Document revision date: 15 July 2002
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OpenVMS System Manager's Manual


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26.5 Starting Up the LAT Protocol

As system manager, you start up the LAT protocol and configure your node as a service node by executing the command procedure SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP. This procedure executes the following two procedures:

  1. LAT$CONFIG.COM, to load the LAT terminal driver LTDRIVER and create the LATACP process
  2. LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM, to execute LATCP commands that define LAT characteristics

How to Perform This Task

To make sure the LAT protocol is started each time the system boots, add a command to execute this procedure in the general-purpose, site-specific startup command procedure, described as follows. (See Section 5.2.1 for more detailed information about this command procedure, including the file specification used to identify it in your operating system.)

To set up your node as a LAT service node and start the LAT protocol software on your system each time the system boots, edit the general-purpose, site-specific startup command procedure to add the following line:


$ @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP.COM 

When the general-purpose, site-specific startup command procedure executes this command, it invokes LAT$STARTUP.COM, which in turn invokes the LAT$CONFIG and LAT$SYSTARTUP command procedures.

You can append any of the following arguments to the command line that invokes LAT$STARTUP to specify unique LAT characteristics for your node. The procedure will pass these arguments to LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM to define the LAT characteristics you specify.


$ @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP "P1" "P2" "P3" "P4" "P5" 

Compaq recommends that you modify LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM directly, rather than passing parameters in P1 through P5. However, if you choose to use P1 through P5, the arguments have the following meanings:
Argument Format Meaning
P1 Service-name Name of the service. For clustered service nodes, use the cluster alias as the service name. For independent service nodes, use the DECnet node name. LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM uses the argument P1 to assign a service name to the node (with the LATCP CREATE SERVICE command).
P2--P4 Any of the following names: LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM uses the arguments to assign LAT node characteristics (with the LATCP SET NODE command).
  /IDENTIFICATION= "string" Description of the node and its services that is advertised over the local area network (LAN). The default is the string defined by the logical name SYS$ANNOUNCE. Make sure you include five sets of quotation marks around the identification string. For example:
"/IDENTIFICATION=" - """""Official system center"""""

  /GROUPS=(ENABLE= group-list) Terminal server groups qualified to establish connections with the service node. By default, group 0 is enabled.
  /GROUPS=(DISABLE= group-list) Removes previously enabled terminal server groups. If you are specifying the preceding qualifier to enable groups, you can combine the qualifiers into one, as shown in the example that follows this table.
P5 Any qualifiers valid with the CREATE SERVICE command LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM uses this argument to assign service characteristics with the LATCP CREATE SERVICE command. You can specify the /IDENTIFICATION, /LOG, and /STATIC_RATING qualifiers. Specify several qualifiers as shown in the following example:
"/IDENTIFICATION=" -

"""""Official system node""""" -
/STATIC_RATING=250"

Note that if you want to do any of the following LAT network tasks, you must edit LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM (described in Section 26.6):

For a full description of LATCP commands and qualifiers, refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

Example

The following command creates the service OFFICE on the service node MOE, which is part of the OFFICE cluster (refer to Figure 26-1):


$ @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP OFFICE

26.6 Customizing LAT Characteristics

To define special LAT characteristics for your node, edit the site-specific command procedure SYS$MANAGER:LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM. This command procedure contains LATCP commands that define LAT characteristics. LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM is invoked when you execute the LAT$STARTUP command procedure. As explained in Section 26.5, you typically execute LAT$STARTUP.COM from the general-purpose, site-specific startup command procedure.

If you want your node to be a LAT service node that only supports incoming connections from interactive terminals, editing LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM is not necessary. You can assign a service name and other characteristics by specifying parameters when you invoke the command procedure SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP, as described in Section 26.5.

However, you can edit LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM to add LATCP commands that customize LAT characteristics for your node, for example:
Task For More Information
Create more than one service Section 26.6.1
Create logical ports for special application services and printers Section 26.6.2
Enable queued incoming requests Section 26.6.3
Enable outgoing LAT connections to support the SET HOST/LAT command Section 26.6.4
Tailor node characteristics 1 Section 26.6.5


1For example, to assign special service announcements or LAN links (using the SET NODE and SET LINK commands).

Caution

Do not edit the command procedures LAT$STARTUP.COM and LAT$CONFIG.COM. These are procedures supplied by Compaq to perform functions necessary for the LAT protocol to run correctly. Edit only LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM to define LAT characteristics specific to your site.

If you edit LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM, you should add only LATCP commands. In addition, you should conform to the order of commands in the template file SYS$MANAGER:LAT$SYSTARTUP.TEMPLATE. Section 26.6.5 provides a sample edited LAT$SYSTARTUP procedure. The OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual contains full descriptions of all the LATCP commands you can include in LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM.

26.6.1 Creating Additional Services

The LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM procedure provided by Compaq creates one service. This can be a primary service, one through which users can access the general computing environment. It can also be a special application service, such as a data entry program or an online news service.

You can also create a limited service with a fixed number of LTA devices, as described in Section 26.6.2.3.

The LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM procedure creates the service with the same name as that of your node, unless you specify a unique service name as an argument to the @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP.COM command, as explained in Section 26.5.

How to Perform This Task

To create services in addition to the one provided in LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM, use the CREATE SERVICE commands, which you can add to LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM. Note that if you create an application service, Compaq recommends that you assign the name of the application program. For more information about the LATCP command CREATE SERVICE, refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

Example

The following example creates the application service NEWS on the local node:


$ LCP :== $LATCP 
$ LCP CREATE SERVICE /APPLICATION NEWS 

26.6.2 Setting Up Ports

The LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM file provided by Compaq includes sample commands to create logical ports on the service node and associates them with physical ports or services on the terminal server node. These ports can be used for application services and remote printers.

How to Perform This Task

To create ports, enable the sample commands by removing the exclamation points (!) that precede them in the LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM file, or add similar CREATE PORT and SET PORT commands to that file to meet your needs. For information about the LATCP commands CREATE PORT and SET PORT, refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

Note

Compaq strongly recommends that you create application ports and dedicated ports after the LATCP command SET NODE/STATE=ON is executed. This minimizes nonpaged pool memory usage and eliminates the possibility of creating duplicate ports.

Note that you may encounter the following error when attempting to create an application port (with a command such as LCP CREATE PORT LTA5001:/APPLICATION, for example):


%LAT-W-CMDERROR, error reported by command executor 
-SYSTEM-F-DUPLNAM, duplicate name 

This error indicates that the LAT application port you are trying to create is already created by some other application. This application could be LATCP itself (LATCP's port, LATCP$MGMT_PORT, is used to communicate with LTDRIVER).

To avoid this error, make sure the SET NODE/STATE=ON command is executed before any commands that create application ports or dedicated ports. You can also use the LATCP command SET NODE/DEVICE_SEED. For more information about the SET NODE/DEVICE_SEED command, refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

26.6.2.1 Setting Up Printers

If you set up a port for a printer, you must also perform the following tasks:

  1. Create a spooled output queue for the printer.
  2. Add a command to start the queue to the startup command procedure that starts your queues, or to the general-purpose, site-specific startup command procedure.

These tasks are described in Chapter 14.

26.6.2.2 Setting Up Special Application Services

To establish a special application service, include the /DEDICATED qualifier when defining a LAT port. The application program to which the service connects must define the same dedicated port. For example, the following commands set up ports for an application service called NEWS:


$ LCP :== $LATCP 
$ LCP CREATE PORT LTA333:/DEDICATED 
$ LCP SET PORT LTA333:/SERVICE=NEWS 

Before application services can be available to user terminals on the LAT network, you must start the application program. You usually add commands to SYLOGIN.COM to do this.

26.6.2.3 Setting Up Limited Services

Application services with dedicated ports allow you to create a predetermined number of LTA devices (LAT terminals, for example) that are under the control of a process supplied by the system. In that environment, however, the user cannot log in to the service because no way exists for dedicated LTA devices to run the system login image (LOGINOUT.EXE).

You can create a limited service that allows users to log in to a predetermined number of LTA devices associated with that limited service. When all those devices are in use, the LAT software will reject additional connection requests to that service, as indicated by "service in use" error messages. Creating a limited service in this way allows you to control the number of LAT users on your system. (Note, however, that you cannot control which LTA device will be assigned when a user connects to the limited service.)

The following example sets up a limited service with two predetermined LTA devices:


$ LCP :== $LATCP 
$ LCP CREATE SERVICE /LIMITED RESTRICTED 
$ LCP CREATE PORT LTA100 /LIMITED 
$ LCP CREATE PORT LTA101 /LIMITED 
$ LCP SET PORT LTA100 /SERVICE=RESTRICTED 
$ LCP SET PORT LTA101 /SERVICE=RESTRICTED 

When a user attempts to connect to the limited service named RESTRICTED, the LAT software will choose either LTA100 or LTA101 (whichever is available first) and complete the user connection. The user can then log in to that system. If another user connects to the service, that second connection attempt will be assigned to the remaining LTA device. The user can then log in to that second system. When the two devices associated with the limited service named RESTRICTED are both in use, any subsequent attempts to connect to that service will be rejected, as indicated by the "service in use" error message.

When a user logs out of the system (LTA100 or LTA101), that LTA device is not deleted. Instead, it is reset to accept the next connection request to the limited service.

26.6.3 Queuing Incoming Requests

By default, incoming requests to limited or application services are queued. This means that if you attempt to connect to a limited or application service (by using a terminal server port with forward queuing enabled or by entering the DCL command SET HOST/LAT/QUEUE), the LAT software will queue, rather than reject, this connection request if the service has no available ports.

How to Perform This Task

You can set up and manage a service that queues incoming connect requests as follows:

Refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual for more detailed descriptions of the LATCP commands and qualifiers you use to support queued requests.

Example

The following example shows how to enable queuing on your system:


$ LCP :== $LATCP 
$ LCP SET SERVICE /QUEUE 

Note

If a system is configured to handle queued connect requests, that system must be set up as follows to avoid possible queue connection failures:
  • Incoming and outgoing connections must be enabled.
  • User group codes and service group codes must be identical.

26.6.4 Enabling Outgoing LAT Connections

By default, outgoing LAT connections are disabled on a node. To allow users to use the SET HOST/LAT connection to establish LAT connections from the node, you must edit LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM to enable outgoing connections. For more details on using the SET HOST/LAT command for outgoing LAT connections, refer to the description of that command in the OpenVMS DCL Dictionary.

Commands to enable outgoing connections are included in the LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM file provided by Compaq. Enable the command of your choice by removing the exclamation point (!) that precedes it, or add a similar command to meet your needs. For more information, refer to the /CONNECTIONS and /USER_GROUPS qualifiers to the LATCP command SET NODE in the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

To attain optimal SET HOST/LAT performance and forward port performance, you should set the system parameter TTY_ALTYPAHD to 1500 and reboot.

If you want to set up your node only as a service node with incoming connections enabled, editing LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM is not necessary. However, you might edit LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM to do one or more of the following tasks:

26.6.5 Sample Edited LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM Procedure

The following example is a sample of an edited LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM procedure that creates services, creates and sets ports, and sets nodes to allow incoming and outgoing connections.


$! 
$!    LAT$SYSTARTUP.COM -- LAT Startup Commands Specific to Site 
$! 
$!    Use this command procedure to customize the LAT characteristics for 
$!    the local node.  These commands, which should serve as examples, 
$!    will set up a LAT service name SYS$NODE and default identification 
$!    SYS$ANNOUNCE.  The LAT service name and identification will default 
$!    to SYS$NODE and SYS$ANNOUNCE unless you specify a service name and 
$!    identification as arguments to the command line that invokes 
$!    LAT$STARTUP.COM: 
$!                    $ @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP 
$! 
$!    You can specify other node and service characteristics (such as group 
$!    codes) as arguments to this command line, as shown below. 
$! 
$!        Argument     Function 
$!        ---------    -------- 
$! 
$!           P1        Name of the service to be created.  If not supplied, a 
$!                     service will be created with the same name as the node. 
$! 
$!        P2,P3,P4     Parameters and qualifiers to the SET NODE command. 
$! 
$!           P5        Parameters and qualifiers to the SET SERVICE command. 
$!                     P5 is only used if P1 is specified.  More than one 
$!                     argument may be supplied by enclosing the string in 
$!                     quotes. 
$! 
$!    Example: $ @SYS$STARTUP:LAT$STARTUP HAWK "/IDENTIFICATION=" - 
$!   """""Development node""""" 
$! 
$!    Please review and edit this file for possible additions and deletions 
$!    that you wish to make.  Future software updates will not overwrite the 
$!    changes made to this file. 
$! 
$ required_privileges = "OPER" 
$ prev_privs = f$setprv(required_privileges) 
$ if .not. f$privilege(required_privileges) then goto no_privileges 
$ lcp := $latcp 
$! 
$! ---------------------  Modify Node Characteristics  ------------------------ 
$! 
$ lcp set node 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 
$! 
$! Some examples: 
$! 
$! ** Allow incoming connections only 
$! 
$! lcp set node /connections=incoming /groups=(enable=(12,40,43,73),disable=0) 
$! lcp set node /connections=incoming /groups=enable=(0-255) 
$! 
$ LCP SET NODE /CONNECTIONS=INCOMING /GROUPS=(ENABLE=(12,40,43,73),DISABLE=0) 
$! 
$! ** Allow outgoing connections only 
$! 
$! lcp set node /connections=outgoing /user_groups=enable=(24,121-127) 
$! lcp set node /connections=outgoing /user_groups=(enable=0-255) /node_limit=50 
$! 
$! ** Enable incoming and outgoing connections 
$! 
$! lcp set node /connections=both /group=enable=(43,73) /user=enable=(44,56) 
$! lcp set node /connections=both /group=enable=(0-255) /user=enable=(0-255) 
$! 
$! 
$! --------------------  Modify Service Characteristics  ---------------------- 
$! 
$ if p1 .eqs. "" 
$ then 
$    lcp create service 
$ else 
$     lcp create service 'p1' 'p5' 
$ endif 
$! -------------------------  Start LAT Protocol  ----------------------------- 
$! 
$ lcp set node /state=on 
$! 
$! 
$! -------------------------  Create and Map Ports  --------------------------- 
$! 
$! Some examples: 
$! 
$! lcp create port lta101: /dedicated 
$! lcp create port lta102: /application 
$! lcp create port lta103: /application 
$! lcp create port /nolog/logical=(name=ln03$mgmt, table=system, mode=executive) 
$ 
$ LCP CREATE PORT LTA1: /NOLOG 
$ LCP CREATE PORT LTA20: /NOLOG 
$ 
$! lcp set port lta101: /dedicated /service=graphics 
$! lcp set port lta102: /node=server_1 /port=port_1 
$! lcp set port lta103: /node=server_2 /service=laser 
$! lcp set port ln03$mgmt: /node=server_3 /service=ln03_printers 
$! 
$ LCP SET PORT LTA1: /APPLICATION/NODE=TERM_SERVER_1 /PORT=PORT_6 
$ LCP SET PORT LTA20: /APPLICATION/NODE=TERM_SERVER_2 /PORT=PORT_6 
$! 
$exit: 
$ prev_privs = f$setprv(prev_privs) 
$ exit 
$! 
$no_privileges: 
$ write sys$output "Insufficient privileges to execute LATCP commands." 
$ write sys$output "Requires ",required_privileges," privileges." 
$ goto exit 

26.7 Managing the LATACP Database Size

On OpenVMS nodes, another component of the LAT software, the LAT Ancillary Control Process (LATACP), maintains the database of available nodes and services. The nodes and services can be those that are multicast from remote LAT nodes, or they can consist of the local node and one or more local services that you create on your own system. The maximum size of this database is dependent on the value of the system parameter CTLPAGES.

After you enter a LATCP command, you might get the following response:


%LAT-W-CMDERROR, error reported by command executor 
-LAT-F-ACPNOCTL, insufficient resources - ACP CTL/P1 space limit reached 

If so, this signifies that the database size has reached the CTLPAGES limit. You can correct the situation in one of three ways:


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