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Net.digest summarizes helpful technical discussions on the HP 3000 Internet newsgroup and mailing list. Advice here is offered on a best-effort, Good Samaritan basis. Test these concepts for yourself before applying them to your HP 3000s.

Edited by John Burke

Hello: Is there anybody out there?
(with apologies to Pink Floyd)

Consider this a personal plea. I would love to hear from readers of net.digest and Hidden Value. Even negative comments are welcome. If you think I’m full of it or goofed, let me know. If something from these columns helped you, let me know. If you’ve got an idea for something you think I missed, let me know. Are you seeing a pattern here?

I try to cull interesting and informative material for net.digest and Hidden Value each month from the 1,200-1,500 postings to HP3000-L, adding my own take where appropriate. I also try to verify the tips and information presented in each column. Without feedback, though, I’m basically stuck (comfortably numb) picking out and writing about what interests me. In the September issue I reported about my experience with the new MPE/iX System Administration Certification test that debuted at HP World. I also relayed some comments that appeared on HP3000-L prior to HP World ripping the practice test. I would really be interested in your experience; particularly those who were in favor of HP providing certification testing for users. Is this test meeting your needs?

So, from now on, I’ll be including my e-mail address in each installment of net.digest: john.burke@paccoast.com or john_burke@pacbell.net. Your choice. Oh, and I’ll be listening.

Here a patch, there a patch, everywhere a patch, patch

Is this a hot topic or what? In the period 8/25 through 9/25, over 6 percent of all postings to HP3000-L had something to do with patches and patching. Of course some were about how to spell PowerPatch (or Powerpatch). But most were serious attempts to discover or explain the mysteries of patching.

Why so much activity on patching, you ask? The problem is not so much with the actual patching process, but with the procedures. Hardly a month goes by without someone complaining they cannot unpack a patch downloaded from the Electronic Support Center (ESC). And then there is the periodic question about when does a PowerPatch labeled an “Express” release mean you need a subsys tape.

Let’s try to clear things up a bit.

First, let’s look at the unpack problem. Nine times out of ten, the problem is with the program MOVER.PRVXL.TELESUP. There are at least three versions floating around. Chances are that if you have not already dealt with this problem, you have the wrong version. It is easy to tell them apart. Just look at the file EOF. Do not even try to unpack a patch unless you have the version of MOVER with an EOF of 635. Pick up the correct one at jazz.external.hp.com or from the Response Center (RC). The one time out of ten that it is not the version MOVER causing the problem? The packed file was not correctly transferred (binary) to your system.

There is good news just around the corner, though. As Michael Dovano, from the MPE/iX OS Patch and Installation group of CSY, reported to the delight of many:

“Okay, here’s some good news. Starting in the October release of HP ESC, you will see the following changes:

• 5.5 and 6.0 patches bundled using STORE-to-disk instead of MOVER

• Easy access to the latest versions of Patch/iX, and

• A simple, downloadable Patch/iX installation guide

“STORE-to-dis k (STD) is an option available with MPE/iX STORE/RESTORE that allows you to STORE to and RESTORE from a simple MPE disk file. Actually that’s not quite right because you have to buy 24x7 Online Backup to be able to STORE to a disk file, but any old version of STORE can read from it. We are anxious to use STD over MOVER because:

• It’s been shown to work 100 percent of the time on our patches, and

• If for some reason it doesn’t work, I’m much more confident that we can get a fix for it in a reasonable turnaround time (and it won’t involve telling customers to use STORE635 instead of STORE531 or whatever).”

Many people have been promoting on HP3000-L this and other ideas for removing the MOVER problem for at least the last six months. It is good to see another example showing that HP really is listening. I’m not sure who first proposed on HP3000-L STD for patches, but would be happy to give appropriate credit. This is one of those cases where the solution makes so much sense you bonk yourself on the forehead and say “Why didn’t I think of that?” It is a win-win for everyone. Customers win with reduced time, money and frustration. HP wins with reduced support costs. And it costs virtually nothing to implement.

[Editor’s note: I do not have any confirmation on this, but word is that HP is seriously considering bundling the STORE-to-disk option into basic STORE (See our management roundtable article on page 10 for more on this). As good as LZW (many thanks to Telamon) and tar (from the Posix enhancement to MPE) and even MOVER if you have the right version are, having STD bundled into MPE STORE will make life so much easier for system administrators, ISVs and HP it becomes a “no brainer”. ]

Name that patch

In response to several questions about the meaning of an Express Release and how to get to MPE/iX 5.5 PP7 from MPE/iX 5.5 PP2, Michael Hensley of Allegro Consultants offered the following (slightly edited):

“Version names/numbers have been a thorn in MPE’s side for a long time. Here are the details:

“A PowerPatch tape is a cumulative set of all recommended patches for a particular release. PowerPatch 7 for MPE/iX 5.5 contains all of the patches that were on PowerPatch 6, plus newer patches.

“An Express release is a minor release update to products or subsystems that should normally include a Product/Subsys tape along with a PowerPatch tape. It is usually a vehicle for providing new products, but sometimes also providing added functionality to existing products.

“For reasons known only to the insane, someone at HP labeled PowerPatch 7 as Express PowerPatch 7.

“Now, why should you need Express 3 to apply PowerPatch 7? Any patches on PowerPatch 7 for things that are distributed via a Product/Subsys tape are for the latest Product/Subsys versions, which were on Express 3 (the latest true Express release). Patches for FOS (“Fundamental Operating System”) things will all work whether you have Express 3 or not. Note that even if you have already applied Express 3, but are purchasing software you did not have when you applied Express 3, you will need a Product/Subsys tape for the new product(s).

“Some installation notes:

• Make a new CSLT and a full backup before you start, and VERIFY THE BACKUP (preferably on a tape drive other than the one on which you make the backup). CHECK THE STORE LISTING — no amount of verifying the tapes will tell you what files were skipped.

• Check the contents of any SUBSYS tape before you begin. All FOS tapes are the same, all SLT tapes are the same, and all PowerPatch tapes are the same, but the SUBSYS tape has to be customized for your site, thus creating many opportunities for the things to go wrong.

“Do NOT apply the Express 3 and PowerPatch 7 tapes at the same time (even though the installation manual encourages you to). I’ve seen too many problems doing this, and have spent too much time helping customers who had problems doing this. Yes, it will take a few extra hours to install the Express 3 tapes first, and then install the PowerPatch 7 tape, but it’s not worth saving a few hours now that may cost you many more hours later.

[Editor’s note: HP claims, and various users verified, including myself, that you can use the “Add-on With Tape and Manage Patches” checklist and PATCH/iX to apply the Express 3 Product/Subsys tape and a later PowerPatch tape at the same time. The confusion apparently dates from a bug in early versions of PATCH/iX.]

• Use PATCH/iX rather than AUTOPAT; you’ll be glad you did.

• After you are all done, make a new SLT tape. The instructions don’t always tell you to do this, and many people just keep the CSLT created by the update process. And then later, they pay us money to help get their system running again after a disk failure because they don’t have a valid SLT. To create an SLT:

:SYSGEN

>TAPE

“Follow the checklist printed in the manual. Check each step off as you go, or note the steps you skipped. Better, note what time you start each step. The HPRC (or anyone else) will be much able to help solve problems if you do this.

“Good luck — have fun. I’ve done a lot of updates over the past 15 years (MPE, HP-UX, Windows, others), and in my opinion, the MPE update process is the easiest, safest and most reliable — but nothing is (yet) completely foolproof or error-free.” – Michael Hensley

A new potential problem applying patches was first revealed to me on HP3000-L this month:

“Because of the extended life of MPE/iX 5.5, adding PowerPatch 7 could push the START image past the 16Mb limit making it unusable. The answer to this problem is to INSTALL from an early version of 5.5, applying PowerPatch 7 and Express 3 Product/Subsys on top of it. HP is working on a way to increase the maximum size of the START image since this is a REAL pain.”

Again, HP’s Michael Dovano stepped up to explain the situation and offer a way to check your exposure to this problem:

“HP’s official recommendation for those who are in danger of running into the 16Mb START image limit is to rebuild the NL from a base 5.5 plus PP7 as alluded to above. Why? Because this kind of cleanup will not only help remove the danger of hitting the START size limit, but will also remove a lot of the extra time-consuming branches that a heavily patched NL contains.

“HOWEVER, we realize that this is a painful solution for many of our customers. We also realize that most of us are perfectly willing to risk a negligible performance hit rather than doing all that extra patching work.

So we are currently investigating support for a greater-than-16Mb START image to avoid hitting this limit on heavily patched systems. We expect to have an answer on this soon.

“Oh, and how can you tell if you are close to the 16 Mb limit? Easy. Do a LISTFILE,2 on START.MPEXL.SYS. If the EOF is low (like 3823 for example), things are fine. If you are near the 8192 (16Mb) limit, however (say like 7843), it’s time to start looking at this more closely.”

Note: Out of four systems, my worst has an EOF of 5601. So, I think I’m okay. Let me know if this problem is going to effect you.

So far I’ve discussed PowerPatches and Express releases. What about reactive patches, you say? Stay tuned for next month when I’ll discuss Mark Bixby’s Patchman. In the meantime, from Mark:

“Switch to using my Patchman shell script. Available from www.bixby.org/ftp/pub/mpe/patchman-1.4 or ftp://ftp.bixby.org/ pub/mpe/patchman-1.4

“Patchman automatically takes care of all those tedious downloading and unpacking issues for you. Patchman’s unsupported freeware status remains unchanged despite me now working for HP."