Compaq Advanced Server for OpenVMS
Server Administrator's Guide


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4.5.2.4 Specifying File Names in ADMINISTER Commands

When you specify a file name as part of an ADMINISTER command line, you can enter the file name as it appears on the client computer, assuming your server is configured to support the same language as that supported on that client, and your workstation or terminal are configured to support the client language. Be sure to enclose the file name in quotation marks if it contains a space or other nonalphanumeric characters (such as a question mark (?), punctuation mark, and so forth). If the input mode is set to VTF7, you can enter such file names without quotation marks, using the ^xx or ^uxxxx formats for the special characters. For example, assuming the input mode is set to RAW, you can change the file permissions of the file named My File.Txt in the share LIONTAIL by entering the following ADMINISTER command:


LANDOFOZ\TINMAN>SET FILE \LIONTAIL\"My File.Txt" SCARECROW\PERMISSIONS=READ 

If input mode is set to VTF7, you would enter the space character as ^_ or ^20 (20 is the hexadecimal representation for the space character).

For information on entering such file names on the OpenVMS DCL command line, see the appropriate OpenVMS documentation.

4.5.2.5 Storing Files on ODS-5 Disk Volumes

When clients store files on ODS-5 disk volumes, the length and characters included in the file name depend on the limitations of the software that created the file. For example, on MS-DOS clients, file names are limited to the "8.3" convention: file names can be no longer than eight characters, there must be one period to separate the file name from the file extension, and the file extension can be up to three characters. Therefore, MS-DOS clients do not take advantage of the full capabilities of the ODS-5 disk volume. ODS-5 disk volumes (as well as ODS-2) support these types of files.

Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows NT clients can write longer file names, which may contain more than one period, and have file extensions of any length within the file name length limit. Therefore, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows NT clients take advantage of the features of ODS-5 disk volumes.

4.5.2.5.1 MS-DOS and Windows File Naming

If you are using the Advanced Server in an environment where long file names are not always supported, users should continue using MS-DOS file naming conventions. For example, if your clients are running Windows 3.11, or older Windows applications that only recognize the 8.3 file format, file names should follow the 8.3 file-naming convention; if your clients are running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows 2000, they can use long file names.

On MS-DOS, Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 clients, the following names are reserved and cannot be used for files or directories on either ODS-5 or ODS-2 disk volumes: AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, CON, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, NUL, and PRN.

On Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 clients, file names preserve uppercase and lowercase characters, but are not case sensitive. This behavior is supported on ODS-5 volumes, and to some extent on ODS-2 volumes.

For more details on file naming conventions supported by each type of client, refer to the appropriate documentation for that client operating system.

4.6 File Names for Files Stored on the Advanced Server

The conventions for file names on ODS-5 disk volumes are more liberal than for those on ODS-2 disks, as outlined in Section 4.6.1, File Naming Conventions: ODS-2 and ODS-5 Comparisons. In addition, to enable compatibility with legacy applications (such as MS-DOS) whose file naming conventions are more restricted than those used by the Advanced Server, Advanced Server for OpenVMS servers, Version 7.3 or later, automatically create alias file names for files whose names do not comply with the file naming standards of those applications. For more information on alias file names, see Section 4.6.2, Support of Alias File Names.

The language configured for the Advanced Server defines the character set and client code page to be used by the server for storing file names on either ODS-2 and ODS-5 volumes. For information on how to configure the server language, refer to the Compaq Advanced Server for OpenVMS Server Installation and Configuration Guide. Parameters that set up the server language are described in Appendix A, Server Configuration Parameters.

The Advanced Server allows client computers to create, access, or delete any file whose file name characters map to the language currently configured on the server. If the client computer attempts to create, for example, a file whose name includes characters that are not contained in the server's currently configured language, the client computer receives an error message such as the following, where filename.ext is the file name consisting of one or more characters not contained in the current server language:


Cannot copy filename.ext: No mapping for the Unicode character exists in 
the target multi-byte code page. 

4.6.1 File Naming Conventions: ODS-2 and ODS-5 Comparisons

File naming conventions for files stored on the Advanced Server depend on whether the disk volume used for storing files is an ODS-2 disk volume or an ODS-5 disk volume.

The Advanced Server uses the file naming conventions shown in Table 4-11, Advanced Server File-Naming Conventions. For each aspect of file names, the table shows the conventions supported by each type of OpenVMS file system.

Table 4-11 Advanced Server File-Naming Conventions
Convention Supported on ODS-2 Supported on ODS-5
File name length Up to 78 characters, including the extension (39.39 format). Separate the extension from the name by using a period. 1 Up to 236 8-bit (Latin-1) characters (or 118 16-bit Unicode characters), including the extension. Separate the extension from the name by using a period.
File names can contain characters other than (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), dollar sign ($), underscore (_) and hyphen (-). No Yes
File names can contain any of the 8-bit characters of the ISO Latin-1 character set in addition to the alphanumeric characters described in the preceding row, with the exception of the following characters: C0 control codes (0x00 to 0x1F inclusive)
Double quotation marks (")
Asterisk (*)
Backslash (\)
Colon (:)
Left angle bracket (<)
Right angle bracket (>)
Slash (/)
Question mark (?)
Vertical bar (|)
Yes 2 Yes
Any OpenVMS system file or directory name that contains excluded characters is neither visible nor accessible by the client. Yes Yes
On-disk character support Characters that are not alphanumeric characters are stored with escape encoding. For more information, see Section 4.4.3.1, File Name Storage and Handling on ODS-2 Volumes. All supported characters are stored without encoding. Some ISO Latin-1 characters require an escape character to precede them in a file specification in order to be interpreted as literal characters rather than special function characters.
Uppercase and lowercase characters are allowed Yes; however, file names are stored in all uppercase. Yes: file names are stored in mixed case; however, file name comparisons are not case sensitive.


1When clients store files whose names include spaces or nonalphanumeric characters (such as Unicode characters not included in the standard character sets), the length of a file name on an ODS-2 volume is limited further: Each such character takes up four characters on the disk volume.
2Characters that are not in the set listed in the previous row are encoded as __XX, where XX is the 8-bit code.

4.6.2 Support of Alias File Names

Some clients and client applications are more restrictive than the Advanced Server and Windows NT in both the lengths of file names and in the set of valid characters supported for file names. For example, MS-DOS file names are limited to the "8.3" convention: file names can be no longer than eight characters, with a period separating the file name from the file extension, and the file extension can be up to three characters. Obviously, these applications do not take full advantage of the capabilities of the OpenVMS ODS-5 disk volume and longer file names supported on Windows NT, the Advanced Server, and other systems.

To maintain compatibility between MS-DOS clients and Windows NT, and between legacy applications and Windows NT, the Windows NT Server provides an alternate way of accessing files with names that are not compatible with MS-DOS conventions. Windows NT generates MS-DOS-compatible alias names for these files.

Beginning with Version 7.3 of the Advanced Server for OpenVMS, the Advanced Server file server now also creates MS-DOS-compatible alias file names for shared files whose names do not conform to the MS-DOS format. As a result, client applications that must use, or choose to use, the MS-DOS format for file names, can access these shared files on the server by using the file's associated alias name. Clients (depending on their file systems) can use either the real file name or the alias file name to access the file.

Note

Alias file names are usually used by client applications. Users will seldom need to use them.

An alias file name is also created for any file whose real name contains any extended character set characters with values of 128 through 255 (hexadecimal 0080 through 00FF). This is done even when the real filename is MS-DOS-compatible (has the 8.3 format and contains no characters that are explicitly invalid in MS-DOS file names). The Advanced Server V7.3 for OpenVMS returns a file's alias name, instead of the real file name, to an MS-DOS client only if the real name is not MS-DOS-compatible, or if any extended character set character in the real name does not map to the client code page. Otherwise, the Advanced Server returns the file's real name to the MS-DOS client. For more information on support of extended character sets, see Section 4.4, Unicode and Extended Character Sets.

4.6.2.1 Advanced Server Alias File Names

The Advanced Server alias file names are functionally equivalent to the alias names generated by the Windows NT Server in that each alias file name:

For generating its alias file names, the Advanced Server uses a different algorithm than does Windows NT; consequently, the alias file names generated by the Advanced Server do not resemble alias file names generated by the Windows NT Server. An Advanced Server alias file name always includes an eight-character base, and includes an extension of the same length as the original extension, if any, up to three characters. The first character and extension of the alias file name are derived from the real file name and its extension, substituting an underscore (_) for any such character that is not MS-DOS-compatible.

4.6.2.2 Example Listing Showing Alias File Names

The following example shows an MS-DOS directory listing that includes alias file names generated for MS-DOS compatibility. In this example:


F:\DEMO>dir/x 
 Volume in drive F is USER1 
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0001 
 
 Directory of F:\DEMO 
 
03/01/00  01:14p        <DIR>                          . 
08/31/99  04:14p        <DIR>                          .. 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16                 12345678.123 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16 14AD1'HA.123    123456789.1234 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16 L1JKGVAM        LONG FILENAME 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16 E0G(4B%3.PS     ESPAÑOL.PS 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16 X2$'XC`R.1_3    X.1+345678 
08/31/99  04:30p                    16 _0XY8I@H._      +.+ 
               8 File(s)          2,144 bytes 
                            215,788,032 bytes free 


Chapter 5
Managing Printers, Print Queues, and Print Shares

Advanced Server software lets you share printers connected to the network (accessible from the OpenVMS system). You can create an Advanced Server print share for any OpenVMS print queue and assign access permissions to that share. Users can then send print jobs to the queue specified by the share as though they were using a local printer.

The procedures you use to manage shared printers are described in this chapter:

The Advanced Server makes printers available to network users through shared print queues. A print queue stores print jobs as users submit them. When a printer associated with the queue becomes available, the Advanced Server routes a job to that printer.

To share a printer, you add the printer (print queue) to the server's share database. You can use ADMINISTER commands to add a print queue and set it up for sharing. You assign the share name to a queue that points to the printer. Alternatively, you can use Windows NT to add printers and to allow them to be shared.

Because the Advanced Server is based on the OpenVMS operating system, the print queues and the printers that you share can be OpenVMS print queues and printers. However, note that the characters valid for Advanced Server print share or print queue names are not restricted to those supported by OpenVMS queues and printers. Advanced Server print share and print queue names can include Unicode extended characters, for example. For information on restrictions that do apply to print share names containing Unicode extended characters, see Section 5.3.2.7.2, Creating Print Shares With Names That Include Unicode Extended Characters.

This chapter explains how to share printers that are connected to the network, accessible from the OpenVMS system.

5.1 OpenVMS Print Queues

OpenVMS systems use execution queues and generic queues to provide access to printers as follows:

You can use any of the following methods to create and manage OpenVMS print queues:

Refer to the OpenVMS System Manager's Manual for information about setting up print queues on OpenVMS systems.

5.1.1 Types of Advanced Server Print Queues

An Advanced Server print queue can be either of the following:

5.2 Planning Printer Services

To support the printing needs of your users, plan print queues and print shares to meet their requirements. You can set up printers as shared devices, and you can establish constraints on print queues.

5.2.1 Sharing Printers and Print Queues

The way you make printers available to Advanced Server users depends on your server installation and whether you want to share existing OpenVMS print queues or create new ones.

Advanced Server users access the print queue by specifying a print share.

To make a print share operational, a print queue must be established first. To establish both a print queue and a print share, first set up the print queue, then set up the print share.

With the ADMINISTER interface, you create a print share so that users can send print requests to the print share rather than to individual print queues. For access from Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 clients that will print to a Advanced Server shared print queue, the share name and the queue name must be the same; for other clients, like Windows 3.11, the share and queue name can be different. Multiple print shares can point to the same print queue.

The Advanced Server print queue name (or, from the perspective of Windows NT management, the printer name) is limited to no more than 12 characters. If the OpenVMS print queue name has more than 12 characters, you can define an OpenVMS logical name for the print queue, to translate the queue name. You might use a logical name that is the same as the share name.

For example, the following OpenVMS command defines a logical name GLENDA for the OpenVMS print queue GLENDASPRINTER:


$ DEFINE/SYSTEM GLENDA GLENDASPRINTER 

Then, when you use ADMINISTER commands, you can use the logical name to specify the print queue when you create a print share for it.

5.3 Managing Printers, Print Shares, and Print Jobs

By default, you manage printers, print shares, and print jobs by using the ADMINISTER command-line interface. You can choose to manage server shared printers remotely from a Windows NT Server or workstation, using the Windows NT print services, including the easy-to-use Windows NT Print Manager dialog boxes.

If you prefer the ADMINISTER command-line interface and the way you have worked with shared printers on the Advanced Server in the past, you can continue using the ADMINISTER command-line interface for print queue management.

If you prefer the advantages that Windows NT printer management offers, then you might consider enabling that style of management when you configure your server. Whichever style you choose, you only have full functionality from the style chosen. Earlier versions of the Advanced Server for OpenVMS have always supported elementary management functions from Windows NT, such as pausing, deleting, and displaying print jobs, and this support is still available on the latest Advanced Server for OpenVMS if you maintain the default of using ADMINISTER commands to manage server printers. Likewise, if you configure the Advanced Server to support Windows NT printer management, you can still use ADMINISTER commands for several minor printer management functions, and you can continue to use all the ADMINISTER commands for managing other objects (users, groups, file shares, and so forth). However, you should not use the following commands:

ADD SHARE/PRINT
REMOVE PRINT QUEUE
SET PRINT QUEUE

The concepts, terminology, and procedures used for managing Advanced Server shared printers differ significantly for each style of management. The management of shared printers with the ADMINISTER command involves creating a print queue (ADD PRINT QUEUE command), defining it as either a printer queue (OpenVMS execution queue) or a routing queue (OpenVMS generic queue), and then creating a share for that queue.

Basic first-step management of shared printers with the ADMINISTER command involves:

  1. Creating a print queue using the ADD PRINT QUEUE command, defining it as either a printer queue (OpenVMS execution queue) or a routing queue (OpenVMS generic queue)
  2. Creating a share for that queue, using the ADD SHARE/PRINT command.

With Windows NT-style management, you manage printers, printer ports, print queues, and the associated parameters defined in each printer's OpenVMS Registry entry. You use the Add Printer Wizard to add a printer to the server. The Add Printer Wizard allows you to select such options as whether:

For more understanding about the conceptual and functional differences between ADMINISTER and Windows NT printer management, refer to the Compaq Advanced Server for OpenVMS Concepts and Planning Guide.

Some of the advantages of using Windows NT-style printer management include the following:

To enable remote management of Advanced Server printers from Windows NT, you must reconfigure the server and change the appropriate configuration setting. For information on enabling remote Windows NT printer management, refer to the Compaq Advanced Server for OpenVMS Server Installation and Configuration Guide. For information on how to manage Advanced Server printers, print queues, and print shares from Windows NT, see Section 5.3.3, Managing Advanced Server Printers Using Windows NT.

For a list of restrictions that apply when Windows NT printer management is enabled, see Section 5.3.3.5, Windows NT Printer Management Restrictions.


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