Interactive User Simulation

[Albert Öttl]

Does anyone know a quick and dirty way to simulate an interactive user in a batch and/or detached process?
I suppose, it should be possible via the pseudo-terminal device driver, but before I warm up the compiler, I would like to know if there is already a solution.
Coming to the details:
OpenVMS (AXP) 7.1-1H2, the application consist of one single MUMPS executable, no sources available.
The application can only be started interactively, but I would like to do some specific tasks like starting up and shutting down in the background.

Any ideas?

TX, Albert

[Karl Rohwedder]

May be Hunter Goatley HGLOGIN package can be of some help. It allows the login on behalf of another user with specifying a command, e.g.

$ HGLOGIN SYSTEM MAIL

You can fetch it here:
ftp://ftp.process.com/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip
http://vms.process.com/ftp/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip
ftp://ftp.tmk.com/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip http://www.tmk.com/ftp/vms-freeware/fileserv/hglogin.zip

mfg Kalle

[Albert Öttl]

Servus Kalle,
thanks for your quick reply, I will try out and report.

MFG
Albert

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Create a user, put a rlogin to the system itself in login.com (create a proxy thus no password required). Limit the number by testing a system logical value that you increase on each rlogin.

Wim

[Ian Miller.]

Do you know how the application detects that it is running in an interactive process?

[Albert Öttl]

Hi Ian,
the application does not check anything, it creates an SMG error when called in batch mode:
...
%SYSTEM-W-NODEVAVL, no device available
%SMG-F-INVPAS_ID, invalid pasteboard-id
...

Regards,
Albert

[Howard Taylor]

If you have DECset, you can use DTM (Digital Test Manager) to simulate an interactive user process. There is some overhead for DTM, but it handles terminal emulation and script recording/replaying very nicely.

What kind of MUMPS are you using - DSM?

[Albert Öttl]

Hi Howard,
I suppose, its DSM. But there is only one
big executable and of course, the database.

[Jeffery D. Urmann]

Try the following from the install directory of Mumps...

$ M Version

If it is ISM, it will tell you just that. I do not know what you will get with DSM.

sample output:
Open M [ISM] for OpenVMS V7.x (Alpha) 6.4-F.14 (build-03+JAO837)

Enjoy,

--Jeff

[Tom O'Toole]

Hi Albert,

If it is MUMPS there would be MUMPS sources available as routines in the database. Normally a mumps app is started in the following way, for example:

dsm/env=myenv ^APPSTART

where APPSTART is a routine in the database, which can be accessed in 'programmer' mode.

What exact command do you use to start the app?

[Albert Öttl]

The application consists basically of two executables (MUCXM.EXE and CXM.EXE)and a database file.
The MUCXM.EXE is started in a detached process, the user-I/O is done via CXM. The application is written in MUMPS, although there is no DSM installation. The application startup is done in two steps:
- MUCXM is started as a detached process via a command file in SYS$MANAGER (can be done in batch)
- CXM must be called twice interactively to startup the database and to start a second detached process, which stops the database and the application before backup.

CXM can be called with parameters, but there is no documentation available. The online help shows the following:

HELP CXM
CXM


C.C.S. STANDARD MUMPS V 4.0

COPYRIGHT (c) C.C.S. 1986,1993

$ CXM [parametro]

And as an example:
CXM

parametro

Ejemplo


$ CXM MGR:%SS
Ejecuta la rutina %SS de la UCI MGR

$ CXM ETC,OTH:EJEMPLO:30
Ejecuta la rutina EJEMPLO de la UCI ETC, VGR OTH con
un tamanyo de la particion de 30 Kbytes


In the meantime I tried DTM to solve the problem and it seems to work.

[Tom O'Toole]

Yeah that's definitely not DSM.

[Albert Öttl]

Hi all,
thank you for your suggestions.
I finally decided to record an interactive session via DTM on a different machine (there is no DTM installed on the target system) and to submit a batch job which plays the recorded session every morning.

Albert