CERN Accelerating science

Notice: If you have trouble with these procedures, please contact (Tami Kramer directly Tami.Kramer@cern.ch) and not Print Support. This is the UPGRADE procedure for users already running WPRINT. If you do not yet have access to the central Print Servers from your VMS machine, you should follow the instructions detailed here first (for the initial installation).

Why Upgrade?

Presently, VMS machines at CERN using WPRINT use a machine called Springer as the Print Server. Because Springer runs Digital Ultrix, and Ultrix is not Year 2000 compliant, it is necessary to upgrade the underlying VMS version of XXPRINT in order to use the new Print Servers before the year 2000.

What changes must be made?

In the present version of WPRINT the underlying symbol XXPRINT was defined to execute a program (XXPRINT.EXE), one for Vax and another for Alpha, but it now will invoke a PERL script (similar to what is done for Windows clients on NICE). The PERL executable (PERL.EXE) is different for Vax and Alpha, but the PERL script XXPRINT.PL is the same. This change requires that VMS System Managers install PERL for VMS (for Vax and Alpha) and then change the XXPRINT symbol to invoke the PERL script. This isn't so dangerous, since one can always change the symbol XXPRINT back to its original state if things don't work as expected. It's not clear that all permutations of FORMS have been tested, so we are asking for feedback.

Detailed Procedure:

• Install the correct version of PERL (already compiled) for your version of the VMS operating system. PERL 5 for VMS 6.2 (Alpha and Vax) and VMS 7.1 (Alpha) in ZIP format are available at:

  VSCRNA::DISK$KITS:[VMSKITS.PERL]

  Create a directory somewhere and define the concealed logical name PERL_ROOT to point to it. For Example:

  DEFINE/TRANS=(CONC,TERM) PERL_ROOT DKA0:[PERL.] 
  

  In a mixed cluster (Vax and AXP) you may want to use the CERN$CERNEXE root logicals such that

    PERL_ROOT = DKA0:[CERN0.CERNEXE.ALPHA.PERL.] for AXP 
    and for VAX PERL_ROOT = DKA0:[CERN0.CERNEXE.PERL.] 
  

• COPY the PERL distribution for your VMS version, for example:
  VSCRNA::DISK$KITS:[VMSKITS.PERL]PERL5_004_04_VMSAXP6_2.ZIP to the newly created PERL directory. "UNZIP" this file using GNU ZIP to the directory DKA0:[PERL] N.B. GNU ZIP for AXP (if you don't have it) can be found at VSCRNA::DISK$CERN:[GUNZIP]
• COPY PERLSHR.EXE to SYS$SHARE on each platform. The PERLSHR image should have W:RE protection on it. (as should all files in PERL_ROOT:[LIB...]*.*)
• Define the symbol PERL somewhere, such as SYS$MANAGER:SYLOGIN.COM, to be
  "PERL :== $PERL_ROOT:[000000]PERL.EXE" (or install PERL into the DCLTABLES as described in the file AAAREADME.TXT in the top level directory).
• Copy VSCRNA::CERN$CERNEXE:XXPRINT.PL to CERN$CERNEXE once for each platform (VAX and AXP).
• SHOW SYMB XXPRINT - it should be something like: $CERN$CERNEXE:XXPRINT.EXE Remember this in case you want to revert !
• Define XXPRINT :== "$PERL_ROOT:[000000]perl.exe cern$cernexe:xxprint.pl"