How to port OpenVMS ECO Kits from Windows ZIP to OpenVMS Media

[Mirza Rizwan Ahmed]

I downloaded following ECO Kits for OpenVMS 6.2 1h3 in zip form (One bundle File) under ms.windows 2000 o/s.

ALPBOOT13_062
ALPCLUSIO01_062
ALPLAN06_062

Then I uncompressed this bundle zip in windows hard drive which become three seperate files.
1. ALPBOOT13_062.A-DCX_AXPEXE
2. ALPCLUSIO01_062.A-DCX_AXPEXE
3. ALPLAN06_062.A-DCX_AXPEXE

My point is how can I port these files on CD which can recognized by OpenVMS O/s?

[Volker Halle]

Rizwan Ahmed,

if you have a TCPIP product installed on your OpenVMS system, copy the files with FTP in binary mode. You would then need to RUN ... them on the OpenVMS system to obtain the installable savesets.

Kermit also comes to mind, so you could copy the files using a serial line, if you don't have TCPIP on the Alpha.

OpenVMS V6.2 should be able to read ISO 9660 CDs, but I don't know of a Windows tool to create those CDs and maintain the file attributes, so that OpenVMS can correctly read the files.

Volker.

[Robert Gezelter]

Mirza Rizwan Ahmed,

The first step is to discard the files that were UNZIP'ped under Windows.

The preferred way to transfer the ZIP archives to OpenVMS from Windows is the FTP utility, provided that you have TCP/IP connectivity between the two systems. Please be sure to transfer the ZIP archives in BINARY mode, to wit (in FTP):

user xxx
password xxx
binary
put .zip
exit

Where the user and password lines are the user and password needed to access an account on the OpenVMS system. Then LOGIN to the OpenVMS system and user the UNZIP utility (available on the Freeware CDROM) to unpack the archive.

The files that you named appear to be self-extracting files. Use the RUN command on each file in turn to unpack the files.

I hope that the above is useful.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Robert Gezelter]

Mirza Rizwan Ahmed,

A small clarification on a possibility that was mentioned by Volker:

You can burn the underlying ZIP archive onto a ISO 9660 CDROM, and then read the resulting CDROM on OpenVMS.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Steven Schweda]

> The first step is to discard the files
> that were UNZIP'ped under Windows.

This may be advisable, but it may not be
necessary.

The files you will need on the VMS system are
the BACKUP save sets, "*.A". These must be
created on a VMS system for two reasons:
1) That's the only way to get the file
attributes right.
2) "-DCX_AXPEXE" implies that these files
were compressed using a VMS-proprietary
compress-expand method, and I know of no
non-VMS program which can expand them.

However, the "-DCX_AXPEXE" files are
(self-extracting) executables, and VMS is
fairly tolerant of unusual file attributes on
executables. Without trying it, I can't
guarantee that it will work, but it's
_possible_ that you _can_ put the
"-DCX_AXPEXE" files onto an ISO 9660 CD on a
Windows system, and that a VMS system _could_
use them successfully.

Note that for (Zip-compressed-only)
"_SFX_AXPEXE" files, this would probably not
work so well. These expand directly into
the VMS product files, so they must be
expanded (UnZipped) on a VMS system, if you
want the proper file attributes.

Doing the UnZip on VMS is safer, but for
"-DCX_AXPEXE" files, you would need to run
the experiment to see if is required. (My
guess is that it would work either way.)

If you don't already have current Info-ZIP
programs on your VMS system (UnZip 5.52, Zip
2.32), you should be able to find them near:

http://www.info-zip.org/

[Hoff · Accepted solution]

The central rational these file organizations and this packaging and of the use of DCX and zip is (bluntly) to protect these files from Windows, Linux and other platforms, and from the corruptions that arise during FTP-based file transfers and when these files are temporarily resident on other platforms.

Get the native zip for OpenVMS. It's on the Freeware distro, and it is also available for download from the Freeware web site.

As for using zip on other platforms, the Windows unzip does not know what to do with the zip "-V" notation, which means Windows unzip will strip off the OpenVMS file attributes when it restores the file. The OpenVMS zip does know what to do with the "-V" mechanism within zip, and unzip will restore the files correctly.

http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/freeware

Look in 000TOOLS directory on Freeware V8.0.

As others have stated, the DCX stuff itself is a self-extracting executable image.

To get the files over to VMS, load the unzip image (if you don't have a Freeware disk) and the zip archive files onto an ISO-9660 CD created with CDburnerXP Pro -- www.cdburnerxp.se/ -- the commercial CD recording tools for Windows are amazingly spotty in their abilities to perform simple tasks, and this Free tool works for both baseline ISO-9660 images and for re-generating raw disk images -- and generate the CD with strict ISO-9660 (1988) structures, and ensure that you do not enable Joliet or any other extensions on the disk.

Or connect the systems up on a network, and use FTP to transfer the bits over.

Once you have the bits over, use unzip on OpenVMS or related tools.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs LLC

[Mirza Rizwan Ahmed]

Now I am able to create an ISO9660 Image and successafully burnt the CD with OpenVMS ECO KIt Bundle and unzip tools. The CD contents are following.

unzip.exe
zip.exe
define_t.com
OpenVMS_.zip

Where as the actual file name of ECO kit was "openvms_alpha_6_2-1h3_06160352.zip" which get truncated to 8+3.

Should I run first unzip.exe image to install freeware unzip and then by using unzip uncompress the OpenVMS_.zip ECO package?

ALPCLUSIO01_ eco kit is already installed in my system do I still need to install again from this package?

In what order I should install these three (3) ECOs?

Regards,
Rizwan Ahmed

[Volker Halle]

Rizwan Ahmed,

did you successfully mount the ISO 9660 CD on your OpenVMS V6.2-1H3 system ?

UNZIP.EXE is the UNZIP image, not some 'installer package'. Copy the file to your OpenVMS disk and define a foreign command:

$ unzip :==$device:unzip.exe

Then unzip the OpenVMS_.ZIP archive:

$ unzip device:openvms_.zip

This should create the 3 patch *.A-DCX_AXPEXE files in your default directory.

Then uncompress the savesets by running them:

$ RUN ALPBOOT13_062.A-DCX_AXPEXE
$ RUN ALPLAN06_062.A-DCX_AXPEXE

This should created ALPLAN06_062.A and ALPBOOT13_062.A

If the ALPCLUSIO01_062 kit has already been installed, you don't have to install it again.

The order of installing the other 2 kits does not matter. Both require, that the ALPCLUSIO01_062 kit has already been installed.

Volker.

[Steven Schweda]

If everything works, you can ignore me, but ...

> did you successfully mount the ISO 9660 CD [...]

And if not, we may need the details of how
you were "able to create an ISO9660 Image".

And "openvms_alpha_6_2-1h3_06160352.zip" is
the file you downloaded, before any UnZip was
done on the Windows system?