Preface

Why OpenVMS? You've been assigned to learn OpenVMS and you don't know a thing about it. Here is a short list of features.

• The external documentation is excellent and much of it is on the Internet in both .pdf and .html format. Check out www.openvms.compaq.com:8000/.

• The internal documentation via the $HELP command is probably the best in the industry. Online displays discuss errors in a way that no other system does.

• OpenVMS commands are English-like and options for one command are also valid for others.

• For programmers, it has a great debugger. The debugger will operate in either a command line mode or in a GUI mode for Motif users.

• OpenVMS includes a robust file system which includes indexed files.

• The backup utility can handle tape errors very well. Files that are backed up are time-stamped.

• OpenVMS is one of the most secure systems available. At a recent hackers convention, the attendees declared it unhackable.

• There are no viruses known that affect OpenVMS.

• System performance is seriously supported with a number of tools. Documentation included detailed algorithms to guide you in their use.

• The discussion group, comp.os.vms, is one of the helpful and active. Newbies are always welcome.

• The FAQ on Internet is at www.openvms.compaq.com/wizard/openvms_faq.html and is actively maintained.

• Many OpenVMS users also maintain informational sites, for instance www.levitte.org/~ava/.

• Compaq/HP supports a hobby program offering free licenses for OpenVMS and many layered products. See details at www.montagar.com/hobbyist. Several third party suppliers also have hobby programs.

• Patches for many versions of OpenVMS and layered products are available at ftp.support.compaq.com/public/vms.

A system manager has to be multi-lingual these days. You must be conversant in several operating systems to do the job right. But learning and keeping track of them all can be a daunting task. Certainly keeping details on the tip of your tongue is not easy and there is never enough time to look up specifics or research the details. So I have put the essentials of OpenVMS management in an easy-to-reference form. I have collected the most common operations and tools together in one place. Then I included references to the Compaq/HP manuals and other books that you will need to finish the job. I did it this way because if I included the detailed instructions I'd be merely duplicating already published references. I thought that by concisely encapsulating this key information in a smallish book, you, the system manager, could easily and quickly find what you're looking for. In fact, the mere mention of a particular tool or data structure might be just the hint you need to continue your task without resorting to the detailed description.

Conversely, this book is not intended to stand alone. It is incomplete in that many commands are simply not mentioned. Of those that are, only a few of the many options are discussed. You cannot manage a system with this resource alone.

A second reason for writing this book is to introduce a UNIX or Windows system manager to OpenVMS without a lot of effort. There is just enough in this book to see how Windows NT, UNIX, and OpenVMS are related; what additional features are supported by OpenVMS and, perhaps, what features are missing. With the information provided, a system manager can easily locate the specifics required to achieve a certain goal without detailed knowledge of the manuals and books that are available. But this is done without attempting to present a self-contained resource. If you need to know how to translate a particular UNIX grep command into an equivalent OpenVMS $SEARCH command, you will have to do that research yourself.

This is the third purpose of this book. From time to time questions from students or job seekers are published on comp.os.vms, the primary OpenVMS list about OpenVMS overviews. This book outlines the essential capabilities and operations of OpenVMS without subjecting the reader to detailed explanations of each and every required step. The reader can quickly and easily peruse the key capabilities of OpenVMS to gain a basic level of expertise in a short time.

But this is not a step-by-step how-to-manage book. Instead it introduces several areas of OpenVMS system management and describes why each is important and how it fits into the larger management task. I only included minimal examples because this book is intended to be a precursor to OpenVMS System Management Guide by Baldwin ^[1].

However I do name key data files and tool names (scripts and programs) so the reader can relate this book to other manuals and texts.

I will refer the reader to Open VMS manuals published by Compaq/HP, books from Digital Press and books from other publishers. Compaq / HP documentation is voluminous and extremely detailed. I have tried to identify the best place the reader can find additional information for a given topic and I include a URL for the primary sites although that may change with the merger. From time to time I point out other information about OpenVMS that is available via the Internet, particularly user supported freeware sites.

When I started writing this book, OpenVMS 7.3 was well established and was my source of information. However, before I was finished, OpenVMS 7.3-1 was released and with it, updated manuals. I decided to complete the manuscript with 7.3 as the resource, so if I have missed a important new feature, I apologize in advance. Both documentation sets are available at the same location.

Even though some OpenVMS management concepts are unique (for instance user quotas) many concepts (such as account creation) have counterparts in UNIX and Windows NT. So, wherever possible the parallel to other systems will be pointed out to the reader.

The audience for this text would be UNIX and Windows NT system managers that are transitioning to OpenVMS system management. This book can also target system manager wannabes who have no experience and who are approaching OpenVMS for the first time. I've been told that OpenVMS is the easiest of all systems to manage. Of course this is a subjective opinion and can start all sorts of arguments. Regardless of the validity of my opinion, if you are a manager new to OpenVMS, be prepared for a very different management interface.

Communication with OpenVMS is via commands entered at a shell (borrowing a UNIX term) prompt, which is a dollar sign. The shell is called DCL (Digital Command Language or DEC Command Language), and unlike UNIX, there is only one supported shell language. The commands are more English-like than UNIX; TYPE not cat, DIRECTORY not Is and HELP not man. The command interpreter (like the UNIX shell) is more forgiving; abbreviations are accepted, it is case insensitive, and for the most part command arguments are position independent. However, Motif is supported by OpenVMS and other X-Windows managers have been ported as well so it is possible that a user may never need to learn much about DCL. The manager will have to learn DCL however. Even so, there are some MS Windows and Motif management tools available from Compaq/HP and from the user community.

My intention is to make brevity the primary feature of this text. Experienced system managers that do not have scads of time to spend on the extensive formal documentation can find out what they need to know, then jump into the specific management task. So, this book is intended to be a quick start to Open VMS system management concepts with brief examples.

The book is divided into ten chapters, one for each of the most important system management tasks. Each chapter covers

• A definition of the management task.

• Several examples of what needs to be done using specific OpenVMS commands.

• Some references to manuals and documents. There is also an annotated bibliography following chapter 10 which contains the detailed citations.

• A summary of the pertinent commands and key files involved in the topic.

Online Course

OpenVMS Primer for System Managers located at www.openvms.compaq.com/wbt/pc/welcome.htm might be a useful place for a novice to start. This is a DCL course, primarily. Other DCL helps are found in the bibliography.

^[1]A second edition of the Management Guide, by Baldwin, Hoffman and Miller, is planned.