CERN Accelerating science

 - descriptions in cells A (downwards), representing years
 - data in cells from B onwards

Answer   -   This happens when cell A1 also contains information, which causes Excel to think it also has to produce chart lines on the A column (it doesn't know that the user only means it as a 'header' or 'description' column, as it saw numerical data - the years - in it, further down).

Delete the content of cell A1 (if you can't or don't want to, just shift all cells downward one row, so that what was in A1 is now in A2). The chart will now work correctly, representing the cell A 'years' data numerically as years and not as 'Series' anymore.

Note: One doesn't have to leave cell A1 blank on every Excel sheet, but it would be good general practice to do so.

  The file OLEAUT32.DLL is out of date. This program requires a
  newer version.

Answer   -   You are running an old version of this DLL. The more recent one you had earlier was most certainly downgraded by installing some non-standard external software.

Either uninstall this software again and reboot, or re-register this DLL by executing (from the command line prompt):

 regsrv32.exe "C:\WINNT\system32\oleaut32.dll"

Answer   -   In Windows, get a DOS prompt and type:

 ping -a 'IP-address'  (without the quotes)

To obtain a DOS prompt in NICE2000 or NT, type cmd on the 'start - run' prompt. In NICE 95/NT, one can use 'start - applications - 12 DOS prompt'.

The equivalent unix command is

 nslookup 'IP-address' (without quotes)

Above methods only work if the host is reachable.

Another method for CERN sites, via the web, is with a search from the http://network.cern.ch/register web page: select the operation (link) "View the registered information about a device", and provide the IP address (TCP/IP).

Answer   -   This behaviour only happens when you *click* a cell and enter text. To enable text editing directly in an Excel cell, either *double-click* it or hit F2 before entering the leading "/" character.

Note: The "edit directly in cell" check box must be enabled to do this (which it is by default). If it isn't, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Edit tab, and then select the "Edit directly in cell" check box.

  acrord32.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows.

 - re-install printers
 - re-install Adobe Acrobat reader 4.05
 - restart the computer

Answer   -   Check for a process called AcroTray.exe in the Task Manager. Kill it and retry printing.

  Windows Installer - The feature you are trying to use is on a network
  resource that is unavailable ---  installation package 'ISScript.Msi'.

  "C:\DOCUME~1\'userid'\LOCALS~1\Temp\{EB152B13-61AC-11D4-8F43-00B0D02CFCC8}
\{F1EC876A-BFBA-4171-A138-C654BB13C6BB}\"

Answer   -   Please note: third party software installations are normally not supported by the NICE team. But here are some hints:

This error indicates that the msi package has been built using InstallShield for Windows Installer and it was unable to successfully install one of its key components using the ISScript.msi file.

You can probably solve this problem by downloading a new version of the file called ISScript.msi (from the InstallShield site or from the site of your software).

Download it and double click on it. Once you have done this, try running your application installer again.

Answer   -   Such an installation must be done by the user, there is no NICE support for it. The installation CD has been copied onto DFS. CERN has no global licence for Windows 2000 server: You have to buy as many licences as servers.

For that you are asked to contact Mrs. Marlene Prigent (tel 72064).

Answer   -   The fact that general users are not able to login to batch nodes is the desired behaviour. We have had access restrictions in place for some time on the batch clusters, but there were always ways to get around the restrictions (for example telnet was blocked but not rsh !). Since yesterday a new and much more effective method was put in place which really blocks all interactive access (login) to Lxbatch. This is necessary since interactive access is abused to get around the load-balancing.

Following news has been published in the cern.computing newsgroup on Apr 30 2002. If you still have questions on this issue, send a mail to LSF.Support@cern.ch.

 Scope:     Logins to LXBATCH using any means such as telnet, rsh, ssh
  
 Abstract:  The login restriction mechanism on LXBATCH has been upgraded to
            patch the holes through which it was still possible to gain
            interactive sessions on these batch nodes.
  
 Effective: 2002/04/30
  
 Details:   For the past three years there have been login restrictions
            enforced on batch clusters such as LXBATCH.  This is necessary
            in order to reserve the nodes for pure batch work, and leave
            them accessible only through the LSF commands.  Unfortunately
            the mechanism used was known not to be bullet proof and
            determined people were still able to get in.  We have therefore
            changed to a more standard Linux mechanism which is effective
            against all connection protocols such as telnet, rsh and ssh.
            So henceforth the LXBATCH cluster should really only be
            accessible through the LSF commands, and the LSF system can
            correctly share the resources without exceptions.  If you have
            applications which were relying on these loop-holes then please
            contact us to discuss the approved mechanisms to achieve your
            goals.

 /dev/hda7 contains a file system with errors
 ...
 unexpected inconsistency, run fsck MANUALLY
 ...
 give root password for maintenance
 or ctrl-D for regular start...

Answer   -   Try to go in single user mode and to run fsck of the filesystems with problems (/dev/hda7).
N.B. to go to single user mode select linux single at the LILO prompt.

If this does not help you should contact the administrator of the machine with the root password, (you should get his name from the network/register database.

Answer   -   /tmp is for temporary files only. There are several tools that repeatedly monitor the /tmp file system and delete old files: e.g., on Dxplus, at 4:20 every night, files not accessed for the past 2 days are deleted from a simple "find" command. On all systems (including Lxplus) there is also a program called "purge2" running, which is not so strict (it allows 5 days for a file).

For more details you should explain precisely what are your needs.

Answer   -   Please note first that there are three major sources of disk space on Unix central servers:

1. local temporary space (e.g. /tmp) on your machine. This is probably the best for most types of access.
2. global space (at CERN it is /afs/cern.ch using AFS) which has a caching mechanism and a central server. This is ideal for moderately small amounts of data and source code. It is backed up nightly, and has the convenience and risk and extra cost associated with these features.
3. data mass storage (i.e. SHIFT/Castor at CERN).

AFS space is managed per account (with a maximum 500 MB) or project directory which may be personal or experiment wide.

If you think the solution for you is AFS space, it is possible to create a 500 MB maxidisk, e.g. /afs/cern.ch/atlas/maxidisk/d141. Such a request must be addressed to your experiment mailing list (e.g. atlas-support@cern.ch), or to a computer administrator for ATLAS (group ZP, look at: http://consult.cern.ch/xwho/people/form/admins).

Access to this space is governed by the usual AFS rules, and it is possible to configure it (e.g. give read or write access to several users) with the usual command "fs setacl" ("fs listacl" will display current access and ACLs setting).

     /usr/bin/X11/xauth:  timeout in locking authority file
     /afs/cern.ch/user/d/diracxfr/.Xauthority
     fs: You don't have the required access rights on
     '/afs/cern.ch/user/d/diracxfr'
     Warning: cannot calculate quota - there might be AFS problems

Answer   -   This problem happens when connecting with ssh from one AFS account to another and when the Kerberos ticket and AFS token are not getting forwarded. A solution is to force it and use the command "ssh -k" or issue the "klog" command after login on the machine.

This a a known problem of the current SSH installation (April 2002) but the system managers are working on a solution such that it is not necessary to force this -k option.

Answer   -   Here are several possibilities that you can try to access your CERN mailbox from outside:

1. You can try to use the CERN Webmail interface (at http://mailwww.cern.ch/webmail - Based on the Internet Messaging Program (IMP) - with your CERN Mail username and password.

However, please note:

• you should test your settings for:

   ·  timeouts: if the network is too slow, you may experience failure 
   ·  cookies: should be allowed 
   ·  SSL: should be active 
   ·  security levels: some pre-configured values (basically affecting cookies) in some browsers might cause problems. 
  

• Following note is what you can read in the webmail web page:

   NOTE: This interface is only available for a trial period and
   is not  officially supported by the CERN mail service. If you
   have any problems using this interface please do NOT contact 
   the official support lines  here at CERN. You may however send
   a message to or subscribe to the webmail-discuss@cern.ch list 
   if you have any questions.
  

2. Another solution is to configure your mail client (e.g. Netscape, Outlook ... ) to access the CERN Mail Server:

 Mail server user name: userlogin 
 Outgoing mail (SMTP) server: maildev.cern.ch 
 Incoming mail server (IMAP): userlogin.mailbox.cern.ch 
 Mail server type: IMAP 
 IMAP mail directory or root directory: mail/ 
 Authentication only needed for incoming mail servers. 

3. A last possibility for Unix users with an AFS account is via telnet ("telnet lxplus.cern.ch") and by using pine with your AFS username and password.

However, please note: there is no official support provided by the CERN mail services for that (apart from support linked to usage of the CERN Mail server), and we cannot help if the above solution do not work.

  Unable to expand the folder. The set of folders could not be opened.
  Errors have been detected in the file
  \\cern.ch\dfs\users\m\mpimenta\outlook\... - 00000001.pst
  Quit all mail-enabled applications and then use the Inbox Repair Tool.

Answer   -   The Inbox Repair Tool (also referred to as Scanpst.exe) is designed to scan and repair inconsistencies found in a .pst or .ost file.

You will get all details on how to use it in the "Windows 2000 @ CERN" User Guide, or, on the Web, at: http://cern.ch/winservices/docs/Outlook/,
in the section "The Inbox Repair Tool with Internet Only Option (IMO)", at: http://cern.ch/winservices/docs/Outlook/#h-012

 Mail not sent. Sending error: 452 

Answer   -   Error "452" in "pine" is "Insufficient disk space; try again later", which happens when the machine where you are working does not have enough mail spool space (i.e. the /var file system is full and the sendmail program had no space left to store the message).

• If the machine is a central Unix server, based of AFS (e.g. Lxplus) it can mean that the afsmail or mail server spool is full. Type "hostname" to find out which node has the problem and contact the mail support team (Mail.Support@cern.ch).
• Still on a central machine the problem should disappear if you "quit" pine and disconnect, then reconnect to a different node (where most likely the spool space will be fine).
• On a non-central machine contact the system administrator.

Answer   -  

1. Create an AFS web site using the WebRegister site.
2. Go to your AFS home directory (cd $HOME)
3. Type the command webaccess, which will create the directory ~/www with the adequate AFS ACLs.

From then on, all HTML files (.html) in the ~/www directory and its subdirectories will be visible on the web, via the URL http://cern.ch/loginname.

Example: A file mydoc.html will be visible via the URL: http://cern.ch/loginname/mydoc.html with loginname being your AFS login.

Please note:

1. This will only work if your account is already registered with the central web servers. To test if it is, go to the Webregister page and search your website.
2. If you want to offer a directory listing of your files see qa/3057 .

Answer   -   We should first clarify what one should understand by a "NICE website". This is considered a website "Mapped to a directory on NICE" in step 4 of the Webservices registration mechanism, at http://cern.ch/webregister .

Let us assume that your website is http://cern.ch/~loginid; this is typically mapped to your J:\WWW directory. Also note that "Welcome page" documents at given directories must be named default.htm. Thus the above URL will try to show J:\WWW\default.htm.

If the "Welcome page" document does not exist AND directory browsing is disabled (the default, a safe option when you don't want to disclose all document names at your website), the browser will give an access error.

However if directory browsing is enabled, the browser will show a directory listing in absence of an adequate welcome page. This can be set up for every directory needed.

How to do it?

To enable directory browsing you have to create/edit the file j:\WWW\nicewww.ini containing the following lines:

 [NiceWWW]
 EnableDirectoryBrowsing = 1

You can also use the WebRegister Interface to change the "directory browsing" attribute.

Historical reference

Default Access Rights to NICE Home Directories was fully explained in a CNL article (not up-to-date).

Answer   -   This is possible when using the Apache server. You should simply create a file (in the directory you want to list files) with the name .htaccess and in this file write a line:

    Options +Indexes

The Apache server is used at CERN, and you have quite a detail description of it for User Customization at: http://consult.cern.ch/cnl/236/apache.html

Answer   -   This is possible using the Apache server. See all details in the CNL article "User Customization of Apache Web Servers", section "How to protect your data" (restricting by hostname or by username and password).

Answer   -   Using the Apache server you can do it with the redirect directive in the file .htaccess.

This is explained in the CNL article "User Customization of Apache Web Servers".

Answer   -   Internet Explorer's headers and footers printout options are described within its online help, but I must admit, they are well hidden. One can find them in the article:

 "To change how a Web page looks when it prints "
  which one can reach via the online help index:
  
 - web pages
 - printing
 - to print a web page
 - "related topics"

This contains a full description of the functions of all printing variables.

Answer   -   For some reason (although this is not the default behaviour) your FTP folder viewing must have been disabled.

 - Start Internet Explorer
 - Open "Tools->Internet Options" and select "Advanced"
 - There you will find under the "Browsing" category a checkbox called
   "Enable folder view for FTP sites"
 - Check it and everything works fine !