, they get logged off.

Inside that UDC at exit time, we build a string giving user, connection point (LDEV or IP of their PC) connect time, CPU date etc and append it to a log file. Then we know when anybody last used the system, how many users are using different connections, when different user names are using the same connection point, and so on.

I am now beginning the process of restoring our production system to another 918LX. I got the following errors when logging onto a non-SYS account.

SECURITY VIOLATION  (FSERR 93)                  
Couldn't open UDC file "UDCSYS03.UDC.SYS". (CIERR 1923)
No system-level UDCs have been initialized. (CIWARN 1929)
No UDC directory was built or exists. (CIWARN 2060)

The specified file "UDCSYS03.UDC.SYS" exists and has the following  characteristics for the concerned user:

:listf udcsys03.udc.sys,4
*****************************************                     
FILE: UDCSYS03.UDC.SYS            

ACCOUNT ------  READ : ANY
               WRITE : AC
              APPEND : AC
                LOCK : ANY
             EXECUTE : ANY

GROUP --------  READ : ANY
               WRITE : AL, GU
              APPEND : AL, GU
                LOCK : ANY
             EXECUTE : ANY
                SAVE : AL, GU

FILE ---------  READ : ANY                FCODE: 0
               WRITE : ANY              **SECURITY IS ON
              APPEND : ANY                NO ACDS
                LOCK : ANY                   
             EXECUTE : ANY                   

FOR MANAGER.BACKUPS: READ, EXECUTE, LOCK

What else do I have to do to enable system level UDCs?

OpenMPE's Donna Garverick replies:

As manager.sys:
:showcatalog;user=manager.sys
  (should show no system UDC set)
:setcatalog udcsys03.udc;system

Former OpenMPE director Ron Horner adds:

It sounds like the file COMMAND.PUB.SYS might have some issues. To test, perform a SHOWCATALOG and see what gets displayed.

Community crafts XML expertise

On the very day we posted our story about a new third party solution for COBOL-to-XML on the 3000, a customer posed a problem that would require that solution. Or a few others for the do-it-yourself shop, if your HP 3000 budget has been reduced.

"There's some companies that need the exchange of information with our HP 3000, and they are asking us to send/receive XML files for their transactions," said Eduardo Garcia. Several experienced managers offered a mini-clinic on how to handle this format and what XML offers.

"XML is not magic," said Mark Wonsil of 4M-Enterprises. "It’s just ASCII. It is a method to markup documents that has been commandeered to handle data, albeit in a less than efficient manner. MPE can create ASCII files and hence XML files. Your only real limitation is size."

Contradicting some user reports about HP 3000 integration difficulties, Wonsil said that standards for XML make it an able tool to use under MPE/iX.

"Others have chimed in about 'integration' issues, such as different element names, but that is not directly related to XML or MPE," Wonsil. "The W3C recognized this issue and people use XSLT to transform element names today."

Computer services coordinator Eric Bender said XML drove the college off the 3000.

It was the absolute necessity for us to introduce an XML transfer  mechanism into our student records system by summer 2007 that finally tipped the balance in the decision-making process to migrate the system  off the HP.

Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, it’s the inability of the HP 3000/MPE environment to  easily be adjusted to innovation and new standards such as XML that will eventually sound its death-knell. The HP 3000 is increasingly coming to  resemble a very robust 80-year old — but in the early stages of dementia.

OpenMPE board member Matt Perdue, who pointed out our May 3 article on XML, disagreed with the dementia label for the 3000:

First, the HP3000/MPE environment does not have an inability to easily adjust to innovation and new standards — it is simply a question of what your management is willing to spend for either in-house or third party developed solutions. Witness the posting on The 3000 NewsWire [blog] about this very issue — a company has ported their XML enabling software to the 3000. It looks like that company’s management feels there is a market worth addressing and investing time (and therefore money) in selling to that market. It also looks like [former HP 3000 GM] Winston Prather’s statement of the “eroding ecosystem” has not been proven to be true: the ecosystem just grew by yet another third party offering.

Second, far from being a very robust 80-year old (it’s a robust 30-something year old) the 3000/MPE is very, very far from the early stages of dementia. I’d suggest the only dementia the 3000/MPE is suffering from is the dementia suffered by management and other individuals at various levels in various companies with regards to extracting every bit of value possible from the dollars spent — and the 3000/MPE has excelled at this for at least the last 25 years or so.

Mark Landin offered a review of the steps to use XML on the 3000, if you've got access to Perl expertise.

XML is just a file format, similar to HTML. You can open any XML file in, say, Notepad and pretty much figure out in just a few minutes. So, to start with, there is nothing “magical” about XML. The trick to XML is that the file describes itself. Part of the XML document you are sending or receiving includes a schema of sorts. That’s the powerful part of XML. XML-enabled applications are able to read this schema and therefore understand the rest of the document!

I don’t know about any specific packages for the 3000 that do XML data interchange, but I know you certainly whip something up in Perl. Perl runs fine on the 3000s, talks to IMAGE easily, and also has many toolsets that remove a lot of the drudgery of XML. The bonus is that if the company you are dealing with has defined their XML formats (which I’m sure they have), someone even moderately skilled with Perl could probably hack together what you needed. Perhaps someone has even written Perl code to handle this specific XML format for Windows applications. Since Perl runs on so many platforms, Windows Perl code often runs on the 3000 with a minimum of effort.

Of course, for this to work, you need to understand XML documents, and know Perl. But it really shouldn’t be that hard to find a contractor with those skills if you lack them in-house.

Turn spoolfiles into PDF documents

HP 3000 data becomes more useful if it can be e-mailed as industry standard report documents. After more than a decade of pushing at it, Adobe has made its PDF format pretty much the de-facto way to exchange docuements, even the complex ones.

Which might have prompted this question from HP consultant and Suprtool trainer Jeff Kubler:

Does anyone have a lead on a tool that converts spoolfiles to PDF files? Are there any Contributed Library tools?

It's not exactly free from the Interex Contributed Library (and what ever happened to those programs, anyway, since the Interex bankruptcy?) but the txt2pdf toolset works nicely to make this conversion. Even in its most advanced version it's under $1,000, at last glance. Bob McGregor reports as much.

Jeff, txt2pdf does this. We have a job that runs that:

1. Checks a pseudo device we have setup for any spoolfiles that are on the device with an PRI >0

2. If it finds a spoolfile, we convert it to PDF and move it to a server

3  Sends an e-mail to the streamedby variable telling them the PDF doc is ready on the server.

4. Alters the priority to 0 to mark it processed

We've been using it for a couple years, and it works great — of course, once we got the bugs worked out. What's cool is if someone delete the file, we just adjust the priority to something greater than 0 and it gets reprocessed.

We also have an emailpdf command file that will convert the spoofile to a PDF doc and e-mail it as an attachment.

If you e-mail Bob, we bet he'd share those command files of his with any 3000 customer who wants to ship out PDF reports instead of work with spoolfiles.

Reliable advice on speeding up 3000s

About a month ago our editor Gilles Schipper posted a fine article on improving CPU performance on 3000s "in a heartbeat." One of our readers asked a question which prompted Gilles to clarify part of the process to speed up a 3000, for free.

(And no, unfortunately the article doesn't report that HP has pulled out the MPE/iX code that slows down the latest generation of 3000 systems. We're still waiting for that news from HP, perhaps in vain. But you never know...)

Gilles, who offers HP 3000 and HP 9000 support through his firm GSA, Inc., has also replied to a recent question about how to make a DLT backup device return to its speedy performance, after slowing to about a third of its performance.

The Heartbeat article focused on needless CPU overhead that could be caused by a networking heartbeat on 3000s. He points out:

Fortunately, there is a very simple way to recognize whether the problem exists, and also a simple cure. If your DTCs are connected without transceivers, you will not be subject to this problem.

Otherwise, to determine if you have the problem, simply type the command

:listf h@.pub.sys,2

and look at the reply that follows

Compete details are in the February 27 article, which we've revised to include this update.

On speeding up backup time, Gilles replied to this question:

We have a DLT tape drive. Lately it wants to take 6-7 hours to do backup instead of its usual two or less.  But not every night,  and not on the same night every week.  I have been putting in new tapes now, but it still occurs randomly. I have cleaned it. I can restore from the tapes no problem. It doesn’t appear to be fighting some nightly process for CPU cycles. Any ideas on what gives?

Something that may be causing extended backup time is excessive IO retries, as the result of deteriorating tapes or tape drive.

One way to know is to add the ;STATISTICS option to your STORE command. This will show you the number of IO retries as well as the actual IO rate and actual volume of data output.

Another possibilty is that your machine is experiencing other physical problems resulting in excessive logging activity and abnormal CPU interrupt activity — which is depleting your system resources resulting in extended backup times.

Check out the following files in the following Posix directori