Password problem on new install of V9.2-2 - Solved

[reinhardtjh]

I was doing a new install of V9.2-2 and ran into this problem. No matter what I entered for a SYSTEM password, it gave me an error message and asked for a new one. I tried many combinations and nothing worked.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

The below snippet shows one such interaction. There were many others trying all combinations that I could think of.

Code: Select all

    ****************************************************************

    You can install or upgrade the OpenVMS X86-64 operating system
    or you can install or upgrade layered products that are included
    on the OpenVMS X86-64 distribution media.

    You can also execute DCL commands and procedures to perform
    "standalone" tasks, such as backing up the system disk.

    Please choose one of the following:

        1)  Upgrade, install or reconfigure OpenVMS X86-64 Version V9.2-2
        2)  Display layered products that this procedure can install
        3)  Install or upgrade layered products
        4)  Show installed products
        5)  Reconfigure installed products
        6)  Remove installed products
        7)  Find, Install or Undo patches; Show or Delete Recovery Data
        8)  Execute DCL commands and procedures
        9)  Shut down this system

Enter CHOICE or ? for help: (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/?) 1
    ***********************************************************

    This procedure will ask a series of questions.

          () - encloses acceptable answers
          [] - encloses default answers

    Type your response and press the <Return> key.  Type:

          ? - to repeat an explanation
          ^ - to change prior input (not always possible)
          Ctrl/Y - to exit the installation procedure

    There are two choices for installation/upgrade:

    Initialize - Removes all software and data files that were
        previously on the target disk and installs OpenVMS X86-64.

    Preserve -- Installs or Upgrades OpenVMS X86-64 on the target disk
        and retains all other contents of the target disk.

   * Note: You cannot use preserve to install OpenVMS X86-64 on a disk on
        which any other operating system is installed.  This includes
        implementations of OpenVMS for other architectures.

Do you want to INITIALIZE or to PRESERVE? [PRESERVE] preserve


    You must enter the device name for the target disk on which
    OpenVMS X86-64 will be installed.

Enter device name for target disk: [dka0] (? for choices) ?

  Device Name       Device Type Name        Volume Label     Size (blocks/xB)
  ------------  -------------------------  --------------  --------------------
  DKA0:         VMware Virtual disk
  DKA100:       VMware Virtual disk
  DKA200:       VMware Virtual disk
  DKA300:       VMware Virtual disk

  For volume label and device size enter ??


Enter device name for target disk: [dka0] (? for choices) dka0:

    DKA0: is now labeled NORTON_A0.

Do you want to keep this label? (Yes/No) [Yes] yes

    OpenVMS X86-64 was NOT found on DKA0:.

    OpenVMS X86-64 will be installed on DKA0:.


    Creating page file....


    You must enter a password for the SYSTEM account.

    The password must be a minimum of 15 characters in length, and
    may not exceed 31 characters.  It will be checked and verified.
    The system will not accept passwords that can be guessed easily.

    The password will not be displayed as you enter it.

Password for SYSTEM account: "madsadfadwadrad1"    <== 16 characters, 15 alpha, one numeral, no symbols


    Password may contain only A-Z, 0-9, $ and _ characters!

Password for SYSTEM account: "SLARTIBARTFAST42norway"  <== 22 characters, 20 alpha, two numeral, no symbols


    Password may contain only A-Z, 0-9, $ and _ characters!

Password for SYSTEM account: "a"  <== one character.


    Password must be at least 15 characters in length!

Password for SYSTEM account:^C

 Interrupt



    Installation has been terminated.

    The installation has not completed normally.

  Process X86VMS_INSTALL logged out at 27-JAN-2024 05:24:57.00

[sms]

Code: Select all

> [...] No matter what I entered [...]

   What, _exactly_, did you put in?

> Password for SYSTEM account: "madsadfadwadrad1"    <== 16 characters, 15 alpha, one numeral, no symbols

   Did you put in those quotation marks?  (Don't.  A quotation mark is a
symbol.)

   Is your (unspecified) terminal/emulator adding (invisible)
characters?  (CR and/or LF, for example?  Try Ctrl/M instead of
Enter/Return?)

> 8)  Execute DCL commands and procedures

      show terminal

   I haven't tried INITIALIZE with V9.2-2, only a PRESERVE upgrade from
V9.2-1, but I'd be amazed if V9.2-2 could have escaped with a problem
which would cause this behavior with valid input.

[m_detommaso]

This problem has been reported several times in this forum.

Try taking a look at this post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8602

I hope this helps,
/Maurizio

[reinhardtjh]

Code: Select all

> [...] No matter what I entered [...]

   What, _exactly_, did you put in?

> Password for SYSTEM account: "madsadfadwadrad1"    <== 16 characters, 15 alpha, one numeral, no symbols

   Did you put in those quotation marks?  (Don't.  A quotation mark is a
symbol.)

   Is your (unspecified) terminal/emulator adding (invisible)
characters?  (CR and/or LF, for example?  Try Ctrl/M instead of
Enter/Return?)

> 8)  Execute DCL commands and procedures

      show terminal

   I haven't tried INITIALIZE with V9.2-2, only a PRESERVE upgrade from
V9.2-1, but I'd be amazed if V9.2-2 could have escaped with a problem
which would cause this behavior with valid input.

What, _exactly_, did you put in?

> Password for SYSTEM account: "madsadfadwadrad1" <== 16 characters, 15 alpha, one numeral, no symbols

Did you put in those quotation marks? (Don't. A quotation mark is a
symbol.)

No, no quotes. The quotes were meant to indicate exactly what I entered as quotes were meant to do.

Is your (unspecified) terminal/emulator adding (invisible)
characters? (CR and/or LF, for example? Try Ctrl/M instead of
Enter/Return?)

I tried ^M and got the same results. The terminal emulator connection is set to send CR/LF so I will try changing that. However the same setting works "just fine" with V9.2-1 right now and with V9.2 and E9.2 before that. I tried using the emulator's logging feature to see what was being sent, but it did not show the password response (I suspect it only logs what is displayed on the screen). I know it's sending characters because if I type less than 15 I get the too few characters error. When I type 15 or more (but less than 32) I get the invalid character error and if I type 32 or more I get the too long error.

> 8) Execute DCL commands and procedures

show terminal

Code: Select all

$$$ show terminal
Terminal: _OPA0:      Device_Type: VT200_Series  Owner: SA_STARTUP
                                              Username: SYSTEM

   Input:  115200     LFfill:  0      Width: 132      Parity: None
   Output: 115200     CRfill:  0      Page:   30

Terminal Characteristics:
   Interactive        Echo               Type_ahead         No Escape
   No Hostsync        TTsync             Lowercase          Tab
   Wrap               Scope              No Remote          Eightbit
   Broadcast          No Readsync        No Form            Fulldup
   No Modem           No Local_echo      No Autobaud        No Hangup
   No Brdcstmbx       No DMA             No Altypeahd       Set_speed
   No Commsync        Line Editing       Overstrike editing No Fallback
   No Dialup          No Secure server   No Disconnect      No Pasthru
   No Syspassword     No SIXEL Graphics  Soft Characters    Printer port
   Numeric Keypad     ANSI_CRT           No Regis           No Block_mode
   Advanced_video     Edit_mode          DEC_CRT            DEC_CRT2
   No DEC_CRT3        No DEC_CRT4        No DEC_CRT5        No Ansi_Color
   VMS Style Input    <CTRL-H> Backspace
   

I haven't tried INITIALIZE with V9.2-2, only a PRESERVE upgrade from
V9.2-1, but I'd be amazed if V9.2-2 could have escaped with a problem
which would cause this behavior with valid input.

Me either, but I can't find anything wrong with the terminal emulator setup either.

More background. I am running on an Intel NUC 9 Pro i9 system with ESXi V7.0.3. It currently hosts an OpenVMS V9.2-1 guest. I created another guest VM to install V9.2-2. As near as I am able to tell, I made the VM look like the VM that is already running V9.2-1. The console is accessed though telnet using the VMware virtual serial port. As you can see, it has no problem with input on the other prompts up to the point of asking for the password. I have looked at the code and I don't see anything wrong with it which made me suspect something in the terminal settings, but they have been cloned from the settings that work with the V9.2-1 system and when it was a V9.2 and E9.2 system as well.

I am on a Mac and using Emtec's ZOC ( https://www.emtec.com/zoc/index.html ). I use this to connect to all my OpenVMS systems (MicroVAX, Alpha) without issues. The same settings worked when installing E9.2 and upgrading to V9.2 and V9.2-1. I decided to create a new VM for V9.2-2 just to try it and ended up here.

Added in 4 minutes 22 seconds:

This problem has been reported several times in this forum.

Try taking a look at this post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8602

I hope this helps,
/Maurizio

Thanks. I have seen and looked at that post. I am on a Mac running ZOC v8 ( https://www.emtec.com/zoc/index.html ) for my terminal emulator. I have a running OpenVMS V9.2-1 system which started as a V9.2. I also had a E9.2 system and the same terminal connection worked for these so I don't think it's the terminal emulator settings, but I also can't envision VSI having such a basic error in the DCL code for the install either.

I will keep experimenting with the settings.

Added in 3 hours 13 minutes 51 seconds:
Re: Password problem on new install of V9.2-2 - Solved
It appears I have found the difference. It's in the ESXI setting for the serial port. In my other VM Guest the URL for the serial port was "telnet://vmhost01:2001" (No, no quotes Steven ) but in the VSI install doc they say use tcp://<host>:<port> so I did. I just now changed it to telnet:// from tcp:// and i can enter a password. I changed it back to tcp:// and entering a password fails. I don't know what the difference is.

The pertinent portion of the Install doc is 2.1.6.d.ix.D

If you selected Use network in the previous step, type tcp://<your ESXi host IP>:<port ID> in the Connection Port URI field. The port ID must be unique on the ESXi host. Once you are satisfied with the URI, click anywhere in the window to validate the URI format and remove the warning.

If you selected Use named pipe, type \\.\pipe\pipe_name in the Pipe name field. The pipe name must be unique for each VM.