topic Re: Common Accountng File in Operating System - OpenVMS

Common Accountng File

VMS Support — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 04:27:55 GMT

I have a cluster with two system disk (Hetrogenous). The accountng.dat (Was it version <=3 that limited file names to 9 characters ?) is currently located in the default location. I would like to make one common accounting file, on a shared disk of course. The disk being mounted via a call in sylogicals. I used to have some code to handle this. But this was about 8 years ago !

I know some of the process ...
Define logical ACCOUNTNG
$SET ACC/NEW - pick up new common file.
However its the process for forcing each node in the cluster to use the same file after a single node has issued the $SET ACC/NEW to rollover the file. This node will use the new file ..but other nodes will use the old version.

Any contributions welcome.

Thanks
Kevin Raven (London UK)

Re: Common Accountng File

Jan van den Ende — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 04:50:27 GMT

Kevin,

you are already sooo close!

Just issue $SET ACC/NEW from each node (or by SYSMAN) will do the trick.

However, we do it a little differently.
We also have the common environment.
But our logical ACCOUNTNG (do not forget /EXEC !) is to _ACCOUNTNG.DAT in that environment.
Every day at 3 seconds after midnight we do SET ACCO/NEW on each node, and rename the old files from .DAT to .
Noe we still have all acco info available on a per node/per day basis.
And... we have a logical ACCNT as :*_ACCOUNTNG.DAT.

For normal use, ACCO ACCNT instead of ACCO ACCOUNTNG gives clusterwide info, but every so often it can be quite usefull to nail a process down to a specific node.

FWIW.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Common Accountng File

VMS Support — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 04:59:27 GMT

Will just a SET ACC/NEW on both nodes work?

Example of what I want and end up with :-(

Node ALPHA1 and ALPHA2
Disk dsa1: - Mounted on both nodes

On both nodes (ALPHA1 and ALPHA2)
$DEF/SYS/EXEC ACCOUNTG DSA1:[TEST]COMMON_ACC.DAT

On ALPHA1
$Set acc/new
Now uses DSA1:[TEST]COMMON_ACC.DAT;1
Version 1

On ALPHA2
$Set acc/new
Now uses DSA1:[TEST]COMMON_ACC.DAT;2
Version 2

What I would like is both using one version of file.

Re: Common Accountng File

Lokesh_2 — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 05:08:19 GMT

Hi Kevin,

Why you want common accounting file?

Put the node specific accounting file in commom disk/directory (as Jan suggested) and I guess that will sever the purpose of moving the file off system disk.

Thanks & regards,
Lokesh

Re: Common Accountng File

Lokesh_2 — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 05:10:55 GMT

sorry for the typo, replace "sever" with "serve" in my previous post.

Best regards,
Lokesh

Re: Common Accountng File

VMS Support — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 05:34:08 GMT

We run a regular security routine (Command file) that gerenerates reports from the accountng.dat file. Just trying to tidy things up by having one shared copy of the file. At the moment we run the command file twice (one on each node). System disk only mounted on node booted from it, all other disks shared (mounted/cluster).
Of course I could have two copies of accounting file in common area (One per node) and have one command file that runs once , but reads from both files.
I'm sure several years ago ..in my Digital days , based in London/Newbury/Reading , we had a shared accountng.dat file on our ALL-IN-1 clusters. Distant memory now. Left Compaq 5 years ago ...in fact to the day almost.

Re: Common Accountng File

Lokesh_2 — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 05:49:47 GMT

Hi Kevin,

Accounting utility accepts multiple input files, so that you can use multiple accounting files to generate a single report.

for exam

$ACCOUN ACCOUNTING_NODEA.DAT,ACCOUNTING_NODEB.DAT

HTH,
Thanks & regards,
Lokesh

Re: Common Accountng File

Jan van den Ende — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 06:36:51 GMT

Re Lokesh:

... which is exactly what we do!
And also on a daily basis, and rather extensive.
(one of our applics does the tracing by writing USER records to the accountng file for every query and avery mutation, which are mined for legal reporting).
Only defference: we us a single logical name that wildcards the multiple files.

I never tried a single multinode accountng file; could it be you remember the single ACCO command, but might it have had a multifile input specification?

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Common Accountng File

Volker Halle — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:37:40 GMT

Kevin,

I don't think this will work. It looks like JOB_CONTROL opens the ACCOUNTNG.DAT file:

FAC: 01 PUT
SHR: 42 SHRGET,UPI

which would probably NOT allow multiple shared writers.

If you don't want to change your existing procedure and not add multiple accounting file names, you may be able to append the files and use the resulting file for your reports.

Volker.

Re: Common Accountng File

Willem Grooters — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:18:39 GMT

Obviously!

Accounting is done on a node-by-node basis. It contains clues on usage of THAT node. No way to tamper the data (Don't trust system managers - and system programmers even less :D)

SET ACC/NEW will create a new file FOR THAT NODE, so you'll have to change your algorithm, using a file per node (can be on a common disk) and name each file in the ACC command analyzing them into one output file.

Re: Common Accountng File

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:35:45 GMT

Note that the node name is not in the accounting report. So, you loose info if everything was in 1 file. If it is possible.

Wim

Re: Common Accountng File

Jan van den Ende — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 09:38:58 GMT

Volker, Wim,

combining your entries, you loose the node-info upon appending!
Note, that the first 3 (hex) digits of the PID specify a VMS instance (well, for completeness, the third digit can then be even or odd)
So, you can identify processes from a single boot from a node. And if you have a batch queue that contains the nodename (as I understand most of us have), than you can find the nodename even afterwards...

hth,

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Common Accountng File

Tom O'Toole — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 11:20:21 GMT

The only way I can think of to do what you want is to redirect accountng to a mailbox, or decnet task controlled by a process which just combines its inputs from different nodes. A spooled device to a symbiont process to do the same thing might also work.

Re: Common Accountng File

Steve Nimr — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 12:51:54 GMT

To build on Lokesh's idea:
$ACCOUN -ACCOUNTING_NODEA.DAT,ACCOUNTING_NODEB.DAT/binary/out=common_accounting.dat

Then run the accounting report on the file common_accounting.dat

Re: Common Accountng File

Jan van den Ende — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 15:52:18 GMT

Steve,

back to the same issue: you merged the files, but lost the node info.

Just defining a searchlist for your input files gives you the same compactness, but leaves your node-specificity (like indicated above)

Proost.

Have on eon me.

jpe

Re: Common Accountng File

VMS Support — Mon, 09 May 2005 08:56:53 GMT

Thanks for all the help guys.