hobbit@AIM.RUTGERS.EDU.UUCP (03/28/87)
VMS upgrades involving image patching usually patch an extant image in the system tree, write a new image in the "kit working directory" and then copy that over to the tree, superseding the original image. If Patch finds an ECO level already set when the .VUP file tries to set it, the replacements performed under that ECO level aren't written when Patch finds an UPDATE command. There are several files in the 4.5 VMS update that already have ECO levels set and from what I can see already have the fixes provided by the 4.5 .VUP file. So why is the .VUP file there? A short example is LOGINOUT, which has ECO level 1 already set from the 4.4 mandatory. No new image is written at all, since no changes are done under anything but ECO level 1, so your "provide_file" or equivalent *fails*. What's going on? Did someone completely lose track of what versions of things were being shipped/updated? Should I simply go ahead and use the extant images for those cases that weren't updated, or should I mung around with the ECO levels? What did other people who upgraded from 4.4 to 4.5 do with this? _H* ------
carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU.UUCP (03/29/87)
> There are several files in the 4.5 VMS update that already have ECO levels > set and from what I can see already have the fixes provided by the 4.5 .VUP > file. So why is the .VUP file there? A short example is LOGINOUT, which > has ECO level 1 already set from the 4.4 mandatory. No new image is written > at all, since no changes are done under anything but ECO level 1, so your > "provide_file" or equivalent *fails*. > > What's going on? Did someone completely lose track of what versions of things > were being shipped/updated? Should I simply go ahead and use the extant images > for those cases that weren't updated, or should I mung around with the ECO > levels? What did other people who upgraded from 4.4 to 4.5 do with this? Consider the following question: would you rather have an upgrade warn you that no change was made to a file because it had already been patched, or have it fail to make a required patch because it assumed that a previous installation had already made it? I think you'll agree that the former is by far the preferable option. VMSINSTAL is probably one of the least well documented VMS utilities extant, and one of the things you apparently don't know about it is the fact that it's frequently possible to get it to install a product on a system that is running too low a version of VMS for that product to be guaranteed to work properly (one use for this feature is to let you install layered products before applying the mandatory update to a VMS upgrade. For example, the 4.4 mandatory update patched several DECnet images, but normally you wouldn't have installed DECnet (on a uVMS system) until after the mandatory update, so you'd have to run the update again to patch the DECnet files). Thus, it's necessary for upgrade procedures to be very conservative in their assumptions regarding the ECO levels of the files they're dealing with. The only thing the 4.5 upgrade could be reasonably sure of was that the files were at least at the ECO level of the 4.4 distribution BEFORE THE MANDATORY UPDATE (since 4.4 gave you a completely new suite of system files). Thus, the 4.5 kit included VMSMUP 4.4 in order to be certain you got all the patches you needed. So, in answer to your question, use the images as the 4.5 upgrade left them. It knew what it was doing.