SCO UNIX and Filepro 4.05

Thu Jul 23 12:13:15 PDT 2020

I heartily recommend -against- VMWare Workstation for production
environments, where you -should- be doing backups to a NAS or something
equivalent on a regular basis.

As of Workstation 14, VMWare did not support shadow volume writers.
Therefore, you could get a backup with something like Macrium Reflect,
but your actual VMDKs were -not- locked, and could easily be corrupted.
Everything I saw when I brought it up on the VMware forums indicated
VMware didn't care, and weren't going to implement it.  One user literally
said it was not their job to care about implementing it.  (I disagree
emphatically.)

I pretty much have dropped VMware Workstation except for very short test
runs.  If you leave a VM running, your backups (at -least- the VMDK parts)
are immediately suspect, even if you run shadow volume-based copies.

m->

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 09:51:35AM -0700, John Sica via Filepro-list thus spoke:
> I don't know how the Filepro (or RW) Licensing works for this.  Others in
> the group could tell you possibly, but this ALL works in a Home Lab, and
> some in production environments.
> 
> 
> 1. Download VMware Workstation Pro Trial to a Win 10 Pro PC with an SSD
> ideally.
> 2. Install SCO Unix on a newly created VM.  I've installed 5.0.5 and 5.0.6
> and 5.0.7.  5.0.6 has some issues with an Intel GB NIC, and Bill Campbell
> provided some very helpful tips on the 5.0.6 driver, but my Intel GB NIC
> would always time out every 10 to 15 seconds, so it was unreliable).
> 3. Install all the SCO Maintenance Packs.
> 4. Copy your Filepro Programs and data and config files, and it's a good
> idea to make your Fielpro UID the same on the new system as the old.
> 5. Copy your top level RW 8.X Programs and Data, and config files to the new
> instance.  RW 8.x on 5.0.5 will work the same on 5.0.6 or 5.0.7 as long as
> you copy all the files.
> 
> My RealWorld 8.X migration to Passport couldn't be accomplished because the
> export to exp files was going to take 3 1/2 weeks with the data we had,
> which wasn't even very much, but on the virtual instance, it took 11
> minutes. (I did that instance on Virtualbox).
> 
> Once you get it all working, pay VMware the $275 for Workstation Pro or
> whatever they are asking for it today, or just download VMware Player and
> run it for free.
> 
> VMware Player is just like having only the Filepro Runtime programs, you can
> run it but you can't modify it.  The OSR 5 work can all be done with
> BackupEdge as well, but you still need the Maintenance Packs, and changing
> to a new hd controller is a little tricky, but I can send you the 2 or 3
> steps to do that separately.  The steps are slightly different if you are
> using Microlite's RecoverEdge or Cactus Int. Rescue Ranger. In retrospect,
> it's easier to install from the SCO iso images.
> 
> I've contacted the Vendors and received licensing when they've requested
> it.  Microlite and FPtech are great to work with when it came to licensing,
> and my RealWorld setup was only in a lab environment.  If this is a
> production environment and it all works, you might consider a separate
> server and VMware 6.X or later.  I've only used VMware 6.7 update 3.  I'd
> guess it depends on how may users are going to connect.
> 
> Note:  I even got my old Arnet Fax server connected to the VMware hosts
> serial port to send faxes out com1.  Purchased a Digi Port single port
> server, but realized I didn't need it.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/23/2020 5:48 AM, Cesar Baquerizo via Filepro-list wrote:
> > Good morning,
> > 
> > 
> > This is my every few years dilemma. Long story short.Due to possible lack of
> > support for SCO UNIX on newer hardware, Y2K patches in older software
> > (filepro and RealWorld), much more and, etc., etc. I have been recommending
> > that we move off to a modern system. However, things "currently work" so
> > that does not provide an "impending event".  FIlepro upgrade is not up for
> > consideration.
> > 
> > 
> > I am looking to see if anyone knows enough about the filepro Y2K "patch"
> > that can tell me how long we can expect filepro to work properly. I.e.
> > PFCMARK is currently set to 25. Is there a max number that this can be set
> > to? Any other issues anyone is aware of?
> > 
> > 
> > RealWorld Version 8 is another issue, but I assume this won't be discussed
> > here. That said if anyone has comments about this, feel free to respond
> > privately.
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks for any help.
> > 
> > 
> > Regards
> > ---------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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