[daip] aips 31DEC07 "tv=" questions

[Joe Cammisa]

hello, eric.  me again; i'm moving on from the installation questions to
the operations questions, so i guess that's progress.  but i digress...

i'm sensing that something in aips has changed between aips_31DEC05 and
aips_31DEC07--either that or something has changed between redhat9 and
rhel5.  the reason i say so is that i notice a difference in the behavior
of the aips tv device upon startup of the program.  by way of background,
i should state that the astronomy department here has stuck to the model
of one server and a few "xterms", basically dumb x-speaking devices that
can get an xdm session forwarded to them; in the past, then, we invoke
aips by a) source-ing the ~aips/aips_root/LOGIN.CSH file and b) calling
aips via the ~aips/aips_root/START_AIPS script, passing it an argument of
"tv=local:0".  i'm not going to argue that this model is the best way to
do things, but one advantage of it is that regardless of where the user is
sitting (be it at the console or at whichever xterm) all aips windows are
properly opened.

so, now that i have the new rhel5 box configured, aips 31DEC07 installed,
the data moved over (thanks for your input on these tasks, btw), and
various firewall rules tweaked such that the server can display on the
xterms, i find that when i invoke aips with the "tv=local:0" argument,
while the tv appears to start normally, tasks that use it invariably fail
with messages such as these:
SELENE> TVFLG1: ZSSSLK: ERROR   1 ON LOCK
SELENE> TVFLG1: ON LOCK ERROR    6 FROM ZSSSLK
SELENE> TVFLG1: YTVOPN: TV LOCK OPEN ERROR      6
SELENE> TVFLG1: TV OPEN ERROR      6
SELENE> TVFLG1: CANNOT OPEN THE TV DEVICE: ERROR    6
SELENE> TVFLG1: Purports to die of UNNATURAL causes

while trying to make some sense of this, i notice that on the console, if
i do START_AIPS without any tv arguments, all is well and no such errors
occur; unfortunately, such an approach fails on the xterm--START_AIPS is
unwilling to start a tv, eg,
START_AIPS: I am GUESSING you are at a workstation called
s243.stokes.haverford.edu
TVDEVS.SH: Remote TV assigned for TVHOST s243.stokes.haverford.edu  ***
START_AIPS: Checking if s243.stokes.haverford.edu is reachable via ssh...
START_AIPS: Cannot start remote TV servers on s243.stokes.haverford.edu,
sorry!
START_AIPS: remote command gave this error:
ssh: connect to host s243.stokes.haverford.edu port 22: Connection refused
START_AIPS: check your secure shell setup, in particular
START_AIPS: whether you have a passphrase enabled.  You may
START_AIPS: wish to try 'ssh -v s243.stokes.haverford.edu pwd' to see
START_AIPS: what the problem is.

i should point out that these xterms are very stripped down thin clients,
not something that one could (or would want to) run an sshd on.  and
again, as i said, the very same approach has been working for longer than
i can recall, without the need for fussing with ssh-keys or host entries
or anything else.

my apologies for going on and on here, as well as for the need to once
again solicit your assistance.  but i'm kind of stuck here for the moment
and was hoping you might have some advice for this weary aips installer. 
thanks very much in advance for your attention.  best-

joe


-- 

  Joe Cammisa
  Networking & Systems
  College Information Resources
  Haverford College

  phone:  1-610-896-4239
  email:  jcammisa at haverford.edu