dialer command

For Windows: Not Supported

Menu Keys

Without any argument, a menu displays. Below is a list of valid keys that can be used. When indicated, arrow keys can also be used.

Menu Displays

The screen is divided into two sections: an upper section for menu display, and a lower section for messages such as the help screen and user prompts.

Installation

The first time the system is installed, the user is required to enter a local system name and the time zone the system is located into.

1. Enter any name, up to eight characters, and press ENTER.

   Note: This name is also displayed by the TCL command node.

   Setup Local Host Name
        Local host name:
        Confirm (y/n/q):
   

2. Select the appropriate time zone, and then press ENTER.

   Setup Time Zone
        1 UK
        2 Azores
        ...
        Confirm (y/n/q):
   

3. Set up the remote sites and serial devices using the setup menu.

Main Menu

The main menu operation is used for normal operations. These options are:

Setup Menu

The setup menu allows defining the remote systems and devices used by the dialer subsystem and performing accessory functions, such as testing the communication, purging the queue, and so on.

Resolving Conflicts

This option from the main menu examines the conflict file and shows any conflict still not resolved. The first menu selects all the conflicts and shows the account, file and item-ID. The help message in the message section gives more information about the conflict. The Check conflict option requires that the system administrator has good knowledge of the database structure. Only raw data is presented. A more advanced conflict resolution requires understanding the database organization and cannot be accomplished by a general purpose tool. Conflict Data Format details the structure of the data stored in case of a conflict so that an application dependent tool can be developed.

When a conflict is selected, this information displays:

From:                     sys Date: 02/14/03-09:18 Cause: Conflict change
Acc:                      dev File: tmp           Item: x
sys!dev,tmp, x            LOCAL!dev,tmp, x
----------------          -------------------------------------------------

In this example, sys is the name of the remote system the conflicting changes is coming from, the time and date are the local time and date, the cause is a short description of the conflict, dev is the local account, tmp the file and x the item. The left side of the display shows the remote file information and the right side the local one.

The screen is then divided into two columns showing the attributes that are different on the local system before and after the changes from the remote system have been applied.

The user is then prompted to take an action:

Use data from system 'xxx '         ..............................   1
Use local data and update remote    ..............................   2
Quit (leave conflict unresolved)    ..............................   Q
Cancel conflict. Leave data alone   ..............................   C
Show next attributes in item        ..............................   N
Show top of item                    ..............................   T

Select

Conflict Data Format

The conflicting data is stored in the file dialer.log,conflict. Each conflict is represented by three items:

The difference string is composed of a series of commands, which describes the changes to be applied. Each command is composed of one or more attributes, and start by a one letter code. Valid commands are:

valnum] valnum]...
oldval] oldval]
newval] newval]...

V2
2]3
bb]bbb
bbb

Merging the changes described by a difference string into an item is accomplished by the FlashBASIC program in dm,bp,includes merge.sub. For example:

* Get the old item
read m$olditem from conflict,’*OLD*’:ID
* Get the difference string
read m$diff from conflict,’*NEW*’:ID
* Merge the changes in
* m$nocheck = 1 ;* Set to force merging
include dm,bp,includes merge.sub
if m$code=0 then
* OK
end else
* Error
* Changes cannot be merged because of a
* conflict. (use m$nocheck=1 to force merge)
end

Creating Serial Devices on D3

For UNIX: The possibility to create serial devices dynamically, which are not linked to any D3 process. These devices are accessible only through BASIC get and send statements. It is convenient to create devices this way by inserting in the user coldstart macro the dev-make statements required to create these devices. For example:

dev-make -t serial -n 120 -a ’/dev/tty9’

creates a device ’s120’ associated to the UNIX device ’/dev/tty9’.

TCL interface

Some functions are accessible from TCL to be inserted in macros:

In case of incidents, files dialer.dump.mm/dd/yy are created, with the same data levels as the dialer.log file (except the permanent log). These dump files contain images of the dialer.log files at the time of the incident. An item reason in the dictionary explains the cause of the dump.

Syntax

dialer {cmd} {device=name} {system=[*list|name{,name...}} {user=name}
{subject=descr} {text=message} {account=accname} {files={-}[*|*list|name{,name,...}}
{remacc=name,{name,,}} {(option}s

Parameter(s)

Example(s)

Starts the dialer subsystem from TCL.

dialer start

Displays a detailed status of the queues.

dialer queue (v

Displays the last messages produced by the I/O daemon associated to the device s120.

dialer status device=s120

Stops the dialer subsystem, suppressing all messages.

dialer stop (q

Purges the queue to the remote system seattle.

dialer purge system=seattle

Queues a message for the user bob on the system dev.

dialer msg system=dev user=bob subject="Down time" text="We will shut down
tomorrow at 12:00"

Defines the system map for the account bob. Updates are transmitted to the systems dev, prod, and back. The remote accounts on these systems are respectively, bob2, bob (same as on the source machine) and bob3. All files, dictionary and data, are affected.

dialer sysmap account=bob system=dev,prod,back remacc=bob2,,bob3 files=*

Defines the system map for the account bob. The callx correlative is removed from all files.

dialer sysmap account=bob files=-*

Defines the system map for the account bob. Updates are transmitted to the system dev. The remote account is the same as on the source machine. All files are affected. Only the data sections are changed, not the dictionary.

dialer sysmap account=bob system=dev files=’data *’

Defines the system map for the account bob. Updates are transmitted to the system dev. The remote account is the same as on the source machine. Only the data sections of the files names, address, and zip are affected.

dialer sysmap account=bob system=dev files=’data names, address,zip’

Defines the system map for the account bob. Updates are transmitted to the system dev. The remote account is the same as on the source machine. Only the dictionary section of the files specified in the select list pointer-file myfiles are affected.

dialer sysmap account=bob system=dev files=’dict *myfiles’

Defines the system map for the account bob. Updates are transmitted to the system dev. The remote account is bob2. Only the system map is changed. No file is affected.

dialer sysmap account=bob system=dev remacc=bob2

See also

Dialer, dialer-copy command