Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

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barry.marcus
Posts: 288
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:05 pm

Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

Post by barry.marcus »

I am attempting to setup our environment on a new server and have hit a wall in the part of our code where Texis tasks are spawned in the background by the main CGI web application... As far as I can tell, the only difference between this server and our other servers is that on this new one the script root is on a virtual drive (VMWARE Fusion is the software used to provide the virtual drive). Yes, I know this is a BIG difference, but these things *should* be fairly transparent, at least according to the VMWARE sales staff! The lines of code that spawns the background task are:

<strfmt "%s\\backgroundSearch" $scriptPath>
<$theCommand=$ret>
<exec bkgnd -- $texisPath $theCommand></exec>

On our other servers, scriptPath is defined as:

<$scriptPath="D:\Crosshairs\script\">

and texisPath is defined as

<$texisPath="C:\Morph3\texis">

That works fine on all of our servers other than the new one. As a first attempt on the new server, I created a mapped network drive for the VMWARE drive and assigned the drive letter D: to it, hoping that everything could remain the same. That did not work, and the following errors were written to the vortex log:

002 2013-04-11 14:54:19 D:\Crosshairs\script\backgroundSearch: Cannot open source file: No such file or directory

Strange, because that is absolutely the correct path (in mapped drive-ese!). So, I changed the definition of scriptPath to:

<$scriptPath="\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Crosshairs\script\">

In this case the following error is written to the vortex log:

002 2013-04-11 14:59:25 Cannot open C:\MORPH3\: no SYSTABLES in the function ddopen
000 2013-04-11 14:59:25 Could not connect to . in the function openntexis

This makes no sense to me. In the latter case (i.e., using \\vmware-host\ etc.) a process id IS returned by <exec>, and possibly in the former case as well (not sure). In neither case, though, is the background task actually spawned as expected. I know this because debug lines at the top of the main function of the module backgroundSearch (which write to a file) are never hit and that debug file is never created.

I realize our code base is rather complicated, and it's likely I've left out some significant pieces of information, although I'm not sure what those could be. At this point I'm kind of groping in the dark. That said, can you think of where I might look for a resolution? It's frustrating.

Thanks.
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mark
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Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2000 6:56 pm

Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

Post by mark »

Quick thought... "network" resources are not generally available to cgi processes.
barry.marcus
Posts: 288
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:05 pm

Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

Post by barry.marcus »

Not quite sure I understand, since everything is within the virtual machine. But in any case, are you saying that this might NOT be an issue if our web application did not use CGI? Is ISAPI the alternative? (Showing my ignorance here...) If so, I'm not sure I know how to go about implementing that.
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mark
Site Admin
Posts: 5513
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2000 6:56 pm

Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

Post by mark »

Use of \\vmware-host\ implies that the system is treating that as a network resource. ISAPI may resolve that. What version of Windows and IIS are you using?

Or see if vmware can present the virtual drive to Windows as a hard disk instead of a network share.
barry.marcus
Posts: 288
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:05 pm

Not able to create background Texis tasks with virtual server

Post by barry.marcus »

Windows Server 2008 R2 and IIS 7.5. I gave VMWare a call and they are looking into why it is that their product is not "presenting" virtual drive D: as a physical drive to the Windows operating as it should. They will get back to me on that one
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