INFO-VAX Thu, 31 May 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 296 Contents: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Re: CDC software (formerly known as Ross Systems) to drop Gembase VMS support VM DS10L won't boot freeware8 cron issue GKS Re: GKS Re: OpenVMS on AlphaPC Re: OpenVMS on AlphaPC Re: PCSI, disk space, UNDO, unseen dangers etc Relay problem with MX Re: Relay problem with MX Re: Relay problem with MX Re: Remote Shadow... Re: Remote Shadow... Re: Remote Shadow... Re: Remote Shadow... Re: Remote Shadow... RMS : Indexed file rebuilding results Re: RMS : Indexed file rebuilding results Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Re: VMS L&T Distribution Re: VMS L&T Distribution Re: VMS L&T Distribution ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 May 2007 07:13:23 -0700 From: Rich Jordan Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: <1180620803.273658.288420@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: > "Rich Jordan" wrote in message > > news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > > > We've got an HP KVM switch, 336044-B21. Its just out of warranty, and > > not under contract. Power supply went all microsoft on us (low > > output, capacitors oozing, no worky). > > > HP does not provide service parts, and cannot tell us where to get > > same, though they'd be happy to sell us a new unit. Aside from being > > very difficult to understand, the parts person was pleasant and tried > > to help but apparently something on his screen said "can't help, no > > info, make the caller go away and move on to the next one". > > Probably because the unit itself is the FRU (field replaceable unit) and > there are no orderable "parts" to fix it. Many things are this way because > it makes no sense to stock low volume or low cost subcomponents - especially > when the unit is probably made by someone else and sold with a HP logo. Fred, don't know. The only identification on the unit is HP; the circuit board has an HP logo too, but its certainly likely that its a dedicated product from another actual manufacturer. Unfortunately it was an expensive unit, will be expensive to replace since we also have a fair amount of money tied up in the adapters (USB/PS2/Serial to Cat5) so its not feasible to purchase another unit for this site. If Raritan or other vendor does provide service parts for their equivalent units, then HP has just lost us as a customer for future KVMs though. Its not like not being able to get a replacement part for a $100 consumer unit. This is the 'enterprise' expandable unit with a 4 figure price tag, so the options HP makes available for us are disappointing. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 10:35:01 -0400 From: "FredK" Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: "Rich Jordan" wrote in message news:1180620803.273658.288420@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: >> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message >> >> news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... >> I was just speculating... had no idea how expensive the unit is. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:26:28 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: <465EE924.7070506@comcast.net> Rich Jordan wrote: > On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: > >>"Rich Jordan" wrote in message >> >>news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... >> >> >>>We've got an HP KVM switch, 336044-B21. Its just out of warranty, and >>>not under contract. Power supply went all microsoft on us (low >>>output, capacitors oozing, no worky). >> >>>HP does not provide service parts, and cannot tell us where to get >>>same, though they'd be happy to sell us a new unit. Aside from being >>>very difficult to understand, the parts person was pleasant and tried >>>to help but apparently something on his screen said "can't help, no >>>info, make the caller go away and move on to the next one". >> >>Probably because the unit itself is the FRU (field replaceable unit) and >>there are no orderable "parts" to fix it. Many things are this way because >>it makes no sense to stock low volume or low cost subcomponents - especially >>when the unit is probably made by someone else and sold with a HP logo. > > > Fred, > don't know. The only identification on the unit is HP; the > circuit board has an HP logo too, but its certainly likely that its a > dedicated product from another actual manufacturer. > > Unfortunately it was an expensive unit, will be expensive to > replace since we also have a fair amount of money tied up in the > adapters (USB/PS2/Serial to Cat5) so its not feasible to purchase > another unit for this site. > > If Raritan or other vendor does provide service parts for their > equivalent units, then HP has just lost us as a customer for future > KVMs though. Its not like not being able to get a replacement part > for a $100 consumer unit. This is the 'enterprise' expandable unit > with a 4 figure price tag, so the options HP makes available for us > are disappointing. > > I don't recall EVER having a Raritan unit fail! At my last job we used quite a bit of their stuff and it just worked! ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 09:15:29 -0700 From: Rich Jordan Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: <1180628129.746215.102150@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On May 31, 9:35 am, "FredK" wrote: > "Rich Jordan" wrote in message > > news:1180620803.273658.288420@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > > > On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: > >> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message > > >>news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > > I was just speculating... had no idea how expensive the unit is. Fred, I didn't mean to imply anything about your response; I didn't provide the cost info up top. I appreciate your taking the time. But the fact is HP does not provide service parts for this expensive unit so your speculation appears to be correct. It looks like Raritan does provide such parts for at least some of their units so they will probably be used going forward. In the meantime we'll see if there's a generic power supply that will work/fit, else we'll be shopping the used market for a complete replacement unit. Rich ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 09:01:23 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: On Thu, 31 May 2007 09:15:29 -0700, Rich Jordan wrote: > On May 31, 9:35 am, "FredK" wrote: >> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message >> >> news:1180620803.273658.288420@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com.. >> >> > On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: >> >> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message >> >> >>news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... >> >> I was just speculating... had no idea how expensive the unit is. > > Fred, > I didn't mean to imply anything about your response; I didn't > provide the cost info up top. I appreciate your taking the time. But > the fact is HP does not provide service parts for this expensive unit > so your speculation appears to be correct. It looks like Raritan does > provide such parts for at least some of their units so they will > probably be used going forward. > > In the meantime we'll see if there's a generic power supply that > will work/fit, else we'll be shopping the used market for a complete > replacement unit. I am curious why you need to use a kvm. Couldn't you accomplish the same with terminal emulators, like PuTTY? > > Rich > > -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 17:09:32 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: (kinda) HP, parts ain't parts; KVM internal power supply Message-ID: In article , "Tom Linden" writes: >On Thu, 31 May 2007 09:15:29 -0700, Rich Jordan wrote: > >> On May 31, 9:35 am, "FredK" wrote: >>> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message >>> >>> news:1180620803.273658.288420@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com.. >>> >>> > On May 30, 8:33 pm, "FredK" wrote: >>> >> "Rich Jordan" wrote in message >>> >>> >>news:1180565710.892717.25200@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... >>> >>> I was just speculating... had no idea how expensive the unit is. >> >> Fred, >> I didn't mean to imply anything about your response; I didn't >> provide the cost info up top. I appreciate your taking the time. But >> the fact is HP does not provide service parts for this expensive unit >> so your speculation appears to be correct. It looks like Raritan does >> provide such parts for at least some of their units so they will >> probably be used going forward. >> >> In the meantime we'll see if there's a generic power supply that >> will work/fit, else we'll be shopping the used market for a complete >> replacement unit. > >I am curious why you need to use a kvm. Couldn't you accomplish the same >with terminal emulators, like PuTTY? > A KVM is generally hardwired into the console port of one or more systems and allows remote access to that console port. Although you could use Putty in serial mode by locally connecting a cable from your machine (laptop say) to the console port of one machine the only way to use Putty remotely would be over Telnet or SSH which would require the OS of the target system to be running and the TCPIP stack (and Telnet or SSH servers) to be running. Hence, if the target was a VMS system, you wouldn't be able to use Putty to remotely get at the >>> prompt and boot the system. With a KVM system this would not be a problem. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >> >> Rich >> >> > > > >-- >Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:18:27 -0400 From: Dave Froble Subject: Re: CDC software (formerly known as Ross Systems) to drop Gembase VMS support VM Message-ID: Dr. Dweeb wrote: > Syltrem wrote: >> Hello group >> >> For those of you running Gembase on their Alpha / Itanium servers, >> know that CDC software's roadmap shows that the next version of >> Gembase (8.x) will be the last one supported on VMS. >> So by 2011 at most that will be the end for us. >> >> I don't think they realize how much that will cost their customers. >> We have many applications that are linked to Gembase -- mainly >> through Oracle and RMS files but we also have complex, external >> coding using Basic subroutines to do some suff not otherwise possible >> with Gembase. And of course a lot of DCL around everything. >> We've been with VMS for 25+ years... and I don`t see what other OS >> could do some of the things we're used to... >> Let's just hope hey change their mind, or that HP does something to >> persuade them not to drop VMS. >> >> Porting this to another platform (and ensuring proper disaster >> recovery capabilities) will be very time consuming and costly, but >> switching to another ERP system would be much worse, as changing >> platform should not affect end users where the latter would (of >> course). >> So that's another software vendor that will drive VMS down the drain >> a bit further. >> >> Those of you concerned by this should complain to CDC and HP. Right >> now they (CDC) apparently only talked to a few customers to conclude >> they will all happily drop VMS in a couple of years from now, so why >> should they keep VMS in their supported platforms portfolio? It >> appears like their VMS customer base is on a slow downhill slope. Is >> this going to continue until they are not in sufficient number to >> justify the expense? Will all VMS customers drop it in favor of >> something else ? Are we (my company) so different ? Pls speak ! >> >> We have very costly journey in front of us... > > Bite the bullet now. VMS is at best in palliative care and no matter what > you and I think of it's merits (and they are legion), the owner of VMS wants > it dead, and has wanted it dead for a long time. This will come to pass. > Accept it and start planning an d executing. And do us all a favour by > never spending another dime with HP :) > > Dr. Dweeb (who has embraced M$ - warts and all - because that is the only > game in town) > > You have nothing to bitch about, after offering such advice. By advising "bite the bullet now", you must want VMS dead as much or more than HP might. While I have no confidence in HP, I don't have to help them achieve such a possible goal. I do agree on never spending another dime with HP if they do kill off VMS. -- David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450 Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com DFE Ultralights, Inc. 170 Grimplin Road Vanderbilt, PA 15486 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 08:57:15 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: DS10L won't boot Message-ID: This system (7.3-1) has no internal drives and boots off an HSG80 throught HBA. Attaching a console cable through hyperterm all I see upon powering up is *** keyboard not plugged in... 256 Meg of system memory probing hose 0, PCI probing PCI-to-ISA bridge, bus 1 and that is where it hangs. Any ideas? Tom ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 09:15:58 -0700 From: wilmesr@hotmail.com Subject: freeware8 cron issue Message-ID: <1180628158.823893.41850@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> Hi, I'm trying to get the cron/clontab kit off the freeware 8 cd (http:// h71000.www7.hp.com/freeware/freeware80/cron/) working on our alpha w/ 7.3-2. I've got it installed and executing but... When I add a crontab file it creates it in the cron$lib:[spool] directory with my username as filename and owner of system. The daemon then tries to execute it but pukes an error into the logs that I'm not the owner. If I manually change the owner of the spool file to my UIC it will execute fine until I update and add a new version of the crontab file, which again appears in the spool director with system as the owner. Any input would be appreciated. I've gone through the readmes etc and can't find a reference. Thanks, Rusty ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 08:27:46 -0500 From: "Cross Michael C Mr CIV USAF 53 CSS/SCN" Subject: GKS Message-ID: <138449ECC94125418289A81B26BA97B8611CE0@VFEGMLEG01.Enterprise.afmc.ds.af.mil> This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C7A387.7B6C1E97 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable What was the last version of OpenVMS that had GKS on the media? I have licenses but no media? =20 Michael C. Cross (850) 882-8989/883-7311 michael.cross@eglin.af.mil =20 =20 ------_=_NextPart_001_01C7A387.7B6C1E97 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

What was the last version of OpenVMS that had GKS on = the media?  I have licenses but no media?

 

Michael C. = Cross

(850) = 882-8989/883-7311

michael.cross@eglin.af.mil

 

------_=_NextPart_001_01C7A387.7B6C1E97-- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 10:19:40 -0400 From: "FredK" Subject: Re: GKS Message-ID: "Cross Michael C Mr CIV USAF 53 CSS/SCN" wrote in message news:138449ECC94125418289A81B26BA97B8611CE0@VFEGMLEG01.Enterprise.afmc.ds.af.mil... >What was the last version of OpenVMS that had GKS on the media? I have >licenses but no media? GKS was never on the VMS media. It is on the Software Product Library (SPL) CD set - it should still be there. It is available for all versions of OpenVMS on Alpha and is now available for Itanium V8.3. http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/gks.html Apha... http://www1.sqp.com/MasterIndex/final_spl_vmsaxp_q106/final_spl_vmsaxp_q106_std.shtml IA64... http://www1.sqp.com/MasterIndex/final_lpl_vmsi64_q206/final_lpl_vmsi64_q206_std.shtml ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 08:30:57 +0200 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: Re: OpenVMS on AlphaPC Message-ID: <465e87c1$1@news.langstoeger.at> In article <07053019025190_202002DA@antinode.org>, sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) writes: >From: |a|i|e|i|e| >> So, can i hope to install vms on it? > > You may need a SCSI CD-ROM drive. (I assume that you were planning >on a SCSI system disk.) You don't need a SCSI CD-ROM drive if you install VMS via InfoServer (either a real one or now via an Alpha/Itanic with ESS$INFOSERVER.EXE) and a LAN connection between... -- Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER Network and OpenVMS system specialist E-mail peter@langstoeger.at A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 01:52:43 -0700 From: IanMiller Subject: Re: OpenVMS on AlphaPC Message-ID: <1180601563.791000.302150@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> See also FAQ http://64.223.189.234/node/1 Specifically Chapter 14 http://64.223.189.234/vmsfaq/vmsfaq_021.html#faq_hardware ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 08:03:46 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: PCSI, disk space, UNDO, unseen dangers etc Message-ID: In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: > > Isn't renaming directories officially unsupported, though? :-) Not on any version of VMS that I've ever used. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 08:50:43 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Relay problem with MX Message-ID: Shutdown cluster and moved to new location Running MX5.4 on the nodes under load broker nodes vary from 7.3 to 8.3 Can receive mail to pop client but am getting "551 relay disabled, recipient refused" when trying to send I haven't made any changes Internally I use a non-routable set of ifconfig aliases, so that windows boxes only have internal IPs Any hints on what to look for? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 09:07:03 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Relay problem with MX Message-ID: On Thu, 31 May 2007 08:50:43 -0700, Tom Linden wrote: > Shutdown cluster and moved to new location > Running MX5.4 on the nodes under load broker > nodes vary from 7.3 to 8.3 > > Can receive mail to pop client but am getting > "551 relay disabled, recipient refused" when trying to send > > I haven't made any changes > > Internally I use a non-routable set of ifconfig aliases, so > that windows boxes only have internal IPs > > Any hints on what to look for? And when I try to send myself a message I get Server Response: '554 5.7.0, Message rejected for Administrative decisions' -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 09:52:56 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Relay problem with MX Message-ID: On Thu, 31 May 2007 09:07:03 -0700, Tom Linden wrote: > On Thu, 31 May 2007 08:50:43 -0700, Tom Linden > wrote: > >> Shutdown cluster and moved to new location >> Running MX5.4 on the nodes under load broker >> nodes vary from 7.3 to 8.3 >> >> Can receive mail to pop client but am getting >> "551 relay disabled, recipient refused" when trying to send >> >> I haven't made any changes >> >> Internally I use a non-routable set of ifconfig aliases, so >> that windows boxes only have internal IPs >> >> Any hints on what to look for? > > > And when I try to send myself a message I get > > Server Response: '554 5.7.0, Message rejected for Administrative > decisions' > And I get the same message with SOYmail -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 15:21:51 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Remote Shadow... Message-ID: <00A686FE.596EF094@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article , "Hal Kuff" writes: > > >Any current users using this product at 40 to 50ms latency? Obviously, your data isn't of any importantant to you? -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 15:23:45 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Remote Shadow... Message-ID: <00A686FE.9D4294C2@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article , "Hal Kuff" writes: > > >Thats remote shadow the non-HP product... >http://www.advsyscon.com/products/rso/ >"Hal Kuff" wrote in message >news:XEk7i.16603$7T.2371@newsfe18.lga... >> Any current users using this product at 40 to 50ms latency? For the price of that crap, you could buy a small box, cluster it, and volume shadow the disks of importance to you. But it seems to me your data isn't important to you so have at it. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:45:33 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Remote Shadow... Message-ID: <465EED9D.4070201@comcast.net> VAXman- wrote: > In article , "Hal Kuff" writes: > >> >>Thats remote shadow the non-HP product... >>http://www.advsyscon.com/products/rso/ >>"Hal Kuff" wrote in message >>news:XEk7i.16603$7T.2371@newsfe18.lga... >> >>>Any current users using this product at 40 to 50ms latency? >> > > For the price of that crap, you could buy a small box, cluster it, > and volume shadow the disks of importance to you. But it seems to > me your data isn't important to you so have at it. I've seen Hal's data center and he does care about his data. He's got dual redundant RAID systems (ESA 12000 IIRC) with a third ESA 12000 that he can sync up if need be. It looks to me as if he wants to shadow it off site for Disaster Recovery Purposes. This is not an easy or inexpensive thing to do but it can save your butt and your business. Remember the World Trade Center? Merrill Lynch failed over to their backup data center in Westchester County. They didn't lose a single transaction or a byte of data and were off-line for a mere four minutes. If Hal wants to do the same and can afford the necessary hardware, software, and bandwidth, more power to him! ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 11:51:02 -0500 From: brooks@cuebid.zko.hp.nospam (Rob Brooks) Subject: Re: Remote Shadow... Message-ID: B. Gilbert" writes: > VAXman- wrote: >> "Hal Kuff" writes: >>>Thats remote shadow the non-HP product... >>>http://www.advsyscon.com/products/rso/ >> For the price of that crap, you could buy a small box, cluster it, >> and volume shadow the disks of importance to you. But it seems to >> me your data isn't important to you so have at it. > > I've seen Hal's data center and he does care about his data. [...] > If Hal wants to do the same and can afford the necessary hardware, software, > and bandwidth, more power to him! Brian's comment does not pertain to the importance or usefulness of remote storage -- Brian is expressing a lack of confidence in the vendor about whom Hal is asking. -- Rob Brooks MSL -- Nashua brooks!cuebid.zko.hp.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 11:57:50 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Remote Shadow... Message-ID: <465EF07E.8070409@comcast.net> Rob Brooks wrote: > B. Gilbert" writes: > >>VAXman- wrote: >> >>>"Hal Kuff" writes: >> > >>>>Thats remote shadow the non-HP product... >>>>http://www.advsyscon.com/products/rso/ >>> > >>>For the price of that crap, you could buy a small box, cluster it, >>>and volume shadow the disks of importance to you. But it seems to >>>me your data isn't important to you so have at it. >> >>I've seen Hal's data center and he does care about his data. > > > [...] > > >>If Hal wants to do the same and can afford the necessary hardware, software, >>and bandwidth, more power to him! > > > Brian's comment does not pertain to the importance or usefulness of remote > storage -- Brian is expressing a lack of confidence in the vendor about > whom Hal is asking. > Brian might have expressed himself a little more clearly. If there's a better product, he might even have recommended it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 04:56:43 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: RMS : Indexed file rebuilding results Message-ID: <892b7$465e8df2$cef8887a$4791@TEKSAVVY.COM> Finally enabled writing to the indexed file to patch it up. Here is what was done to recuperate the file (shared DAF file for ALLIN1). A global section is mapped to the indexed file. So I can simply modify memory and not have to worry about constantly reading and writing 30 blocks of data. I have a small routine that maps a VBN to a memory address. -scan the primary key index at two levels to walk through each data bucket. (since some data buckets were corrupt, the chain was broken when walking through the file via data buckets). For each data bucket, I checked the bucket header for sanity. Then walked through the bucket scanning each record, again scanning each record's header for sanity. Any data bucket with a header or record found to be invalid gets sent to the "rebuild" routine. I did not check record contents consistency (due to compression issue and the fact that the record structure is fairly opaque and variable). Rebuilding a bucket: An in-memory temporary bucket is created. Bucket header initialised with default values (and a "signature" check byte which allows me to know that I rebuilt this bucket). Then I scan the whole bucket for the start of the key value (all records start with "OA$SHAR", and when found, I backspace 11 bytes to get to the record header which I then verify. If valid, I then move that record (according to its length) to the new in-memory bucket. I copy only one deleted record and then skip all other records found after that. RRV records were not copied. The results: Initially after running my program, I got 2 types of errors: (ANA/RMS) *** VBN 39979: Record at offset %X'0442' has a missing or illegal RRV. and: *** VBN 35359: Record at offset %X'000E' has invalid data record compression. There were about 70 of the RRV errors, and 2 of the invalid record compression. The first case of invalid compression was fixed when I added the code to not process data beyond the first deleted record. The second case was interesting. It was a lone recovered record in a bucket so there was no way to know if it was after a deleted record or before. And portions of that record had been zapped by LD driver, so the compression algorithm was zapped. > /* this is a 1 record bucket with corrupt ending (bad record compression). > mybucket = VBNaddr(35359); > mybucket->bkt$w_freespace = BKT$K_OVERHDSZ + IRC$C_VAROHSZ3 + KEY_SIZE ; > myrecord = (struct record_head_struct *) ((char *) mybucket + 0x0E) ; > myrecord->flag.irc$x_deleted = 1 ; > myrecord->length = KEY_SIZE ; This essentially converted that record into a deleted record, (truncating it to its KEY_SIZE) and then updated the bucket header to have an end of bucket 14 + 11 + 65 bytes after the start of bucket. In terms of the "RRV" record errors, in the above example: PRIMARY DATA RECORD (VBN 39979, offset %X'0442') Record Control Flags: (2) IRC$V_DELETED 0 (3) IRC$V_RRV 1 (4) IRC$V_NOPTRSZ 0 (5) IRC$V_RU_DELETE 0 (6) IRC$V_RU_UPDATE 0 Record ID: 80 RRV ID: 11, 4-Byte Bucket Pointer: 41059 And it so happens that VBN 41059 was a bucket that had been zapped by LDdriver so it didn't contain the record that used to live at bucket 39979. So ANA/RMS reacts to encountering an RRV record by ensuring that the record does in fact exist at its new address. CONVERT does not notice this. Some statistics: File opened, size=42528 blocks buckets_scanned = 1404 buckets_valid = 1229 buckets_bad = 175 records_found = 1973 records_deleted = 1206 records_rrv = 185 records_good = 582 records_rebuilt = 21 The 175 bad buckets represent 5250 blocks, or only 12% of the total file allocation. There should have been over 1300 active records. And only 603 were recovered (582 from good buckets, and 21 recovered from good fragments inside bad buckets). So while only 12% of blocks were lost, over 50% of records were lost. This is explained by the fact that records are added in alphabetical order, but the janitor deletes older unfiled emails. So older buckets are sparsely populated while the newer buckets are more full since the jabitor (or myself) haven't gotten around to deleted those emails/documents. And the damage to the file seemed to happen in chunks between roughly VBN 34000 and the end at 42500. So older records at the top of the file were not affected. So a most interesting exercise where I learned a lot, but a disapointing result. But I got to understand (thanks to Hein and others) how indexed files really work under the hood. And the ANA/RMS/INT tool is REALLY neat. (This was on a bound volume set of 4 2gig drives, and a 600 meg container file was created with extents on multiple drives, but LD driver would write only to the first physical drive. So if the file had an extent on disk 1 blocks X to Y, LD driver wrote over blocks X to Y on disk 2 which belonged to some other file. (I lost many text files as well as this one important indexed file). ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 06:10:17 -0700 From: Hein RMS van den Heuvel Subject: Re: RMS : Indexed file rebuilding results Message-ID: <1180617017.603270.158570@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On May 31, 4:56 am, JF Mezei wrote: > Finally enabled writing to the indexed file to patch it up. : > A global section is mapped to the indexed file. Good way to go! Thanks for the write-up. Good excercise. The biggests questions I have is there there seems to be not much consideration for the nature of the corruption. Whole blocks (clusters) are overwritten and yet you seem to be looking for bad bits. Once a record is found to be inconsistent, you might as well skip the rest of that block for sure, and mark a range of blocks following it as suspect. But I suppose you could transition from garbage into goodness as well. The Second big question is whether there is external data, like file names or records in different files which can help you determine what should have been there. For example, it is almost trivial to rebuild a skeleton VMSmail MAIL.MAI for a directory of MAIL$xxxxx.MAI files. > -scan the primary key index at two levels to walk through each data > bucket. (since some data buckets were corrupt, the chain was broken when > walking through the file via data buckets). Good, but were the index buckets not at equal risk? I woudl use the next point primarely and fall back on the index if need be. Still, the index buckets are an excellent source of suggested bucket VBN numbers of which you can have only a limited amount. Is there and alternate key? Again a potet source of VBN numbers. > For each data bucket, I checked the bucket header for sanity. Then > walked through the bucket scanning each record, again scanning each > record's header for sanity. Good. > I did not check record contents consistency (due to compression issue and the fact that the record structure is fairly opaque and variable). Compression is not too hard. I'll send you a piece of code. There is also an old chunk of BASIC code on the freeware which does the record compression check. http://h71000.www7.hp.com/freeware/freeware60/rms_tools/src/indexed_file_count.bas > An in-memory temporary bucket is created. Bucket header initialised with default values (and a "signature" check byte which allows me to know that I rebuilt this bucket). Good. Then I scan the whole bucket for the start > of the key value (all records start with "OA$SHAR", and when found, I > backspace 11 bytes to get to the record header which I then verify. So the keys in the records are NOT compressed? I would expect only the first record to have OA$SHAR spelled out and the compression bytes reading old:,new:X and other record to have at least old: 6+, new: X-6 or less. > If valid, I then move that record (according to its length) to the new > in-memory bucket. I copy only one deleted record and then skip all other records found after that. Again, KEY compression might require the deleted record to be there to help reconstruct the actual key. > Initially after running my program, I got 2 types of errors: (ANA/RMS) > *** VBN 39979: Record at offset %X'0442' has a missing or illegal RRV. That skeleton bucket header, do you use a large next-record-id? Otherwise the ID might be out of range. > *** VBN 35359: Record at offset %X'000E' has invalid data record > compression. That's the first record. So you copied in a recod which did not end well. That should have been found before the copy by decoding the record data compression. Will Email a helper program. > The first case of invalid compression was fixed when I added the code to > not process data beyond the first deleted record. There can be valid data record after deleted records > This essentially converted that record into a deleted record, > (truncating it to its KEY_SIZE) and then updated the bucket header to > have an end of bucket 14 + 11 + 65 bytes after the start of bucket. If all the bucket is going to have is a deleted record, then just remove the bucket! Update the prior bucket to point to next, not this! That is, if the chain is A->B->C and B is worthless, then make it be A- >C The goal is to be able to convert the file, not to get a perfect file. > In terms of the "RRV" record errors, in the above example: > PRIMARY DATA RECORD (VBN 39979, offset %X'0442') > > Record Control Flags: > (2) IRC$V_DELETED 0 > (3) IRC$V_RRV 1 > (4) IRC$V_NOPTRSZ 0 > (5) IRC$V_RU_DELETE 0 > (6) IRC$V_RU_UPDATE 0 > Record ID: 80 > RRV ID: 11, 4-Byte Bucket Pointer: 41059 > > And it so happens that VBN 41059 was a bucket that had been zapped by > LDdriver so it didn't contain the record that used to live at bucket 39979. So skip it. For the purpose of trying to converting the file, by primary key, the RRVs are useless. Just set the next free byte to the begin of the RRVs/. The RRVs may be a good source of potential bucket start VBNs though! > So ANA/RMS reacts to encountering an RRV record by ensuring that the > record does in fact exist at its new address. CONVERT does not notice this. Yes and Yes. > There should have been over 1300 active records. Do you have key values to substantiate this? Can you use those to re-generate skeleton data records? > So while only 12% of blocks were lost, over 50% of records were lost. Seems a bit much, but it could be. > This is explained by the fact that records are added in alphabetical > order, but the janitor deletes older unfiled emails. So older buckets > are sparsely populated while the newer buckets are more full since the > jabitor (or myself) haven't gotten around to deleted those emails/documents. > > And the damage to the file seemed to happen in chunks between roughly > VBN 34000 and the end at 42500. So older records at the top of the file > were not affected. Excellent work, to take it back to usage patterns. Cheers, Hein. ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 08:05:42 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: <65IJmdDGfLd5@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: > Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 08:36:52 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: > >> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? > > Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 13:47:31 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: In article <465DD58E.2050806@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: >Katie Tam wrote: >> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? >> >> Please advise >> >> Katie Tam >> Network Administrator >> http://www.linkwaves.com/main.asp >> http://www.linkwaves.com/ >> > >This is really the wrong forum for this question. > >Having said that, why would you want to upgrade? Does whatever you're >running work? Does it do what you need it to do? > >My computer is eligible for a "free upgrade" but I wouldn't dream of >touching it. It works very well as is! > Apart from the question of whether using Vista rather than XP is wise at the moment I am aware of at least one software product which will work with a clean install of Vista but will not apparently work with a system upgraded to Vista from XP. The Cisco VPN client says in it's release notes that it does not support upgraded systems but will work on systems with a clean install of Vista. If there is one such product there are probably others. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 14:45:18 GMT From: Thierry Dussuet Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: On 2007-05-31, Ron Johnson wrote: > On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: >> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: >> >>> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? >> >> Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. > > But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... So can you install PCSI kits on it, too? Thierry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 10:13:49 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: On 05/31/07 09:45, Thierry Dussuet wrote: > On 2007-05-31, Ron Johnson wrote: >> On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: >>> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: >>> >>>> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? >>> Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. >> But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... > > So can you install PCSI kits on it, too? You can try... -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 15:38:15 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: <00A68700.A4013EA4@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article , Ron Johnson writes: > > >On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: >> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: >> >>> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? >> >> Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. > >But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... Troll! WNT is behind VMS in every way! W is behind V; N is behind M; T is behind S! In addition, while I'm on the topic of behind, take your head out of yours. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 12:06:36 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: On 05/31/07 10:38, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article , Ron Johnson writes: >> >> On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: >>> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie Tam writes: >>> >>>> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? >>> Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. >> But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... > > Troll! > > WNT is behind VMS in every way! W is behind V; N is behind M; > T is behind S! In addition, while I'm on the topic of behind, > take your head out of yours. Geez, dude, take some Prozac. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 19:39:00 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: In article , Ron Johnson wrote: > On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: > > In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie > > Tam writes: > > > >> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? > > > > Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. > > But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... If you want to go back to pagefiles which act as fragmented free space garbage collectors, yes. -- Paul Sture ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 19:41:17 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Upgrade to Vista from XP ? Yes or No Message-ID: In article , Thierry Dussuet wrote: > On 2007-05-31, Ron Johnson wrote: > > On 05/31/07 08:05, Bob Koehler wrote: > >> In article <1180551139.432014.273620@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Katie > >> Tam writes: > >> > >>> Should I upgrade my laptop to Vista ? Good or Bad? > >> > >> Bad, very bad. Upgrade to VMS instead. > > > > But I thought that WNT was the upgrade of VMS... > > So can you install PCSI kits on it, too? > If you want to lose the file attributes, yes. mfg von AG :-) -- Paul Sture ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 03:09:04 -0700 From: IanMiller Subject: Re: VMS L&T Distribution Message-ID: <1180606144.208522.5980@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> Its available from HP, just order it and pay for it. If you are a company member of the DSPP you can acquire OpenVMS I64 V8.3 for free. See http://www.hp.com/go/dspp ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 2007 05:51:07 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: VMS L&T Distribution Message-ID: In article <1180606144.208522.5980@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, IanMiller writes: > Its available from HP, just order it and pay for it. > > If you are a company member of the DSPP you can acquire OpenVMS I64 > V8.3 for free. See http://www.hp.com/go/dspp When I see "L&T" I think of the DECUS "Language and Tools" freeware tape. I do not recall DEC/Compaq/HP ever using the term "L&T" for a deliverable. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 07:50:39 -0400 From: "Hal Kuff" Subject: Re: VMS L&T Distribution Message-ID: Yes I was looking for the latest distribution of the user community tools.... wasn't there a post a few months ago that it was coming? "Larry Kilgallen" wrote in message news:VrMDvhYXQL7o@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <1180606144.208522.5980@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, IanMiller > writes: >> Its available from HP, just order it and pay for it. >> >> If you are a company member of the DSPP you can acquire OpenVMS I64 >> V8.3 for free. See http://www.hp.com/go/dspp > > When I see "L&T" I think of the DECUS "Language and Tools" freeware tape. > I do not recall DEC/Compaq/HP ever using the term "L&T" for a deliverable. ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.296 ************************