SCP or SFTP to copy binary files?

[Thomas A. Williams]

I've been trying to copy some pcsi product files over (pull) from a remote node. Running into some problems.

They're on a remote node NODE2, the local node is NODE1.

These are the names of the 4 files:

DEC-AXPVMS-VMS732_F11X-V0500--4.PCSI;1
DEC-AXPVMS-VMS732_PCSI-V0300--4.PCSI;1
DEC-AXPVMS-VMS732_SYS-V1000--4.PCSI;1
DEC-AXPVMS-VMS732_UPDATE-V0600--4.PCSI;1

They reside on this directory:

NODE2::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[USER1.PATCH_200605]

and the local target directory is:

NODE1::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[SYSTEM.SOFTWARE.PATCHES.VMS732]

(1)

Using scp, I couldnt' seem to get the files to be recognized. I'm using the following syntax

scp user1@node2:[.PATCH_200605]* []

and I keep getting this error:

fcr_parse_raw: /SYS$SYSDEVICE/system/software/patches/vms732 (src): no such file (server msg: 'syserr: no such file or directory, fi
le: /SYS$SYSDEVICE/system/software/patches/vms732')

The /system/software/patches/vms732 is the path of the desination.

Should I be quoting the source? I tried it but to no avail...

(2)

using sftp, I was able to pull the files over, and I used the "binary" command prior to pulling them with the mget command. But the files were corrupt when I tried to run prod install. Any ideas why?

Thanks in advance.

[Dave Laurier]

I believe that for SFTP to work, the files should be in the following format:

- Stream_LF for text files
- Fixed length 512 bytes for binary files

Normally the PCSI files are in fixed length 512 bytes format so this should not give any problems.

Perhaps you should try to transfer the compressed PCSI archives or put them in a ZIP archive.

[Thomas A. Williams]

Thanks for the tip.

#*&()#% auditors are making us convert to SSH and we will have to disable DECnet at some point. Whole project just makes life more difficult for us... Oh well....

Any ideas on number 1?

[Richard Whalen]

on (1) - I haven't used TCP/IP Services' SCP, but the protocol that SCP uses requires a Unix-like format for file specifications. I don't know if TCP/IP Services added any code to try to convert a VMS style file specification to a Unix-like one.

Another possibility is that you need to add the qualifier saying that the destination needs to be a directory as you are expecting multiple source files.

[Dave Laurier]

What happens if you try the wildcard to be *.* or *.*;* or *.PCSI?

[Thomas A. Williams]

a combination of the previous 2 replies worked:

scp -d user1@node1:patch_200605/*.* .

But alas, problem 2 exists for this too - the files are corrupt.

[Thomas A. Williams]

>Normally the PCSI files are in fixed length 512 bytes format so this should not give any problems.

They're fixed, but 8192 byte length. I guess thats why it doesn't work.

[Volker Halle]

Thomnas,

can you reset the file attributes with SET FILE/ATTR=(...) to be the same as the original files ? Does PRODUCT INSTALL then recognize the files ?

Volker.

[Thomas A. Williams]

>can you reset the file attributes with SET FILE/ATTR=(...) to be the same as the original files ? Does PRODUCT INSTALL then recognize the files ?


Yes, I guess we can, or we can use an FDL to reset the file... But sheeesh - talk about having to jump through hoops to satisfy the auditors....

[Ian Miller.]

welcome to audit hell :-)

I find zipping a file then transfering using binary with scp works best. A current version of zip will preserve the VMS file attributes.

[Thomas A. Williams]

>welcome to audit hell :-)

ummm... Thanks? ;-)

>I find zipping a file then transfering using binary with scp works best. A current version of zip will preserve the VMS file attributes.

Good idea. Maybe we can invent some sort of wrapper script that would automatically do that for all files...

[Thomas A. Williams]

One other thing - the actual file transfer is _painfully_ slow compared to DECnet copy - I guess because of all the encryption/decryption that has to occurr...

[Ian Miller.]

Note for the future that .PCSI$COMPRESSED files are 512 byte fixed length records and do copy sucessfully.

I noticed on VMS Alpha V8.2 TCPIP V5.5 - ECO 1
scp option -p Preserve file attributes and timestamps.

I wonder if it works.

[Doug Phillips]

>>Yes, I guess we can, or we can use an FDL to reset the file... <<

Don't use convert/fdl here. Use set file/attr instead. Convert will actually change the contents of the file --- and you probably don't want to do that.

As Ian says, Zip is probably the best way.

[Thomas A. Williams]

> noticed on VMS Alpha V8.2 TCPIP V5.5 - ECO 1
scp option -p Preserve file attributes and timestamps.

>I wonder if it works.

It's also available on 7.3-2 ECO5 but no joy, didn't work...

[Thomas A. Williams]

>Don't use convert/fdl here. Use set file/attr instead. Convert will actually change the contents of the file --- and you probably don't want to do that.

Regarding that, here is analyze/RMS of both file (before and after)

Before:
File Organization: sequential
Record Format: fixed
Record Attributes:
Maximum Record Size: 8192
Longest Record: 8192

After:
File Organization: sequential
Record Format: stream-LF
Record Attributes: carriage-return
Maximum Record Size: 0
Longest Record: 32767

I was able to set the record format and record attributes using:

set file/attr=RAT:NONE
set file/attr=RFM:FIX

but when I tried to set the block size like so:

set file/attr=BKS:8192

I get this error:

%SET-E-SYNTAX, error parsing '8192'

and

set file/attr=BKS:8

Succeeds but doesn't change these 2 lines:

Maximum Record Size: 0
Longest Record: 32767

What am I doing wrong?

[Jim_McKinney]

$ set file/attr=(lrl:8192,mrs:8192) filename

[Steven Schweda]

When in doubt on SET FILE /ATTRIBUTES, it
pays to find an example like
RESET_BACKUP_SAVESET_FILE_ATTRIBUTES.COM.

[Thomas A. Williams]

OK - good advice. I got this as a result of your suggestions:

File Organization: sequential
Record Format: stream-LF
Record Attributes: carriage-return
Maximum Record Size: 8192
Longest Record: 8192
Blocks Allocated: 1900, Default Extend Size: 0
End-of-File VBN: 1889, Offset: %X'0000'
File Monitoring: disabled
Global Buffer Count: 0
*** VBN 1887: Last stream record does not contain a delimiter.
Unrecoverable error encountered in structure of file.


Whats up with that error?

(At least the record size looks good....)

[Volker Halle]

Thomas,

the file has still STREAM-LF and carriage-control:

$ SET FILE/ATTR=(RFM:FIX,RAT:NONE)

Volker.

[Jim_McKinney]

You haven't matched your previous record attributes and format...

$ set file/attr=(rat:none,rfm:fix) filename

[Steven Schweda]

> Record Format: stream-LF

What happened to RFM:FIX?

You should use one big SET FILE /ATTR
command with all the important stuff in it.

[Jim_McKinney]

oops, a little late with my previous reply - Volker has already answered.

Regarding

> Whats up with that error?

RMS expects to carriage control - this file doesn't have any.

[Thomas A. Williams]

In regards to the CONVERT/FDL modifying the data: I was considering writing a script to copy files over the network with SCP and SSH. I was going to do an ANALYZE/RMS/FDL on the original file, then ship over that file and the FDL file, tnen use SSH to run the CONVERT utility and fix the file format. Any ideas?

[Steven Schweda]

If this sort of thing (UNIX-y file transfer
of files with non-UNIX-y file attributes)
will recur with any frequency, you might
enjoy the process more if you insinuate
Zip and UnZip (or BACKUP, or something) into
it to preserve those file attributes.

The extra steps involved would add annoyance,
but you'd get the right attributes on the
resulting files automatically.

Doing it all with FDL files sounds to me like
too much extra work, but that could work, too.