[daip] Re: wierd problems with aips configuration

[Eric Greisen]

Kelley McDonald writes:

 > Hoping you can help me debug a problem we have with our
 > aips configuration (we have several versions installed, but none
 > seem to be working exactly correctly).  For example, we
 > have configured NETSP to allow all reserved disks to be
 > accessible by user id 999 (which we use as a aips administrator
 > id), but whenever I try to be user id 999, aips hangs, does not
 > go any farther in the startup.  Also, other users have
 > experienced no problems, while yet other users (different
 > user ids) have been only able to access the aips data disk
 > on their workstation and disk 1 (when they are allowed to 
 > access many other disks according to NETSP).
 > 
 > Any idea what might be causing this?  Let me know if
 > you need additional information.  To me it seems that
 > something got corrupted somewhere, but our installed
 > versions are static...and up until a couple of weeks
 > ago we haven't seen any of these problems.
 > 

I do not know what any of the names mean in your DADEVS.LIST file but
I know that the setup you have created is an invitation to total
disaster.

As an aips user you must mount all of the disk drives in that list.
This means that all of those computers must be up and must allow you
write access to the data directories.  And any time you create an aips
data set all of those disks will be accessed.  For the user numbers
that are more restricted, all of the disks are still mounted but some
are wasting time enormously - you must wait on them but cannot use
them.

The inclusion of the data area into aips occurs at the start up not
when the user number is typed so all disks will always show to every
user.  I do not understand the symptoms you report at all.  Everyone
should experience much difficulty.  I suppose if you are not allowed
on a machine, the catalog file creation for your user number will not
take place and so you will not actually write on the machine or try to
lock the SPACE file to do the creation etc.  This may be causing 999
to hang trying to create files in places you really cannot reach.

When a static version of aips suddenly behaves differently, something
has changed.  Presumably the OS or something.

The names of the required data areas are irrelevant since they are
included always.  Only the names of optional areas need to match the
host so that the start up procs can figure out which to include.

To debug this you may have to temporrarily change the DADEVS.LIST to
drop out machines until you can run and then add them back to see
which is causing you to hang.  For the users whi can get only a couple
of disks and no more, I would be curious to see a transcript of the
messages from when they say aips on including typing the user number
and running the verb freespac.

Eric Greisen