interactive login issue

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] dumb question.

You call _this_ dumb? Nah. The really
stupid questions are the ones like, "I did
something and it didn't work. What's wrong?"
These are often posted in the wrong forum,
too, which makes them even more annoying.
I'd take someone who'd include the "show
time" transcript _any_ time, in exchange for
a no-brainer who can't describe actions and
symptoms.

Date blindness is a recurring problem. I
have a similar problem with code blindness.

[Adam Garsha]

To round out the case documentation; this link was helpful in understanding VMS license commands:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_9694.html

[Hoff]

I have licensing information and LMF-related troubleshooting posted, starting at:

http://64.223.189.234/node/31

and at:

http://64.223.189.234/node/118

or by using the licensing keyword at:

http://64.223.189.234/taxonomy/term/28

There's a write-up on registering PAKs when LMF won't let you log into the system, as well.

[DECxchange]

Hello,
Many times, some VMS licenses have key termination dates. This is shown on your paper license PAK. PAK stands for Product Authorization Key. Forgive me if you already know some of the things I exoplain here.

In the case of trial licenses and your campuswide licenses, they have a key terination date. If you can find your original license PAK, or perhaps your license CD, you will find the date in which your licenses will terminate.

Also, you can find this out by typing at the VMS prompt,
$ license issue
where is one of the license names listed avove, e.g.,
$ license issue ada

This will list out all of the parameters on your paper PAK, which would be all the info you nead to load a license via the license management utility.

So, I would find out the expiration date of your campuswide licenses and be sure to get renewed before then, as you serendiptiously discovered here! ;)

Anyway, you probably know by now that your error message at login was due to the VMS license being terminated due to the date being wrong on your system, which consequently, was set for AFTER your PAK termination date!

Good luck!

[Adam Garsha]

yes, once I was pointed to the date descrepancy all was well and access regained (after correcting the date).

[John Gillings]

Adam,
Further comments about PAK termination dates -

$ SHOW LICENSE/WARN=days

will generate a warning if any PAKs will expire within the number of days you specify:

$ show lic/warn=60

Active licenses on node TEST:

------- Product ID -------- ---- Rating ----- -- Version --
Product Producer Units PCL Activ Version Release Termination
C HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 9-JAN-2008
COBOL HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 9-JAN-2008
CXX-V HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 22-JAN-2008
FORMS HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 22-JAN-2008
LSE HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 9-JAN-2008
OPENVMS-I64-MCOE HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 22-JAN-2008
PASCAL HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 9-JAN-2008
VAXSET HP 0 1 0 0.0 (none) 9-JAN-2008
%SHOW-I-TERMIMM, 5 licenses have terminated or will terminate in 60 days


More importantly, multiple PAKs for the same product name are combined into a single "live" PAK. Sometimes the meaning of combine is fairly intuitive, like UNITS are added together. However, for dates (termination, product release etc...), the EARLIEST date is used in the combined PAK.
Thus a single terminated PAK can "contaminate" any number of unterminated PAKs. If you depend on any of the PAK types with termination dates, make sure you clean out your LMF of old, terminated, or near to termination PAKs whenever you register new PAKs.