A Practical Guide to the SYSMAN STARTUP Utility

                                Session VA300
                       DECUS Fall 1989 Anaheim Symposium

                               Richard J. Faust
                        E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.

        The System Management Utility (SYSMAN) is Digital's first effort
        at a bundled tool which centralizes the management of VMS nodes
        and clusters. The STARTUP command set of SYSMAN provides a
        standard interface to configure a data-driven system startup
        mechanism. This session presents advantages, limitations,
        undocumented features, gotchas, and suggestions for improving
        the functionality of the STARTUP portion of the SYSMAN utility.
        Specific topics include features of the STARTUP data files,
        controlling order of execution, debugging techniques, minimizing
        STARTUP execution time, notes on batch mode files, and hints and
        kinks for the user interface to the SYSMAN utility.

        This information is based on experience gained from a full
        implementation of a STARTUP database on an 8-node production
        cluster.

                           =========================

	Submitted by:	Rich Faust
			E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
			609-540-4358

        Documentation and files discussed at the above session are
        included.  See the SYSMAN*.* files for a complete description.
	A short description of each follows.

	SYSMAN_SESSION_NOTES.DAT	ASCII text of session notes

	SYSMAN.SDML			VAX Document source code for
					documentation.

	SYSMAN.PS			PostScript document and index
	SYSMAN_INDEX.PS

	SYSMAN.LN03			LN03 document and index
	SYSMAN_INDEX.LN03

	SYSMAN.TXT			ASCII document and index
	SYSMAN_INDEX.TXT

	OA_STARTUP.COM			Example of combining several
					procedures into one to guarantee
					order of execution within a
					single phase.

	REDEFINE_SYS$STARTUP.COM	Allows startup files to be
					located in directories other than
					the default definition of
					SYS$STARTUP.

	STARTUP$INTERACTIVE_LOGINS.COM	Add this file to the startup
					database to enable logins when
					you're ready, not when DEC says
					so...

	STARTUP_SHELL.COM		Template procedure to allow
					startup jobs to be submitted to
					a queue other than SYS$BATCH

	RS1_STARTUP_SHELL.COM		Sample use of STARTUP_SHELL.COM

	SYSTARTUP_V5.COM		Start queue manager and batch
					queue example.

	SORT_VMS$LAYERED.COM		Procedures to sort
	VMS$LAYERED.SRT			STARTUP$STARTUP_LAYERED to
					guarantee batch and spawn
					startup jobs are the first
					to be executed in each phase.
	
	VMS$LAYERED.DAT			Sample startup database