topic Re: KERMIT Issue in Operating System - OpenVMS

KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:03:36 GMT

(I thought I'd get a quicker answer here than through the developers.)

I just downloaded the latest Kermit version binary from Columbia U, ckv211-axp-vms73-ucx54.exe and am running on a VMS V7.3-2 system & TCPIP V5.4.

Whenever I try to download a file, the download aborts with "process quota exceeded" (or sometimes "can't create file" or other file error.)

I've searched the web and found references to WSMAX (which is set to 8192 on my system), and to BYTLIM (which is set very high on my account). I've tried using ANA/SYS to watch the process, but see no quota shortage.

I don't have the capability to build KERMIT from scratch so I'm stuck with the binary.

Any suggestions? TIA

Re: KERMIT Issue

David B Sneddon — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:19:48 GMT

Jack

Don't underestimate the responsiveness of the
Kermit support people -- I have had responses
within 10 minutes in the past.
WSMAX of 8192 seems a bit low. What is your
page file quota? How big is the file? What
is the system at the other end? Are there any
protection issues in the directory into which
the file is going?

Regards
Dave

Re: KERMIT Issue

Antoniov. — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 01:55:16 GMT

Jack,
Ckermit on my system works using follow quotas:
WSMAX 65536
User quotas: all default
Use Ckermit V8.0.209, dated 03 17th, 2003

What command did you use to download (Receive, Get or Server/Put)?
Can you use other commands (Send, Put, Remote commands)?
Have you trouble even within CAUTIOUS and ROBUST commands?

Antonio Vigliotti

Re: KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 12:08:40 GMT

David/Antoniov,

I'm running KERMIT in my own account (so there shouldn't be any file protection issues):

PGFLQUO 300,000
BYTLM: 5,000,000
I misstated WSMAX, it is actually 181,000.

The file I've been trying to download is from a bulletin-board system at a business partner. It is an ASCII file of about 144KB.

I've been using the RECEIVE cmd and have tried the ROBUST cmd (but not the CAUTIOUS CMD). I don't have permission to try an upload.

Re: KERMIT Issue

Bojan Nemec — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 12:21:34 GMT

Hi,

Have you try to get the file in binary mode? I have seen strange errors when the 32767 record size limit is exceeded.

Bojan

Re: KERMIT Issue

Guenther Froehlin — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 12:25:46 GMT

My guess is SYSGEN parameter MAXBUF too low for kermit's I/O requests.

/Guenther

Re: KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 12:58:43 GMT

Since MAXBUF is a dynamic param, I tried changing it from 8192 to 32000, but still got the same error, show below:

*************************
RECEIVE- or GET-class command failed.
Packets received: 384
Damaged packets: 0
Timeouts: 0
Packet length: 4000
Most recent local error: "%SYSTEM-F-EXQUOTA, process quota exceeded"

Re: KERMIT Issue

Guenther Froehlin — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:38:17 GMT

Jack,

I assume you did:

SYSGEN> SET MAXBUF 32000
SYSGEN> SET ACTIVE

Is Kermit running in your interactive process
or, as a subprocess or, in a batch job?

/Guenther

Re: KERMIT Issue

Garry Fruth — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:42:04 GMT

You may want to check BIOLM.

Re: KERMIT Issue

David B Sneddon — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:54:11 GMT

Jack,

As Bojan suggested, try a binary mode transfer,
not so much for the long record sizes but I have
had instances where a "text" file happened to
contain a few non-text characters that caused the
transfer to fail (I think they were postscript
files). Does it consistently fail at the same
point? That was the symptom I was getting, but
I don't recall the error I got -- it didn't
point to what the problem was, that took a while
to track down.

Dave

Re: KERMIT Issue

Antoniov. — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 06:01:57 GMT

Hi,
cKermit doesn't need big quotas; on my system MAXBUF is 8192 and I can send & recevice files; here we use cKermit every day.
May be binary/text mode because in text mode receive process have to adjust new line for target operating system.
Jack,
if bullettin-board is on other vms or windows (no U*IX) you don't need adiust for text file.

Antonio Vigliotti

Re: KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:55:51 GMT

Well, I tried the download in BINARY mode and dang if the download didn't complete! I tried another file this way and it also completed successfully. But...

I looked at the first file via DUMP and found that there were no record separators!!! So there was no way for me to use the file. So I've still go my original problem.

Please note in a previous e-mail showing KERMIT stats that there is a record size of 4000 bytes. Is this valid? Or does this indicate a problem with the sending side?

Re: KERMIT Issue

Bojan Nemec — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:05:56 GMT

Hi,

When the KERMIT crashes, do you have any part of the file? If yes, do a dir/full on this part to see file attributes (the most important is Record format).

If yours file is fixed length records, you can download it in binary mode and then modify the attributes with SET FILE/ATTRIBUTES.

If you can, please post the dir/full and the supposed file structure.

Bojan

Re: KERMIT Issue

Antoniov. — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:08:31 GMT

Jack,
SHO PROT in my cKermit display:
SYS$SYSDEVICE:[HOME.ANTONIOV] C-Kermit>sh pro
Protocol: Kermit

Protocol Parameters: Send Receive
Timeout (used= 8): 8 15 [...]
Padding: 0 0 [...]
Pad Character: 0 0 [...]
Pause: 0 0 [...]
Packet Start: 1 1 [...]
Packet End: 13 13 [...]
Packet Length: 90 4000 <-------
Maximum Length: 9024 9024 <------- Window Size: 30 set, 0 used
Buffer Size: 290015 290015 <------- Locking-Shift: enabled, not used

Auto-upload command (binary): kermit -ir
Auto-upload command (text): kermit -r
Auto-server command: kermit -x
Packet timeouts: dynamic 1:0 Send backup: on
Transfer mode: automatic Transfer slow-start: on, crc: off
Transfer character-set: transparent

Antonio Vigliotti

Re: KERMIT Issue

Bojan Nemec — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:09:44 GMT

Sorry,
I forgot to ask you for a dir/full of the binary downloaded file (I supose it is Fixed length 512 byte records).

Bojan

Re: KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:10:02 GMT

1) There is no file left when the download aborts

2) The file I'm trying to get has variable length records. Since DUMP shows no carriage-returns or other record separators after I've downloaded the file, I have nothing to set the record attributes to!

Re: KERMIT Issue

Bojan Nemec — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 11:23:09 GMT

Jack,

I am afraid this is a sending side problem. Do you know what is the remote OS? Is the file in XML format (or any other format) which dont realy need records? If so, the only solution is to write a program which will handle or convert the binary file.

Bojan

Re: KERMIT Issue

David B Sneddon — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 19:14:24 GMT

To keep the incomplete file, to try to see how
far it gets...

C-Kermit> set file incomplete keep

The "4000 bytes" you see is the negotiated packet
size used for the transfer (I think 4000 is the
default for a good connection).

Dave

Re: KERMIT Issue

David B Sneddon — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 20:06:58 GMT

Jack,

To find out what character is causing the problem,
1. do a binary download to get the whole file
2. "set file incomplete keep" to get the partial
file which should allow you to identify exactly
where it is failing with the text download
3. "set control prefixed all" and do the text
download again (this should probably work) or
once you know the "bad" character, "set control
prefixed n" where n is the ascii value of the
bad character. There may be more than one.

Dave

Re: KERMIT Issue

Jack Trachtman — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 10:34:57 GMT

David,

Thanks for the useful debugging cmds. I now get a file created but unfortunately it is 0 length! Any chance there's a problem with how KERMIT creates a VMS file?