25 Apr
2001
25 Apr
'01
12:43 p.m.
Newbie here...apologies if this is a stupid question.
Nope, not a stupid question.
Background: I'm a unix-geek who has used VMS in
the past, but never
done any VMS administration. Naturally, when I got the opportunity
to possess my own MicroVAX 3100, I leapt at it!
Good first VMS box. Beware, VMS is addictive! It's now my favorite OS.
What it lacks in 'flash' it makes up in other ways.
I managed to get a terminal for the VAX and figured
out how to boot
it, via "BOOT DKA300" at the >>> prompt. This gave me a boot sequence
of some sort, terminating in an OpenVMS 6.1 tagline and a "$" prompt.
You're not getting a login prompt? Are you booting from CD? It sounds a
lot like you're booting into Standalone Backup. Are there any other disks
on the system? Unfortuantly I'm really not that familiar with Standalone
Backup, as I've barely touched it since moving to Alpha's. One command that
is likely to work is BACKUP.
Unfortunately, once I got to this point, I was at a
loss about what
to do next. None of the VMS commands I enter are recognized as valid
commands...they all return the error:
%CLI-W-IVVERB, unrecognized command verb - check validity and spelling
$ help/message %CLI-W-IVVERB
IVVERB, unrecognized command verb - check validity and spelling
Facility: CLI, Command Language Interpreter (DCL)
Explanation: The first word in the command is not a valid DCL command or
a symbol name equated with a command. The rejected portion
of the command is displayed between backslashes.
User Action: Check the spelling of the command name or symbol name, then
reenter the command.
I haven't been able to find anything on the web
that tells me what to
do next. I've even left the box running since I booted it last night,
for fear that turning it off will corrupt a mounted filesystem.
The ODS-2 Filesystem if pretty stable. I've a friend who has the bad habit
of just hitting the Power Button on his VMS boxes. Me, I always shut them
down, if nothing else they boot faster :^)
Anybody out there know what I'm not doing right,
or have a URL that
points to a site for a beginner-Admin of a VMS box?
The first couple sites you'll want to check out are:
http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/
http://www.openvms.compaq.com:8000/
Then I'd also recommend:
http://anacin.nsc.vcu.edu/~jim/mvax/mvax_faq.html (very out of date)
http://eisner.decus.org/vms/faq.htm
Zane