ESRI SDE cannot access /etc/services

[Carlos Yáñez]

Hi,
we have some problems running the geographic information system ESRI SDE after we installed HP Openview en the same box.
The machine also hosts a informiz db server. Due this reason we are currently running Network Node Manager, cause we couldn´t start up Oracle for OpenView required to run OV Operantions.

After the OV installation procedure it's impossible to start esri_sde. The error message says it cannot locate the service in /etc/service although it is properly defined in
that file:

esri_sde 5150/tcp
esri_tcp 1548/tcp

Other TCP-based services are working fine.(like telnet, ftp,etc)

There are also reported problems with connection attempt with other ODBC services.

We also tried the start-up with all OV services shut down, but the issue persists.

Regards,
Carlos Yanez S.

[Patrick Wallek]

What are the permissions on /etc/services? It should be 444 (-r--r--r--).

[Steven E. Protter]

No firewalls messing with you on those ports?

SEP

[Carlos Yáñez]

Hi,
initially /etc/services has 444 permisssions.
We are currently trying with 777.
There is also no firewall in the scope of interest.

Regards,
Carlos Yáñe

[Carlos Yáñez]

/etc/services belongs to bin user and bin group.

Regards,
Carlos Yanez S.

[Bill Hassell]

Please do not leave /etc/services at 777. This permission makes the file executable (which makes no sense) and it also means that every user on your system can now destroy the file. The correct permissions for *all* applications is 444, owned by bin:bin. You need to cal the vendor for ESRI to get the real reason for the problems. My guess is that it is due to local and shared memory limits with 32bit applications. There are numerous postings in the ITRC about memory issues with large programs like NNM and Oracle and other programs as 32bit programs. Your ESRI program is not properly documenting the failures. Ask the vendor for the detailed log information where you can see the Unix errors (like errno 12 which is a memory limit error).

[Carlos Yáñez]

Bill,
don't worry. 777 permissions only was set temporarily.
Just, for the record is the exact error that ESRI sends:

-------------------------------------------------------
ESRI SDE I/O Manager - Version 3.0.2.2 Fri Dec 31 06:48:56 PST 1999
-------------------------------------------------------
17:39:20 (ESRI) OUT: SdeServer sde@pluton

/users/sde/sdeexe302/etc/dbinit.sde not found or not readable,
defaulting to your current DBMS environment.

SDE_Database Error: -1
S1000
ODBC Error: S1000
Database Error: -931
Error Message: [Informix][Odbc Informix Driver][Informix]Cannot locate esri_tcp service/tcp service in /etc/servic
es.
DB_open_security Connect Error (-51)
SDE_Database Error: -51
S1000
ODBC Error: S1000
Database Error: -931
Error Message: [Informix][Odbc Informix Driver][Informix]Cannot locate esri_tcp service/tcp service in /etc/servic
es.
init_DB DB_connect error: -51
DBMS error code: -931
[Informix][Odbc Informix Driver][Informix]Cannot locate esri_tcp service/tcp service in /etc/services.
S1000
17:39:20 (ESRI) IN: SdeServer sde@pluton
Could not start SDE -- Check Network, $SDEHOME disk and DBMS.

Regards,
Carlos Yanez S.

[Ermin Borovac]

Any funny characters in /etc/services?

$ grep esri /etc/services | cat -vet

[Bill Hassell]

OK, check on /etc. Programs cannot find files if the directory doesn't have correct permissions. ll -d /etc should show 755, owned by bin:bin

Note: /etc/services is more of a documentation file and many programs that use ports listed in /etc/services really don't care whether the port is listed. It becomes the 'official' name and documentation for a service. Programs that call getservent() will search the services file.

BTW: Make sure that *NONE* of the service lines are indented! From the man page for services:

A line cannot start with a space or tab. Items are separated by any number of blanks (space or tab characters in any combination). The port number and protocol name are considered a single item. A / is used to separate the port and protocol (for example, 512/tcp). A # character indicates the beginning of a comment. Characters from the # to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file.

Try this:

grep "^ " /etc/services

If any lines are found, edit and remove all leading spaces.

NOTE: what does this line show?

grep services /etc/nsswitch.conf

If nis is listed and you have an NIS server, then change nsswitch.conf to have the services line read:

services: files

(or go to the NIS owner and have the esri_ lines added to the NIS server)


Now try starting the ESRI program.

[Isralyn Manalac_1]

Hi Carlos,

How about the error message concerning:

/users/sde/sdeexe302/etc/dbinit.sde not found or not readable

This file contains the Oracle home and SID definition, among others. I'm assuming that because this file doesn't exist (or not readable), the error in /etc/services is only a resultant of that.

Have you also tried performing an lmutil to reread the license file?

Regards,

Isralyn

[Carlos Yáñez]

Thanks all of you for valueable support.
There was a incompatibility with the version of libc.
The related patches are:
PHCO_31903 LIB_C
PHCO_25569 header lib_C
PHSS_31000 ld
PHSS_30970 X/MOTIF

We uninstalled them and now the system works fine.

Regards,
Carlos Y