Installing SNAPP 1

[mkharris]

I thought I'd pass this on, to save some of the grief I've been through with it.

SNAPP is an XML based PDA interface to RS6000 Administration - you plug your PDA into the serial port and you can do all sorts of whizzy admin tasks. ( Apparently - I haven't tried it out yet. )

There's a catch with installing it on 4.3.3 systems. The base version of the fileset ( bos.net.snapp 4.3.3.0 ) was, by all accounts, issued on the 10/2000 Update CD. Subsequent releases of AIX ( e.g. 09/2001 ), Update CDs and maintenance levels, all supplied an updated version of SNAPP. The updated versions had a requisite of the base version. So, if you didn't get the right update CD, you didn't get the product.

IBM have now provided a solution to this. There is an updated version (76) that will install without needing the base version. The APAR for this is IY28196.

It's a SNAPP.

 

[KenCunningham]

"It Makes Me Wonder Sometimes..." (Snapp, I think). Have a star for being kind enough to share this!

 

[mkharris]

Thanks, Ken. If I'm going to get nice purple stars, then I might as well share a bit more info. This is what I have discovered through trial and error, in the absence of any useful documentation:

1. You need to have a user called 'snapp' set up, that doesn't have a password :-( and that allows tty logins.

2. The snapp daemon needs to be available as an executable on user snapp's path, and with a name of snapp rather than snappd ( i.e. set up an alias to /usr/sbin/snappd called snapp ).

3. There is no exit / disconnect function via the PDA interface, so the shell has to be terminated somehow if the port is to be re-used :-(

Of course, all of the above only applies to established systems. If it is just-delivered, then the whole thing behaves differently ( not something I have been able to try ). In that situation, it should do the configuration for you.

All very clunky, imho.

 

[mkharris]

I'd guess this is a niche subject area, but I do need to add one last reply, as my last posting is not correct.

The snapp daemon does not need to be aliased as snapp - instead it should be used as a shell for the snapp user. This also prevents idle korn shells hanging on to the tty ( point 3, previously ).