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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

I understand that doing ABORTJOB on the Apache job is a bad thing. How should I stop the Apache job?

Ted Ashton and Donna Garverick reply:
Use this command:
xeq sh.hpbin.sys “-c ‘kill `cat /APACHEFW/PUB/logs/httpd.pid`’“

[Note that the Apache job creates the file httpd.pid, which simply contains the PID for the Apache root process.]

I’ve got a 9x7 system in production that’s going to be exchanged with/for a 9x8. The current system has a DTC connected to it and the new box needs that information added to it. While I realize that I could painfully (risking numerous errors) type everything in by hand, I was wondering if there is a better way? The current system is running 5.5 and the replacement box is running 6.5.

John Burke, Denis St-Amand and Bill Titus reply:
Simply copy (or restore) nmconfig.pub.sys from the old system (you may want to rename it while working on it), run nmmgrver on it to “convert” to 6.5 format and then change any other information particular to the 9x8 (NIC path, nodename, etc). Use this to replace nmconfig on your 9x8. This will preserve all your DTC configurations.

We had to restore several of the standard MPE POSIX directories and files, such as the POSIX directories under /BIND. The restore was done with “;CREATE=PATH”. This appears to have created the POSIX directories (paths) with default permissions. This appears to be wrong. Is there a way to get the Posix directories distributed with MPE back to their correct permissions without messing up everything else? This is MPE 6.0 PP2.

Goetz Neumann replies:
ITRC document MPEKBRC00002551 shows how you can do that based on the ‘tar’ container which is on your OS release’s FOS tape.

How do I delete a database?

Sign on as the creator of the database in the group where the database resides. Then use the PURGE command of DBUTIL.PUB.SYS.

How do I set up anonymous FTP on my HP 3000?

Michael Berkowitz, Jerome Leproux and James Hofmeister reply:
See either the MPE/iX 6.0 Communicator or the latest version of Installing and Managing HP ARPA File Transfer, both of which should be available at docs.hp.com for the full explanation. Basically it just involves creating an FTPGUEST account with a user named USER. The anonymous FTP user is prevented from using the site command or accessing anything outside the /FTPGUEST/PUB directory path.

Is 3000 support for the VA7400 is out yet, or planned for release?

Donna Garverick replies:
As far as I know, VA7400s will never be supported for MPE. The VA7100 is supported once you’re running MPE/iX 7.0 using a scsi-to-fibre router. [Editor’s Note: HP’s Steve Macsisak added that MPE/iX 7.5 would support native fibre connections to the VA7100, but did not supply any speculation as to eventual support for the VA7400.]

I’m not familiar with the HP 3000 at all. I’m the network manager. But I’d like to start monitoring a HP 3000 with SNMP for things like CPU utilized, jobs running or whatever other cool stat I can SNMP grab from this box. The problem I have is I can’t find the MIBs for it anywhere on HP’s site.

Andreas Schmidt replies:
First of all, I do not recommend the use of SNMP on the HP e3000, for performance but also security reasons. SNMP is not the securest protocol, as you know.
Nevertheless, here are some hints:

• In the group NET.SYS you will find the SNMPUDC. This should be set in any case for MANAGER.SYS or on system level.
• Having set this, a SNMPCONTROL STATUS will show you the status of the SNMP subsystem.
• SNMPCONTROL START / STOP are self-explaining.
• The MIBs specific for MPE can be found in the document “HP SNMP/XL User’s Guide” which is available on the HP Instant Information CD but also on www.docs.hp.com.

[Editor’s note: see Andreas’ posting in the 3000-L archives for an example command file to check the current MIstate and get the current CPU utilization.]

Elizabeth Thayer adds:
The MIBS are also in the file MPEIXMIB.NET.SYS and that there is a recent security patch for SNMP.

I am puzzled! I have six jobs that always run simultaneously with each other, though that’s not a requirement. I run them every six weeks. Running together they finish in about 20 minutes. Yesterday they never finished. Glance says ‘other IO’ as a wait state, and no CPU usage.

Ken Hirsch replies (the questioner later confirmed this was correct):
I bet that you are doing something like ECHO Done >>*X (Where X is a message file that is full.)

Is it possible to download a PowerPatch tape from the ITRC?

Mark Bixby replies:
In a word, “no.” However, my patchman script essentially allows you to do this, i.e. download all available patches that you don’t already have:
Pick it up at www.bixby.org/ftp/pub/mpe/patchman-2.2.sh or ftp.bixby.org/pub/mpe/patchman-2.2.sh
Be sure to upload this to your e3000 as a Posix bytestream file, using the following commands:

:HELLO MANAGER.SYS,INSTALL
:XEQ SH.HPBIN.SYS -L
$ /path/to/patchman -d -e your@email.address
$ exit
:PATCHIX
...etc...