Monthly Archives: July 2007

Jul 31

Watch API problem

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I installed my RAP code on a new system and found a problem where the monitors would not start.  I had installed all of the PTF’s  IBM suggested and ran a few programs to clean things up but they still failed to start. Not only my invoked watches by the system ones as well. After some digging and help from IBM we found that the problem was due to the QSECOFR password having expired!  So if you have the QSFWERRLOG system value set to *LOG and no service monitors start check the password for the QSECOFR profile to ensure its not expired.

Chris…

Jul 31

Finally found the answer to the ‘<' & '>‘ character problem

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One thing which was driving me mad with the WordPress Blog software was how every time I entered the ‘<’ sign or ‘>’ sign into the post I would get strange results!  Most times they just would not appear in the post at all other times they would affect what was being shown to the user!  So I tried to find out if the code formatter I installed would make any difference, well no it does not support html formatting as I would have liked! So I installed the wysiwyg editor and tried to use the visual editor, copy and paste had even more problems so I went back to html basics, in the code view I entered ‘&GT;’ and the ‘>’ sign appeared in the visual editor, same for the < code so I had the answer to my problem. How ever I had some code to copy into the blog which requires the ‘<’ & ‘>’ signs to be used (my C code had the same problem I just replaced them with “).  I did a paste and found that in the visual editor it looked good but when I went into the code view the entries surrounded by ‘<’ & ‘>’ characters were now matched ie <virtualhost></virtualhost> and the code which ahd been sat within these was now outside! Instead of going through the code and replacing the ’<’ with ’&LT;’ in every case I found that by using the visual editor I could delete the offending lines and replace the with what should have been there ie <virtualhost> before the code and </virtualhost> after.  Checking the code in the code viewer correctly shows <virtualhost> before the code and </virtualhost> after!  So I can now ensure my code shows as it is written even with ‘<’ & ‘>’ characters in it!

Chris… 

Jul 31

Fighting ghosts with MySQL

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I thought I was going mad!  I had started 2 sessions on the i5 and was trying to start the MySQL server so that it would allow me to test out the new ADDENVVAR code! I was able to start the server in a QP2TERM session but could not start it using the code I had developed for automating the start and stop process.  Having spent hours trying to understand why it kept stating it could not find the host.frm file in the program but it could in the manual start in QP2TERM I was lost!  I was about to walk away and come back another day when I had an idea, I was signed onto each session with different users, the session that allowed me to start the server in QP2TERM was signed on as my profile, the other which I was trying to start using the programs was QSECOFR.  So I exited the QP2TERM session, stopped the server (cant have 2 instances running) using the WRKACTJOB options and then called the programs. It started OK! I was surprised that calling the programs with QSECOFR would give such a problem! My profile has all authority just the same as QSECOFR (but its not QSECOFR) so it must be the name or some flag in the profile which caused the problem.

Basically dont use QSECOFR for starting MySQL!

Now I have to look at the security problems I was looking at earlier..

Chris…  

Jul 31

MySQL would not start!

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I dont know why the following occured but I was answering a forum request this morning and decided to check out a few things, I had to restart the mysql instance because the recent IPL I did had closed down the subsystem and the server jobs. On trying to restart using the commands previously developed I found the server would abend!  I went to the logs ‘/usr/local/mysql/data’ and looked into the log and found it had a problem with the start up, so on checking the ENVVAR noticed that it had dissapeared!  Simple fix to this was to add it again, although I suspect I need to add it to the start up job in the future and remove it when I stop the server? Anyhow I thought this would fix the problem but it did not.  The server was complaining that it could not find the host.frm file which is part of the security requirements.  A quick search on Google turned up other users were experiencing this problem, the reply was the same its an authority issue.  So on checking the authourity to ’/usr/local/mysql/data/mysql’ directory I noticed that it had my profile as the owner and everyone else was excluded!  I simply went to the data directory and took option 9 against the ‘mysql’ directory and changed the autority to give ‘mysql’ user *RW with all object authority and took the option to do all subdirectories. After this the server started OK!

The question I have is why did it work previously yet failed after the IPL?  I will try to find out later!

Chris… 

Jul 30

My new i5 is on order

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IBM took my information today and confirmed the order for the new system.  It should arrive in about 2 weeks which will give me plenty of time to get everything ready and make some time available to do the initial set-up.  I hope to be able to post the changes I make to the system as I go, which should show the steps a customer may take to set up their own.  I intend to use this install to show how to set up a LAMP install on the i5, this will involve the installation of  all of the elements and  how I configure the websites etc.  I will then use this as a platform for showing basic PHP web development and how  the website progresses.  I also need to set it up to run Remote Journalling etc for my own development so I will include and steps I take to enable that which I feel are pertinent.

Now all I have to do is get the new object replication process underway, build the file auditing process, test IBM PTF issues I have with the WRKWCH API’s and I will have a bit of time to do it!

Chris…

Jul 27

New i515 will be ordered soon!

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IBM did get back, a number of times now in fact.  First quote was for $23,894 CDN!  as you can gues took me a couple of minutes to get my breath back!  Bearing in mind I had asked for the most basic system available I was not impressed.  So I wrote back and said I thought it was a bit high and would need to consider my options.  The main reason I wanted the system was to allow me to simply test Remote journal functions and TCP/IP communications programs, so I dont need any special features.  I have a couple of friends who sell hardware so I thought I would ask if they new the base price of an i515, they kindly sent me the announcement information that IBM published.  I was shocked to see that the base price (a system with the base software and hardware configuration which was all I needed) was $7995US. Now I do know that IBM has different price lists for different countries (dont ask me why!) but the jump from $7,995US to $23,894 didnt stack up.  So I sent the information back to my IBM salesman, he returned a quote for $14,400. Again I was puzzled as to the big price difference so I looked at the config he had sent back, He had added an additional 2 drives to the config  which I clearly didnt need so I agian replied saying I dont need them.  Back came the 3rd Quote, this time the 2 drives feature which included a 40MB cache had been replaced with just 40MB cache option. I only have 2 drives and it added a feature for Raid! So again I went back as said I dont need this feature, I  replied asking that he remove the feature and while he was at it remove the Twinax IOA as I will be connecting to it via Ops Console (I hope I can do it now).  So I now have a price of $9,550 for the system, being a PiD member I also get this discounted so I will be ordering the system as soon as IBM gets a final quote to me!

The one thing I have learnt about this is ensure you check your config, it looks like either eConfig does a bad job or the IBM salesman wanted more commision!

Chris…

Jul 27

Formatting of Program Code

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I have just installed a new plugin which allows source code formatting. This will help with the source display, unfortunately it does not support RPG, Ah well! perhaps we can write a plugin which does! C is supported must be because of its popularity! Just pulling a few strings guys, have to rub it in sometimes!!!

I can now post more code for people to use and review..

Chris…

Jul 27

Is the iPortal site even being maintained?

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I have mentioned previously that I have sent multiple requests to the System i Portal maintainers to add my blog to the list of available blogs. Unfortunately they seem to ignore me and all my requests? I know that Angus the IT chap has made similar requests for my site to be added to the list and yet they still ignore my blog. The interesting thing is that having gone to a number of the blogs they list many have not been updated for many months! Do they ever look at the blogs they list and make sure they are being updated and therefore adding value to the users who link to the blogs via the site? I did a Google against i5 Blog and guess what Google puts us second in the list just below IBM!
iPortal get with the program and list us, we are active in the community and your inability to ensure your content reflects the active blogs shows you are not keeping up with the times!

Chris…