INFO-VAX Sat, 17 Nov 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 630 Contents: Re: "Latch" style Batch Queue Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Re: Converting serial I/O to ethernet I/O Re: Filezilla connection Re: Filezilla connection Re: Filezilla connection Re: MIME utility buglet NASA gets SGI 2048-core Itanium 2 supercomputer Re: system constants in COBOL Re: X11 in a browser? Re: X11 in a browser? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:52:40 -0600 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: "Latch" style Batch Queue Message-ID: <473F1C58.C848B9C5@spam.comcast.net> "Michael D. Ober" wrote: > > David, > > Not only did this work, but it was simple and elegant. I ended up creating > two generic queues and added two lines of code to our overnight processing > to move any jobs to the regular execution queues. Glad I could help. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:51:52 -0800 (PST) From: Volker Halle Subject: Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Message-ID: <9dfb1908-ba1e-49ee-ad38-39d2c6c26ba9@l22g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> Brad, if there are no crash-related messages, there was no crash. Assuming CONSOLE = SERIAL. So after the old OPCOM messages, you just see the Alpha SRM init messages and then an OpenVMS boot - right ? This proves, that there was either an external power failure or some hardware problem (power- supply ?), which causes the console to re-init and - due to AUTO_ACTION = RESTART - to boot OpenVMS. Volker. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:10:02 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Message-ID: back in the late 1980s, there was a bad power failure in Québec, power browning out for a number of seconds before total failure. ANA/ERROR on the all mighty Microvax II revealed memory parity errors during those few seconds. Because I was there at the time, I knew that the recorded errors had been due to the power problem and not failing memory chips. If you are not present at the time of the event, you may get misleading message from whatever replaced ANA/ERROR. (That power failure was in 1988 I think, and outlined the need for software to do load shedding when one or more power feeds suddently go offline, something wich Québec fixed back then, but which the north east USA and Ontario didn't start fixing until the big blackout of a couple summer ago). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:12:16 -0500 From: bradhamilton Subject: Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Message-ID: <473EE8B0.5010008@comcast.net> Volker Halle wrote: > Brad, > > if there are no crash-related messages, there was no crash. Assuming > CONSOLE = SERIAL. > > So after the old OPCOM messages, you just see the Alpha SRM init > messages and then an OpenVMS boot - right ? This proves, that there > was either an external power failure or some hardware problem (power- > supply ?), which causes the console to re-init and - due to > AUTO_ACTION = RESTART - to boot OpenVMS. Yes - my fault for using misleading language - I used "crash" to refer to a HW or SW reboot. This is most certainly a HW/Environment-related issue. I still have to clean out the dust bunnies, and re-seat the boards, however. Perhaps tonight. The external case (including the fan outlet and grilles) looks (surprisingly) dust free, considering where it "lives". > Volker. > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:56:10 -0000 From: "John Wallace" Subject: Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Message-ID: <13ju04gdp4e3m44@corp.supernews.com> "Doug Phillips" wrote in message news:d5cbca11-5541-4f02-ae51-531ce9ee0169@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > On Nov 16, 5:01 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" > wrote: > > Doug Phillips wrote: > > > On Nov 16, 3:54 pm, s...@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) wrote: > > > > >>From: Doug Phillips > > > > >>>VA and the Amp rating on your tags are peak draw. Watts are average > > >>>draw. Figure Watts at around 65% of VA. [...] > > > > >> If you believe this, you'd be wise to avoid offering advice (or > > >>taking your own) on electrical topics. I'd offer a more detailed > > >>explanation, but books already exist, and it is, in a sense, complex, > > >>and requires a bit of imagination. > > > > > 65% is a "rule of thumb." The calculation to arrive at actual numbers > > > is a bit more involved, but it isn't really "complex". > > > > > Ohm's law and the power formula involves simple math --- at least it > > > did when I took electronics and worked in that trade before getting > > > into software. I even remember some of the mnemonic rhymes. > > > > Ohm's law is not strictly applicable to alternating current except in a > > purely resistive circuit! With AC both capacitive and inductive > > reactance must be taken into account in addition to pure resistance. > > > > So E=IR and P=EI=I^2R for a light bulb but not necessarily for an > > electric motor or any other reactive load. Some electric motors can be > > made to appear as a capacitive load and the power company may give you > > big discounts for running one. I believe it helps balance out the > > inductive loads created by other customers. For further details, consult > > an electrical engineer. > > Ohm's law for AC isn't too different; E = IZ where E & I are the > oscillating voltage (usually V rather than E) and current, and Z is > the complex impedance for the oscillation frequency. Yes, AC is more > complicated than DC, and does get more complicated from there, but > doesn't most everything? > > Watts = VA, (twinkle twinkle little star, power equals I squared R --- > dang, now I'll have that running through my brain. At least I've > gotten the resistor color code jingle out of my mind.) When VA and > Watts are both shown on an appliance tag, and they're different > numbers, VA is used to indicate peak, and Watts is used to indicate > the average draw; the amount of power consumption you're most likely > to see on your electric meter if the thing runs all of the time. > > On to better things. Doug, either you don't fully know what you're talking about here or you're expressing it really awkwardly. Either way, it'd be in your own interests (and others) to stick to stuff where your expertise can be helpful. As Steven already said, this may not be the best place for an in depth explanation of a "complex" subject. Those who want to know more about the relationship between Volts, Amps, Watts, VA, and VAr can go learn about "power factor" (which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned already, but there we are). People who will know about power factor are people with a clue about AC electrical power engineering (and trigonometry), and also people who really understand UPSes (which may or may not include UPS salespeople). Brad: I looked into UPSes once. The cheaper ones just pass through the external mains when it's within the voltage limits, and switch to battery when they decide the external mains voltage (or, maybe, frequency) is out of tolerance (relevant keywords used to be "online", "offline" and "line interactive" but these words are not often seen in the world of SoHo UPSes). Whether one of these simplistic UPSes will help this particular problem is moot, if the problem is related to "dirty" mains, as the UPS may not care whether the mains is "clean" or not, so long as its own measured voltage looks OK. If I was on a limited budget I'd probably get a SoHo UPS for the "PC" but maybe not for the disk stuff (but I openly admit I haven't fully thought through the implications of VMS being live while disks are unpowered). If you are seriously looking into UPSes and spending serious money you may also want to check how your chosen UPS behaves when external power is restored *after* the UPS shuts down due to flat battery. Many of the cheap ones *don't* automatically restart, you have to manually do something (which isn't real helpful in a potentially-unattended environment). They don't tell you this before you buy (or in the manual) though. Why would the power/crash problem start to appear after your suspect heating appliances have been in service some time? I'll guess that contacts have started to arc seriously, and weren't arcing much before. But it's only a guess. If the problem is related to arcing I'm really not sure that any sensibly-priced UPS will help. Fix the appliance, as the dirty power may also affect other nearby electronic kit (TV, audio, etc), sometimes permanently. I also looked into "mysterious crashes" earlier this week. Not on VMS, but on a built-like-a-tank antique Compaq Deskpro running Win2K (so no chance of any help from the OS). It hadn't stayed up for more than a few hours for the last few months, and often when dying it scribbled on the boot sector. Basically I'd abandoned it, but I need it again temporarily. I did the "PM" thing already described by others (get rid of bulk dust, reseat memory, cards, connectors, and cables), plus removed unused PCI cards, and changed a badly creased IDE cable. So far it's been up longer than it has for ages (but we know what Mr Murphy wants next don't we). 2p John Wallace ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:40:12 -0500 From: "Jilly" Subject: Re: "Mysterious" system crashes Message-ID: <473f2784$0$6704$ec3e2dad@news.usenetmonster.com> "bradhamilton" wrote in message news:473CF41C.1060500@comcast.net... > Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > [...] >> Do you have a dump file? SYS$SYSTEM:SYSDUMP.DMP >> Is a dump being written to it? > > RABBIT::SYSTEM$ dir/dat=(cre,mod) sys$system:sysdump.dmp > > Directory SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSEXE] > > SYSDUMP.DMP;2 245215/245248 28-DEC-2002 23:33:40.29 12-NOV-2006 > 22:20 > :02.28 Please remember that the system dump routines do NOT update the modified date/time of the system dump file. They only way to tell if the file contents have actually been changed is to analyze it. This little tidbit has caught out a number of VMS users. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:26:50 -0000 From: "John Wallace" Subject: Re: Converting serial I/O to ethernet I/O Message-ID: <13ju9367vj81678@corp.supernews.com> "tadamsmar" wrote in message news:96874356-8dd3-4000-81bd-fa43ca05128b@b32g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > On Nov 16, 8:28 am, Bob Gezelter wrote: > > On Nov 16, 8:04 am, tadamsmar wrote: > > > > > I maintain a VMS real-time app. that has a serial interfaces to > > > analyzers. The latest version of the analyzers support network > > > communications and we want to convert from serial to network. > > > > > Any pointers on how to do it? I think it's a matter of making the > > > right QIO calls, perhaps > > > just revising or adding alternative QIO calls. > > > > tadamsmar, > > > > It may be as simple as that, or a more extensive re-write. It depends > > on the actual interface specifications of the analyzers. > > > > In my career, I have seen both. I have seen devices just change from > > serial interfaces to say, a LAT or telnet scheme; and I have seen > > devices adopt completely different message formats, standards, and > > protocols. > > > > In the abstract, it is not possible to answer this question from the > > information in your post. It would require careful reading of the > > documentation for both the old analyzers and the new analyzers, and a > > review of the source code of the application. > > > > - Bob Gezelter,http://www.rlgsc.com > > > The manual says it uses the the same commands over RS-232 and > Ethernet. Over Ethernet, it uses TCP/IP and port 9880. Excellent. You have documentation, and have read it. That's always A Good Start. In addition to the good advice already posted: IFF it really is as simple as the docs claim, and the command protocol really is relatively simple, you might well want to have a play with your favourite TELNET application (VAXman suggested the obvious VMS one, others are available), use it to Telnet to the analyser's port 9880, type in some commands by hand, and examine the resulting behaviour. This will give you an early idea of how the box really behaves, rather than how the documentation says it behaves. (You might want to say what kind of box it is, just in case someone round here has done this before). You may want to give some thought to error conditions, their detection, and appropriate error recovery. With a classic serial port, there's not a huge amount to go wrong, and if something does break, it's usually obvious (to the application) reasonably quickly, partly because the VMS terminal driver conveniently supports timeouts. Introduce a network layer (and in particular a TCP/IP layer) and the possibilities for error are almost infinite, and in the wrong circumstances it can take a relatively long time for the application to detect that something's not right (JF already noted the absence of meaningful timeouts). If the application is expecting quick indication of success or failure of a command/response sequence, a simple one-for-one translation of QIOs with some changes to connection setup and teardown may be about to lose that. In some cases this may not matter. In other cases, it may require serious thought (you want the application, and anything that depends on it, to hang while the TCP/IP stack takes the time to detect that the analyser isn't actually responding? Would this by any chance be related the BASEstar application you mentioned here earlier in the year? My recollection (from a *long* time ago) is that BASEstar Classic comes with a thing called a "Generic DAS". You got its source code and it could be quite easily customised to talk to simple devices like printers, barcode readers, weighing machines, and other such simple devices, probably including analysers that talk Telnet. The Device Access Software (DAS) handles much of the connectivity and configuration housekeeping for you, leaving your application the simple (!) challenge of handling the actual data transfers. Your current app probably isn't using BASEstar, and changing it to use BASEstar may be a bigger change than you'd consider, but it never hurts to be aware of other options which may be relevant. Apologies in advance if this train of thought is irrelevant. Good luck, John Wallace ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:46:24 +0100 From: Wilm Boerhout Subject: Re: Filezilla connection Message-ID: <473eb87b$0$25487$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl> on 16-11-2007 23:25 Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER wrote... [snip] > > But, how to upload files with a browser to an FTP server? Open the ftp site in your browser, including username and password: ftp://user:pass@ftp.site.xx Drop your files in the browser window. -- Wilm Boerhout Zwolle, NL remove OLD PAINT from return address to reply ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 2007 14:17:51 +0100 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: Re: Filezilla connection Message-ID: <473ef80f$1@news.langstoeger.at> In article <473eb87b$0$25487$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl>, Wilm Boerhout writes: >on 16-11-2007 23:25 Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER wrote... >> But, how to upload files with a browser to an FTP server? > >Open the ftp site in your browser, including username and password: > >ftp://user:pass@ftp.site.xx Only if I don't use the anonymous account of course. >Drop your files in the browser window. And this works on VMS (MOZILLA/CSWB) also? Ok, we'll see... -- 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: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:17:29 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Filezilla connection Message-ID: In article <473ef80f$1@news.langstoeger.at>, peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) writes: > > >In article <473eb87b$0$25487$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl>, Wilm Boerhout writes: >>on 16-11-2007 23:25 Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER wrote... >>> But, how to upload files with a browser to an FTP server? >> >>Open the ftp site in your browser, including username and password: >> >>ftp://user:pass@ftp.site.xx > >Only if I don't use the anonymous account of course. > >>Drop your files in the browser window. > >And this works on VMS (MOZILLA/CSWB) also? Ok, we'll see... This tends to ONLY work if the ftp server uses (presents) unix style file and directory naming syntax. I have not been able to get my Powerbook to be happy with my "VMS" ftp server. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:00:05 -0600 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: MIME utility buglet Message-ID: <473F1E15.5E355428@spam.comcast.net> JF Mezei wrote: > > MC MIME SYS$LOGIN:TEMP.MIME > MIME> LIST > MIME> list > Message Headers: > Content-Type: multipart/alternative > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit/8Bit ASCII > Attachment: 1 > Content-Type: text/plain > Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64 > Attachment: 2 > Content-Type: text/html > Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64 > > MIME> extract/att=1 sys$output: > %MIME-E-FILEERROR, file error: Filename requires a file type delimiter, '.' > %MIME-I-NOEXTRACT, attachment was not extracted Work-around: MIME> extract/att=1 sys$output:mime.out -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:27:31 -0800 (PST) From: Neil Rieck Subject: NASA gets SGI 2048-core Itanium 2 supercomputer Message-ID: <521c63bd-f31c-483b-8219-b92203b149b7@c29g2000hsa.googlegroups.com> NASA gets SGI 2048-core Itanium 2 supercomputer http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=864 I had a chance to speak with NASA and SGI at the SC07 supercomputing convention in Reno this week where I saw one of the biggest super computers in the world. Pictured left is a 1024-core version of the Altix 4700 and NASA just bought one with twice as many processors (1024 dual-core Itanium 2 processors) based on the Montecito variant of Intel's Itanium 2 processor and 4 Terabytes of RAM. This massive supercomputer is the most powerful single node computer in the world (based on SPECint_rate2006 and SPECfp_rate2006 database) and it has one of the largest single system memory pool in the world. For some applications that simply can't be effectively broken down in to smaller tasks that a cluster can handle using smaller nodes because of excessive communications overhead, this is really the only system that can crunch those hard problems. To give you some idea how powerful this system is, a 256-core version of the SGI Altix 4700 has a SPECfp_rate2006 score of 3507 and a SPECint_rate2006 score of 2970. The biggest 16-core Intel X7350 2.93 GHz server scores 119 on SPECfp_rate2006 and 214 on SPECint_rate2006. The biggest 16-core AMD Barcelona server has a SPECfp_rate2006 score of 136 and a SPECint_rate2006 score of 160. A 16-core IBM Power6 has a SPECfp_rate2006 score of 428 and a SPECint_rate2006 score of 478 though the latest 32-core version probably has double that performance. But even the Power6 is dwarfed by the 256-core SGI machine let alone what a 2048-core version can do. Of course there are plenty of jobs that do break down nicely for clusters and plenty of jobs that don't need that much single-node memory. That's why NASA also purchased an Altix "ice" 8200 cluster using 16 of the racks pictured left. Each one of these racks contains 64 dual-processor Intel XEON x86/x64 servers and 16 of these make a 1024 processor cluster with 4096 XEON CPU cores. The Altix 8200 rack includes the 20 gbps InfiniBand switches on the sides for the cluster interconnect and the racks can be chained together with InfiniBand. NASA has for the most part used very large shared memory systems like the Altix 4700 above but they've just started buying the clustered systems. ----- Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:45:18 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: system constants in COBOL Message-ID: In article , "Richard Maher" writes: > > >Hi Brian, > >> Is there a way to include such literal values in COBOL? > >That is the way that I, and one or two others, do it (and have done for over >twenty years). For those with the Tier3 Hobbyist kit, you can look through >the t3$examples directory for .COM and .MAR files that also do compile-time >ANDing and ORing of various flags. (There is also a copy at >http://manson.vistech.net/t3$examples/ ) Thanks Richard. I was helping this shop (a COBOL shop) with a system programming need. Their programmers did not understand the system service calls so I was asked to lend a hand. I could not find a way to include constants nor could I find constants to include so I used the Macro mechanism and let the linker handle it. I only posted here to ask if there was a way (supported) to handle the constants at compile time (other than hard coding the values). >The COBOL compiler will be spared your oafish fondling; you don't have to >code in a language that you don't like; and the customer does not have to >endure the product of your floundering. Sounds like a win, win, win? Well, I hope it will be spared my oafish fondling in the future. Now that I've shown them how to called a system service with an item list and I've provided them with a sort of "rosetta stone" showing how to interpret the documented VMS Usage/Mechanism/Access/Data type argument descriptions in COBOLeeze, I shouldn't me bothered too much about this in the future. The COLOB compile is thus spared of my oafishness. >PS. Almost a whole week of VMS_relevant posts? Have to do something about >that :-) "Today's a day to celebrate, the foe have met their fate." -- Peter Gabriel, Supper's Ready -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:44:28 -0800 (PST) From: sean@obanion.us Subject: Re: X11 in a browser? Message-ID: <5c0ce4aa-c8db-4c1e-97a1-24197ad80838@s6g2000prc.googlegroups.com> On Nov 16, 12:16 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote: > In article <473db3ea$0$9409$91cee...@newsreader02.highway.telekom.at>, "Walter Kuhn" writes: > > > 1) there is an existing OpenVMS application with X11 (not Motif) user > > interface > > 2) The user has PCs with normal Web Browsers (no additional software) > > 3) Users wans to use the application (1) completely in the browser (no > > additional software) > > > Any ideas, hints, suggestions > > Get a new user. I was thinking of that, but then some people might say that's why I'm working as a contractor and not an employee: "Not a team player, are you?" Sean ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:04:33 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: X11 in a browser? Message-ID: In article <5c0ce4aa-c8db-4c1e-97a1-24197ad80838@s6g2000prc.googlegroups.com>, sean@obanion.us writes: > > >On Nov 16, 12:16 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob >Koehler) wrote: >> In article <473db3ea$0$9409$91cee...@newsreader02.highway.telekom.at>, "Walter Kuhn" writes: >> >> > 1) there is an existing OpenVMS application with X11 (not Motif) user >> > interface >> > 2) The user has PCs with normal Web Browsers (no additional software) >> > 3) Users wans to use the application (1) completely in the browser (no >> > additional software) >> >> > Any ideas, hints, suggestions >> >> Get a new user. > >I was thinking of that, but then some people might say that's why I'm >working as a contractor and not an employee: >"Not a team player, are you?" Seeing the apathy, dishonesty and corruption that is, at least, corporate America today, I am happy not to be a player on any of those teams. I am happy to be an honest and hard working stiff scraping out a meager exist- ence over being a party to the opulence of the underhanded corporations of today. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.630 ************************