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Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP 3000 systems. Send your tips to john@burke-consulting.com.

Edited by John Burke

Is there any way to delete pages from a spoolfile already sitting in OUT.HPSPOOL?

Michael Berkowitz replies:
Use SPIFF, the SPOOK for native mode spooler.

How do I enable DNS on my HP e3000? I’ve poked around in NMMGR, but I couldn’t find anything obvious.

Gavin Scott and Joshua Johnson reply:
This feature is enabled by creating and adding the appropriate entries to the file RESLVCNF.NET.SYS. You should also create a link file called /etc/resolv.conf, if not already present. You can read all about it in the manual “Configuring and Managing MPE/iX Internet Services (MPE/iX 7.5)” at docs.hp.com/mpeix/pdf/32650-90906.pdf and look for the section called “Configuring the DNS Resolver” in chapter 8. There is absolutely nothing in NMMGR that relates to DNS.

We have a 7980S tape device that is not responding; that is, we put the tape in, but it is not coming online. I’m not sure if this is helpful, but I also show that a user is logged into the system using the LDEV assigned to the tape drive. SHOWDEV TAPE also does not list the device.

Gilles Schipper replies:
I’ve seen this before for DDS drives, but the same characteristics of this problem probably apply to the 7980S as well. Probably during your most recent reboot, there was a (possibly temporary) malfunction with your tape drive’s power supply such that its existence was not recognized during the boot up process. That would normally result in a “device unavailable” condition and the subsequent disabling of that logical device number. I have noticed instances where that LDEV number is actually made available to the logon device number pool (for subsequent assignment for logon session device numbers). Long story short, the solution appears to be a power cycle, START NORECOVERY reboot.

After shutting down and powering off the CPU and all devices, run ODE to ensure all devices are recognized before START NORECOVERY. Failure to recognize the device at that point should lead to further investigation of the power supply, SCSI device number setting, or other hardware malfunction. If this situation happens frequently, I would first suspect a problem with the power supply of that device.

[Ed. Note: I have seen this situation occur several times with a 7980S. In all cases it was because the 7980S had not completed its startup/diagnostics when the 3000 went looking for it. My advice has always been to make sure all the peripherals are powered up and in a wait state before power-cycling the HP 3000.]

Is there any difference in performance between submitting two simultaneous backups of two distinct sets of files on separate drives (using a 4 way processor system) versus doing a store @.@.@;;storeset=(*T1),(*T2)? Does an online backup cover everything such that I can do a reload afterwards, or do I have to back up certain files without having anyone on the system? Does doing a Store @.@.@ cover every possible file for a backup?

Goetz Neumann replies:
While the first commandment when answering performance questions is ‘it depends’, I can see no fundamental difference between the two methods you describe. Assuming you are asking about a TurboStore online backup, the question is do you use plain ‘;ONLINE’ or ‘;ONLINE=START|END’ (aka TrueOnline)? TrueOnline will backup files that are open for write-access at the sync point, the default ;ONLINE will tell you which files it could not backup because they were open for write access. Finally, doing a Store @.@.@ is equivalent to STORE / . If you use user volumesets, I recommend to also make sure all the volumesets directories get stored, i.e. add
;DIRECTORY;ONVS=MPEXL_SYSTEM_
VOLUME_SET, user_set1, user_set2 to your backup options.

What is the typical explanation for the situation on an HP 3000 where all the sessions start to freeze up? Anyone trying to logon or run a different program gets frozen. At first, I wondered if there was a problem with the local network, but I froze up on the console typing in a UDC command that happened to run a program. I rebooted the computer, and that fixed the problem. I’m just curious what the problem was. The system is an A400 running MPE/iX 7.0.

Tom Emerson, Dane Bodamer and Goetz Neumann suggest:
The most likely cause is a non-responding disk drive or possibly IO channel. Niche causes include a full NBM file if running Netbase or someone running SEGMENTER on SL.PUB.SYS.

I’ve been scratching a bunch of old disks on a test machine, but am having trouble with disks that were volume set Masters. Members scratch easily because they come up as Loaners but that pesky Master is always “in invalid state for desired operation.” The same is true for Formatvol.

John Clogg replies:
The command (in most cases) is VSCLOSE. That should put the volume set in a LONER state.

We have a SE SCSI connection with four tape drives hanging off of it. The device with the first address on the chain has failed leaving others unusable. How can we get the devices beyond the bad device working?

John Burke replies:
For many years I had a similar situation, only in my case there were actually five tape drives hanging off a single SE SCSI. I had plenty of drives fail, though I do not recall them ever affecting the operation of the other drives. Anyway, we could always replace them (carefully) by downing all the devices, powering them all off, unhooking the cables, replacing the offending drive, powering them all back up, and, finally, upping all the drives. The HP 3000 never hiccupped even once.

I tried configuring a Seagate ST34573N disk drive on a 928RX with MPE/iX 5.5. However, SYSGEN gives me a “device not supported” error message. Should I use a different ID string? Or do I need some patches to get ST34573N support on 5.5?

John Burke replies:
The most likely cause of this error is that ST34573N is not in IODFAULT.PUB.SYS (it is for MPE/iX 6.5, but I do not have access to a 5.5 system to check). Assuming it is not in your IODFAULT (check this), just use the ID for any SE SCSI disk. DSTAT will read the actual device ID once configured. In this case size (or name) does not matter. If ST34573N is in your IODFAULT (unlikely), then something else is wrong and we need more information - like how did you add the path, etc. [Ed. Note: Denis St-Amand and Emile Kwan Fong both noted that support for ST34573N is in patch MPELXC3A.]

We have implemented a new backup job. It now wants a second tape. The old job still requires one tape. The only differences are: The new job uses a labeled tape; The new job uses the PROGRESS option; and the new job redirects the STORE output to a file to be checked for errors. Would one of these differences cause the backup now to span two tapes? We are using only 125m DDS tapes on a DDS3 drive.

Guy Paul replies:
Odds are you are switching tapes around the 65,501st file. This is a known issue when using DDS plus labeled media. I believe this is fixed if you use DLT and have patch MPELX94 or its supercede installed — but I’m not sure on that point.