Help converting to a new Linux server

[John Esak]

If you really want to solve your record locking problem ... whose locking a
record when it should be available... You need to look at all of your
processing. Here is where the problem lies. All your trouble is being
generated there.  FilePro does not cause record locking conflicts... in
fact, it has never, not once, in the nearly 30 years I've used it, ever been
the *cause* of a record locking issue.  It has been fully vetted over and
over again in this regard... and without fail, the reason for a record being
locked when it shouldn't be... is the, is the sole province of the
programmer and the processing tables being used.

Sorry to take the long view... but somebody has to... get a hold of some old
Guru magazines, Smalltalk's , fPDJ's and so on... there are myriads of
examples of how to build your tables so no conflicts will occur.

One of the main culprits I think, is working from within @key's routines.
This unnecessarily *locks* the record, so other reports, or clerk accesses
get stopped dead in the water.  I have yet to find an @key routine that can
not be transformed into an @entsel version, even including changing values
of the real fields on the current record.  It just takes little re-writes
here and there to open up your files to virtually complete access without
the fear of records being locked when they shouldn't be.  If you do lock a
record, do it for the shortest time you possibly can, and do it and lock and
unlock it correctly so you keep indexes correct as well.

As to your actual question, the sholock program Ken mentioned is the tool
you want, but he is also correct it is 100% more effective if you use it
within Bob Stockler's lock.info script.

Secondly, his mention of checking your lookups with CHECKLOCK is the very
best way to *quickly* find improper code.

Third, you can do something to all subdirectories and files with wildcards
much easier in Linux than in any Windows platform.  Roughly it might look
something like this.

Cd /appl/filepro   #(where your files live)
chmod 700 * */*       #Change ownership of all filePro files and dirs 

But, again, Ken's suggestion to run setperm in the fp/scripts directory is
really all you need.

Cd /appl/fp/scripts   #or wherever your programs are
./setperms

This must be done as the root user.


Good luck,  The hard to understand part of all this is why you didn't have
the problems under Netware....  perhaps, it does not lock files as
thoroughly (i.e., strictly... in *alls* circumstances) as it should.  I've
never been a fan of Netware, maybe It's okay, but I have no experience with
it.  I only have had run-ins with all the other products that Novel has
ruined over the years.... WordPerfect, Corel, Unix... etc.  :-)  Whatever
the reason, now that you are on Linux, you have to deal with its full record
locking paradigm... and if you write your code properly, it will be no
burden.

John Esak


> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com
> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+jo	hn=valar.com at lists.celestial.com] On
Behalf
> Of Kenneth Brody
> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:14 PM
> To: Nathan Lehman
> Cc: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subject: Re: Help converting to a new Linux server
> 
> Quoting Nathan Lehman (Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:12:41 -0400):
> 
> > filePro 5.0.14D9
> > Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 on Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10
> 
> [... moved from Netware to Linux ...]
> 
> > One of the issues we are having with this new server is dealing with
> > file locks.  I find it really hard to find out who is locking a key
> > file.  The way we do it now is to run ncpcon from the server.  However
> > this just shows everyone accessing the key file, not the one(s)
> > locking it.
> 
> Get a copy of my showlock program, perhaps with Bob Stockler's lock.info
> wrapper.
> 
> > I found after the first day that we needed to set all filePro files
> > with the -sh (shareable) attribute.  That really helped.
> 
> Why?  What problems were you having, and how did it help?  I'm not
> familiar with a "shareable" attribute under Linux.  How, exactly, did
> you set this?
> 
> > However I'm
> > not good enough at linux to know how to change all files in my filePro
> > and fp folders and have it change the attributes in every file
> > including the files in subfolders.  Right now I have to go into each
> > folder and change all the files in that folder, then move to the next
> > folder and do the same thing.
> 
> Use the setperms script that filePro includes.  That's all that you
> should have to do.
> 
> > One other problem that seems to be occurring more often on this server
> > is freechain rebuilds.  I'm not quite sure why this is happening more
> > often.
> 
> Add PFCHECKLOCK=ON to the filePro config file and see if you have any
> unprotected lookups being modified.  (Note, however, that this would
> have caused problems in Netware as well, if you had more than one
> person in at a time.)
> 
> > I guess I would just like to know if anyone has any tips or tweaks in
> > general for running filePro from my new linux server and if anyone has
> > any suggestions for the problems listed.  Thanks so much in advance.
> 
> --
> Read the truth behind the movie "Expelled" at
> <http://www.ExpelledExposed.com>
> --
> KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
> http://www.hvcomputer.com
> http://www.fileProPlus.com
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