topic Re: Interactive User Simulation in Operating System - OpenVMS

Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 03:59:21 GMT

Does anyone know a quick and dirty way to simulate an interactive user in a batch and/or detached process?
I suppose, it should be possible via the pseudo-terminal device driver, but before I warm up the compiler, I would like to know if there is already a solution.
Coming to the details:
OpenVMS (AXP) 7.1-1H2, the application consist of one single MUMPS executable, no sources available.
The application can only be started interactively, but I would like to do some specific tasks like starting up and shutting down in the background.

Any ideas?

TX, Albert

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Karl Rohwedder — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:19:25 GMT

May be Hunter Goatley HGLOGIN package can be of some help. It allows the login on behalf of another user with specifying a command, e.g.

$ HGLOGIN SYSTEM MAIL

You can fetch it here:
ftp://ftp.process.com/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip
http://vms.process.com/ftp/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip
ftp://ftp.tmk.com/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip http://www.tmk.com/ftp/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip

mfg Kalle

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 05:09:54 GMT

Servus Kalle,
thanks for your quick reply, I will try out and report.

MFG
Albert

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 06:16:08 GMT

Create a user, put a rlogin to the system itself in login.com (create a proxy thus no password required). Limit the number by testing a system logical value that you increase on each rlogin.

Wim

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Ian Miller. — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 06:22:43 GMT

Do you know how the application detects that it is running in an interactive process?

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:42:13 GMT

Hi Ian,
the application does not check anything, it creates an SMG error when called in batch mode:
...
%SYSTEM-W-NODEVAVL, no device available
%SMG-F-INVPAS_ID, invalid pasteboard-id
...

Regards,
Albert

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Howard Taylor — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 23:18:03 GMT

If you have DECset, you can use DTM (Digital Test Manager) to simulate an interactive user process. There is some overhead for DTM, but it handles terminal emulation and script recording/replaying very nicely.

What kind of MUMPS are you using - DSM?

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:20:09 GMT

Hi Howard,
I suppose, its DSM. But there is only one
big executable and of course, the database.

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Jeffery D. Urmann — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:03:07 GMT

Try the following from the install directory of Mumps...

$ M Version

If it is ISM, it will tell you just that. I do not know what you will get with DSM.

sample output:
Open M [ISM] for OpenVMS V7.x (Alpha) 6.4-F.14 (build-03+JAO837)

Enjoy,

--Jeff

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Tom O'Toole — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:30:42 GMT

Hi Albert,

If it is MUMPS there would be MUMPS sources available as routines in the database. Normally a mumps app is started in the following way, for example:

dsm/env=myenv ^APPSTART

where APPSTART is a routine in the database, which can be accessed in 'programmer' mode.

What exact command do you use to start the app?

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:29:25 GMT

The application consists basically of two executables (MUCXM.EXE and CXM.EXE)and a database file.
The MUCXM.EXE is started in a detached process, the user-I/O is done via CXM. The application is written in MUMPS, although there is no DSM installation. The application startup is done in two steps:
- MUCXM is started as a detached process via a command file in SYS$MANAGER (can be done in batch)
- CXM must be called twice interactively to startup the database and to start a second detached process, which stops the database and the application before backup.

CXM can be called with parameters, but there is no documentation available. The online help shows the following:

HELP CXM
CXM

C.C.S. STANDARD MUMPS V 4.0

COPYRIGHT (c) C.C.S. 1986,1993

$ CXM [parametro]

And as an example:
CXM

parametro

Ejemplo

$ CXM MGR:%SS
Ejecuta la rutina %SS de la UCI MGR

$ CXM ETC,OTH:EJEMPLO:30
Ejecuta la rutina EJEMPLO de la UCI ETC, VGR OTH con
un tamanyo de la particion de 30 Kbytes

In the meantime I tried DTM to solve the problem and it seems to work.

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Tom O'Toole — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:59:46 GMT

Yeah that's definitely not DSM.

Re: Interactive User Simulation

Albert Öttl — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 03:16:55 GMT

Hi all,
thank you for your suggestions.
I finally decided to record an interactive session via DTM on a different machine (there is no DTM installed on the target system) and to submit a batch job which plays the recorded session every morning.

Albert