CL 5.8 and Exceed – AIX 5.3

[Michael Hertel]

I am having issues with the hostserver on 5.8 using Exceed. AIX 5.3

I start the host server and then logout of my aixterm and then out of my pc (stops the Exceed server on my desktop). When the Exceed server is stopped, the hostserver dies.

I’ve opened a ticket with support. Support does not use and/or have acess to Exceed to try to recreate what I’m seeing. I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue.

Here are the steps:

1) Start X session (AIX window opens, Exceed server starts on desktop)

2) Log in to AIX host

3) hciss

Topic

[Michael Hertel]

Update: Support has confirmed the bug and is sending to R&D.

They found someone who had Exceed.

Hostserver stops after user starting it logs out. {[CASE#88845]}

[Todd Lundstedt]

Wow! That’s crazy!  😯

What have you done as a work-around… a straight telnet and start the hostserver from that session?

Please update this thread with their fix.  I am on 5.5, starting to plan an upgrade, and want to ensure we would have a fix, or work-around prior to implementing 5.8.

Thx!

[Michael Hertel]

If you use putty instead of Exceed it seems to behave itself.

I’ll update again when I know more. Our standard is Exceed, not putty.

We still need Xwindows for running the old smat and hciserveradmin.

[David Barr]

You can also use Cygwin’s X server instead of Exceed.

[Dirk Engels]

Hi,

I’ve just post this message on the other thread ‘logoff hci stops host & security server’. I thinks this is the same problem, so here again the solution we have used in the past:

we have encountered this behavior some time ago with some of our customers. We fixed this with the following steps:

– On the server start the ‘Server Admin’ Tool

– Go to the tab ‘advanced’

– Enter ‘-Xrs’ (without quotes) at the JVM arguments part.

– Press Save and close the tool.

To activate you’ll have to restart the host server.

Dirk

[Dirk Engels]

Hi,

I’ve just post this message on the other thread ‘logoff hci stops host & security server’. I thinks this is the same problem, so here again the solution we have used in the past:

we have encountered this behavior some time ago with some of our customers. We fixed this with the following steps:

– On the server start the ‘Server Admin’ Tool

– Go to the tab ‘advanced’

– Enter ‘-Xrs’ (without quotes) at the JVM arguments part.

– Press Save and close the tool.

To activate you’ll have to restart the host server.

Dirk

[Michael Hertel]

Michael Hertel wrote:

If you use putty instead of Exceed it seems to behave itself.

I’ll update again when I know more. Our standard is Exceed, not putty.

We still need Xwindows for running the old smat and hciserveradmin.

Looking at the 5.8 release notes I see this:

Quote:

8.2.13 Using hcismat with new SMAT files

hcismat is an unsupported command that will cause errors when used with new SMAT files (version 5.8) that have variable-length metadata.

For users who have built scripts around hcismat (Tk version), you must first use hcismatconvert to convert the new SMAT format to the older version. Then, hcismat will work correctly.

Cloverleaf Integration Services Release 5.8 Notes Page 43

If you do get an error message from using hcismat, do not “X” out of the dialog. This will cause the tool to hang. Instead, click the “OK” button, after which the file will load correctly. If the warning dialog is not scrollable to the “OK” button, then pressing the Enter key will do the same.

After more thought, if 5.8’s smat works as fast as the old hcismat, maybe I can use the new smat.

Also, I can edit the server.ini instead of using the pretty Xwindows version.

So maybe I don’t need Xwindows (Exceed) after all.  😕

I’m sure giving up Exceed will be like giving up smoking. There will be a nasty withdrawl period.  😛

[Jim Kosloskey]

Michael,

We are on 5.6 and I find SMAT in the GUI significantly faster.

I expect even more improvement by 5.8 so I would recommend trying the gui and I think you might like it.

As for Exceed, we use it for much more than just executing the old TK scripts so I don’t think not having an X-windows emulator is going to fly here.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

Just a note here:  the new SMAT gui in the IDE with 5.6 and up leaves .ecd files scattered everwhere in the Cloverleaf directories.  These are used to preserve your last SMAT gui settings.   I find that we must do a pooper scooper patrol to clean them up periodically.  I don’t know why they can’t be planted on your client side “client” folder instead.

Just a little caveat.

Enjoy.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Bob,

Good point regarding orphaned .ecd files.

Our issue is not so much that they exist on the host system but that they are not cleaned up when the configuration of a thread removes in or out SMAT – or when the thread itself is removed from the NetConfig.

This leaves .ecd files that have no .idx/.msg pair to be associated with.

Operationally this does not seem to cause any problems as far as an integration functioning but it does make for (at the minimum) an untidy environment.

We have not yet deployed any bots to go around and take care of these orphans but I see that coming.

Sounds like the basis for a Product Enhancement Request  😆

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Michael Hertel]

Solution just in from techsupport: Thanks to David Burks for follow up and timely reply.

Solution Description: We found that the problem is caused by removal of PJA toolkit starting from 5.8 release. Lawson’s policy discourages either packaging or requiring open source software with GNU GPL license to work with our product. PJA toolkit, unfortunately, falls into this category and has to be removed.

 

For customer, he can either find other ways to start host server (i.e. Putty). Or download PJA toolkit by themselves and use at their own risk since we do not require it to work with Cloverleaf. The followings are the steps in case they want to download their own PJA toolkit

 

1. Download PJA Toolkit from official website. Following is the link:

      http://www.eteks.com/pja/pja_2.5.zip

 

2. Extract the downloaded zip and copy pja.jar under the lib folder into $HCIROOT/clgui/java/lib/ext folder

 

3. Modify .clgui_wrapper file under $HCIROOT/clgui/bin directory.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Rey, Rob, other Healthvision/Lawson folks if you are monitoring:

Will this be corrected in a Rev for 5.8 or corrected in the next release?

If this obviates the effective use of Exceed nnatively with the product, I for one find that needs to be corrected.

Exceed is most likely one of the most widely used X-Windows emulators and the product needs to work with Exceed in my opinion.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[John Mercogliano]

Just curious if anyone tried starting up the hostserver in 5.8 with the nohup command. It looks like without the PJA toolkit the servers can no longer disconnect from the parent environment.  The nohup command might be worth a shot.

Also, for Healthvisioin, are there any other GPL software that was pulled from cloverleaf for this version?

John Mercogliano
Sentara Healthcare
Hampton Roads, VA

[Michael Hertel]

Yes, I did try nohup (remembering the good ole days) without success.

[Russ Ross]

We are running on AIX 5.3 and Cloverleaf 5.6rev2 and use Exceed extesively.

Here is the script I had to write some time ago with a cloverleaf upgrade to get the hostserver to work properly when lauched from Exceed.

I called it start_hs.ksh and the key point was to unset the DISPLAY.

Looking at the underlying cause of your problem as defined by tech support I don’t have much hopes this will solve your problem but since we will be in the same boat some day I would appreciate you giving this a try and letting us know how it goes.

Here is the code for my start_hs.ksh script:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/ksh

rm -f $HCIROOT/server/.exit

cd $HCIROOT/server/logs
myDISPLAY=$DISPLAY
unset DISPLAY
hciss -s h
export DISPLAY=$myDISPLAY

Russ Ross
RussRoss318@gmail.com

[Michael Hertel]

Well Russ, if you can read Clovertech on a Sunday night, so can I.

[Author]

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