Re: Probably very easy, Newbie question

Jill

We all suggesting various commands to try.
For any of these commands, instead of keying them then pressing enter, you
can key them then press F4 or F1 ... I generally suggest F4 then F1
F4 shows you what all the options are in addition to defaults which are the
only stuff you see when you press enter
F1 is documentation on the command

If you have keyed some suggested command & F4 to see a ton of options
you can also put cursor on line of one of those options & F4 again to see all
the stuff that can be keyed there
you can also do F1 any old place and it is cursor sensitive
"what does THAT line mean?" put cursor on that line & F1

There are many ways to backup the 400 but for newbies there are a much
smaller subset ... we used to do GO BACKUP many years ago ... I do not
remember if the constraints were the same.

GO SAVE 21 is the best backup system to use in my opinion.
QSECOFR is the logical sign on for this.
It has to be done from the main console of the AS/400.

A lot of stuff is extremely simple & straightforwards, providing you have a
working main console & you know how to work it.

If you do not have a main console you cannot do GO SAVE 21 and a LOT of
System Administrative functions.  The main console can be a PC or it can be a
work station.  I did not know that it was possible to have an AS/400 without
a main console.  It may be that you do have one but did not know it, so we
need to pursue that thread, because there is a lot of support functions
essential to the AS/400 that can only be done from the main console.

We have had our main console go bad (hardware need repairing) & there are all
kinds of error messages associated with this, but the 400 ran fine for the
several days while we had our main console repaired.  Now while the hardware
was detached from the 400, as far as the 400 was concerned it DID have a main
console, it just had a ton of connection errors.

The AS/400 hardware should have ports to which all the equipment is added &
while the markings on the ports can be a bit obtuse to figure out, the main
console needs to be on the very first address of the very first port.

I think one of the values in WRKSYSVAL or WRKCFGSTS *DEV might tell you which
device is configured as your main console.  Hopefully someone here can
clarify that question.  I do know that when I print out a chart of my
connected hardware, I get a separate page JUST for the main console.

Linda mentioned DSP01.
Our main console is called COS4 because once upon a time we had multiple
operating systems with another session called COS36 & this was an easy way to
remember which session was the main console for each operating system.
All display stations in our computer room department start with the letter C.
All display stations in accounting start with the letter A.
We have a naming convention so we can locate where is that display station or
printer that is in trouble.
DSP01 is not neccessarily your main console.

We have created our own NITELY menu to support backup operations in which one
of the options is to reinitialize the tape that will be used in the backup,
with various fields filled in that we have figured out are the best settings
for us.

There are a bunch of options associated with GO SAVE 21
I believe that it is best to stop EVERYTHING.
If there is stuff going on on your system such as printer operations or
unresolved errors, it can conflict with the backup.

We do not do the STOP exclusively from the SAVE 21 options, but rather we
take a look at what is running on the system when we are about ready to start
the backup ... perhaps the JOBQs should be stopped or held to prevent them
releasing more stuff until we done with the backup; perhaps there are people
signed on; perhaps there is a batch job running which will finish real soon.

Alan mentioned what is the control subsystem.
The control subsystem for your 400 might be different than his.
There are settings in WRKSYSVAL that determine the complexity of your
subsystems.
I not remember the details, but in any case, you need to be running your
backup from the console & not from QINTER.
It might be helpful for you to post here what subsystem you trying to run
your backup from.

Use other threads or archives to get info on how to use WRKACTJOB & other
resources to see what people are doing what on the system right now.
Although when you are there, the most useful things might be F11 (sideways to
all the colums available) put cursor on any column & F1 to explain the stuff
there, or cursor on a column & F16 to sequence lines based on that column.

I use WRKSPLF to see MY reports then F22 to see ALL printers status.  There
are other paths.

While you CAN stop all sub systems as part of the backup process, this can do
damage to applications that were in the middle of something, or mess up the
printer alignment where something in middle of doing some report.  My
philosophy is to do zero disruption that I will then have to clean up the
mess later on.

WRKSBSD I think is the command that will let you see what all the sub systems
are that exist on your AS/400 & from there you can see which have JOBQ set up
with relative priorities to each other.  QINTER is the one that manages
interactive non-PC functions.  If you are running your backup from the main
console & you STOP *ALL SUBSYSTEMS (I am not at a 400 so I not have the exact
command string handy, but GO CMDSBS will get you to all commands that have
anything to do with sub systems) then you not have to worry about QINTER or
anything else that might conflict with the backup, but there is also an
option on the first of the two GO SAVE 21 screens to stop all the subsystems.

WRKSYSSTS also shows all the subsystems that are running at any one moment &
how much resources applied to each one.

ANY TIME YOU HAVE ANY ERROR MESSAGE on the 400
If you put the cursor on the line that has the error message then F1
It gives you access to HELP on that ERROR MESSAGE
There should be considerable text which sometimes is helpful, but can be
meaningless to some people, especially newbies
However, there should be a MESSAGE NUMBER that you need to communicate to
people who are more familiar with the AS/400

The message number should be in the form of 3 letters then 4 digits
such as RPG1234 or CFA5679 or SQL9753
The first 3 letters will tell SOMEONE what type of application problem this
is & where to find the DOC on that type of whatever

This business of finding an error message, putting cursor on it, F1 for more
detail
that works in all kinds of circumstances
Interactive program running & error message at bottom of screen
you get into some kind of LOG such as command line CALL QCMD F10
or a JOBQ BATCH got hung so you are WRKJOB that job perhaps from WRKACTJOB &
5 that hung job then menu 10 & F10 scroll

Right after an effort by QSECOFR to do a backup that failed, you can DSPLOG &
you see a ton of information that summarizes the steps involved.  More
information is sometimes available here before the QSECOFR job sign off,
because stuff gets logged that can be lost at signoff depending on how you
signoff .... sometime when you are at a command line ... instead of keying
SIGNOFF then enter, key SIGNOFF then F4 then F1.

> Thanks for the response, Richard.  Uh oh...What is "qinter"?  I don't find
>  that in the index, and I'm hoping it's a typo.  Also, we don't have
anything
>  set up as a "console".  We are accessing it via Client Access from another
>  PC.  I am doing this from the QSECOFR id, which is supposed to have all the
>  access necessary based on the Backup and Recovery manual.
>
>  Ahhh the learning curve.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)