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Update troubleshooting.md
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oilcan-productions authored Aug 28, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -5,17 +5,15 @@ Issues covered so far:

* [COMSAT is crashing on start](#comsat-is-crashing-on-start)

through out the document you will see certain special characters mentioned. They are slightly different depending on your keyboard and terminal
* `$` means the ALT or ESC key
Throughout the document you will see certain special characters mentioned. They are slightly different depending on your keyboard and terminal
* `$` means the ESC key
* `^` means the CTRL or STRG key

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@eswenson1

eswenson1 Aug 28, 2024

Member

What is the STRG key? Is this on non-US keyboards in place of CTRL or Control, etc? I've never heard of it before.

* `<escape>` means the ALT or ESC key in EMACS
* `<control>` means the Control key in EMACS
* `<escape>` means the ESC key
* `<control>` means the CTRL or STRG key

## COMSAT is crashing on start
Thanks to eswenson for the intial steps here

In order for INQUIR entries to stick, you must have COMSAT running.

If you run PEEK, you should see two COMSAT jobs. One has the JNAME IV and the other JOB.nn. If these jobs are not present, then COMSAT may have started and died or not started at all
```
*:peek
Expand All @@ -39,6 +37,10 @@ Logout time = Lost 0% Idle 98% Null time = 5:07
As you can see above none of the COMSAT processes are running.

There are several reasons why COMSAT may die upon startup The most common are:
* Network configuration issues
* Uninitialzed Mail directory structure
* Other configuration issues
*
Lets start going through those one by one:

### Network parameters for COMSAT are not correct.
Expand All @@ -48,6 +50,10 @@ When you bring up KA ITS, you'll see a message on the operator console like this
TOP LEVEL INTERRUPT 200 DETACHED JOB # 4, USR:COMSAT IV     12:09:12

This means that COMSAT has crashed.
The next series of steps assumes you have logged into ITS using
```
< your username>$$u

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@eswenson1

eswenson1 Aug 28, 2024

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Probably should get rid of after the opening "<" since you don't have one before the closing ">".

```

If you look at the IP address that COMSAT is configured with:
```
Expand All @@ -56,7 +62,12 @@ $l .mail.;comsat launch
bughst/'NEW$:   SHOWQ+50,,PAT+6   =30052000544
```

you'll note that that octal address is: 192.168.1.100
you'll note that that octal address translates to: 192.168.1.100

>![NOTE]
> To convert from the Octal representation of the IP Address to the tuple representation you can use the approach listed below at
>(Convert IP address)[#convert-ip-address]

If you look at the value that ITS has for the machine's IP address:

Expand All @@ -82,6 +93,7 @@ The easiest fix is to:
4) fix COMSAT's mailing lists file
5) restart COMSAT

### Fixing the host table
To fix the host table, change the line:
```
HOST : CHAOS 177002, 192.168.1.100 : DB-ITS.EXAMPLE.COM, DB : PDP-10 : ITS : :
Expand All @@ -100,6 +112,7 @@ the `FN2` of the `SYSHST;H3TEXT NNNNNN` you just created.

Now your host table matches your ITS IP address.

### Fixing the COMSAT binary
Next, you need to fix COMSAT.

To do that, create a job for COMSAT:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -130,6 +143,7 @@ Now, you have an correct `.MAIL.;COMSAT LAUNCH` executable.  This will be
launched by `TARAKA` on startup, or by `:MAIL` when invoked if `COMSAT` isn't
running.

### Create the COMSAT database files
However, before you do this, you need to make sure that COMSAT's database
files are created.

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -188,6 +202,7 @@ kill the job by typing:

Then, exit PEEK with the "q" command.

### Verify the changes
Now, send yourself a message:
```
:MAIL <your-uname>
Expand All @@ -207,5 +222,57 @@ You also should see that your mail was delivered. Type:
```
to read (and optionally delete) it.

### Convert IP address
If you are wondering how to convert octal IP addresses on ITS to the familiar octet pattern, see this example:

Let’s say you want to convert 1200600006 to a standard-formatted IP address.  First ensure that the value has 12 octal digits.  In this case, you’ll have to add two 0s at the left to get:

001200600006

Then, break that value up into octal values:

001 200 600 006

Then, convert the above to binary:

000 000 001 010 000 000 110 000 000 000 000 110

Then, group into 4 (ignored) bits, followed by 4 8-bit bytes:

0000  00001010 00000011 00000000 00000110

Then, ignoring the first 4 bits, convert each 8-bit byte to decimal:

      10      3        0        6

So 10.3.0.6 is the same as 1200600006 octal.

Lars created a shell script that will do the trick too.  You *have* to make sure the input is 12 octal digits long when invoking it:

```
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
 echo "Please provide an IP address as an argument"
 exit 1
fi
octal=$1
ip=""
for i in {1..4}; do
 octet=$(echo $(( $octal >> 8*(4-$i) & 255 )))
 ip="$ip$octet."
done
echo ${ip%?}
```
You could invoke it like this:

`./ipconvert.sh 001200600006`

And it should respond:

`10.3.0.6`

But it’s much more fun to do it the hard/manual way!

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