[Info-vax] satellite one hour ahead

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-10-26 06:22:33 +0000, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply said:

> In article <nup4s6$n9g$1 at dont-email.me>, David Froble
> <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
> 
>> You haven't yet demonstrated that there is actually a problem in VMS
>> V8.4, which should be your first step.
> 
> 8.4?  The system with the wrong time is booting from a 7.3-2 disk.
> 
> I've done upgrades several times, and the upgrade to 8.4 was  
> straightforward.  Then DECwindows/CDE stopped working.  So, it's pretty 
>  clear that there is a problem there somewhere.  Have I found it?  Not  
> yet.  It might be that the problem doesn't always occur.  In 
> particular,  it might not occur after a fresh install.

You're trying to run OpenVMS on old and out-of-date hardware, with 
ancient and ill-patched software, and you're not able or not willing to 
spend the time and effort and budget required.   That's inherently 
going to provide a very bad and very problematic and very unstable 
experience.  Worse, these configurations can cause other folks on the 
'net problems, particularly if various OpenVMS network services from 
that old era are exposed to the 'net.   I've cleaned up various 
down-revision or misconfigured OpenVMS boxes that were parts of botnets.

As for your previous problem?   Remove all local DECwindows bits in 
your login directories and system environment, and start over, and see 
if that works.    If that fails, wipe the disk, install V8.4 and 
current bits, and get on with it.   Something in your old environment 
doesn't work — that's fairly common with something as poorly manageable 
as OpenVMS — and the usual solution is to spend a whole lot of time 
troubleshooting, and to then nuke and pave and move on.

As for software reinstallations?   Enterprise servers are not precious 
pets, they're blunt instruments.   OpenVMS is particularly inept here, 
as some of these old servers have decades of software accretions and 
barnacles, and as OpenVMS just isn't very good at repeatable 
deployments.  This is why reinstallations are increasingly preferred, 
too.  Your available hardware is also problematic, as the configuration 
you've forced yourself into for HBVS and related doesn't particularly 
help with what you want to do with these servers.

Yes, I'd prefer to see OpenVMS far more easily manageable, to support 
profiles and sandboxes and application isolation and related, and to be 
reworked to allow easier reinstalls.  There are already servers 
available that are vastly easier to reload and reinstall, while 
preserving the user's data, too.    The related work and updates for 
OpenVMS just can't happen fast enough.   But I digress.

Running old software — particularly on servers exposed to the 'net — is 
risky at best, and more than a few folks with OpenVMS servers have 
gotten bagged into botnets due to down-revision network services, or 
other issues.  Get to current software.    Or migrate to a server that 
meets your requirements, and that has available patches and/or support 
and/or services.   VSI can't get their hobbyist program going quick 
enough here, too.