KERMIT Issue

[Jack Trachtman]

(I thought I'd get a quicker answer here than through the developers.)

I just downloaded the latest Kermit version binary from Columbia U, ckv211-axp-vms73-ucx54.exe and am running on a VMS V7.3-2 system & TCPIP V5.4.

Whenever I try to download a file, the download aborts with "process quota exceeded" (or sometimes "can't create file" or other file error.)

I've searched the web and found references to WSMAX (which is set to 8192 on my system), and to BYTLIM (which is set very high on my account). I've tried using ANA/SYS to watch the process, but see no quota shortage.

I don't have the capability to build KERMIT from scratch so I'm stuck with the binary.

Any suggestions? TIA

[David B Sneddon · Accepted solution]

Jack

Don't underestimate the responsiveness of the
Kermit support people -- I have had responses
within 10 minutes in the past.
WSMAX of 8192 seems a bit low. What is your
page file quota? How big is the file? What
is the system at the other end? Are there any
protection issues in the directory into which
the file is going?

Regards
Dave

[Antoniov.]

Jack,
Ckermit on my system works using follow quotas:
WSMAX 65536
User quotas: all default
Use Ckermit V8.0.209, dated 03 17th, 2003

What command did you use to download (Receive, Get or Server/Put)?
Can you use other commands (Send, Put, Remote commands)?
Have you trouble even within CAUTIOUS and ROBUST commands?

Antonio Vigliotti

[Jack Trachtman]

David/Antoniov,

I'm running KERMIT in my own account (so there shouldn't be any file protection issues):

PGFLQUO 300,000
BYTLM: 5,000,000
I misstated WSMAX, it is actually 181,000.

The file I've been trying to download is from a bulletin-board system at a business partner. It is an ASCII file of about 144KB.

I've been using the RECEIVE cmd and have tried the ROBUST cmd (but not the CAUTIOUS CMD). I don't have permission to try an upload.

[Bojan Nemec]

Hi,

Have you try to get the file in binary mode? I have seen strange errors when the 32767 record size limit is exceeded.

Bojan

[Guenther Froehlin]

My guess is SYSGEN parameter MAXBUF too low for kermit's I/O requests.

/Guenther

[Jack Trachtman]

Since MAXBUF is a dynamic param, I tried changing it from 8192 to 32000, but still got the same error, show below:

*************************
RECEIVE- or GET-class command failed.
Packets received: 384
Damaged packets: 0
Timeouts: 0
Packet length: 4000
Most recent local error: "%SYSTEM-F-EXQUOTA, process quota exceeded"

[Guenther Froehlin]

Jack,

I assume you did:

SYSGEN> SET MAXBUF 32000
SYSGEN> SET ACTIVE

Is Kermit running in your interactive process
or, as a subprocess or, in a batch job?

/Guenther

[Garry Fruth]

You may want to check BIOLM.

[David B Sneddon]

Jack,

As Bojan suggested, try a binary mode transfer,
not so much for the long record sizes but I have
had instances where a "text" file happened to
contain a few non-text characters that caused the
transfer to fail (I think they were postscript
files). Does it consistently fail at the same
point? That was the symptom I was getting, but
I don't recall the error I got -- it didn't
point to what the problem was, that took a while
to track down.

Dave

[Antoniov.]

Hi,
cKermit doesn't need big quotas; on my system MAXBUF is 8192 and I can send & recevice files; here we use cKermit every day.
May be binary/text mode because in text mode receive process have to adjust new line for target operating system.
Jack,
if bullettin-board is on other vms or windows (no U*IX) you don't need adiust for text file.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Jack Trachtman]

Well, I tried the download in BINARY mode and dang if the download didn't complete! I tried another file this way and it also completed successfully. But...

I looked at the first file via DUMP and found that there were no record separators!!! So there was no way for me to use the file. So I've still go my original problem.

Please note in a previous e-mail showing KERMIT stats that there is a record size of 4000 bytes. Is this valid? Or does this indicate a problem with the sending side?

[Bojan Nemec]

Hi,

When the KERMIT crashes, do you have any part of the file? If yes, do a dir/full on this part to see file attributes (the most important is Record format).

If yours file is fixed length records, you can download it in binary mode and then modify the attributes with SET FILE/ATTRIBUTES.

If you can, please post the dir/full and the supposed file structure.

Bojan

[Antoniov.]

Jack,
SHO PROT in my cKermit display:
SYS$SYSDEVICE:[HOME.ANTONIOV] C-Kermit>sh pro
Protocol: Kermit

Protocol Parameters: Send Receive
Timeout (used= 8): 8 15 [...]
Padding: 0 0 [...]
Pad Character: 0 0 [...]
Pause: 0 0 [...]
Packet Start: 1 1 [...]
Packet End: 13 13 [...]
Packet Length: 90 4000 <-------
Maximum Length: 9024 9024 <------- Window Size: 30 set, 0 used
Buffer Size: 290015 290015 <------- Locking-Shift: enabled, not used

Auto-upload command (binary): kermit -ir
Auto-upload command (text): kermit -r
Auto-server command: kermit -x
Packet timeouts: dynamic 1:0 Send backup: on
Transfer mode: automatic Transfer slow-start: on, crc: off
Transfer character-set: transparent

Antonio Vigliotti

[Bojan Nemec]

Sorry,
I forgot to ask you for a dir/full of the binary downloaded file (I supose it is Fixed length 512 byte records).

Bojan

[Jack Trachtman]

1) There is no file left when the download aborts

2) The file I'm trying to get has variable length records. Since DUMP shows no carriage-returns or other record separators after I've downloaded the file, I have nothing to set the record attributes to!

[Bojan Nemec]

Jack,

I am afraid this is a sending side problem. Do you know what is the remote OS? Is the file in XML format (or any other format) which dont realy need records? If so, the only solution is to write a program which will handle or convert the binary file.

Bojan

[David B Sneddon]

To keep the incomplete file, to try to see how
far it gets...

C-Kermit> set file incomplete keep

The "4000 bytes" you see is the negotiated packet
size used for the transfer (I think 4000 is the
default for a good connection).

Dave

[David B Sneddon]

Jack,

To find out what character is causing the problem,
1. do a binary download to get the whole file
2. "set file incomplete keep" to get the partial
file which should allow you to identify exactly
where it is failing with the text download
3. "set control prefixed all" and do the text
download again (this should probably work) or
once you know the "bad" character, "set control
prefixed n" where n is the ascii value of the
bad character. There may be more than one.

Dave

[Jack Trachtman]

David,

Thanks for the useful debugging cmds. I now get a file created but unfortunately it is 0 length! Any chance there's a problem with how KERMIT creates a VMS file?

[Garry Fruth]

At a shop I used to work at, we would distribute software distribution kits to clients (backup savesets) via kermit. I found that zipping the files before kermit would save time. In your case, it would save time and preserve VMS file attributes (using the zip "-V" option).

[Bojan Nemec]

Jack,

I suggest you to try to download the file from another operating system (just for testing purposes) and see if record terminators are present.

Bojan

[Jack Trachtman]

ok, I've tried another VMS system with a different VMS & UCX version and had the same problem.

New info: during the download a status screen is displayed. I happened to be watching the screen when it failed and the Last Error field said something like "error writing file" before that msg was overwritten.

I'm still thinking that its not the download per se that's failing, but its KERMIT's VMS file creation & writing function. Any thoughts?

[David B Sneddon]

Jack,

I am using that same version of Kermit and use
it pretty much every day going between VMS, Linux
and MacOS X with no problems. Can you transfer
files successfully between two VMS systems?
You haven't yet identified what is at the other
end of the transfer that is failing. One of my
first questions was what was at the other end.
Is the system at the other end using a "REAL"
kermit implementation? If not, and you can
successfully transfer between VMS boxes, do you
have anywhere else to test the transfers?
Non-genuine kermit implementations are notorious
for giving Kermit a bad name (just ask Frank).
So, what excatly is at the other end?
Operating system? Kermit implementation?
You say that you get a 0 length file. When
you do a binary transfer it works -- what is the
first byte in the file?

Dave

[Bojan Nemec]

Jack,

When I write another operating system, I mean a different operating system (*NIX,MacOS,Windows etc...).

Abbout the failing VMS file creation and writing. Yes this error is probably due to VMS file record size limitations (the RMS limit for record size in sequential files is 32767). So when you do an ASCII download, Kermit creates a sequential file (probably Variable length, Stream, Stream_LF or Stream_CR, you can see this doing a dir/fu on the 0 byte file). The transffer goes record by record. All languages on VMS use RMS to handle files, also C in which Kermit is writen. If the file has a record longer than the limit, the write fails. The error must be handled by the program and if it is not handled properly you receive a strange error (in yours case "process quota exceeded").
When you do a binary download the process is slightly different. The file is splited in blocks (packets) and this blocks are writen in the file. A binary file on VMS is Fixed length 512 bytes, Record attributes none. So the program writes the file block per block and no error. Record terminators are part of the file and treated as data!
You say that when dumping the binary transfered file there was no record terminators so there are two posiblities:
1) The file on the other site is broken
2) Yours Kermit is broken

I suggest you to make a transfer from a different operating system (other operating systems has no limits on record sizes) and maybe different version of Kermit. Then inspect the file for record terminators (CR/LF pairs or LF - depends on the OS).
If there are no record terminators:
1) The file does not need record terminators (you have not answer my previous question abbout the file contents) which is the case of XML files. You must write a program which will be able to read the binary file and split the file in records so other programs will be able to read it.
2)The problem is on the other site, so you must try to fix the problem with your partner.

If there are record terminators:
1)yours Kermit is broken.
2) yours Kermit is incompatible with the other site.

Bojan