[Info-vax] Logging systartup_vms.com progress to operator.log VMS 7.3-2

[Tony Nicholson]

On Thursday, October 15, 2020 at 5:17:14 AM UTC+11, Volker Halle wrote:
> Frank, 
> 
> the official and supported method to log the messages occuring during system startup to a file (SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP.LOG) is: 
> 
> STARTUP_P2 = "D" 
> 
> Volker.

STARTUP_P2 changed sometime around the OpenVMS 7 timeframe to support additional options.

I place a

STARTUP_P2 = "VDC"

in my SYS$SYSTEM:MODPARAMS.DAT to permanently enable full _Verification with logfile _Dump to SYS$SPECIFIC:[SYSEXE]STARTUP.LOG with full DCP _Verification.

Also place a "$ PURGE/Keep=5 SYS$SPECIFIC:[SYSEXE]STARTUP.LOG" at the end of SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM to prune them back.  When something spits out a message during boot-up then it's easy to do the detective work.

"$ MCR SYSMAN HELP Sys_Parameters STARTUP" on recent versions of OpenVMS has the details.

Tony