May 2005

HP nudges along MPE enhancements

System Improvement update releases large disk support, shows network printing progress

HP continues to work on extending the lifespan of MPE/iX through selected enhancement projects. But a recent update on system improvement projects showed customers want the improvements on a wider range of operating releases.

Although the vendor has reported an interest in back-porting advances like support for disk drives up to 1 TB, such engineering is only being released for MPE/iX 7.5 next month. HP’s work is fulfilling an enhancement request that dates back to 2003.

Customers posted comments to the 3000 newsgroup after HP’s Jeff Vance updated the project schedules. While many are grateful for any HP engineering at all on MPE/iX, some say limiting the improvements to the 7.5 release is tantamount to not doing the work at all — because few customers have 7.5 installed on their systems.

“None of the systems we’ve got here, and only one of three I run at 3k.com could benefit from any of these (7.5) patches,” said Chris Bartram, a consultant working at the US Mint. “I’m not likely to try the enhancements out on the one box I can run them on, since it would then be incompatible with my other boxes. There wouldn’t be any point in writing any software to take advantage of these features that will only be available on my one box.”

Bartram, who operates the 3k.com technical Web site, said he believes the majority of HP 3000s still in service are Series 9x7 servers, which cannot run MPE/iX 7.5.

He asked HP to “reconsider making 7.5 “run-able” on 9x7 era boxes (which would seem to be less new testing in the long run than re-testing every mod on multiple operating systems); or making all these nifty mods available to earlier releases.”

One of the enhancements most likely to be needed on a wide range of 3000s are the new large disk support patches. These new 7.5 patches, available to all HP 3000 sites from the HP IT Response Center, are (each patch number is prefixed with “MPE”):

• MXT1, FSCHECK syncaccounting/totalextents

• MXT2, [NEW|ALT|LIST][GROUP|ACCT] CI changes for large accounts/groups.

• MXT7, DISCFREE changes for disc space totals.

• MXT3, SCSI Disk limits to 1/2 TB for disks

• MXT4, SSM fixes for Large Disks

• MXU3, adds FORMAT=LONG to :REPORT command to allow printing of larger numbers where “**” appears today.

HP also reported it is “awaiting staffing” for another enhancement project, an MPE/iX revision that will send SCSI commands directly to SCSI devices to extend the range of supported devices for 3000s. The comment indicates that the HP 3000 engineering group is fully engaged already, while projects back up.

Backporting such improvements will take up even more resource, but Bartram and others said making 7.5 capable of booting up the Series 9x7s could better justify the outlay. “I’m sure even the programmers working on these nice mods would feel more satisfaction if they knew their work was going to benefit perhaps 10 times the number of sites it currently is,” he said.

HP is already setting expectations realistically for this SCSI enhancement, according to Vance’s update. “The solution would provide an HP-UX like interface to perform IO reliably to ‘foreign’ SCSI devices. This will not be a rich set of features. This item is on our short list of projects to be prioritized for future staffing.”

Network printing, FTP advances

A project to extend the network print capabilities of the HP 3000 has made enough progress to generate a beta-test level release of patch MPEMXU1. Again, the new features only run on the 7.5 MPE/iX release, and even testing is proceeding on a limited basis.

“The team is trying to lease non-HP printers for testing,” Vance said. “So far we have been unsuccessful locating non-HP printers; HP seems to have the market tied up in Bangalore. We are pursuing other alternatives and would also appreciate hearing from anyone interested in doing alpha-level testing.”

HP said alpha-level test requirements are having one or more non-HP network printers and being on release 7.5. HP wants to begin customer beta-testing next month, but that depends “on the results and speed of alpha testing.”

Meanwhile, new FTP capabilities for 3000s are rolling into beta test right away. Another 7.5 patch, FTPHDE4, contains

• logon security, /etc/ftpusers

• file access security, /etc/ftpaccess

• log all file transfers and commands functions

• /etc/ftpaccess logon banner.

• FTPSRVR site chmod and site chown.

The FTP project is moving faster than the other projects, rolling in some 2005 FTP enhancement requests into a list of 2004 projects.

HP also has plans for a Phase II of its FTP work, but these enhancements don’t yet have a delivery date. That phase includes:

• Providing FTPACCESS deny delete, overwrite, rename similar to the FTP on HP-UX;

• Providing chroot limiting file “cd dir”

• Making the FTP file NETRC able to exclude read access, to help companies comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.

All the engineering would reach a wider audience if the enhancements go further back than 7.5 MPE/iX, according to systems development manager Robert Mills of Windsong Services.

“We currently have two 979/400s,” he said, “the second purchased within the last few months. Both systems are running 6.5 with no upgrade to 7.0 or 7.5 planned in the future. Therefore, we will be unable to take advantage (or assist in the testing) of these new features until a 6.5 version is released.”