How to restart CHARON-VAX/AXP on Windows automatically on failure

Description

In case of unrequested CHARON virtual machine stop, it is possible, using the Windows Service Recovery system, to restart CHARON emulator automatically

Step-by-step guide

Additional considerations

To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Account Operators group, the Domain Admins group, the Enterprise Admins group, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.
Recovery actions are available only on computers running Windows 2000 or later.

Setup your CHARON virtual machine as a service. To do so, refer to the corresponding documentation.
Example: Running CHARON-AXP for Windows - Running as system service
Configure the Recovery settings either from the GUI or from the command line as explained below

Restarting CHARON emulator does not mean booting the OpenVMS or Tru64 virtual system. You will need to setup the flags at SRM level for autoboot.

Example:

P00>>> set bootdef_dev dka0

P00>>> set auto_action restart

Configuration using Service manager / GUI

Open the Windows service manager: click Start, click in the Start Search box, type services.msc, and then press ENTER
Locate the service you've created using the CHARON service manager utility (or using the CHARON Virtual Machines Manager in case of CHARON versions above 4.7). Double click on the service to open the properties window and select the Recovery tab:
Configure the service manager to restart the CHARON service after a specified amount of time

Example:

It is possible to prevent the service from being restarted multiple times in a day by specifying the "Reset fail count after" parameter.

Issue: the counter cannot be less than 1 day using the GUI, zero means always use the "First failure" defined action. If you want to specify less than one day, use the command line settings as explained in the next chapter

Configuration using sc / command line

In the simple example below, we will setup the recovery options to:

Restart the service named "myds20" after failure, 30 seconds after failure detection. This will occur:
- If the 1st attempt to start the services (after setting the recovery options) fails
- If the service has been restarted and is running for more than 10 minutes. This is to avoid multiple restarts on service failure.
Execute an "msg" command on next failures, one second after failure detection
Reset the failure counter if the service is running for more than 10 minutes.

The specified timers will have to be customized according to your configuration

Open "cmd.exe" from the "Start" menu in "Run as Administrator" mode

Execute the following commands:

C:\Windows\system32>sc failure myds20 reset= 600 actions= restart/30000/run/1000/run/1000

C:\Windows\system32>sc failure myds20 command= "C:\Windows\System32\msg.exe * \"myds20 virtual machine failed after restart attempt\""

C:\Windows\system32>sc qfailure myds20

[SC] QueryServiceConfig2 SUCCESS

SERVICE_NAME: myds20

RESET_PERIOD (in seconds) : 600

REBOOT_MESSAGE :

COMMAND_LINE : C:\Windows\System32\msg.exe * "myds20 virtual machine failed after restart attempt"

FAILURE_ACTIONS : RESTART -- Delay = 30000 milliseconds.

RUN PROCESS -- Delay = 1000 milliseconds.

White space is mandatory after the "parameter=" option
The Windows service manager may not reflect the specified values. Example: 10 minutes for reset failure count will appear as 0 in the GUI
The "reset=" value is expressed in seconds
The "actions=" timer values are expressed in milliseconds

Links

Microsoft Technet / Set up Recovery Actions to Take Place When a Service Fails: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753662.aspx
Microsoft Technet / sc failure: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742019.aspx

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