[Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

[Mark Pizzolato]

Hi Joshua,

When reporting a problem and asking for help more detail is always better than less.

Please be sure that you’re building the latest code from https://github.com/simh/simh which can be downloaded as a zipball from https://github.com/simh/simh/archive/master.zip or a tarball from https://github.com/simh/simh/archive/master.tar

Unzip (or de-tar) what you downloaded and:
                $ unzip simh-master.zip
                $ cd simh-master
                $ make vax

> I'm having errors attaching the XQ controller to eth0.
> Note: I'm using Debian Jessie.

That is good info.

> I also had problems when trying to make the simh targets.  I got
> an error from the make file about statically linking against libpcap.
> I...removed the check from the makefile and built it anyways.
> Did I do a bad, bad thing?

If you have problems building, then provide the build output from the above commands.  You ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT have to change anything.

As the output from the make suggests if you want a network capable simulator you should install the OS vendor (Debian in this case) supplied libpcap development components, which should easily be achieved by:

                # apt-get install libpcap-dev

The rebuild the simulator.

On Linux, the simplest way to get a network capable simulator working is to run it as root since that is necessary for the pcap access to the LAN interface.

> Now...as to Open VMS itself.  We have one production machine.
> A MicroVAX 3100-90 running OpenVMS 5.5-2.  It's using the
> CMUIP stack for communicating on our network.
> That machine is all we have licenses for.  Thus we do not have
> licenses for any of the hobbyist stuff, DEC IP, etc.

The hobbyist stuff is readily available.  You can use that environment to
facilitate the migration of your data into the simulated environment.
Once you’ve moved your data, you can actually run your original
system configuration (as close as possible anyway).

> We have CD images for OpenVMS 6.1 and 7.1, but no licenses
> for them.  The plan is use the OpenVMS 6.1 install CD to boot
> to Stand-Alone backup.  An image backup save_set of the
> MicroVAX system disk will made on the MicroVAX and uploaded
> to the Linux machine.  I'll use mkisofs in Linux to create a CD
> image of the save set.  The OpenVMS 6.1 Stand-Alone backup
> will use used to restore the MicroVAX save_set to a simh disk.
> Then reboot simh from that disk.

This won’t work as planned since the standalone backup environment is
very primitive and it won’t find the expected file attributes on the saveset
which you put on the ISO CD image.

Once again, I suggest using the Hobbyist pieces to get a running IP capable
VMS environment as a migration tool for your data.  Once you’ve got the
saveset of your data on a running VMS environment (within a simulator)
you can “SET FILE/ATTRIBUTE=” to set the attributes correctly and BACKUP
will then be able to restore from it.

> Hopefully we should be good to go (pending any reconfigure/AUTOGEN issues).

As for migrating your existing content from the MicroVAX 3100-90, there will be unavoidable changes to that system’s configuration since the available simulators don’t yet include any MicroVAX 3100 systems.  I’d suggest using the MicroVAX 3900 simulator.

1)      The disk device names will not be DKAxxx since the available simulators don’t have SCSI attached disks.  You’ll have to use MSCP disks which means the device names will be DUAn.

2)      The network interface will have to change to use the XQ device instead of the native LAN interface on the MicroVAX 3100-90.



-          Mark

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Joshua Overmiller
Sent: Friday, March 4, 2016 12:37 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

I'm having errors attaching the XQ controller to eth0.
Note: I'm using Debian Jessie.

I also had problems when trying to make the simh targets.  I got an error from the make file about statically linking against libpcap.
I...removed the check from the makefile and built it anyways.  Did I do a bad, bad thing?

I am going to go back and find Toby Thain's write-up as another user suggested and see where that gets me.

Now...as to Open VMS itself.  We have one production machine.  A MicroVAX 3100-90 running OpenVMS 5.5-2.  It's using the CMUIP stack for communicating on our network.
That machine is all we have licenses for.  Thus we do not have licenses for any of the hobbyist stuff, DEC IP, etc.

We have CD images for OpenVMS 6.1 and 7.1, but no licenses for them.  The plan is use the OpenVMS 6.1 install CD to boot to Stand-Alone backup.  An image backup save_set of the MicroVAX system disk will made on the MicroVAX and uploaded to the Linux machine.  I'll use mkisofs in Linux to create a CD image of the save set.  The OpenVMS 6.1 Stand-Alone backup will use used to restore the MicroVAX save_set to a simh disk.  Then reboot simh from that disk.  Hopefully we should be good to go (pending any reconfigure/AUTOGEN issues).



On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 2:48 PM, Mark Pizzolato <Mark at infocomm.com<mailto:Mark at infocomm.com>> wrote:
Hi Joshua,

Please elaborate the details of your networking problems with the simh VAX.

You should be able to build a vanilla VMS install on simh using the Hobbyist pieces of BOTH VMS and either the DEC IP stack or MultiNet and use that system as your import export tool.  That system will absolutely no issues mounting simh disk images or running backup to restore your saveset to a different simh disk.


-          Mark

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com>] On Behalf Of Joshua Overmiller
Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2016 6:36 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: [Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

I've built the ods2 tool and ods2reader from http://www.vms2linux.de/ in order to try to read the simh disk files.

However, trying "ods2 mount d0.dsk" responds with "Mount failed with 2312".
Trying "ods2reader -l d0:[000000]"  gives:
    d0:[000000] -- Bad block in file
    d0:[000000] --- Cant't read index file header on d0

d0.dsk corresponds to DAU0 which is a RA92 disk.

Note there were some warnings when building both tools, but they both build.

For ods2:

ods2.c: In function ‘main’:
ods2.c:1165:13: warning: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/stdio.h:638) [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
             if (gets(str) == NULL) break;
ods2.o: In function `main':
ods2.c:(.text.startup+0x2d5): warning: the `gets' function is dangerous and should not be used.

For ods2reader:
Various warnings about implicit declaraions of builtin functions strlen, strcpy, and strcat.




More info to follow to get some insight into what my plans are.

My end goal is to migrate a physical MicroVAX 3100-90 VMS 5.5 system to simh.
I've been playing around with learning the BACKUP utility and Stand-Alone BACKUP under simh before I try anything out on the real system.  I can make an image backup of the system disk to a SAVE_SET on another disk.  The MicroVAX has the CMUIP installed so I can FTP the SAVE_SET off onto our network.  I plan to write the SAVE_SET to an iso image for simh VAX to mount and copy to a local disk.  I will then use BACKUP to restore the save set to a local disk.

I will also want to get some files off the simh VAX.  Hence the need to mount the simh disk image files.

I'm struggling with getting the networking running in simh, so I'm looking into this route.  However, other suggestions for getting files out of the simh disk image files are welcome.


Thanks,

Josh
.


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