Commands from Within Operations Navigator

And Other Neat Stuff

Some tricks to store those odd-ball jobs and help you with your job.

My site www.axs2000.net/jvoris will have copies of all roundtables,

not just this one

 

 

Open Mgmt Central and begin with Define Commands

 

Right Click to see

 

 

 

Explore

= Open in and exiting window

 

Open

= Open in a New Window

 

Create Shortcut

 

New Definition

Select "New Definition"

 

 

 

 Key in your command. Use the Check Syntax button for QCHKEXC to check the syntax. But it will not check object existence.

Like pressing F14 to see a command’s structure without running the command

 

For example,

keying up a command

 

 

 

Grant Object Authority (GRTOBJAUT)

Type choices, press Enter.

Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBJ > hrcustd___

Library . . . . . . . . . . . *LIBL____

Object type . . . . . . . . . . OBJTYPE > *lib______

Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . USER __________ + for more values __________

Authority . . . . . . . . . . . AUT *CHANGE___ + for more values __________

Authorization list . . . . . . . AUTL > hr2000____

Reference object . . . . . . . . REFOBJ __________

Library . . . . . . . . . . . *LIBL____

Reference object type . . . . . REFOBJTYPE *OBJTYPE___

Replace authority . . . . . . . REPLACE *NO_

 

By pressing F14 you remove the default entries and see the command. A syntax check is run and you see the message about "messages"

Press enter to see the errors and submit the command.

Display Command String

GRTOBJAUT OBJ(HRCUSTD)

OBJTYPE(*LIB)

AUTL(HR2000)

"Messages pending on other displays" if there are typos in restricted parms.

 

 

 

F14 and Ops Nav BOTH give lousy feedback of the errors.

Clicking Details took me a Help Box which took me to the CL Reference on the Web - V4R3- - - YUCK!

 

 

Will appear if you try to enter duplicate "names" of commands.

 

 

HINT:

If you ever need to capture screen shots within a Word Document,

Then use ALT+PrintScreen to copy to the clipboard.

Then use CTL+V to paste it into your Word Document.

 

 

 

 

Other Tabs on the command

1. TURN OFF the automatic reply. Who runs their shop this way, especially on the first time the command is run?

2. Choose if you want others beside the creator to run these commands.




Read-Only = Others can copy it, but cannot change it, delete it or stop it when it is running.

 

 



And you can schedule task to run

Once

Weekly

Monthly (as of the nth of the month

First xxxx of the month

Last xxxx of the month

 

 

But it will not pull in scheduled jobs sitting on WRKJOBSCDE !

 

Note WRKSYSVAL QUTCOFFSET…

QUTCOFFSET
even if you don’t run multiple systems you have to set this.

Otherwise 7:19PM Eastern becomes 2:19PM

 

Display System Value

CHGSYSVAL QUTCOFFSET

the Coordinated universal time offset from Meridian Time

Change the Offset

from 00:00 to -05:00 (negative 5:00)

And restart Management Central– you don’t have to IPL the AS400. Only stop and restart Mgmt Central!

Get familiar with the screen above!

 

 

A trick about submitting tasks

from the Management Central Redbook.

One way to submit more than one task in your Mgmt Central Task.

You can put //BCHJOB source into a source member and submit the source member (pg 59) but then you don’t get Last-Used Dates and object security, so it is not a good trick to use.

//BCHJOB JOB(JOBNAME) JOBQ(QPGMR)

CHGSYSVAL QTIME ‘02:00’

CHGSYSVAL QUTCOFFSET ‘–0400’

ENDTCPSRV *MGTC

DLYJOB (DLY20)

STRTCPSVR *MGTC

//ENDJOB

But what is nice about Mgmt Central is that you - as security officer - can have scheduled tasks that Pgmrs and Consultants can be excluded from viewing or fiddling with.

Even PentaSafe © puts jobs in WRKJOBSCDE so unless I restrict WRKJOBSCDE to everyone but myself, any programmer can go into WRKJOBSCDE and delete a scheduled job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You get a notification when the task/job kicks in.

But do not discount the no-charge WRKJOBSCDE or the chargable Advanced Scheduler. (Advanced hooks into Mgmt Central).

 

 

 

 

Advanced has Applications and Contacts

Notification Lists and Paging Functions

Problem recovery, Max Runtime, Alternate Jobs, AutoReply

But most good paging software has these features, too.

BUT ADV SCHEDULER HAS "JOB GROUPS" for organizing tasks

into batch streams

Even without Adv Scheduler, every AS400 should be using WRKJOBSCDE

or some ROBOT © type scheduler!

Something that monitors and alerts inherent with a Pager.

Examples of messages I receive during the week:

"Daily Backups are done" is sent at 12:30am

Monday is "Tape Init Day" – otherwise no tape messages go to me!

Tuesday Morning – PM400e weekly ECS send.

Sunday 10am and 7pm – an "AOK message" testing the paging modem

and the AS400 subsystems.

Other messages throughout the day

Pentasafe Rejected Authority messages –

Day shift to Junior Operator.

Nights and Weekends to me.

STRBADWTR is a program launched when the Main printer fails.

This program varies it off, varies it on and restarts the printer.

The failure message is tested with the Pager software monitoring QSYSOPR.

 

 

 

Graphical pick and choose what gets copied into a SAVFILE.

Files

Pgms

Users

Devices

Source Members

 

 

You cannot mix IFS files and QSYS objects in the same SAVF !

 

 

Packaging up objects graphically…the new SNADS !

 

My Snapshot was broken.

Here is the DSPJOBLOG of the Server Job, but still no clues.

 

 

But Packages are intended for Collecting Performance Statistics.

They collect within a "Collection Object" which takes less space and handling time than a file would. These are the same collections that come out of STRPFRMON cmd in the Perf. Tools 5769-PT1.

 

 

 

 

Now real life – I found an actual problem while preparing these examples:

Look at the disk arm below! I do a STRASPBAL weekly, so why??

 

These screens come from the Monitors in Mgmt Central.

And from it, I can set myself monitors and threshold messages.

 

Thresholds

They change color ! They can break in on other Windows Apps !

They can reset themselves They can be very annoying!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the threshold message hits my message queue. Very nice. The breakin when I’m working in other Windows Apps I can live without.

And you can see it here as

 

Note that the message "faults back to normal" appears 

 

 

 

Here’s a monster screen, but it might help to see it all together

 

 

And Performance Drill Down is actually pretty nice. So from machine to machine, collected statistics by area, ranking of jobs (upper right)

then individual job statistics, you can see a lot from one place.

 

 

 

 

Restrictions on Availability of Ops Nav Functions

(Like the fine print on a contract)

In my case with V4R4 the Advanced Scheduler is not installed, so right-clicking the timer function I only get the tasks I’ve entered through Mgmt Central

Operations Navigator may hide elements in its tree hierarchy due to a variety of reasons. This is the menu option called Function Availability

 

· Not installed in CA 400 - a corresponding Operations Navigator

subcomponent is not installed)

· OS/400 release level of the AS/400 does not support it

· Management Central not installed

· Not available over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

· SSL (item does not support SSL and system currently using SSL)

· Application Administration restriction

User ID denied using Application Administration

· Not supported on OS/400 version

· Restricted by Product

Third-party Plug-in self-imposed restrictions

· Client Access policies (turns off the entire Operations

Navigator application)

 

 

Notes:

1 Client Access policies are not listed under the Restrictions column.

2 Third-party Plug-ins may be displayed in the hierarchy, but only to a limited extent.

3 If an element is restricted for any reason, all elements that are displayed in the tree control of this dialog as sub-elements of the restricted item will also be restricted. This means that a parent's restricted status causes all child items to be restricted.

 

 

 

 

 

References

InfoCenter on CD

The HELP that comes with Management Central

Management Central SG-245407 (in PDF)

Managing V4R4 with Operations Navigator SG-245646 (in PDF)

 

After I have to restart a backup (the tape might be going bad)…

I don’t remove the tape from the magazine and treat it special.

I send the tapes out and within Outlook, on the OPTIONS tag, you can specify a

" Do Not Deliver Before date xx/xx/xx "

So I send the operator and myslef a reminder email to pull the tape for tests 4 weeks hence when it is due back in the door and will be expired.

 

Herr’s Chips has a folder called /HELPDESK that contains problem documents

HD99052301, HD99052302 and programmer specs, projects and notes…

Going back to 1994 ! Fully indexed for searching.

It is a simple system that works quite well.

 

Two new Friends:

CHGEXPSCDE, CHGACTSCDE to help you manage *USRPRF’s

Do you know these old friends?

DSPMSG QSYSOPR, DSPLOG, ANZPRB, WRKALR (alert), PRTERRLOG, QRYPRBSTS,STRCLNUP

GO USERHELP, GO PROBLEM, GO TECHHELP,

GO NETWORK, GO NETPRB, GO ASSIST

 

Lastly, when changing System commands, copy the command into QUSRCMD at the top of the System LibList and DOCUMENT what you did in a source file in QUSRCMD !

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Management Central is mostly used to monitor the box.

Packages are mostly used to distribute PTF Fixes to other boxes in the network – where each "endpoint" is a box.

One endpoint is the Source Box

(usually a "Master box" or "Model Box")

There can be many targets and copy/REPLICATING is finally easy thanks to Management Central!

System Groups are for grouping your AS/400’s so many AS/400s act as one remote AS/400 –

Group your Domino Servers together.

Group Production separate from Test boxes.

Group boxes in a different Time Zone together.

But I don’t see that a box can belong to more than one group.

(ie. In one group for PTF dispersal, but in another group for performance monitoring.

Question: Can you logoff as Operator with one view of the system groups and log on as "Performance Tuner" to see another view of the system groups

?

Inventory Control through Management Central is for another day.