7/28/08 Using the System Request menu.

The System Request menu is basically a shortcut screen that allows you to access some commonly used commands without leaving the your current screen.

Accessing the System Request menu can be done in a variety of ways depending on your environment and emulation program. Common ways are: pressing the SHIFT and SysRq keys together, or if using PC emulation, right clicking your mouse and selecting ‘SysRq’ from the pop-up window.

Transfer to secondary display session.
Choosing Option 1 will give you a second sign on for the same session, but there is a caveat: once you start another session the first one is paused and it will not resume until you go back to it. This is important to remember if you are running an interactive query, compile, etc.

Cancel a display session
To cancel out the display session that your are viewing, use Option 2.

Display user messages
User messages for your log-on profile can be seen by selecting Option 4. From there you can also manage the messages (i.e. remove all or selected messages).

View System Operator messages (QSYSOPR) To display the system operator messages use Option 6. It takes you right to the QSYSOPR messages screen. This is particularly useful if your display session is running a program and receives an error message that needs to be answered.

View current job information
See your current job information by selecting option 7. This is particularly useful if you need to see job names and job numbers. If you have second display session running, you can see that job information too.




Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

7/23/08 How to change/create a CL source member and compile on a system where PDM is not available.

Use the command/parms: EDTF FILE(srclib/srcfile) MBR(srcmbr)

You will not be able to prompt the CL commands, but you can cut and paste or simply type the syntax that you want.

Press F3 twice, then use the CRTCLPGM to recompile the program.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

7/14/08 How to fix a print job that hangs because record count is exceeded.

If a job that creates a spool file hangs up with the message, "Reached Maximum number of spooled records for file XXXXXX in library YYYYYY", the printer file has tried to generate spool file records that exceeds the number of records the print job specified. A finite limit to the number of records in a spool file is usually specified in order to control a runaway job from filling up disk space. To increase the number of records the spool file can hold, change MAXRCDS parameter in the CHGPRTF command within the program. Example

CHGPRTF FILE(XXXXXX) MAXRCDS(100000)


Caution: You can change the value of the MAXRCDS parm to *NOMAX, but keep in mind that this takes away the “governor.” If the program somehow gets into a "loop" while the spool file, it will create output until system storage is completely used up causing your system to shut down.



Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

07/08/08 Automatically monitor message queues for Save While Active checkpoints to execute other actions

The following describes two CL programs that can automate your save process so that prior to it starting a program is submitted to batch that creates a job to monitor the message queue for the checkpoint message. When the checkpoint message is received other processes can then be initiated.

Create a save program (i.e.:pgmlib/savepgm)


PGM
CLRMSGQ MSGQ(QUSRSYS/SWAMSGQ)
MONMSG MSGID(CPF2403) EXEC(CRTMSGQ MSGQ(QUSRSYS/SWAMSGQ))

/* INSERT THINGS TO DO PRIOR TO THE SAVE SO A CHECKPOINT CAN BE REACHED */
/* Example ENDSBS SBS(QINTER) OPTION(*IMMED) */

SBMJOB CMD(CALL PGM(yourlibrary/SWAMONMSGQ)) JOB(#SWAMONMSG)
SAVLIB LIB(libtosave) DEV(yourdevice) +

SAVACT(*SYNCLIB) SAVACTMSGQ(QUSRSYS/SWAMSGQ)
ENDPGM


Create a program to monitor for checkpoint (i.e.: pgmlib/SWAMONMSGQ) that will monitor the message queue for the save while active checkpoint message. When the message is processed, other actions can then be executed; i.e.: letting users back into an application or restarting another process. If multiple backups are running at one time, a message queue for each save should be used.

PGM

DCL VAR(&MSGID) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(7)
LOOP: RCVMSG MSGQ(QUSRSYS/SWAMSGQ) MSGID(&MSGID)
IF COND(&MSGID *NE 'CPI3712') THEN(GOTO CMDLBL(LOOP))

/*INSERT THINGS TO DO AFTER THE CHECKPOINT MESSAGE IS REACHED HERE */
/* Example STRSBS SBSD(QINTER) */


ENDPGM

Submit or schedule the save program you created (pgmlib/savepgm)


Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2008, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.