OpenVMS VAMP Board

Sometimes, backups savesets have their file attributes corrupted especially following an internet download. The BACKUP command then refuses to process the file.

This command should fix this problem,

SET FILE/ATTRIBUTES=(RFM:FIX,MRS:32256,LRL:32256,RAT:NONE) file.bck

If you have the ability to access the other system, ZIPPING the saveset is a good idea before transport, and unzipping afterwards - assuming zip and unzip is on these systems:

$ zip :== <dev>:[<path>]zip.exe
$ zip "-V" -j <zipfile> <saveset>

Now you can do anything with the file, as long as the file is transferred as it is: FTP should be BINARY, HTTP will do if correctly set.
When the file is copyes to it's VMS destination, unzip it there:

$ unzip :== <dev>:[<path>]unzip.exe
$ unzip <zipfile> <saveset>

Do not unzip on Windows or Unix and transfer the file(s) - BACKUP savesets can be broken beyond repair.


Besides the preservation of file attributes ( "-V" option on zip) it has the advantage that the saveset will be compressed, so it will take less time to transfer

(For ZIP and UNZIP, look on www.info-zip.com. Take the lates5t versions for VMS)

issinoho wrote:
This command should fix this problem,

SET FILE/ATTRIBUTES=(RFM:FIX,MRS:32256,LRL:32256,RAT:NONE) file.bck

If and only if the original backup command didn't specify /block=<something-else>. If it did, you have to set the record size to that rather than 32256. The person doing the backup can set the record size to anything from 8192 to 32,256.

You can do a search of the saveset for "/BL" to see if a value was specified. Even though it is a binary file, the text backup command line is in there. Just ignore all the binary garbage surrounding the command line.

If you don't find a /block command, the saveset should have the default blocksize of 8192.

As the other poster said, if you use vms zip and unzip to transfer the saveset or the files in it, you don't have to deal with this.

I have a little program that solves this problem. Originally by Bill Bame, it was modified by Wolfgang Muller and then by me (to get the compiler to quit complaining).

It reads the mangled saveset and recovers the file attributes. It dates from 1991 but it worked the last time I used it (several years ago). If anyone is interested, E-mail me. If it's much in demand I could put it on my web site.

rgilbert88 (at) comcast.net