Month: January 2007

Cluster creation trouble
Last Sunday, I retried to cluster Diana and the newly arrived Aplhaserver 400, named DIDO, using CLUSTER_CONFIG_LAN procedure – the right way to do it.
It turned out there were bits and pieces wrong in VOTES and EXPECTED_VOTES system parameters – and to avoid a system hang if during the process something went wrong (due to quorum loss, Diana might be stalled) I added a quorum disk. The one tried first was the web disk, but for some reason (probably to do with voting parameters, these were not yet raised) that failed: Dido – didn’t start. So I chnaged to use the system disk, but errorenously named it “DKA100″‘ (in a way , this is correct – if another system wouldn’t have this disk). Diana came up file, buy again, Dido failed. As it turned out: Dido does have a local device “DKA100” which explains the trouble….I should have mentioned it “$116$DKA100” – the right name since it’s on the shared SCSI. (with some help from the OpenVMS ITRC). Also, I found that the SCSSYSTEMID of Diana was wrong, and had it changed to the right value.
When this all was done, I succeeded to have DIDO started from the common systemdisk – resulting in the configuration using Autogen and reboot. But there it fails – dramatically. I won’t get into detail here – just take a look on the ITRC entry. But Diana was very happily keeping up – and running.
No connection
There was a problem, though, but it wasn’t found before Monday night: NO ACCESS AT ALL to any web, and also SSH and TELNET failed: the system seemed ot of order. The kids though didn’t complain that they couldn’t access the Internet, so that seemed ok. Rushed home and checked Diana, but all seemed well: telnet, ssh, web – but locally – all was working. It was just that it seemd that all access to the EXTERNAL address was blocked: web, ssh, telnet…..Even from the local systems – or Diana itself!
Solution: reboot the router, and behold: problems done. The lesson: If anything has been done to Diana that may have an effect on exterenal access, the router needs a reset..
This means that mail between Sunday night (about 23:00) and Monday (up to about 18:00) is LOST….
Logs Ok
Scanning of the logfiles is fine now.
New licenses
The current licenses would expire 27-Jan-2007 and a new set arrived a week ago, or so. I loaded the new licenses – so I’m fit to run until 27-Jan-2008.

STUPID
I found out why Office didn’t work anymore: I deleted all files *.bak from the disk – thinking these are only temporary backup files. And guess what: in the Application Event log I found the error on Word, Excel and Outlook: a file named C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\OFFICE\DATA\opa11.BAK was missing.
Checking on another system, I found that opa11.DAT and opa11.BAK were of the same size – and what would be more logical than to copy opa11.DAT to create another opa11.BAK. And behold: the problem was over.
I can buy that a missing file containing some data can cause an application to fail. But can someone explain me why an application fails because of the absence of a BACKUP oif that file????

Indeed: STUPID

More stupidity
Comments on this blog are scanned by a service called Askimet and they found on – on an OLD entry (21-Nov-2006, Login Failures), sent in from this location http://toothbrush.free-bb.com | IP: 209.160.64.106
Of course this “person” is to be excummunicated.
The registration issue
I think I found it: something is missing: a routine called wp-new-user-notification. I scanned the PHP code but couldn’t find this anywhere.
Some PHPSHR trouble
Once in a while, you may expierence an error page with some server error. I know it can happen, it shows up in the log as well:
%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, 19-JAN-2007 21:29:51, CGI:1969, not a strict CGI response
-NOTICED-I-SERVICE, http://www.grootersnet.nl:80
-NOTICED-I-CLIENT, 192.168.0.33
-NOTICED-I-URI, GET (28 bytes) /sysblog/wp-admin/cat-js.php
-NOTICED-I-SCRIPT, /sysblog/wp-admin/cat-js.php sysblog:[wp-admin]cat-js.php (cgi_exe:phpwasd.exe) SYSBLOG:[wp-admin]cat-js.php
-NOTICED-I-CGI, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (62 bytes) %DEBUGBOOT-W-CHN, assign channel system service request failed
-NOTICED-I-RXTX, err:0/0 raw:670/0 net:670/0

I’m not the only one experiencing the problem, it occurs in the HP-manintained PHPSHR.EXE, and I think (hope?) it’s known within HP.

Webserver update
I just updated the webserver to the latest edition (9.2.0) and that was just a piece of cake. to run it with SSL, I used Mark Daniel’s OpenSSL implementation because that will fit in nicest (same author as the webserver). No problems whatsoever – just what I expected. Only that the definition on HT_ROOT is a problem – because of the way AXP083-logical has been defined. No problem anyway: just define it properly as a proces logical and restart the proceduere: no problem whatsoever.
Of course, that was all it took.
I found some other nice tools that I added in the Operator web, so there is some more data to be shown.
(One thing I don’t like of Mozilla on VMS: The cursor doesn’t show on the screen, but that may be an issue with the monitor (too narrow?))
New licenses
One of these days (I’ve some 10 days left on them) I have to renew the licenses but that should not disturb normal processing. It’s quite transparant – at least, if I’m in time and don’t forget anything.
Building the cluster
One of the new (well..) machines is to be added to the cluster – using a common systemdisk scheme. But for some reason, conecting it to Diana is problem. The machine boots from the disk, will try to contact Diana but fails and forms a cluster in itself. Not exactly what I wanted. I’ll need to specd some time on that, the issue has been put on ITRC and needs to be followed up. Problem as always: where do I find the time
MSOffice trouble
I have a problem with the laptop: None of the Office programs wil start anymore – Windos Installer fires after the application (Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, or Powerpoint) is initiated, that is: when the splashscreen is shown, the main window opened fully, and it will look for SKU111.CAB on the CD. And I can’t find them…Ok, that has nothing to do with Microsoft, of course. But the problem shouldn’t have occurred in the fist place.
The same problem arises with TUT – one of the utilities I tend to use once in a while. But that one will simply work – and I can get around the problem there.
Registration issue
I’m aware of it: Regsitration is not like it should, I just found out. You can register, and an email is sent to you that should contain username and a generated password. The mail IS sent, but doesn’t contain what it should. It’s just the header. Although the user is registered, he cannot login since he dosn’t have a password and an empty passowrd is not accepted. Something to work upon.

WordPress updated
to the latest version (2.0.6) – piece of cake. I will check the file I had to change, it should have been updated after my initial remarks on this.
By that, creating a backup seems to require some work: but the plugin (which is loaded) has the ability to do other WordPress databases in one stroke. Which is, actually, a requirement. Backing up SYSBLOG as it is (a searchlist, both being a concealed device) is impossible, since directory SYSBLOG/000000/ is not writable – nor can it be set that way. But WordPress as a single directory (concelead as well) allows a 000000 directory which can be set writabible, and so a backup – of ALL the blogs – can be created. It’s just a compressed SQL-file, but nevertheless, it’s a backup.”
Forum “members”
keep coming up now and then. I banned four that issued fake websites (ever heard of “http://abrahaamlincoln.google.com” ? Try it: it won’t succeed” or non-existing email addresses.