Robelle Sponsor Message

Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP e3000 systems. Send your tips to john@burke-consulting.com, or fax them to 512.331.3807.

Edited by John Burke

Is it possible for an HP 3000 running release 7.0 to have a host name (as in host.company.com) of more than eight characters? If so, what is the limit?

Gavin Scott replies:
A HP 3000 can have many names. There’s the NS node name and the local domain name configured in NMMGR, plus you can call it anything you darn well please in DNS.

The most restrictive is probably the NS node name, which is composed of exactly three components of the form NODENAME.DOMAIN.ORGANIZATION. Most people make this the same as the local domain name when they can (i.e. somenodename.mycompany.com).

Each component of the NS nodename has always been limited to 16 characters I believe, so you should always have been able to use a name for the machine that is up to 16 characters long. But long names can be a pain to type, so I’d recommend something short and sweet for the physical NS node name and local domain name, and then if people want to call it something longer, just load up your DNS with as many aliases as you like.

How do I determine how many memory controllers I have on my system?

Guy Paul replies:
Xeq sysinfo.prvxl.telesup ‘mem’ will return, among other things a value labeled “Number of Extenders.” This will be your answer.

[Editor’s note: it is always a good idea to run sysinfo on a quiet system. This is especially true of the “memory” command. I have seen this cause a system failure on a loaded system.]

I’m trying to configure in some disc drives and am getting the error message ‘path does not exist’. What subtlety am I missing here?
ioconfig:APATH 10/4/12.4.0 ID=ST39175LC
**error** iopath 10/4/12.4 does not exist

Steve Dirickson, Stan Sieler and Dennis Heidner reply:
You first need to add a path of PSEUDO and then add the device.

I’ve got a customer who wants to put one DTC in each one of his 20 remote sites to run two serial printers. They have a frame relay network that uses Cisco routers configured for concurrent routing and bridging, and has no problem downloading to the one remote DTC they have today. Are there any gotcha’s with this idea?

[Editor’s note: Jim Phillips and I replied that our respective organizations have been successfully doing just this for a number of years.]

How can I tell who has a database open and in what mode?

Keven Miller and Steve Ellis reply:
Try using DBUTIL:
>>SHOW database USERS

What is the name of the file that has the device ID values that are used in SYSGEN?

Doug Werth, John Clogg and Chuck Ciesinski reply:
IODFAULT.PUB.SYS

Suppose I have two files, one perm and one temp, using the same name. If I run a program with a stdin=tempfile, does MPE look for a temp file first and if it doesn’t find it, look for a permanent file?

Jeff Woods replies:
The FOPEN() and HPFOPEN() intrinsics allow the caller to specify the domain of the file to be opened (perm, temp or new). The default for a file open causes the file system to first check for a temporary file with the name and if there is none then to check for a permanent file. Of course, a :FILE command can specify the domain which will override the arguments to the intrinsic.

I just upgraded from MPE/iX 6.0 to MPE/iX 6.5, applying some patches in the process. How do I get a list of the patches so I can verify what I have?

John Burke and John MacLarran reply:
Print the file HPSWINFO.PUB.SYS.

Stan Sieler pointed out that this file is not protected, and could be overwritten by, say, an incorrect RESTORE request.

How does the DELROUTING command work in NETTOOL? I get ‘unknown option’ when I try it.

John Burke replies:
You must be reading the manual. I was told the command was removed from nettool some time ago (unfortunately) though the reason was unknown. About the only thing you can do is flush the entire routing table with:

netcontrol update=internet;net=lan1

How do you execute a file of commands in ISQL?

Chris Sweeney and Mark Klein reply:
start <filename>;

Can you use an SLT tape that has been created with a tape label?

Doug Werth replies:
Nope. While SYSGEN doesn’t prevent you from writing to a labeled tape, the boot IODC will not recognize the label. Hence, you can’t boot from it.

I’ve got a system I can ping but can not connect to with FTP or telnet. The inetd job is running. What could be wrong?

Doug Werth replies:
Make sure telnet and FTP are configured in INETDCNF.NET.SYS and not commented out.

I recently had to take over a system that I know has been updated in the past with PATCH/iX and STAGE/iX. How do I determine the current status?

John Burke replies:
Use the STAGEMAN program and the STATUS and LIST commands.