Have you ever been puzzled or frustrated by the absence of PATCH/ABSOLUTE on the alpha? -- I sure have been.
Since we don't actually have a 'patch' for alpha, the next best thing would be to VEST vax patch to the alpha. Unfortunately, patch is linked with VMS, and VEST promptly coughs up the following furball:
AXP$ VEST PATCH.EXE
%VEST-F-LNKSYS, Image is linked against OpenVMS VAX and references symbols
in it -- not translatable
%VEST-F-TRANSFATAL, Translation was impossible
%VEST-I-BZZZT, Wrong Answer! Thank you for playing.
-VEST-I-GIFTS, We have some nice porting gifts for you.
AXP$
(Well almost anyway. I made those last two up.... :)
During a recent discussion with "the openvms wizard", it was discovered that he had actually *PATCHED* PATCH to bypass this problem with VEST!!! Well, with that revelation in hand, I set out to duplicate this effort and get PATCH/ABS up on alpha. The rest of this article is a discussion of how you too can run a VESTed PATCHed PATCH on the alpha.
Parts list:
Starting with the error message given above, the next step is to use ANALYZE /IMAGE/INTERACT to look at exactly *what* the system linkage looks like. This looks like the following:
VAX$ analyze/image/inter patch
IMAGE HEADER
Fixed Header Information
image format major id: 02, minor id: 05
header block count: 1
image type: executable (IHD$K_EXE)
I/O channel count: default
I/O page count: default
linker flags:
(0) IHD$V_LNKDEBUG 0
(1) IHD$V_LNKNOTFR 0
(2) IHD$V_NOP0BUFS 0
(3) IHD$V_PICIMG 1
(4) IHD$V_P0IMAGE 0
(5) IHD$V_DBGDMT 1
(6) IHD$V_INISHR 0
(7) IHD$V_IHSLONG 1
system version (major/minor): 1.0
system version array information: (Image Value / Current System Value)
SYS$K_IMAGE_ACTIVATOR : (1.80 / 1.80)
Press RETURN to continue, or enter a period (.) for next file:
:
The first problem is the system version array. There may be others, but for starters, let's just shut the system version array down cold & go from there. We can get away with this because the reference to the image activator version is most likely due to patch's handling of VAX images when NOT operating in ABSOLUTE mode. We're only going to use ABSOLUTE mode on the Alpha anyway. The version check was put there during image link as a safety precaution to stop execution of patch if the host version of VMS differs from what PATCH expected.
The first block of an image is described by an IHDDEF structure for which the layout can be found in SYS$SHARE:LIB.REQ. The symbol IHD$W_VERSION_ARRAY_OFF, value 10 contains an offset to the version array. If we just stuff a zero in there, then the version array should go away... So, on the VAX, we do this:
VAX$ patch/abs patch.exe
PATCH Version 6.2 5-MAY-1994
%PATCH-I-NOGBL, some or all global symbols not accessible
%PATCH-I-NOLCL, image does not contain local symbols
PATCH>exam/word 0a
0000000A: 00B0
PATCH>dep/w .=0
old: 0000000A: 00B0
new: 0000000A: 0000
PATCH>upd
%PATCH-I-WRTFIL, updating image file DEVL:[VAXPATCH.ARTICLE]PATCH.EXE;2
PATCH>Exit
If we repeat the analyze/image, it tells us that the system version array is empty. So.... we try the VEST again...
AXP$ vest patch/nofeedback
%VEST-I-LNKSYSOK, Image is linked against OpenVMS VAX but references no symbols in it -- translation possible
%VEST-W-UNSUPABSREF, Reference to unsupported absolute address IMG$DECODE_IHD (S0_space+00002780)
At: 00014093 (00014093)
Input: CALLS S^#07,@#80002780
%VEST-W-UNSUPABSREF, Reference to unsupported absolute address IMG$GET_NEXT_ISD (S0_space+00002788)
At: 0001430F (0001430F)
Input: CALLS S^#07,@#80002788
%VEST-W-TRANSWARN, Translation completed with warnings -- review them before using the output image
The UNSUPABSREF messages refer to IMG$...IHD routines that caused the reference to SYS$K_IMAGE_ACTIVATOR that we blew away. We'll assume that these routines are used for patching images rather than PATCH/ABSOLUTE. So we'll try it out:
AXP$ r patch_tv
%CLI-F-SYNTAX, error parsing 'ABSOLUTE'
-CLI-E-ENTNF, specified entity not found in command tables
Oops.... need a CLD... Use VERB on the VAX to extract the PATCH.CLD from the VAX dcltables, edit it, change the 'image PATCH' statement to 'image wherever:[dir]PATCH_TV'
VAX$ verb patch /out=patch.cld
VAX$ edit patch.cld
Nowww try it....
AXP$ copy sys$login:login.com sys$disk:[]fodder.dat
AXP$ set command patch
AXP$ patch/absolute fodder.dat
PATCH Version 6.2 5-MAY-1994
%PATCH-I-NOMSG, Message number 006D81D3
%PATCH-I-NOMSG, Message number 006D81CB
PATCH>Exit
Whoops... Something is still wrong here. Looks like the message definitions for patch are not present on the alpha. On the VAX, these messages are defined in SYS$MESSAGE:PRGDEVMSG.EXE. This file exists on the alpha also, but does not contain the PATCH messages. The implication is that we need to extract the patch messages from the VAX, and place them _somewhere_ on the alpha. Putting them into PRGDEVMSG.EXE seems like the wrong answer because I don't really want to modify the alpha PRGDEVMSG.EXE. A better approach is to create a new SYS$MESSAGE:PATCHMSG.EXE. Use UNMESSAGE on the VAX to extract the PATCH message definitions from PRGDEVMSG. Unmessage all of PRGDEVMSG, output to PATCHMSG.MSG, and edit out all non-patch message stuff. (And while we're at it, let's snag a copy of the VAX PATCHHELP.HLB file too).
VAX$ UNMESS SYS$MESSAGE:PRGDEVMSG /OUT=PATCHMSG.MSG
VAX$ EDIT PATCHMSG.MSG
(Keep the stuff from .FACILITY PATCH.... to the next .FACILITY line)
Now build the Alpha patchmsg.exe:
AXP$ MESSAGE PATCHMSG
AXP$ LINK PATCHMSG/SHAR
The next step is to patch patch to use the new patchmsg file. We'll do this on the VAX version of PATCH, and re-vest the image. Of course, we'll need to know _where_ to patch patch too.
VAX$ COPY SYS$HELP:PATCHHELP.HLB []
VAX$ DUMP PATCH.EXE/OUT=PATCH.DMP
VAX$ EDIT PATCH.DMP
--Find PRGDEVMSG, note virtual block number and offset
Mine is in VBN 123 (Hex 7b) at offset hex 20.
Note that the data is an ASCIC (ASCII Counted) string. We'll now replace
the sequence {9}PRGDEVMSG with {8}PATCHMSG{0}
VAX$ patch/abs patch.exe
PATCH Version 6.2 5-MAY-1994
%PATCH-I-NOGBL, some or all global symbols not accessible
%PATCH-I-NOLCL, image does not contain local symbols
PATCH>dep/byt 7a*200+20=8
old: 0000F420: 09
new: 0000F420: 08
PATCH>dep/asci 7a*200+21
NEW>'PATC'
NEW>'HMSG'
NEW>exit
old: 0000F421: 'PRGD'
old: 0000F425: 'EVMS'
new: 0000F421: 'PATC'
new: 0000F425: 'HMSG'
PATCH>dep/byt 7a*200+29=0
old: 0000F429: 47
new: 0000F429: 00
PATCH>upd
%PATCH-I-WRTFIL, updating image file DEVL:[VAXPATCH.ARTICLE]PATCH.EXE;3
PATCH>exit
If you noticed, I used '7a' when inside PATCH, but the VBN we patched was
'7b'. This is because VBNs (virtual block numbers) start with 1, but PATCH
starts counting bytes at 0.
Now on the alpha, re-vest the image. We get the same messages as before, and we'll still ignore them. Now let's copy the help file and the message file into the right places, then try it again:
AXP$ COPY PATCHHELP.HLB SYS$COMMON:[SYSHLP]
AXP$ COPY PATCHMSG.EXE SYS$COMMON:[SYSMSG]
AXP$ patch/absolute fodder.dat
PATCH Version 6.2 5-MAY-1994
%PATCH-I-NOGBL, some or all global symbols not accessible
%PATCH-I-NOLCL, image does not contain local symbols
PATCH>
:
After some playing around, we can tell that it seems to work... Probably a good time to call it soup, (though there are a few more interesting things that could be tried to neaten it up a bit).
99.07.09