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Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

Title:	DECWINDOWS 26-JAN-89 to 29-NOV-90
Notice:	See 1639.0 for VMS V5.3 kit; 2043.0 for 5.4 IFT kit
Moderator:	STAR::VATNE

Created:	Mon Oct 30 1989
Last Modified:	Mon Dec 31 1990
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	3726
Total number of notes:	19516

3427.0. "Login box disappears over the weekend. Why?" by CSC32::FORSMAN (Ginny Forsman 522-4731 CSC/CS) Wed Oct 03 1990 14:32

I have a customer running 5.3-1 on a VS3100.  He does a quit from the
Session Manager and the login box appears.  Occasionally, after anywhere
from 2 hours to an entire weekend, the WSAn process will terminate, the
login box goes away and never reappears.  The server is still running,
but we have a blank screen.

Accounting shows two process termination records for this WSA process.
The first is a login process termination, the second is a login failure.
Both terminated at the same time, both with a final status code of 0, no
text.  He swears no one is at the site, and would have attempted to
login.

We took a look in the server error log file, and no clues present at the
time of the wsa process termination.

We know how to get the login box back, but the customer wants to know why
it goes away in the first place.  I'm not able to reproduce this.

Any clues??????

Thanks,

Ginny Forsman
DECwindows Support
CSC/CS

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
3427.1	idle process killer?	VINO::MCARLETON	Reality; what a concept!	`Wed Oct 03 1990 17:32`	5
	Does the customer run an idle process killer that might be killing the WSA_ process? MJC
3427.2		CSC32::FORSMAN	Ginny Forsman 522-4731 CSC/CS	`Wed Oct 03 1990 18:55`	6
	>>Does the customer run an idle process killer that might be killing >>the WSA_ process? Nope.
3427.3	CPU time limit?	PEACHS::BELDIN		`Fri Oct 05 1990 14:49`	12
	How about a cpu time limit on the account? The way that DECwindows works until 5.4 is that the system account is running in wsan and then when you log in, the wsa process changes its uic to yours, but you get charged the cpu time for the time that system spent blinking the cursor. If that has exceeded your cpu time limit, out you go - no session manager. I believe that the SYSTEM account doesn't have this problem... Rick Beldin VMS Workstation Support Atlanta GA
3427.4	No CPU Limit on the account	CSC32::FORSMAN	Ginny Forsman 522-4731 CSC/CS	`Wed Oct 10 1990 13:31`	8
	Thanks for the suggestion, .3, but the CPU Limit on the users account would only come into play after the user logs in. He would log in, and the session manager would fail to start if he had exceeded his cpu time limit. In my customers case, the login box is disappearing, the WSA process is terminating, we never get a chance to log in, as we don't have a login box.
3427.5		CLTMAX::dick	Schoeller - Failed Xperiment	`Wed Oct 10 1990 14:47`	11
	I believe that .3 is slightly wrong. I vaguely remember a note a while back that said that when you logout, the process running the login box is using resources against your account (not a system account) when someone new logs in, his account takes over. If there is some account quota (CPU is a good one and there may be others) on the account of the person who last logged out, then the login box might fail over the weekend. The login box does use CPU because it is flashing the cursor. Dick
3427.6	probably related to PQL_* parameters...	DECWIN::LEMBREE	Just do it.	`Thu Oct 11 1990 12:21`	10
	I think Dick's idea is on the right track, but I'm almost certain that the new login process is a completely new process, not a remnant of the old session. My guess would be that the customer's changed some PQL parameters in SYSGEN, and that they're being used in the creation of the new login process. When the login process runs up against some limit imposed by PQL parameters, it'll probably be fatal. Of course, it'll probably be caught and you'll get the final process status you're getting. Like (I think) Dick said, while the machine's waiting for someone to log in, it's not idle, it's busy doing little things like blinking the cursor, so it's using real resources.