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Re: Common Accountng File

 
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VMS Support
Frequent Advisor

Common Accountng File

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)
15 REPLIES 15
Jan van den Ende
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Common Accountng File

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
Don't rust yours pelled jacker to fine doll missed aches.
VMS Support
Frequent Advisor

Re: Common Accountng File

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.

Lokesh_2
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File

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
What would you do with your life if you knew you could not fail?
Lokesh_2
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File

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

Best regards,
Lokesh

What would you do with your life if you knew you could not fail?
VMS Support
Frequent Advisor

Re: Common Accountng File

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.
Lokesh_2
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File

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
What would you do with your life if you knew you could not fail?
Jan van den Ende
Honored Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File

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
Don't rust yours pelled jacker to fine doll missed aches.
Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File

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.
Willem Grooters
Honored Contributor

Re: Common Accountng File



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.

Willem Grooters
OpenVMS Developer & System Manager