OpenVMS 7.3-2 SYSUAF Changes

[VMS Support]

I have been told that changes have been made to the format of SYSUAF between 7.2-1H1 and 7.3-2.
I have built a new cluster (7.3-2) and copied the SYSUAF and RIGHTLIST from our current 7.2-1H1 cluster. This has been running for a couple of months like this with no UAF or Rightlist issues. Accounts have been added/deleted/modified. I have since been told that maybe this was not a good idea, due to changes in UAF in 7.3-2.
The idea was that when our 7.3-2 server goes live we take a snapshot of the UAF on current live (7.2-1H1). everyone has the same Username/password on Monday (New live) that they were using on Friday (Old live).

[Heinz W Genhart]

Hi

we are using over 100 OpenVMS Servers and aprox. 700 Workstations. We built most of the Systemdisks a long time ago (5-10 Years) and we did updates until today (OpenVMS 7.3-2).

We never recognized a problem with sysuaf and rightslist.

Regards

Heinz

[Joseph Huber_1]

What is the source of "been told" ?

Release notes ? Inst&Upgrade manual ?

I don't belief it, since I am (was) running a mixed cluster of Alphas and Vaxen since VMS 6.1 with a common SYSUAF created under 6.* .

[Ian Miller.]

There are optional additional fields such as posix GID/UID. As these are optional then there is no problem copying a UAF from an older version of VMS.

[Joseph Huber_1]

Oh, even VMS/VAX 5.* and VMS/AXP 1.5 was already clustered, and SYSUAF is
Directory SYS$COMMON:[SYSEXE]
SYSUAF.DAT;6 29-NOV-1992

This was before Alphas were available.

[Volker Halle · Accepted solution]

Can - whoever said this - substantiate this with references to OpenVMS release notes or new feature manuals ?

The $UAFDEF module, which defines the record structure of the SYSUAF file, did not change for quite some time. I just compared an OpenVMS VAX V6.2 $UAFDEF with an OpenVMS I64 V8.2 $UAFDEF - just 6 new bits defined for lowercase passwords and similar.

Try for yourself using $ SEARCH SYS$LIBRARY:LIB.REQ UAF$
and compare the results from your V7.2-1H1 and V7.3-2 system disks.

The same should be true for RIGHTSLIST.DAT

There are various possible strategies for copying/merging SYSUAF and RIGHTLIST files.

You should compare your current RIGHTSLIST files between the 2 systems and make sure, that the same identifiers map to the same UICs/numbers on both systems.

Volker.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

The format of the SYSUAF.DAT, RIGHTSLIST, and
associated files are upward-compatible, and compatible across OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS I64 systems. (This compatibility is a a basic requirement of mixed-version OpenVMS Cluster configurations).

Wim

[VMS Support]

Does that mean we cant use these fields (GID/UID) now that I'm using a V7.2-1H1 UAF ?

[Kris Clippeleyr]

Hi,

AFAIK the internal structure of SYSUAF hasn't changed between V7.2-1 and V7.3-2.
There were some issues with the $GETUAI and $SETUAI system services when going from V6.1 to V6.2 (items that could be read but could not be set).
Hope this helps.
Kris (aka Qkcl)

[VMS Support]

Thank you all for your responses. As we can see that the definitions haven't changed we are happy that this will be fully supported.