Tapelibupdater Software Changes

Various problems with the handling and reporting of TRIM rule that identifiers have been resolved by this change. The fixes are as follows:

1. TP FIND RULES will now report rule identities that include spaces.

   Previously, only the first part of the rule identity would be seen.
   Further, it is now possible to interrogate such rules by quoting
   the rule name:

   TP FIND RULE "DAILY DUMP"

   This change also applies to other commands such as TP APPLY
   and TP FIND FAMILY.

   TP APPLY "DAILY DUMP"/1
   TP FIND FAM  "DAILY DUMP"/=

2. TP APPLY will now work correctly for rule identities that have a

   valid rule index. Similarly, TP FIND FAMILY will now handle wild
   card requests correctly. If a trailing '='appears at the end of
   a rule identifier e.g.

   TP FIND FAM (LIBUSER)=

   All rules that have a rule owner of LIBUSER will be matched
   regardless of rule index (if set or not).

3. PRINT TP FIND RULE will not now show rules that have no rule index

   with a suffix of "/0". A rule index value of zero is implicit for
   such rule identities.

The CLONE command has been implemented to allow the cloning of an existing tape in the TRIM database copying all the details of that tape. The new cloned serial can then be modified to reflect the actual creation date, volumeid etc.

    ---- TP --- <serial> --- CLONE --- <serial-1> ----

In the diagram above, <serial> is the original tape being cloned and <serial-1> becomes the copy. No entry for <serial-1> should exist in the database.

    TP 123456 CLONE 123457

A TP LOG extract might look like:

09:38:50 Odt:Vol:123456 cloned new entry 123457 09:38:50 Msg:RULE for [123457] changed to (ORCA)MERGETAPE/2 09:38:50 Evt:Created [123457] (ORCA)PACK11093AM/FILE000 by #61704 [New] 09:38:50 Odt:Via WIN(264),U=IPP: AAA014 CLONE ZZZ011

The NOTES field in the new tape's database entry is always changed to show that the tape had been cloned and serial number of the original.

If details, such as volumeid or creation date, are subsequently changed for the cloned tape then the 'TP <serial> SR' command must be used to apply any matching TRIM rules correctly. As normal, TRIM rules will be applied to the cloned tape *but* if the rule is generation based, the implicit TP APPLY that would normally occur for the rules family is NOT performed. This must be done manually after the new tape's details have been amended.

The MERGE command reads Tape and Rule data from flat files under the TAPE LIBRARIAN usercode. The files have the general names:

 METATAPELIB/DUMP/MEDIA
 METATAPELIB/DUMP/RULES

and are expected to be on the database CONTROL file family. The TP DUMP command can create suitable files. Rules data from the file will override data in the database. Tape data (from Media) will only override database data if more recent.

TRIM's HELP LOG command will now use the revised HELP information held locally by the MAGUS library instead of using its own help data. This change allows future MAGUS changes to the logging mechanism to be transparent (and thus the HELP content) to TRIM. Please see MAGUS DNote 540.35 for more details.

Internal change.

The TRIM database now has a new DMSII set called BYVOL; this set is used by TRIM to support a new TP command called PV and to implement logical reel handling. These features provide a useful way of getting detailed tape set information by referencing any member of that set.

The PV command allows the user to enquire of any tape (including those marked as PGOK or even SCRATCH) to find all other volumes that were used to create that tape set. Each volume is assigned a logical reel number (but not File Section) that is assigned to the volume when a tape notice is generated. The PV command expects a serial number parameter following the command, for example:

 TP PV IPP003

       ----- METATAPELIB: MT [IPP003] -----
 Volume : TESTREEL/FILE009
   Cycle        : 1                        File Section : 2   Reel : 3
   Version      : 0                        Density      : BPI6250
   Owner        : IPP
   Location     :
   Created at   : 12:11:21 on 13/07/2009
   Savefactor   : 90
   Host info    : MONTECARLO  #9999
   Pending loc  : ATL                      Pending date : 01/09/2009
   Not expired  : 14/11/3007
   Created by task 01299 : TRIMTEST/TASK
   Owned by job no 01234 : TRIMTEST/JOB

      --- Tape Family Information ---           --- Status ---
 #1 IPP001 TESTREEL/FILE000                   PGOK,DESTROYED
 #2 IPP002 TESTREEL/FILE002
 #3 IPP003 TESTREEL/FILE009
 #4 IPP008 TESTREEL/FILE0280
 #5 IPP005 TESTREEL/FILE0100                  PGOK

Note that both 'File Section' and 'Reel' now appear in the response. 'File Section' maps to the old 'Reel' field and 'Reel' now represents the logical reel number i.e. the sequence number of the volume in the tape set. Tape status flags such as PGOK, DESTROYED and SCRATCH will be shown where possible but PV may not be able to show missing tape members that have been re-used.

A new TP modifier, called REEL, allows the user or an OPAL script to set up the logical reel value for any tape. Note that the original 'Reel' value, seen in a TP <serialno> response is, in reality, the FILESECTION attribute which may not represent the logical reel number of the tape set.

  TP IPP001 REEL 1

As with all TP modifiers, changing REEL arbitrarily without regard can cause confusion and inconsistency, especially seen in PV responses.

All new tapes will be automatically assigned a logical reel value with this latest release but, for existing tapes, the values will be zero. Using the 'REEL' modifier, it is possible to run a simple OPAL script to process the database automatically assigning the correct logical reel number for every valid tape.

This script is shown below:

 TT DEFINE + SITUATION FIX_REEL(TAPEDB=BYVOL):
   LOGICALREEL=0 And JOBNO>0 And MIXNO>0

 TT DEFINE + ODTSEQUENCE FIX_REEL(TAPEDB):
   If $LIST:=LOGICALLIST Neq EMPTY Then
   Begin
      $ORIG:=$LIST;    #R:=0;
      $SN:=$LIST.SPLIT;
      If $$SN Neq EMPTY Then
         EXIT;
      If $LIST Neq EMPTY Then
         $$SN:="TRUE";
      Do
        ODT("TT TP ",$SN," REEL ",#R:=#R+1)
      Until $SN:=$LIST.SPLIT Eql EMPTY;
      Wait(0);
   End;

  TT EVAL FIX_REEL DO FIX_REEL

The EVAL only needs to be run once. A new TAPEDB attribute called LOGICALLIST returns, as a string list in logical reel order, all serial numbers belonging to the selected tape set. In the above example, for tape "IPP003", LOGICALIST would return

   "IPP001,IPP002,IPP003,IPP005,IPP008"

If the logical reel values are unavailable then PV will attempt to return all tapes in the set, assigning values itself.

If the CHECK option is used with a COPYAUDIT 'QUICKCOPY' command, the MCP may erroneously believe that COPYAUDIT is performing APPEND operations to the destination tape (additional info is written because of the CHECK) even though this is not the case. The MCP then sends these LOG VOL APPEND entries to SUPERVISOR as each AUDIT file is copied.

The above behaviour has no effect on a master system since these notices are discarded but, on slave systems, the appends are believed to be legal and notices are dispatched to the master. The database entry is then updated, now incorrectly logging the tape as appended, and a TAPEDB notice is returned to the slave causing confusion.

This problem has now been detoured and the problem will be reported to Unisys.

Further, various TP FIND reports were meant to show expired tapes with an 'x' by the expiry date field. Unfortunately, this behaviour was reversed so that tapes that had not yet expired showed the marker. This problem has been fixed.

Internal change only

TRIM now supports separate scratch pools for both the DSI and UNISYS settings of the USE SILO environment. Previously, scratch pools could only be assigned for DSI environments.

The implementation of the USE SILO interface for SUPERVISOR has been rewritten to allow future TAPEMANAGER library development to perform its own checks on tape assignments. The functionality of USE SILO is unaffected by this change.

This change helps to limit the number of COPYWRITE library link and delink operations when accessing LibMaintdIr attribute information for FLEX disk farms and CD images in a TAPEDB EVAL. Previously, there would have been a link/delink pair for each tape access.

This change describes the new ALL modifier now available for use with the TP FIND command. Similar to TP FIND NAME, the FIND ALL command allows the caller to search for tapes in the TRIM database using an optional <name spec> to filter by OWNER, VOLUMEID and FILEID. However, the main difference is that FIND ALL will include expired tapes i.e. those marked as PGOK, which are never included in a FIND NAME report. Note that SCRATCH and UNLABELLED tapes are automatically excluded.

Examples:

    TP FIND ALL (TAPE=)VOL=
    TT PRINT TP FIND ALL =

Where tapes have identical names, the duplicate entries will be presented in reverse-chronological order.

As a consequence of this change, the maximum number of tapes returned by a TP FIND request to a remote terminal is now 500 instead of the previous limit of 200.

Fix include for opaltapelib to be include/meta.

Use Include/Meta

For sites using Unisys StorageTek tape robots with CSC TapeServer software, all TP FIND reports will now be able to show if a serial number is resident in the tape silo. Each tape will be marked with the character 's' just prior to any creation date information or after a location field.

Note that this feature is only available if the VOLUMEINVENTORY option is set in the ACSSUPPORT configuration file.

Interrogation commands such as TP <serial> and TP FIND will now not be logged in the TRIM Logs. This change also inhibits the logging of various commands that have been cancelled for syntax reasons. This filtering helps to keep the TRIM Logs to a manageable size.

Previously, any TP LOG command would automatically return up to 500 lines of output, traversing multiple TRIM logs if necessary. This behaviour has been changed; now, any non-time based based LOG command will only inspect the *current* active TRIM log file. The previous behaviour can be easily restored by using start and end time/dates or by using the '+' modifier in the command.

For example:

      TP LOG +
      TP LOG EVT
      TP LOG FIND SUMLOG +

The on-line TP HELP LOG command has been updated to include the changes described by DNote 520.05.

The logging of TRIM transactions and messages has been significantly changed. Instead of the older TAPELOG mechanism, the TRIM system will now log information into a dedicated file called *METALOGIC/TRIM/LOG on a nominated family configured using the INSTALL utility. By default, this family is set to that of DL LOG. After installation, any older TAPELOG files will be discarded.

The TP LOG command has been enhanced to allow varied access to these log files; searching by category, wild card text patterns or time and date ranges is permitted. The LOG command extensions are shown below:

                   +<<--------------------------------------------+
   --- TP --- LOG -+--+--------------------------+------------+---+-
                      +-- <Category> -------------------------+
                      +-- <Time/Date> --+---------------------+
                      |                 +--  -  <Time/Date> --+
                      +-- FIND ---- <Text Pattern> -----------+

As in previous versions of TP log-hanlding, <Category> is a 3-character text value that filters the log search by message category. These categories are MSG,ODT,CON,EVT,LGR and ERR.

<Date/Time>

  ---- <hhmm> --+--------------+--------------------------------+-----|
                +- <dd/mm/yy> -+-+------------------------------+
                                 +-  -  <hhmm> --+--------------+
                                                 +- <dd/mm/yy> -+

The FIND modifier permits the searching of each log entry for the specified text. The FIND automatically encloses the target with "=" at both ends of the text and is not case-sensitive, therefore finding both lower-case and upper-case matches.

The log files are automatically released when the file size exceeds 15,000 records or the LC CLOSE command is used. The LC command allows any comment command to be written into the current log. The command category for any LC command is 'Lgc'. The LC command is shown below:

  --- TP ---- LC --+--- <text> ------+----------------------------|
                   |                 |
                   +--- CLOSE -------+

The KIND modifier has been added to the subset of commands available to the TP <serialno> command. KIND may be used to change the default volume kind of any serial number in the database and is especially useful after data entry.

The syntax is shown below:

      -------- TP -- <serialno> -- KIND ---+-- CD -------+----------!
                                           |             |
                                           +-- FARM -----+
                                           |             |
                                           +-- IMAGE ----+
                                           |             |
                                           +-- PACK -----+
                                           |             |
                                           +-- TAPE -----+

The CARTSCRATCH TAPEDB attribute, used to determine if a tape is assigned to an ACSLS scratch pool, now returns the correct value in the silo software. This setting can be changed in the Unisys StorageTek software using the TK <serialno> + SCRATCH command.

The response to a TP <serialno> command will now show if the selected tape is marked with a SCRATCH flag in a Unisys silo. The text "(in SCRATCH pool)" will be seen after the REGISTERED text if this is the case.

A TP <serialno> response will not show Volume Usage information for tape volumes that are marked as PGOK or SCRATCH.

This change supports the hybrid USE SILO environment for Unisys and DSI tape robots, as described in SUPERVISOR DNote 520.43.

In some printed TP FIND reports, the HOSTNAME of the tape was not always being displayed and caused some report corruption. This problem is now fixed.

In FLEX cataloging environments running with a multi-host master-slave TRIM systems, much care is needed to control the merging and release of FLEX tapes which may have volume library entries on more than one system.

In conjunction with MERGETAPE DNote 520.14, it is now possible to protect tapes in the TRIM subsystem by marking them as 'LOCKED'. When a tape volume is locked, only the system that originally created the tape (as designated by the HOSTNAME) can officially release that volume.

The MERGETAPE utility will now automatically mark all new FLEX volumes, created by FAMILYMANAGER and MERGETAPE, with the LOCKED flag. A new TP modifier, LOCK, allows the user to easily confer or remove LOCKED status from any volume:

     TP 12345 LOCKED
     Volume 123456 is now LOCKED

     TP 12456 LOCKED -
     Volume 123456 is now un-LOCKED

When a tape is LOCKED in a FLEX cataloging environment, it cannot be marked PGOK unless all the following are TRUE:

    1.  The PGOK request has been issued from a station on the host that
        originally created the tape (both SUPERVISOR and MERGETAPE).
    2.  The current backup reference total (retrieved from FLEX's
        STATISTICS file is ZERO.
    3.  If the request is from a TRIM slave and that tape volume also
        exists in the Master's Volume Library, backup references is
        checked on the Master and must be ZERO.

MERGETAPE ONLY:

    4.  Volume Library name must match the TRIM Volume Id.
    5.  Creation date of Volume Library and TRIM entries must match.

The following error messages may be seen in TRIM's TAPELOG and match the conditions above:

   Vol:123456 cannot mark PGOK: Tape has local backup refs
   Vol:123456 cannot mark PGOK: Volume is LOCKED
   Vol:123456 cannot mark PGOK: Tape has MASTER backup refs

       ----- Volume Usage ----
       ----- Warning!! Info exists but this is a foreign volume -----
   Files copied: 0                         Backup refs : 58
   Space used  : 0 MB                      Active space: 0 MB
   Stats Avg.  : 0.00 MB per file

SUPERVISOR will now attempt to provide LIBMAINTDIR information as part of the standard TP <serial> response for tapes, Flex Disk Farms and CD Images. Although Flex CD Images do not have LibMaintDirs, SUPERVISOR is able to examine the image file directly and return similar info.

For volumes with detected LibMaintDir information (or CD images), a TP <serial> command response will now include volume usage, file counts and backup reference information (for FELX volumes), if available. The name of the LIBMAINTDIR file will also be shown. For example:

       ----- Volume Usage -----
   Files copied: 17805                     Backup refs : 16168
   Space used  : 7411.52 MB                Active space: 6730.10 MB
   Stats Avg.  : 0.42 MB per file
   LibMaintDir : (FLEX)LIBMAINTDIR/FLEXCOPY05346AF/20051212/HP3003

The change applied by DNOTE 510.09, in the event of loss of network connectivity from a slave to a master system, could have generated recurrent messages displaying "NETWORK CONNECTION TO <HOSTNAME> UNAVAILABLE", until the network was restored. This behaviour has been corrected, and the number of displayed messages has been significantly reduced.

Supporting the changes described in OPALTAPELIB DNote 510.09, a TRIM slave system will not attempt network communications with a master system if a MASTER hostname (BNA or TCPIP) has not been set. Previously, in such circumstances, the TAPELIBUPDATER process would have hung on a NO FILE TLPORT or a waiting entry, making TP NET configuration very difficult.

This behaviour has been changed; TAPELIBUPDATER will now refuse any TP commands or tape notices until the slave network has been correctly configured.

The change described in DNote 510.07 caused the TAPELIBUPDATER process to fault with an INTEGER OVERFLOW at 45743360 if a TP <serial> interrogation was made for an appended tape. This problem has now been fixed.

The TP command subset now supports several new modifiers allowing the user to adjust the PC HOSTNAME for Disk Farm volumes (FARMHOST), change the original CREATION DATE for appended volumes (ORIGCDATE) and modify the average MB value in the FLEX Statistics file for the specified volume (AVGMB).

The semantics for these new modifiers are shown below:

   ----- TP ---- <serialno> ---+--- AVGMB -------- <real> ----+----|
                               |                              |
                               +--- FARMhost ----- <text> ----+
                               |                              | 
                               +--- ORIGcdate ---- <date> ----+ 

Note that the AVGBMB modifier may only be used in a FLEX cataloging environment for volumes that have non-zero backup references; its usage is only permitted from the host that has the volume by the Tape Librarian usercode. It offers an alternative mechanism to the Flex Utility 'PV.. ACTIVEFEET' command. The AVGMB will accept both real and integer values.

Examples:

TP 123456 AVGMB 0.560 TP FARMHOST META1 TP ORIG 12/12/2005

It is now possible to run TAPEDB EVALS from a slave TRIM system; this was previously only permitted from MASTER systems. This means that there now no restrictions on the use of TAPEDB programs running from a slave, though it should be noted that due to the latency of network connections, such EVALS may take some time to complete.

If any scratch tapes with density of BPI800 existed in the TRIM database, an unqualified TP SCR command would fail with TAPELIBUPATER FAULT 8 at 52090450. This problem has been corrected.

Internal Metalogic change with no change in functionality.

Many TP commands use entrypoints in the OPALTAPELIB library to return tape library information. In rare certain error conditions where the library soft lock handling is DS-ed or faults, TAPELIBUPDATER may then show the error heading 'INTERNAL SOFT LOCK PROBLEM'.

The checks performed by TRIM when setting the PGOK flag on a tape volume, via a slave system TP command, have been tightened. When a PGOK+ command is requested, TRIM checks to see if the volume is in use by Metalogic's FLEX package and, if so, ensures that the volume has non-zero backup references before allowing the PGOK. These checks are now performed BOTH on the slave and master systems unconditionally - the check was previously only performed on the slave system.

Also, if a TP <serial> PGOK command was issued from a slave system, the command could have failed with a 'Not found in Tape Library' error. This problem is now fixed.

The TP <SERIALNO> is now able to report the size of FLEX tapes in megabytes or feet based on the version of the Statistics file.

For TRIM master-slave systems, using the TCPIP protocol, it was likely that the close responses to a TP CLOSE command would not be received by the caller any slaves had existing connections open to the master. In these cases, the TAPELIBUPDATER task would appear to hang and all TP commands would be queued waiting for the port connection to close. TRIM now forces an ABORT close of the port instead of ORDERLY.

If actioned TP CLOSE or TP OPEN commands were issued using the OPAL KEYIN function, it was likely that the calling OPAL program would be marked as '(WAIT KEYIN)' indefinitely in a WHEN ? interrogation. This problem is now fixed.

Previously, TP commands originating from an MCS such as the TTINTERFACE directive would appear with an origination of 'SPO(..'; this has now been changed to reflect the originating MCS number. The log entry will appear with the actual MCS number in parentheses e.g. MCS(22).

On cataloging systems, TRIM will now determine if the provided volume is present in the TRIM database during a TP <serial> PGOK request prior to verifying that the volume has zero references. Previously, TRIM would give an erroneous message if the volume was in the Volume Library but not in TRIM.

Previously, the logging of TP commands in the TRIM TAPELOG file did not include much information about the origin of the command. This has been changed: now each logged command will indicate if it originated from a WINDOW or ODT, an AFTER or internally from a DO. In addition, the ODT unit number, remote LSN or WHEN slot number will be indicated accordingly. If the TP command came from an OPAL KEYIN statement, this will be shown too.

For example:

12:03:00 ODT: Via AFTER: CONFIRM
12:02:24 Msg: Vol:000001 purge authorised (unchanged)
12:02:24 ODT: Via AFTER,U=IPP: 1 PGOK
12:01:00 Msg: Volumes confirmed 0 (warnings 0),Links 0,Errors 0
12:01:00 ODT: Via AFTER,U=TEST,A=IPP: CONFIRM
11:59:00 ODT: Via KEYIN[31],U=TEST,A=IPP: 77
11:56:29 ODT: Via ODTS[30],U=FLEX,A=RULES: 22
11:55:29 ODT: Via ODTS[30]: 1
11:54:27 ODT: Via WIN(209): 1

Each command will show any associated Usercode and Accesscode passed by SUPERVISOR; this may have been assigned to an AFTER, DO or WHEN using the FOR modifier or inherited from the TERM USER specifications of a SUPERVISOR window. User information appears immediately prior to the command text.

Commands issued from a TRIM slave system are logged locally and, if the command is non-interrogatory, written to the TAPELOG on the master. On the master, the originating BNA host or TCPIP address will now be written with the command:

13:11:34 Msg: Volumes confirmed 0 (warnings 0),Links 0,Errors 0
13:11:34 Rmt: Via 10.0.0.16: CONFIRM

Previously, a TT DELINK OPALTAPELIB was not forcing a delinkage from Flex/Library if it was in use. Since the DELINK command is usually used to force a closedown of TRIM on the slave, this caused problems because neither OPALTAPELIB or FLEX/Library would be able to terminate. This problem is now fixed.

The change described in DNote 500.03 affected the mechanism used to return TAPEDB attribute information to OPAL programs running on a slave system. This meant that some attributes could have return null values; this problem has now been fixed.

For slave systems running with FLEX and CATALOGING enabled, a TP <serialno> interrogation was not previously able to show the number of active backup references for the volume in the response. Now, TRIM will retrieve the backup refs value from the local Flex Statistics file and display it into the response.

From the release of MCP 5.0, it is now possible for SUPERVISOR to track library maintenance or DMSII tape append operations. This is feasible because the MCP provide a new LOG VOLUMES record ( Major type 15, Minor type 17) when the append occurs, detectable in real-time by SUPERVISOR.

When an append is detected, SUPERVISOR and TRIM regard the event as a 'new' tape event, causing the original tape to become a history entry. The TapeLog will show the following entry:

16:39:39 Evt: APPEND [000031] (IPP)MYTESTTAPE/FILE000 (not SCR)

A TP interrogation will show

TP HP0001

----- METATAPELIB: MT [HP0001] -----
Volume : APPENDTEST/FILE000
Cycle : 1 Reel : 1
Version : 0 Density : FMTDDS2
Owner : IPP
Location : EXCEPTION Sent date : 26/03/2004
Appended at : 16:38:22 on 25/03/2004
Savefactor : 30
Host info : NX4200MCP #1234
Not expired : 24/04/2004
Volume last accessed : 16:38:22 on 25/03/2004
Created by task 08826 : *LIBRARY/MAINTENANCE
Owned by job no 08265 : (META)MYCOPY
Usage count : 10 times since first entered
Backup refs : 5 (5 resident)
This volume has been APPENDED

Marked as : VOLUMED
Rule info : EXCEPTION

In the TAPEDB context, a new attribute called APPENDED will signify that the volumed has been appended. Note that the creator task and job numbers and creation date/time will be updated though the original job and task names will be retained (it is not possible to get these names for the task responsible for the append operation).

Also, the response generated for tape history interrogation (e.g. TP 1 @2) has been much improved. The original creation date and time of the generation will be correctly shown (instead of UNKNOWN) as well as the creator task number (always zero). Any interesting flags such as DESTROYED, VOLUMED, PGOK etc. will now be seen in the output.

The change discussed by DNote 480.10 caused a TT PRINT TP FIND RULES command to go into a processor loop which required a manual DS of the TAPELIBUPDATER process. A non-print of TP FIND RULES is unaffected; this problem is now fixed.

The USE SILO implementation, discussed in TAPELIBUPDATER DNote 490.02, would cause an INVALID OP at sites running without Metalogic tape robot support. This only occurred when interrogating an entry in the Tape Library which did not have a DLT-style density and is now fixed.

This change supports the USE SILO command discussed in SUPERVISOR Dnote 490.20 please refer to this note for more information.

The response to the TP VER command has been changed slightly to reflect any changes made to the USE SILO setting.

The 'TP SHOW <serialno>' command has been added to provide an alternate method to the usual TP <serialno> command. SHOW allows access to serial numbers such as 'LOG','QUIT' etc and is effectively regarded as noise.

The changes applied to support the TP NET command discussed in Dnote 480.06 had the inadvertent side-effect of breaking the CARTINSILO and CARTSLOT TAPEDB attributes. This problem, which affected both DSI and Unisys StorageTek usage of these attributes, is now fixed.

The TP SCR POOL command will now correctly report all tapes that match the provided POOL pattern. Previously, this command could have failed to report all or some of the tapes found, depending on the pattern used. Also, the TP SCR POOL command would often show an additional heading line detailing the command; this problem has been fixed.

The TP SCR command has been extended to include a new modifier, CD, that will return all CD volumes, created by the Flex FAMILYMANAGER and MERGETAPE utilities, that are marked as PGOK or SCRATCH.

Also, the TP FIND FAM command will now automatically up-case the rule pattern so that correct searching for the family will take place.

On master TRIM systems, the TAPELIBUPDATER now sets DIALOGCHECKINTERVAL and BLOCKEDTIMEOUT on the TLPORT file for both BNA and TCPIP communications with slaves. By setting these attributes, TAPELIBUPDATER will now send keep-alive packets every 2 minutes to ensure that a slave connection is still alive.

If no response to these packets is detected, the subfile will be marked as 'BLOCKED' in a TP NET response. If the condition persists for more than 20 minutes. The subport will be closed breaking the connection.

On networks where certain connections may be unreliable, this change prevents 'dead' connections from persisting in a TP NET or TP VER response and, more importantly, minimises the use of TLPORT subfiles.

If a TP NET PORT command was used to switch an existing TCPIP slave system to a different port number, TRIM would not change the YOURNAME setting of the port file when a TP NET APPLY was issued. This problem is now fixed.

The TP NET configuration command has been implemented to assist with network setup in a multi-host, master-slave environment. The user can readily configure a system to use BNA or TCPIP and run as a master or slave.

  ----- TP -- NET -+-----------------------------------------------+---!
                   |                                               |
                   +--  -  ----------------------------------------+
                   |                                               |
                   +-- APPLY --------------------------------------+
                   |                                               |
                   +-- BNA ---+-- MASTER -----------------+--------+
                   |          |                           |        |
                   |          +-- SLAVE ---<Host or IP>---+        |
                   |                                               |
                   +-- TCPIP -+-- MASTER -----------------+--------+
                   |          |                           |        |
                   |          +-- SLAVE ---<Host or IP>---+        +
                   |                                               |
                   +-- PORT ---- <number>--------------------------+  

The BNA and TCPIP variants dictate the network protocol to be used by TRIM for inter-system communication. Both BNA and TCPIP *require* either MASTER or SLAVE to indicate if this system is to be a TRIM master or slave. If TCPIP is used then an optional PORT number can be assigned otherwise the default 44444 will be used.

Any changes to the network environment effected by the NET command will be marked as pending until a TP NET APPLY command is issued. If a change from master to slave is made, the METATAPELIB4 database will be immediately closed and any current network connections will be terminated.

The PORT modifier is only valid if the TCPIP protocol is in use or a network change to TCPIP is pending. PORT allows the optional change of the TCPIP port number to a value other than 44444.

Any pending actions can be cancelled using the '-' modifier:
TP NET -

Other examples:

TP NET BNA MASTER
TP NET TCPIP SLAVE POWEREDGE PORT 33333
TP NET TCPIP PORT 55555
TP NET APPLY

Both the TP VER and TP NET command will show both the current network configuration and any pending changes:

TP NET BNA MASTER

TRIM Networking Configuration:
MASTER system
Using native TCPIP as network provider (port #55555)
No slave hosts are currently connected
METATAPELIB database is ON-LINE

Network Config changes are pending:
Network protocol will use BNAv2
System will be configured as >> MASTER <<

Please note that switching or migrating a system from a slave to a master environment also requires that a valid METATAPELIB4 database configuration exists on the 'new' master. If appropriate, this means that the INSTALL utility must have been run to set up the TRIM environment and the database loaded from the previous master system. Please refer to the INSTALL manual for more details on setting up TRIM.

Also implemented in this patch, the DUMP command will read the entire METATAPELIB4 database (including history information and writes the data to a series of flat files under the TAPE LIBRARIAN usercode.

TP DUMP

The files have the general name:

METATAPELIB/DUMP/HIST
METATAPELIB/DUMP/MEDIA
METATAPELIB/DUMP/ RULES

and can be found on the database CONTROL file family. These files can be used by Metalogic's INSTALL utility to rebuild a reinitialized database.

Previously, on TRIM master-slave systems, it was possible for certain TP commands to cause MSG SIZE ERROR failures on the slave and INTEGER OVERFLOW faults on the master, when using the TCPIP transport protocol.

This problem was caused by the failure of TAPELIBUPDATER on the master system to handle any short command network reads from the slave. This problem, which caused potential loss of tape notices and also disrupted the master-slave connection, is now fixed.

This patch supports the use of the TP_STORE OPALTAPELIB entrypoint from TRIM slave systems as documented by OPALTAPELIB patch 480.10.

New synonyms for the TP commands MIXID and MIXNO have been implemented; the modifiers TASKID and TASKID are now available.

When running a TCPIP master-slave environment where the maximum network message size between hosts was less than 800 characters, it was possible for message fragmentation to occur when passing TP commands from the slave to the master. This could cause various problems such as MSG SIZE ERROR and INTEGER OVERFLOW faults.

This problem was caused by the TLPORT interface incorrectly handling the additional message fragments and is now fixed.

In addition, when running TRIM in a master-slave TCPIP environment, a TP VER from the master will now return the hostnames and negotiated ACTUALMAXRECSIZE for each port subfile.
Also, a TP <serialno> interrogation will now upcase any lower case letters in the serial number.

Responses to a TP <serial> command will now correctly display the recorded tape density for newer Unisys tape drives. Previously, TP would have shown these new densities as UNKNOWN. In addition, the TP FIND SCR command will now allow a density to be selected with more flexibility e.g. using lower case and optional BPI or FMT prefixes.

This only changes the version to 48. Version 470.06 is still valid on MCP 48.

On MCP cataloging systems, for tape volumes that are non-Flex backup volumes, the "Usage count:" line would appear twice in the response to a TP <serial> command. This problem is now fixed

A TP FIND RULE interrogation for a specific rule will now show any assigned HOSTNAME pattern and example in the response; the display will also depict the special retentions by SAVEFACTOR or NEVER

This patch supports the changes to TRIM discussed in SUPERVISOR Dnote 470.38 for Copywrite-created CD, CD Image and Disk Farm volumes. Please refer to this note for more information

Upon receiving a TP CLOSE command, TAPELIBUPDATER asks the OPALTAPELIB library to close the database and then explicitly delinks from the same library. However, TAPELIBUPDATER was immediately re-linking to OPALTAPELIB when writing log info to the TAPELOG causing potential problems, especially during an installation. The delink has now been moved after the logging.

The changes applied By OPALTAPELIB patch 460.06 inadvertently affected the operation of some TP FIND commands such that the TT PRINT variant only ever returned a maximum of 200 tapes. This problem is now fixed.

The latest version of DSI software introduce a bug in the SLOT_FROM_SN procedure which caused a Fault 4 error on TT TP

<serialno>

For TRIM master systems, the TP VER command will now correctly return the TCP/IP host addresses of those Clearpath / A-Series currently connected as clients.

The TAPELIBUPDATER process now supports the Unisys MORETASKS implementation allowing the provision of mixnumbers up to 65535. This is achieved by setting the system options MORETASKS (OP+MORETASKS), halt-loading and changing the MAX command.

Where appropriate, the TP command interface has been changed to support 5-digit mix and job numbers.

Previously, if a TAPEDB WHEN was used to process scratch notices as well as normal tape creations on a TRIM slave system, it was possible for the WHEN to randomly fault with an INVALID INDEX.

This problem, dependent on system activity, is now fixed.

Ideally, FAMILYMANAGER generated tapes should be assigned TRIM rules which do not have generation or expiry retention to ensure that these tapes never become PGOK unless released by MERGETAPE. However, if such a TRIM rule was assigned to a FLEX tape, the CONFIRM process would automatically PGOK the tape when the rule dictated, regardless of the number of active backup references.

TRIM now will perform additional checks during the CONFIRM process and in Metalogic's TAPEMANAGER auto-purging. During CONFIRM, if a tape is moving to the SCRATCH POOL and has non-zero backup references, the move will be cancelled and an error message will appear in the TAPELOG. Both PENDINGDATE and PENDINGLOCATION will be reset and the tape will remain in its present location.

Further, the CHECK_TAPE_PURGE interface will check that the attempted purge of any tape which still has non-zero backup references will be rejected.

Note also that, if the MCP option CATALOGING is set and FLEX library is SL_ed but is not functioning, ALL attempted tape purges will be rejected until the library is available again.

YESTERDAY and TODAY can now be used anywhere a <DATE> can be entered in a TP command. For example, to print all tapes created yesterday:

PR TP FIND DATE YESTERDAY

This patch supports the modifications to the GETSCRATCH attribute, discussed in OPALTAPELIB Dnote 450.16 and SUPERVISOR DNote 450.32, which has been modified to allow the provision of a third optional parameter called INSILO. This forces SUPERVISOR to check that the tape serial returned is physically present in a Unisys Storagetek or DSI silo. Further, GETSCRATCH now returns the serial number of the tape that has been scratch for the longest period, by checking the date (SENDDATE) of each eligible tape in the SCRATCH set.

Due to these GETSCRATCH changes, some protection has been introduced in the way that TRIM handles the setting of the SENDDATE attribute:

1. TP <ser> SITE will now set SENDDATE and SENDTIME to the current date and time instead of assigning NULL.
2. TP <ser> PGOK, if permitted, will now also set SENDDATE and SENDTIME to the current time/date. Previously, no such action was taken.
3. If GETSCRATCH finds an eligible matching tape with its SENDDATE set to 0, the tape will be automatically selected.

In addition, a new TP SCR modifier has been implemented which allows a scratch pool pattern to be given to filter the returned list of scratch tapes. For example:

     TT TP SCR 1250 POOL STIRLING= 
     TT TP SCR DLT35 POOL DLT35

A wild-card or full name can be provided for the POOL identifier.

TRIM will now support master-slave environments either using BNA or TCPIP port files. By default, BNAv2 ports will be used but this process can be overridden to use only TCPIP by setting the following config variable on both master and slave systems:

     U META/INSTALL TL_SKTNO=44444

The value 44444 is arbitrary and is assigned to the MYNAME and YOURNAME attributes of the master and slave TCPIP port files, respectively, to allow communication. The port service used is TCPIPNATIVESERVICE.

Once this software has been installed on both systems and the TL_SKTNO, variable has been set up, it is necessary to force TRIM to use the new settings. On both MASTER and SLAVE systems, the following command is needed:

     TT DELINK OPALTAPELIB

Once connected successfully, the master and slave components will use ACTUALMAXRECSIZE of the port file to negotiate a transfer mechanism.

If the network is unavailable, TP commands issued from any Supervisor windows on the slave will be rejected but TP commands from ODTSequences will be queued, along with other tape events and notices. When the connection has been resumed, these missed notices will be sent to the master automatically.

The TP VER command has been changed to provide additional information about the port connection and to indicate the number of queued notices if the network link is down. For example:

     TP VER 

     METALOGIC METATAPELIB UPDATER  *SLAVE* Version 45.450.006 
       Compiled at 17:55:56 on 11/09/1999 
       Using native TCPIP as network provider(socket #44444) 
       Recording to METATAPELIB4 at CPMCP1 
       TAPELOG is '(META)METATAPELIB/TAPELOG ON PACK' 

     OPALTAPELIB library version 45.450.014 
       Compiled at 08:51:57 on 11/10/1999

Previously, the logging of TP commands from a Supervisor OPAL were written into the TAPELOG with "Via ODTS:" in the wrong position.

This problem is now fixed.

The TP SCRATCH command will provide new headings for tapes whenever the DENSITY or SCRATCHPOOL changes. For scratch tapes with a non-blank pool, these headings were being generated even when the SCRATCHPOOL had not changed, generating longer reports.

This problem is now resolved.

The system attributes TAPENAMESERIALS, TAPEFAMILYSERIALS and TAPEFAMILYNAME may now be used from OPAL programs running on TRIM slave systems. Previously, these attributes would have returned null values.

Also, TP commands that modify tape information were restricted from slave systems; this restriction has now been relaxed. Such commands will be permitted, subject to local TRIM security, and logged on both master and slave TAPELOGs.

Tape labels will now not be automatically generated for NEW VOL entries on slave systems. Previously, two labels would have been printed instead of one.

This change is to make it more convenient in future to make changes to the DASDL. The only visible change in functionality is that in a scratch report assigned tapes are now listed after unassigned tapes.

If SUPERVISOR is configured to support a DSI or UNISYS Cartridge Tape Library, the response to a simple TP <serial> command will now show if the volume is resident / not resident in the appropriate library. If the CTL is DSI, then the current slot number will also be shown.

Changes in TAPELIBUPDATER patch 440.05 inadvertently removed the host and old volume information from the response to a TP <serial> command. This problem is now fixed.

The implementation of the GETSCRATCH attribute, described in SUPERVISOR DNote 450.03, allows the control and allocation of scratch tapes, optionally designated by density and scratchpool. This feature allows a SUPERVISOR OPAL program to allocate the FIRST eligible tape belonging to a selected subset of tapes and assign it for "future use".

Once a tape has been "assigned" by the GETSCRATCH attribute, it is not "unassigned" until the tape has been used for output. Until this time, the assigned tape can be tracked by using several new variants of the TP command.

When assigned, several tape attributes are changed: SLOT is set to the value 99999, SENDDATE and SENDTIME are set to the current date and time. Because these attributes are available to OPAL programs, it is possible to monitor for tapes that remain assigned over a long period of time.

The above is actually a variant of the TP SCR command and returns all tapes currently assigned for use. The response includes the requesting host and the time of assignment:

For example, GETSCRATCH could be used to allocate a tape for mounting on a CTL subsystem. Such mount requests can take time to be satisfied so the use for GETSCRATCH avoids the possibility of collisions by marking these tapes assigned.

In the event of an assigned tape remaining in this state for too long, it is possible to "unassign" the tape in the database so that it can be returned to the pool of available scratch tapes. A new TP modifier, UNASSIGN, has been added to provide this facility:

    ---- TP ---- <serial> --- UNASSIGN -------------

When used, the SLOT, SENDDATE and SENDTIME attributes are set to 0.

Recent SUPERVISOR changes accidentally removed the requirement for the Tape Librarian usercode to be needed when using the TP DELETE command.

This problem has now been fixed.