Windows updates
Patch Tuesday has passed – and so I did the updates tonight. One of them caused the real-time virusS\scanner to drop dead. Solution: Run the control program, check for updates (that it usually dows automatically) and install them. Scanned the system, nothing wrong.
Probably one of the .Net updates. These cause havoc sometimes, customers have run into these issues as well….
Planned power outage
In our neighbourhood, there is some demolition and building going on, and that also involves some maintenance to the power grid in the area. So a power outage is planned to happen on 28=Oct-2014, between 8:0 and 10:30. I could hire a UPS for that time, or an aggregate, but that is way too expensive.
So I will power off my gear before leaving for work, at about 7:0, and bring it back on when I return, about 12 hours later. Hopefully, my ISP will store incoming mail for that time so it will be retrieved at the end of the day.
19-Sep-2014
SSL updated
There has been an OpenVMS Seecurity Notification a few days ago; it doesn’t relate to the OpenVMS core but the SSL routines that rea based on OpenSSL.
The note of course notes a download site where you can get the updated version that addresses these vulnerabilities. This is the advantage of Open Source: the update is available regardless you have a contract with HP or not.
I downloaded this new version, installed the layered product:
$ PRODUCT SHOW PRODUCT SSL
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
PRODUCT KIT TYPE STATE
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
HP AXPVMS SSL V1.4-493 Full LP Installed
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
1 item found
$
and restarted WASD to link to the new files.
Thatv should keep the system safe 🙂
30-Jun-2013
Several updates – on the Pc/Windows side
Two major events caused me to take action on the PC front.
First, the workstation – built upon an ASUS P9x79 motherboard – had a problem from the beginning but I could work with it: To install 8Gb of memory (2 4Gb DIMMs) , there is a recommended configuration, and one of thos slots wasn’t working properly: if memory was put into that slot, the hardware detects a memory error and the power-up self test fails. Another slot however accepts the DIMM so I could get the thing running. But it’s sub-optimal.
These boards have a 3-year warranty so I decided to swap the board; Even better: I swapped it for a board one level up – since that comes with a front-end USB-3 connector – one that is missing on the base-level board. On the other hand, it doesn’t offer a COM port but I have room to install one, or two.
Swapping was a painless exercise, but I had to re-activate Windows8 and update some drivers.
As it tuned out, there are some more differences, but these do not interfere with normal work.
One piece of ASUS software however, fails to install, I still have to find out why. But the system runs fine.
The laptop – HP probook 4720s – in quite another story.
Originally, this system was equipped with Windows, and I upgraded this system to Windows8 as well. First, all seemed well, but after several updates it became more and more instable, in the end it wouldn’t even boot anymore. I first tried a refresh – actually a re-install of Windows8 that leaves the files alone – just what is installed from disk or Internet would have to be re-installed. It seemed to work – but once more, the system became instable and so I reinstalled Windows7. It meant re-installation of software one more but since al files are available, it wasn’t that problematic. Just the drives are a lot of work… It’s working now – most of it anyway. Even after I had to revert an update because one of the installations of updates after boot hang…But give some time, it will be Ok.
Looking back, it’s not that strange I ran into trouble: This type has not been qualified for Windows8 – it carries some software that is not compatible with Windows8 but it’s heavily used by HP’s additions…
On the VMS side – I should update the system as well, but there is too little time, with a full 40 hour workweek, some distance from home (including travel time, it’s about 11.5 hours…). But one day, I’ll update the system!
16-Oct-2011
Bringing the system up-to-date
Yesterday I backed up the system disk, and that took all evening so there was no time to do the updates, it had to wait until this evening. I first downloaded all latest updates from the AllianceOne site (I do have a SAID by the company, but I would be able to get one by the membership alone…) and did the installations: Update-15 first, and then all that was not included in the one I downloaded end of last year. Just two fail: ACMELDAP and ENCRYPT, since these two require SSL 1.4 installed. I didn;t do that because it’s incompatible with SSL 1.3, and installation of SSL 1.4 would require quite some extra work.
Apart from these updates, I reset the router to be connected on the first WAN port, so the second was freed again. Just that wasn’t sufficient, it also required a change in the NAT configuration, which is acutally WAN-port specific: and that was still on WAN port 2. No wonder that none of the webs didn’t work…But after this was corrected, it all works fine. Except for the genealogy web – that still resides on the old address. So this needs to be addressed at the registrar that controls DNS.
All in all, the sites have been offline for about 2 hours.
03-sep-2010
More testing
I’ve done some more testing on the new installation, which was a bit of a problem since all licenses had expired…But at some point, the system was started properly.
There are still a few issues, one of them that stylesheets are not loaded properly – or delayed. Sometimes, pages didn;t show up at all, or just partly. Adding images to pages was troublesome as well, the page in which the image was to be added didn’t show up at all. But WATCH didn’t give a hint on the problem, it all looked nice. So there is still some way to go before I’m satisfied….
Anyway, I downloaded the files for an update: both WASD and PHP, but I didn’t install them yet.
Another product I need to test in MySQL – I downloaded the latest version and installed it according instructions. And it all went smoothly (except for some minor error), the database was created, but after that, it was impossible to start the daemon: it expects some table to exist – the first has to do with locking and this table can be added once the database is started. But alas – the second error requesting a table to exist fails – and by that, the process aborts.
I have asked support of the forum.
It may have to do with SLL 1.4 – but that would lead to other errors…
It might also be a matter of the C-RTL, but it doesn’t explain the non-existence of required tables.
VMS 8.3 updates
The last updates date back to 18-Apr-2010 is it is time to get the latest ones. Including SSL 1.4 and two that are related to this: ENCRYPT and ACMELDAP, both are influenced by this update. Installing it would require a rebuild of the web server, and possibly MySQL, so it’s one to be postponed.
But before installing them, I have to make a backup of the system disk – and find opportunity to do the actual installation. And that hasn’t arrived, yet…. And for the rest of the weekend, I won’t be near the machine-room…
One update has been done, though. As I found that older quarantined and discarded messages weren’t visible after the update, Hunter Goatley of Process Software hopped in to state an error in a new feature which caused these old messages to become invisible. He supplied new images that do not contain the error – and after installing them as he instructed (and setting protection to W:RE to allow them to be run by the web server) the problem was gone. Great support to a non-paying customer. That’s what I like!
Something else was wrong as well, but that was not reproducible. But the workaround was running a rule-compiler, and the problem should have gone. We’ll see.