I use both proprietary software as well as open source software. One would think that when you pay for your software and pay a lot for support, then obviously you must be in a better situation should something not work correctly. But my experience has been the opposite. Not always but often. I can only attribute this to the fact that when dealing with OSS you often are talking directly with the developer who has pride in his work and wants it to work correctly. He is bothered when people report problems in his software and motivated to try and fix it.

On the other hand we've all had our "experiences" with so called front line support people who sometimes barely know how the software they support operates or even how to spell its name correctly, who ask their customers to reboot their Linux server that's been up for the last 3 years to see if that will "help".

IBM/Rational Support is far from that bad - often they are excellent. But it does seem that sometimes when the problem is a little thorny they will punt and say this is "outside of scope" - whatever that means.

I must admit my process is slightly complicated - a CQPerl script which serves as a multiprocess server which forks off a copy of itself to handle request to process Clearquest data. For anybody who has written such server processes they can be tricky at first to program and get right, but soon turn into just another programming task like any other.

The problem arises in an odd way in which a request comes in to add a record. BuildEntity is called and the record is successfully added. But when a second process later attempts to do a similar thing - add a record - the BuildEntity fails stating:

Status: 1 unknown exception from CQSession_BuildEntity in CQPerlExt at cqserver.pl line 31.

The support engineer eventually responded with:

On 1/25/2013 10:40 AM, Naomi Guerrero wrote:

Hi Andrew,

I'm following up on escalated PMR#16866,227,000. After escalating this PMR to L3 support, and Development having discussions about this issue, this request goes outside the scope of support. This is not something we can assist you with in support. Instead, I would recommend you reach out to your Sales agent at IBM (or I can) so that someone from the Rational Services team can further assist you.

On 1/25/2013 11:00 AM, Andrew DeFaria wrote:

How can you possibly say that this goes outside the scope of support?!? We have a situation here where your software returns the words "unknown exception", fails to do what it's advertised to do (Build and entity) and even stops my script from continuing! This is clearly an error in IBM's software. I have a reproducible test case (you'll need our schema, which I supplied). There's is nothing in my code that is outside of a supported situation - I'm using regular CQPerl stuff and every call is supported. It's on supported hardware, with supported versions of OS, Clearquest, CQPerl, etc. Why BuildEntity returning "unknown exception"? Surely this is in the code for BuildEntity. Somebody should examine it and report back! This is clearly an error and I fail to see how it goes outside of the scope of support at all. If the problem is difficult to solve that does not put it into the realm of "outside of support".

My client pays IBM big $$$ for support every year if I remember how IBM support contracts go. We want our money's worth. While I fail to see how a "Sales" agent will be able to assist (I personally think a knowledgable software developer like the guy who's responsible for the BuildEntity code - you do have somebody like that no? - should look into the code and see exactly what circumstances causes BuildEntity to emit such an error) if that's the next step then by all means take it and reach out to whoever is next in line to assist. But from where I sit this is indeed a bug and is not outside the scope of support. If you believe it is then please explain yourself. Why is this "outside the scope of support"?

Now granted it appears that this happens only with out schema (Works fine with the SAMPL database) but that seems to point to either a problem somewhere with action hook code being executed (which would also be deemed a bug as action hook code should never cause unknown exceptions to happen or it could be caused by some corruption in my client's database - something that should be pursued - not dropped to "Sales"!

Problem report 16866,227 000: unknown exception from CQSession_BuildEntity

Posted by at 12:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Xl-irv-05:i=0; while [ $i -lt 100 ]; do
/usr/bin/time -f %E -a -o pull.csv cp ~/336megfile /tmp/336megfile
let i=i+1
done

Xl-irv-05:i=0; while [ $i -lt 100 ]; do
/usr/bin/time -f %E -a -o push.csv cp /tmp/336megfile ~/336megfile
let i=i+1
done

	Pull	Push	Diff
Average	0.79	4.29	5.45

Posted by at 2:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Turns out that you cannot put a script as the interpreter for your #! line. It must be a binary. Also, many IT departments forced with supporting various Unix/Linux's often have a set of scripts that "do the right thing(tm)" to set up an environment for the target architecture then execute the architecturally appropriate binary. I did this way back with /app server.

So what do you do when you are say writing an expect script and wish to use #!/app/expect? The trick is to use something like #!/usr/bin/env /app/expect. Most people are familiar with using env(1) to print out the environment and it turns out it does - if you don't give it any other parameter. But it's real main purpose is "run a program in a modified environment". So if you wish to use an interpreter that is a script use #!/usr/bin/env /path/to/script as your shebang line.

Posted by at 5:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Creating a dev schema is not that difficult. Note you can create a dev schema in the production schema repo or in a dev schema repo. The later is a just a bit safer as it is a bit more isolated.

To create a dev schema from the CQ Designer, right click on the schema repo and select New: Schema. We are creating a new schema by basing it off of an existing schema. Expand the + sign and select the version that you wish to base your new schema off of. Right now there is only Version 1. Select next and name your schema. I suggest that you use your username (e.g. adefaria) indicating that we are the owner of this dev schema. Enter comments if you like and then Finish.

After the schema is created it will ask you if you want to associate this with a database. You could select Yes and then go though naming your database and connecting it to an existing user database but chances are you don't have one of those yet. So select No for now. You now have a development schema.

Creating a Test Database

You must create an empty database on the database server. Use RDP to get a remote desktop there and run the SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the database server engine.

Next right click on databases and select New Database. Name your database. The convention for test databases is <schemaname>_<id>. For our personal test databases again I'd suggest using your user ID so I will create <schemaname>_adefaria for me.

Setting the db_owner and schema owner

In MSSQL we need to set the dbowner and the schema for this new database. Expand the folder tree (+) on your newly created database (MobDev_adefaria) then right click on Security and select New: User. Type <dbadmin> in the User Name edit box and then select and copy this string. We'll need it several times more in this process. Paste this into the Login name and Default Schema and then toggle on db_owner in both the Schemas owned by this user and Database role membership boxes then select OK.

Next right click on Security again and select New: Schema. Paste <dbadmin> into Schema Name and Schema Owner and click OK.

Now you have an empty database that you can associate with your schema.

Associating your new test database with your dev schema

Go back to CQ Designer and right click on your development schema again and select Show: User Databases. You should see a list of databases. Right click on an empty area and select Create Database. Seems odd to call it create database when the database has already been created - it really means "take this schema and it's definition of what should be in the user database and apply that definition/schema to my newly created empty database".

Give this database a Logical Database Name. Alas we only have 5 characters. I just use my initials - apd - short and simple. Add comments if you like. We use MSSQL for the database vendor. Then toggle Database Type to Test Database. We already have a production database in our dev schema repo then select next.

Now we fill in Physical Database Name with the name of the database (<schemaname>_adefaria) and the Database Server . Then paste that <dbadmin> into Administrator User and Administrator Password (See I told you you'd need it!) then Next and Next again.

Now we need to expand the adefaria (your dev schema) and select which version you want this new test database to start with. Select Version 1 and Finish.

Clearquest Designer now goes out and creates all the necessary tables and transfers all of the necessary data, hook scripts, etc. from Version 1 of the dev schema adefaria into your database. Get coffee...

After the database is created follow the steps at Seeding a test database to seed your test database with some test data.

Posted by at 9:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

When you have multiple Clearquest Designers you quickly realize that you cannot easily do parallel development of the schema. The best way to do this is to work through a development schema repository and to create development schemas for each schema designer. To create a development schema repository you should first create an empty database for Clearquest to work in. You can create an empty database by following the instructions for Creating a Test Database. Next you must use the Clearquest Maintenance Tool to create a new Schema Repository:

• Start the Clearquest Maintenance Tool
• Select Schema Respository: Create
• The Maintenance Tool then asks you to fill out information regarding the location of your schema database. Fill in information about the database server and Administrator Name and password. Do not create a sample database at this time. The Clearquest Maintenance tool will take some time to set up the new schema repository.

Exporting a CQProfile.ini for this new Development Schema Repository

In order to see this new development schema repository you should export the schema repository from the Clearquest Maintenance Tool. This exported cqprofile.ini can be shared with out Schema Developers who would import the .ini file into their environment using the Clearquest Maintenance Tool. You export the cqprofile.ini by selecting File: Export Profile. You need only select the new repository you created.

Click on the "..." button to select where to store the .ini file and what it's name will be - I used C:\Cygwin\tmp\MPSDev.ini and click Finish. This file can be passed to your fellow Schema Developers.

Importing Users

Your new development schema repo has no users in it except a default set of users including the "admin" user (with no password). Run the User Administration tool on production (MCBU) and export all of the users. Run the User Administration tool again on the new development schema repo (e.g. MPSDev) and import the users.

Clean up Unnecessary Schemas

Now's a good time to remove additional default schemas in your development schema repo like Common, DefectTracking, Enterprise, etc. You cannot delete the Blank schema.

Seeding the Development Schema Repo with the Latest Version from Production

One trick to seed your new development schema repo with a recent version of the production schema is to create a new development schema in the production schema repo based off of the latest version of the production schema. Then export that whole schema of the new development schema and import it into the new development schema repo. You will only have the history of the latest version of the schema but that's OK for development purpose. Make sure you specify an appropriate Schema Name and Comment when you export the schema from production:

Note: We are giving this schema the name MPSDev because that's what we want it to be called in the new development schema repo. Also, the comment is appropriate when we will be looking at it in the MPSDev development schema repo.

Do not associate a database with this schema, there's no reason. We don't care as we are only using this to exportschema from production -> development schema repo. We'll create databases there. We don't need to check out this schema either.

Exporting the Schema from Production

We assume you have created a new development schema in the production schema repo based off of the tip of the production database. You need to export that with:

Where <schemaname> is the name of the development schema name you created in the production schema repo

Importing the Schema into the Development Schema Repo

Next we import this full.schema of only the tip of production to seed a development schema in the development schema repo.

Oops! We need to import these packages into our new schema. Right click on your new development schema repo in Clearquest Designer and select Install Package. Expand the EmailPlus and select 2.1 to install that. Repeat this for Resolution and Attachments. Repeat the cqload importschema.

Remove Old Schema in Production Repo

You can remove the schema you created above in the Production repo as it is no longer needed.

Create Dev Schemas

You are now free to create development schemas in the new development schema repo as described Creating a Development Schema as well as test databases and seeding them.

Posted by at 2:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Clearquest

• Consulted with Venkat on new hook code for Clearquest
• Described how to properly handle additions to VersionInfo
• Worked with Kunjal on problem with Email Rules and corrupted queries
• ...

Platform Tools

• Modified mps-scm-ec-ab-trigger.pl to parse XML for name value pairs. No more translations! What you say in the XML is what is passed to EC!
• Got call to EC runProcedure working
• Investigated build issue caused by missing WinZip Self Extractor on 102
• ...

DevEnv

• Got newer Eclipse installed on Linux (/tools/bin/eclipse). Tested out installing plugins (EPIC, etc.). Worked well.
• Consulted with Dennis Sass Re: Cygwin environment
• ...

Emergency Firefighting Incidents/Urgent Unplanned Work

• Bug in Email Rules package - debugging with Kunjal
• ...

Other Tasks

Posted by at 8:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

OK, I'm a nerd and I'm pretty passionate about Perl. But in my defense this is my business and my chosen career - it is what I went to school for way back in the day. So I listen to podcasts about many topics including technology. One podcast I listen to regularly is FLOSS Weekly with Randal Schwartz. Randal wrote Learning Perl among other Perl books and he had on Jeffery Thalhammer who talked about his creation Perl::Critic. For those who may be interested the Perl::Critic episode is here.

The easiest way you can try out Perl::Critic by going to http://www.perlcritic.org/. You can even evaluate your own Perl scripts by using the Choose File and set your severity level. You can start with gentle but I usually do harsh as that's in the middle.

Perl::Critic is a static analyzer that finds inconsistencies and possible errors in your Perl code as well as tries to enforce best practices as written about in Perl Best Practices by Damian Conway. Perl::Critic is implemented as a CPAN module. There is also a command line (/usr/bin/perlcritic) that allows you to run perlcritic on your code from the command line. But the web page is better because it provides links to explanations of why Perl::Critic thinks what it complains about is a problem as well as tells you how to fix it.

Now, of course, critiquing your code is highly subjective and you may not agree with the rational for why Perl::Critic flags this as a problem. Perl::Critic is very tunable - you can set settings in ~/.perlcriticrc to say "We don't want you, Perl::Critic, to flag this as a problem".

If you use Eclipse as your IDE and have EPIC, the Eclipse Perl Integration plugin, and have Cygwin installed with perlcritic installed too, you can configure Eclipse to use Perl::Critic directly in the editor and flag errors as you code which you can then fix.

For example, you can see the little triangle with "!" in it relates to the line in the Problems tab at the bottom which says that I've defined $value but never used it.

Posted by at 1:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Using PDSQL to update Clearquest databases

Often when you add a new field to a Clearquest database you need to tackle the problem of how to update or set the value on all of your old records. Often specialized scripts are created to say set the new field to some known value in all of the older records by using the Clearquest API. This takes time to write such scripts and it takes time to run because all of the action hook code needs to be executed to validate the record, etc. Often this is needless rechecking of already correct values of all of the fields in the record. Updates of this kind can take literally hours to process large numbers of records and have all of that action hook code run for no particular reason.

There is a utility in C:\Program Files\IBM\RationalSDLC\ClearQuest named pdsql. It provides a command line interface to the database directly which you can use to perform updates of fields in a lightning fast manner. The updating of all defect records setting a new field to say "foo" would take literally hours using the Clearquest API but less than a second or two in pdsql.

Continue reading "Using PDSQL to update Clearquest databases" »

Posted by at 3:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It never ceases to amaze me how poorly business communications are handled and how badly businesses' #1 tool of communication supports, or rather doesn't support, good communication. Case in point:

I believe you are talking about how I use interleaved posting. Wikipedia has a good article on this: Posting Style and I find the following blog posting about Top Posting, convincing:

A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right.
Q: Why should I start my reply below the quoted text?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: The lost context.
Q: What makes top-posted replies harder to read than bottom-posted?
A: Yes.
Q: Should I trim down the quoted part of an email to which I'm replying?

Read normally, top to bottom and left to right, this makes little sense. Reading this from the bottom up you get the meaning. How do you guys do it? How do you keep track and parse such long email chains I have no idea!

Unfortunately Outlook does not make this easier. As the Wikipedia article states:

Quoting support in popular mail clients

This widespread policy in business communication [top posting only] made bottom and inline posting so unknown among most users that some of the most popular email programs no longer support the traditional posting style. For example Microsoft Outlook, AOL, and Yahoo! make it difficult or impossible to indicate which part of a message is the quoted original or do not let users insert comments between parts of the original.

Here's how it looks to me:

Which is quite readable. I had tried to help Outlook users by including CSS code in my responses to replicate the quote bars you see above, but somewhere around Outlook 2007 or so Outlook broke it and no longer honors <blockquote type=cite> citations and I gave up.

Posted by at 12:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

• Resolved issue with MsgBox not being executed for the web
• Still have problem with IE and certain drop down boxes
• Worked with John Luu to get the web server running on nt-irva-0458. We need to have a database instance created and to move this schema and user databases to that server. Why is the web server in Ivrine when the group is in San Jose?

Continue reading "Final MobMM Issues" »

Posted by at 3:30 PM | Permalink

• Reached code completion level for MobMM

Continue reading "MobMM Completion" »

Posted by at 10:07 AM | Permalink

• Implemented Email notifications in MobMM

Posted by at 5:01 PM | Permalink

• Separated MobMM to its own Schema Repository
• Renamed MobileCom -> MobMM
• Removed Visibility from submission form
• I've created all Modules and all Submodules but linked only some of them. A lot are owned by Vinod. Try entering a defect with a module of Display Manager and you should see Owner set to "node". Change that to OLG and it should switch to cswilson.
• Created users as defined above. Gave admin privileges to my userid
• Created Administrators, Managers and Users groups. My userid and admin are in all three groups. Jean, your user is in the Manager and Users group. Other users are just in the Users group.
• Gave Dynamic List Admin privileges to Jean and Vinod. This means that you can add/change/delete entries in dynamic lists (Select Edit: Named Lists to manage dynamic lists such as Software_Version)
• Populated Dynamic lists
• Created Public Queries for Defects, Modules, Submodules and Module-Submodule Cross Reference.
• Changes some drop downs to be bigger.

Continue reading "More MobMM Progress" »

Posted by at 7:24 PM | Permalink

• Completed a pass of MoblleMultimedia and handed off to Jean for a quick review and input to the next release in the design cycle

Continue reading "MobileMultimedia Release" »

Posted by at 7:09 PM | Permalink

• Contacted Rational regarding PQA email problem
• Changed Mobile Multimedia to set default owner, assigned date
• Fixed MM to handle Module/Submodule relationships

Continue reading "PQA Email issue/Mobile Multimedia" »

Posted by at 5:37 PM | Permalink

• Worked on problem with CQ Web sending email

Continue reading "CQ Web Email Problem" »

Posted by at 7:57 PM | Permalink

• Created initial mock up of MM CQ

Continue reading "Mobile Multimedia Clearquest Design" »

Posted by at 5:24 PM | Permalink

• Updated PQA to use CDO.Message to fix date/timestamp problem
• Researched Clearquest: Help problem with Rational and came up with a fix. Turns out that the original solution I sent may have solved the problem as the problem exists on the Citrix server which is probably too tightly configured security-wise. Wish the user would have told me about that to start with...

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink

• Ray wanted an easy/medium/hard Perl test

Continue reading "Perl test" »

Posted by at 11:59 AM | Permalink

• Consulted with Ann Wisotzky regarding Clearcase Merging
• Investigated email time stamp problem with PQA
• Worked with Rational regarding Clearquest: Help problem

Posted by at 10:25 PM | Permalink

• Investigated stglocs
• Replicated /vobs/perftest and set up log_activity, stats and pulse for all of:
• ccase-rmna-3
• ccase-sj1-1
• ccase-sj1-2
• ccase-irva-2

Continue reading "Stglocs/replicating perftest" »

Posted by at 3:01 PM | Permalink

• Re-wrote most Clearcase modules to utilize Clearcase::cleartool and for Clearcase.pm to work out where cleartool resides
• Changed Mail.pm to only attempt to use MIME:Entity and others if html is requested
• Got pulse working for /vobs/preftest. If the vob is not present it simply logs that and exists

Posted by at 5:42 PM | Permalink

• Worked on Mail.pm
• Incorporated Mail.pm into Logger
• Created Element.pm
• Added code to pulse to mkelem and rmelem

Posted by at 5:41 PM | Permalink

• Further developed Mail.pm. Added code to send HTML mail. HTML mail not completely working yet
• Worked on problems with ccase-rmna-3
• Assisted Ray in some Perl coding issues

Posted by at 4:48 PM | Permalink

• Developed Mail.pm module
• Working with Rational about CQ Web hang problem

Posted by at 7:56 PM | Permalink

• Standardized some modules a little bit
• Added much more functionality to Clearcase modules and tied that into stats and log_activity
• Changed the startup of many scripts to be more standard
• Implemented much more functionality in stats

Continue reading "More module coding" »

Posted by at 6:19 PM | Permalink

• Started creating a Clearcase.pm module to hold site specific Clearcase information
• Created OSDep.pm
• Worked with the Help Desk to attempt to fix problem with Windows Update

Posted by at 6:09 PM | Permalink

• Documented set up of CVS SCP connector
• Added more functionality to Clearcase::Vob
• Coded up a preliminary stats script

Continue reading "cvsims/Vobs" »

Posted by at 2:56 PM | Permalink

• Added some functionality to Clearcase::Vob and Clearcase::View
• Coded a pulse script which performs a pulse checking by checking out and in a file 10 times. If the pulse takes more than 60 seconds then an error is reported

Continue reading "pulse" »

Posted by at 10:57 AM | Permalink

• Worked on creating several Clearcase modules: Clearcase::Vobs, Clearcase:Vob and Clearcase::View
• Updated log_activity to use new Clearcase modules

Continue reading "Clearcase Modules/log_activity" »

Posted by at 6:48 PM | Permalink

• Worked on log_activity Perl script
• Investigated issue with R/O components for create_dev_snapview.pl

Continue reading "log_activity/create_dev_snapview.pl" »

Posted by at 12:59 PM | Permalink

• Started investigating a log_checkins procedure
• Worked on Andrew's create_dev_snapview.pl

Posted by at 12:56 PM | Permalink

• Gave demonstration of Clearquest to Jene Fan and her group. Went pretty well
• Investigating issue where cvsims seems to be called when one cvs adds a directory

Posted by at 2:39 PM | Permalink

• Set up a test bugs database for a demo
• Set up p4test as a temp server for PQA on production data
• Further coding of cvsims and integration into CVS

Continue reading "Clearquest Demo/p4test/cvsims" »

Posted by at 6:55 PM | Permalink

• Created test bugs database for Clearquest evaluation
• Worked on integrating cvsims into CVS
• PQA web problems are surfacing. Need to set up newer web server

Posted by at 6:43 PM | Permalink

• Changed cvsims to use new global area
• Created document for CVS/IMS Connector
• Created new global area
• Working on another users problems with accessing ccase-rmna-4

Continue reading "cvsims/SCM global area/ccase-rmna-4 issues" »

Posted by at 5:27 PM | Permalink

• BinRebase may need to use findmerge instead of rebase
• Worked with Shivdutt re: satellite San Jose/Richmond user

Continue reading "BinRebase/ccase-rmna-4 problems" »

Posted by at 5:09 PM | Permalink

• Set up GNATS access for a user
• Helped Vinh with issues regarding old CQ Web and a bug that it has
• Assisted a few users with resolving Evil Twin problems
• More fully documented how to resolve Evil Twin problems by merging the parent directory
• Investigated implementing the other half of BinMerge where we use rebase instead of find merge

Continue reading "CQ Web/Rebase/GNATS Access" »

Posted by at 5:06 PM | Permalink

• Found and fixed bug in get_views_for_stream
• Fixed bug in create_dev_snapview.pl::ParseBaselines

Continue reading "get_views_for_stream/create_dev_snapview.pl" »

Posted by at 1:48 PM | Permalink

• Updated triggers on ccase-rmna-3 as some new vobs seem to lack them
• Updated cvsims to parse input and handle both -pre and -post operations
• Had problems with CVS admin files

Continue reading "cvsims" »

Posted by at 12:35 PM | Permalink

• Worked with Shivdutt on clearfsimport
• Updated mktriggers to use fully qualified paths to Perl
• Added stuff to CVS area - have not committed yet - wanna establish a commitinfo script to get an idea of what input is available to commit

Posted by at 6:14 PM | Permalink

• Changed stripmime to perform logging if -v is present. Also debugged stripmime to the point where it seems to be properly being passed off the queue-pr
• Implemented IMS.pm - a more Perl-like interface to IMS. Also started implementing cvs_ims to be a connector between CVS <-> IMS

Posted by at 4:43 PM | Permalink

• Worked with David Dinh on getting Clearquest Windows Client on Citrix
• Updated BinMerge to always draw the merge arrow to the branch we are merging to
• Fixed BinMerge's PerlTk portion to top the window iniitially
• Worked with Ravi on Stripmime and GNATS

Continue reading "Bin Merge updates/GNATS: Another word for "bug"! :-(" »

Posted by at 6:35 PM | Permalink

• Changed bin_merge to be a module so that it easier to call from UCMCustom
• Integrated new BinMerge.pm module into the UCMCustom
• Added fix to use "\" in get_vob_str
• Changed UCMCustom to use strict and warnings(we should always use these)
• Changed UCMCustom to use use instead of require
• Hunted down bug where UCMCustom undef's $/ (Bad UCMCustom!! Bad!)

Continue reading "BinMerge Module & Perl Issues" »

Posted by at 5:44 PM | Permalink

• Fixed stripmime
• Worked with Shivdutt regarding the cleardiffmrg problem. Turns out to be a leading "/". Shivdutt fixed UCMCustom.pl
• Turned off character set validation on p4test for PQA. Have not implemented this on production yet

Continue reading "Stripmime/Cleardiffmrg/CharacterSetValidation" »

Posted by at 5:20 PM | Permalink

• Told Andrew about new -reuse_stream option to create_dev_snapview.pl. I have him testing this
• Worked with Shivdutt and IBM/Rational on problem with cleardiffmrg. I think I've worked this out to the leading "/" that UCMCustom users.
• Finished stripmime - Ray testing it - created stripmimed that logs to /tmp.
• Worked at getting bin_merge integrated into UCMCustom.pl
• Implemented quick script (topper) to try to catch the hanging problem with ccase-rmna-3

Continue reading "Cleardiffmrg/bin_merge problems" »

Posted by at 7:54 PM | Permalink

• Researched further code page issues
• Added Everest (Isreal0 team members to PQA
• Added -reuse_stream parm to create_dev_snapview.pl
• Handed a preliminary copy of bin_merge to Jennifer
• Submitted defect to IBM/Rational regarding CharacterSetValidation and Code Pages

Continue reading "Code Page/create_dev_snapview.pl" »

Posted by at 4:58 PM | Permalink

• Tried to figure out why -stgloc is not working in Richmond nor why I can't seem to create a view in a share that is in an area where .stgloc exists
• Worked with Vin Ton and Rob Swindell regarding a problem with CQ Web and Code Pages
• Worked on other code page issues
• Added CharacterSetValidation package to PQA

Continue reading "Stgloc/Code Page" »

Posted by at 4:48 PM | Permalink

• Updated create_dev_snapview to support -tag, -dir and -load_rules.

Posted by at 5:10 PM | Permalink

• Investigating issues with bin_merge
• Discussed with Andrew about extending script to create snapshot views
• Worked with two people who have had issues with accessing new PQA Clearquest database

Continue reading "bin_merge/create_snapshot_view/PQA" »

Posted by at 6:02 PM | Permalink

• Continued to help several users with connecting to the new Controller Clearquest Database for Vinh's users
• Added Version Tree button to the bin_merge prompt dialog box.
• Resolved problem with forking from PerlTk

Continue reading "Forking in PerlTk" »

Posted by at 1:59 PM | Permalink

• Worked with Vinh's group and adjusting to life with the new Controller CQ Database. Wrote instructions for how to unsubscribe to some Broadcom email distribution lists
• Documented how to install the new Clearquest Client Software
• Coded stripmime filter for GNATS.

Continue reading "Remaining PQA Issues/GNATS stripmime" »

Posted by at 5:38 PM | Permalink

• Looked into create_dev_snapview.pl.
• Tested speeds of FTP vs. SMB

Continue reading "create_dev_snapview.pl" »

Posted by at 12:39 PM | Permalink

• Continued work on clearprompt replacement in PerlTk.

Posted by at 9:13 AM | Permalink

• Experimented with PerlTK in an effort to come up with a better Clearprompt for bin_merge
• Vinh found a bug in pqamerge where Prod: Open_Close_Status was not getting transferred to Cont: Active_Deferred_Status

Posted by at 5:19 PM | Permalink

• Almost code complete on bin_merge. Need to integrate this into UCMCustom
• Emailed IBM support regarding Clearquest Web URLs

Posted by at 5:20 PM | Permalink

• Resolved a ticket regarding Clearquest Web (IIS) and not displaying properly. Documented under Clearquest: Getting the right JRE for Clearquest Web
• Started coding bin_merge

Posted by at 6:49 PM | Permalink

• Looked into potential problems with DST and Clearcase
• Investigated problem with Deliver between Projects
• Investigated performance problems on Windows Build machines in San Diego

Continue reading "Daylight Savings Time & Clearcase" »

Posted by at 3:54 PM | Permalink

The VOB move for San Jose went fairly well. Without the normal user load on the servers the dumping and loading process was much quicker. I've attached Jennifer's spread sheet and updated it to reflect which vobs we've moved and how long it took as well as what sort of reduction we got in the DB sizes. All moved vobs are tagged on ccase-sj1-7 and Clearcase is still off on ccase-sj1-1 - for now. We will turn that on before Jennifer and Chin start with their testing. Yet left to do is the Multisite chreplica and re instituting of the cronjobs, etc. - nothing that would imped users Monday morning as well as clean up of backup areas assuming we reach a go on the go/no go tomorrow afternoon.

I've also attached a tar image of the log files that we managed to capture for the dump and load process.

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Permalink

• Started incorporating ctmerge and other old Clearcase/Clearquest oriented scripts in to adm vob
• Investigated some Multisite issues WRT this SJ VOB move
• Working with Shivdutt on copying VOB storage over to /projects/cc-test

Posted by at 6:01 PM | Permalink

• Responded to IBM Rational Support regarding rgy_switchover
• Added prohibit_operation to trigger list
• Instituted the evil twin trigger
• Obtained Chris' CQ merge scripts and started looking in to that
• Went back to analyzing the PQA CQ data for invalid characters

Continue reading "rgy_swtichover/Triggers" »

Posted by at 11:30 AM | Permalink

• Discussed how to best handle the upcomming SJ vob move
• Added handling for UCMOBJECT triggers and the few additional triggers on the docs vob

Continue reading "SJ Vob move/Triggers" »

Posted by at 7:50 PM | Permalink

• Studied Rebase project to parent in depth
• Studied Deliver between projects in depth
• Discussed SJ vob move with Jennifer and Chini
• Met with Phil regarding merge problem - turns out to be no problem

Continue reading "More study of Rebase project to parent & Deliver between projects" »

Posted by at 10:07 AM | Permalink

• Created UCM environment where I can rebase and deliver
• Reproduced binary merge problem in both rebase and deliver mode
• Studied UCMCustom for Rebase project to parent & Deliver between projects functions. The former uses cleartool rebase while the later does not use deliver in the classic UCM sense

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink

• Helped Darren Edamura with a Clearcase problem
• Started looking into Binary Merge problem
• Added FixChar subroutine to CheckCodePage

Continue reading "Clearcase Deliver problem" »

Posted by at 2:56 PM | Permalink

• Worked more on detecting and report invalid ASCII characters in PQA databases
• Working with IBM Rational Support regarding rgy_switchover

Continue reading "Code Page/rgy_switchover" »

Posted by at 2:08 PM | Permalink

• Discussed SJ/Irvine migration
• Drew up Clearquest Franchise plan
• Modifed CheckCodePage.pl to show the invalid characters in a word context
• Investigating Clearquest Data Code Pages

Continue reading "Clearquest Franchise/PQA Invalid ASCII characters" »

Posted by at 2:48 PM | Permalink

• Worked on mktriggers script to mktriggers for all regions, all vobs

Continue reading "Triggers" »

Posted by at 11:04 PM | Permalink

• Tried to help Arun in Bangalore to be able to create views
• Investigated trigger set up for SJ/Irvine
• Investigated relocate sync_locked problem

Continue reading "SJ/Irvine Triggers/Sync lock problem/rgy_backup" »

Posted by at 2:29 PM | Permalink

• Implemented Evil Twin trigger. Have not yet tested nor installed trigger yet
• Meeting with Naga Re:
  • Binary Merge problem
  • RM_EMPTY_BRANCH/EVIL_TWIN triggers
  • Lock project problem
• Reviewing both Philip and Chin's performance testing
• Struggling with Cisco VPN client at home!

Continue reading "Evil Twin/Performance" »

Posted by at 12:04 PM | Permalink

• Inveistigated binary merge problem
• Worked with Mukund regarding CVS access
• Helped Shivdutt with a Clearquest Web problem. User reports that Clearquest Web not working in IE! Suspect the problem is due to configuration issues, specifically JRE. Did some research and sent URLs to user

Continue reading "Binary Merge/CVS/Clearquest Web" »

Posted by at 6:31 PM | Permalink

• Met with Chris Rumf regarding Clearquest and int impending upgrade/merge of DBs. Chris told us of his trials and tribulations with a 3 month project to merge CQ databases and move them to San Diego.
• Fixed mktriggers to properly specify the path for the trigger script in both Windows and Unix implementations.
• Worked with Shivdutt to try to reproduce the problems with merging binary files.
• I was assigned a ticket to give a user CVS repository access. I still do not have proper login access to Irvine nor do I have permissions to perform this task

Continue reading "CQ/Triggers/Binary merge/CVS" »

Posted by at 6:00 PM | Permalink

• Finally got Remedy access. Turns out I had it all along just my username was ADEFARIA instead of adefaria!
• Looked into P4 ticket. I am unable to perform the action because I don't have a login to Irvine. P4 stuff gets performed in Irvine and I don't have an account there. Actually I have an account but didn't know the password. Actually I figured out the password - it was my initial password when I came to Broadcom and was never set. The Help desk had me set my password in the beginning but that was in the San Jose domain. I've now set it for Irvine too. There are two problems with my Linux login:
  1. In Irvine I have no home directory! As a result I cannot create ~/public_html and write web pages as well as I cannot set up my startup scripts, etc. I put in a ticket for this. Hopefully they will set up Irvine like San Jose in that my home directory will be share amoungst all three areas.
  2. My default shell is (yuck) csh! I asked for that to be changed to bash.
  3. Worked with Shivdutt on disk space problem on ccase-rmna-3
  4. Added RM_EMPTY_BRANCH trigger to vobs on ccase-rmna-3
  5. Investigating other triggers to include them in mktriggers.pl

Continue reading "Remedy/Irvine Access/P4 ticket" »

Posted by at 10:50 AM | Permalink

• Investigated how to setup, configure and failover Clearcase backup registry
• Working with Shivdutt to set up new Clearquest server software
• Ported mktriggers.pl and RemoveEmptyBranch.pl. Added RM_EMPTY_BRANCH to vobs on ccase-rmna-1

Continue reading "Backup Registry Server/Triggers" »

Posted by at 12:54 PM | Permalink

• Investigating check_full_baseline routine and why it is necessary
• Got access to Clearcase storage areas
• Attempting to set up environment to reproduce check_full_baseline problem
• Attended Clearcase World Wide Support meeting
• Attended Plan for ClearQuest meeting

Posted by at 12:26 PM | Permalink

• Installed Clearcase and Clearquest on my system. CC Doctor complains that CQ is old
• Worked with Shivdutt creating new component and the proper parent/child relationships
• Mainly setting up my environment today

Posted by at 6:00 PM | Permalink