[Info-vax] VMSKITBLD.COM fails with CREATE_SYSDIRS cannot locate product description file.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2019-01-13 16:49:00 +0000, Andrew Back said:

> On Sunday, 13 January 2019 15:58:09 UTC, Stephen Hoffman  wrote:
> 
> It's presently restoring VMS073.B and I'm being treated to the sound of 
> a busy RD53. Not sure if I'm going to be able to copy .C onto it and 
> then install a few things from this, without running out of space.

.A, .B, .C are the entirety of the OpenVMS VAX installation.  Base, 
library, optional, etc.

And yes, the RD53 is dinky.  You chose this path, with this hardware.   
I've done a MicroVMS install onto an RD51.  That also wasn't much fun, 
but that was then-new hardware.

>> Once you get the system disk installed and get the VAXstation back into 
>> the cluster, you'll want to mount the HPE OpenVMS VAX disk image on the 
>> SIMH system (MOUNT/SYSTEM, MOUNT/CLUSTER, etc),  akin to an NFS or SMB 
>> mount, though with a completely different protocol, and tied to access 
>> only within a cluster) and also mount the HPE OpenVMS VAX distribution 
>> disk on the VAXstation remotely (MOUNT/SYSTEM or maybe MOUNT/CLUSTER), 
>> and that'll provide access to the rest of the kits you'll need.  Not 
>> the least of which will be TCP/IP Services installation kit.
> 
> Right, thanks. Since the TCP/IP comes as a .PCSI file, any idea how to 
> get this into the SimH VAX? Tried setting up DECnet for Linux, but 
> seems to be thoroughly broken on any recent version of Linux.

Within the cluster, mount the OpenVMS VAX distribution disk that you 
got from HPE.  That has the kits. Mount that in the cluster.  The 
satellite member will have access to that.

Don't... please don't... you don't know enough about OpenVMS to even 
attempt mixing in Linux here, and Linux lacks the necessary tooling to 
play well with OpenVMS.

> I also have a uVAX2000 with I/O expansion and an external TK50, but 
> seem to recall the drive needs some attention. Will hopefully get round 
> to this at some point. I do also have some Alphastations, a uVAXII and 
> a 3900 (needing RF disks) in storage. Plus a C3000 enclosure and 8x 
> BL860c blades en route (this should be fun as I've never run IA64 
> before...)

Both an AlphaStation and an Integrity system can run OpenVMS V8.4, and 
which has host-based InfoServer, and which will make this whole 
approach easier.  InfoServer can act as a network-connected and 
network-bootable jukebox for kits.


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