DIGITAL Cover Letter Supplement for VMS[TM] Version 5.5 AV-PMX6A-TE This cover letter supplement describes five problems not iden- tified in the Cover Letter for VMS Version 5.5.[1] Before in- stalling or upgrading to VMS Version 5.5, carefully read this letter and the original cover letter (AV-EF56L-TE). Upgrading from Versions 5.0 through 5.3-n in a Cluster Environment A problem in the installation procedure causes an upgrade from VMS Versions 5.0 through 5.3-n to VMS Version 5.5 to fail in a cluster environment. The problem does not affect upgrades on nonclustered standalone systems. To successfully upgrade your cluster, follow the instructions for performing a concur- rent upgrade in Section 7.1 of the VMS Version 5.5 Upgrade and Installation Manual, with the following change: At step 3, enter the following SYSBOOT command before entering the CONTINUE command: SYSBOOT> SET VAXCLUSTER 0 NOTE If the node you want to upgrade is running VMS Version 5.4 or higher in a cluster environment, you can perform a rolling upgrade. See Section 7.3 of the VMS Version 5.5 Upgrade and Installation Manual for instructions. ___________________ [1] The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation: ACMS, Digital, VAX, VMS, and the DIGITAL logo. AUTOGEN Problem When AUTOGEN is run during an installation or upgrade, it uncon- ditionally sets the TMSCP_LOAD parameter (new to Version 5.5) to 1 rather than 0, thus enabling tape serving. For a standalone system in a noncluster environment, having TMSCP_LOAD set to 1 causes the following error message when booting your system, but does not affect system operation: %TMSCPLOAD-E-SERVE_ERR, error serving device MUA0:,R0 status=00000084 In a cluster environment, tape serving is automatically enabled and tapes are served to the cluster. If tape serving is not desired, this could cause a problem as tapes with inconsistent drive names may get served to the cluster. Digital recommends the following workarounds for users in a cluster environment who do not wish tapes to be served and for users with standalone systems in a noncluster environment. The procedure differs between upgrades and new installations. If you are performing an upgrade, add the following line to MODPARAMS.DAT before beginning the upgrade: TMSCP_LOAD=0 In a cluster environment, modify MODPARAMS.DAT for each node in the cluster. If you are performing a new installation, do the following after the installation is complete: 1. Use SYSGEN to set the TMSCP_LOAD parameter to 0 by entering the following commands: $ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:SYSGEN SYSGEN> USE CURRENT SYSGEN> SET TMSCP_LOAD 0 SYSGEN> WRITE CURRENT SYSGEN> EXIT 2 2. Add the following line to MODPARAMS.DAT to permanently change the parameter: TMSCP_LOAD=0 ESS$LASTDRIVER Problem If ESS$LASTDRIVER is manually loaded and started before the Eth- ernet controller is configured or before DECnet is started, the ESS$LASTDRIVER will crash the system with an INVEX- CEPTN BUGCHECK. During normal system startup, when ESS$LAST_ STARTUP.COM loads and starts the ESS$LASTDRIVER, the problem does not occur. You can obtain a fix for this problem through your normal sup- port channels. Mailbox Driver Problem and ACMS A bug in the mailbox driver's EXE$SNDEVMSG routine causes it to write a string count one byte longer than the actual string. If the application expects a $QIO READ to return data sent by EXE$SNDEVMSG, and the application does one or more of the following, the extra byte causes a problem: o Creates the mailbox with MAXMSG set to the exact size of the string that it expects EXE$SNDEVMSG to write. o Uses the length returned by $QIO READ, for example, to compare strings or simply to verify that the length is an expected value. The layered product ACMS is affected by this problem. If you have ACMS installed on your system running VMS Version 5.5, you will be unable to log in to ACMS through controlled terminals except LAT-dedicated service ports. On other controlled ter- minals, after you start the ACMS terminal subsystem, you will see the "Connected to ACMS" and "Press to continue ....." messages, but you will not get any response from ACMS due to the problem with the mailbox driver. 3 You can obtain a fix for this problem through your normal sup- port channels. System Message Help SYSMSGHELP.HLP is now included in SYS$HELP:HELPLIB.HLB. To save blocks, delete the obsolete help file in SYSMSGHELP.HLB: $ DELETE SYS$COMMON:[SYSHLP]SYSMSGHELP.HLB If you created a logical name for SYSMSGHELP.HLB, delete that also. Digital Equipment Corporation. 1991. All rights reserved. 4