Tips and Tricks

Table of contents

‘vi’ and 'vim' text editors

Notes:

• When typing text, press <ESC> once finished. In case you’re blocked, press also <ESC> before executing commands described below
• both is case sensitive

‘gedit’ graphical editor

‘gedit’ is a graphical text editor, users familiar with Windows notepad should not encounter difficulties to use it.

‘nano’ text editor

‘nano’ is a basic text editor, very simple to use and displaying available commands at the bottom of the screen. For example, to leave ‘nano’ , use ^X (press CTRL + X)

How to setup ‘ssh’ trusts between Linux and Tru64

• Generate the key

• Copy the linuxhost.pub file, or use copy/paste, in the /.ssh2 folder on the Tru64 host
  
  
• Define the authorization file:

• Initialize the first ssh connection (answer 'yes' to confirm)

then retry the same command to verify the trust is working.

How to setup ‘ssh’ trusts between Linux and VMS

• Enable SSH on the VMS server:

Select then:

• Option 3 - Server components then enable and start service SSH, option 19
• then Option 2 - Enable & Start service on this node

• If VMS has to connect to Linux, configure the SSH CLIENT:

Select then:

• Option 2 - Enable & Start service on this node
• Exit with E twice

• Copy these files from the default SSH user for the SYSTEM one:

Uncomment: BatchMode      yes

Find and set: AllowedAuthentications               publickey, password

• Generate the key and convert it to be readable by VMS

• Copy the file /root/.ssh/linux.pub, or use copy/paste, to the VMS system in the SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSMGR.SSH2] directory

• Copy the hostkey.pub file from the VMS system to the Linux one:

Enter YES then the VMS system password

• Import the VMS public key and add it to the authorized keys:
  
  

• Define the VMS identification file:

Do not forget the dot at the end of the identification file name

• On the VMS system add the Linux key to the authorized keys:

Do not forget the dot at the end of the authorization file name

• Perform tests (examples)

Charon server name "charon", vms system name "pluto":

Shutdown guests with Expect tool

Introduction

In case SSH cannot be used to perform clean shutdown of the guests, the "expect" tool can be used to connect to the console and perform the login operation then execute the shutdown command.

 In this case the password is sent without encryption.

To facilitate use of "expect" for shutdown, an example is provided in the "guest_shutdown.exp" script located in the /opt/charon/utils folder. If you plan to customize the script, you'll have to create a copy and not use it directly as it will be overwritten in case of Toolkit upgrade.

This script can handle the following situations:

• No user connected on the console:
  
  • Expect: "Username: " (VMS) or "login: " (Tru64)
  • Action: An interactive session will be initiated based on <user> and <password> provided in the parameters
• A user is connected on the console:
  
  • Expect: <prompt> provided in the parameters
  • This user must have privileges to perform shutdown as no logout will be issued
  • Action: Depending on the Operating system parameter (see <opsys> below), the shutdown command will be sent
• Console is at SRM prompt:
  
  • Expect: ‘>>>’ (so works with VAX and Alpha with "P00>>>")
  • Action: A 'power off' command will be issued. If the command is not recognized, the F6 key will be sent (this must be enabled within the configuration file). If the F6 key did not stop the emulator, the script will exit with error code 9 meaning you will have to kill the emulator process yourself (see examples in the "/opt/charon/utils/charon_gstart.stop.example" file)

Script usage

Usage:

# path/script <port> <user> <password> <prompt> <opsys>

Parameters:

Example: (examples are given in the /opt/charon/utils/charon_gstart.stop.example file)