Write TAR/BACKUP to RAW Disk(VMS), Read on UNIX (HPUX) - Possible?

[Alzhy]

As out network bandwidth between our VMS systems and UNIX systems are just 10 Mbps, we have a need to periodically copy large datafiles (mostly ASCII and graphics files) from VMS to UNIX as part of a migration. As the environments are connected to the same SAN, we can present LUNS that are both available on the two environments - and we'd like to use these LUNs accordingly - use it as a RAW evice for VMS tar or backup utility and read it off an HPUX server.
.
Is this possible?
.
Anyone done this yet?

[Antoniov.]

Hi Nelson,
I don't known system you have described but AFAIK tar and backup are not compatibile.
You could see
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_2311.html
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_2162.html
and you can find VMS tar reading
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_0880.html

Thees are only clues no solution.
Bye
Antoniov

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

There is no such thing as a "raw" device under OpenVMS, disks are always formatted either as ODS-2 or ODS-5 volumes. You might get away using th program that allows you to read ODS-2 structured disks on Unix.

Check here for availablity:

http://www.goatley.com/hunter/w2k.html

(Yupp, W2k, since it is also available for Windows).

Else you could write a Tape on VMS and read that on the Unix box. Also since you refer to ASCII data, compressing them using Zip might allow you to use your slow network nevertheless.

[Antoniov.]

Hi Nelson,
if you have TCP/IP installed on VMS you also have two ways:
1) using FTP, you should write som script to transfer files;
2) activate NFS if is avaiable on unix; in this case the NFS volume is accessible by unix and vms in the same SAN.
Alternativly there is a software calles samba to exchange data between different OS.

H.T.H.
Antoniov

[Hein van den Heuvel]

This exercise is on my 'list of things to do some day'. Sofar I have gotten by with a network link. But I'd like to try the 'raw' device solution for say a ZIP or TAR archive, as well as for an Oracle data file.

How about using an intermediate, non-native-to-either, file structure? Like a PC FAT structure? There are tools on both VMS and Unix for that no?

>There is no such thing as a "raw" device
> under OpenVMS, disks are always formatted > either as ODS-2 or ODS-5 volumes.

Nonsense! Of course there are raw devices!
You can just open "DKA100:". You'd need LOGIO priv, and it is not done much, but hey it can be done!
Check out DUMP/BLO=(STA:x,COU:y) dev:
That using a disk as a raw device!

And you can even use DCL. As prove I submit a little Hack i wrote once when my MFD [0,0] 'accidently' lost it's directory attribute, after which you can only use the disk as raw device!

================================================================================
Note 3098.3 SET FILE/NODIR [000000]000000.dir ! 3 of 4
xxx::VANDENHEUVEL "Things that make you think, Hmmm" 30 lines 6-DEC-1994 11:08
-< Nothing a little DCL could not fix :-) >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hmmm,
Fixing a hosed 000000.DIR file header sounds just the thing for PATCH.
Lacking that on Alpha, why not use for a little DCL instead.
Something along the following lines should do:

$mount/for mess:
$open/read/write broken mess:
$x="1234"
$x[0,32]=1
$read/key=&x broken home
$ibmaplbn = f$cvsi(24*8,32,home)
$ibmapsize = f$cvsi(32*8,16,home)
$x[0,32]= ibmaplbn + ibmapsize - 1 + 4 ! MFD = (4,4), VBN = LBN -1
$read/key=&x broken mfd
$filechar= f$cvsi(52*8,32,mfd)
$fid = f$cvsi(8*8,32,mfd)
$write sys$output f$fao("!XL !XL", fid, filechar) ! 0004004 00000080
$mfd[52*8,32]= filechar + 8192 ! FCH$M_DIRECTORY
$check = f$cvsi(510*8,16,mfd)
$mfd[510*8,16]= check + 8192
$write/update/symbol broken mfd
$close broken
$dism/nounl mess
$moun mess presto!

-------------------------------------
Cheers,
Hein.

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Hein,

very impressive hack, but have you actually ever tried to put (and read) data on such a "raw" device in a tar archive or backup saveset? ;-)

Greetings, Martin