Managing Your Lawson System MSPs and CTPs Ron Wright netASPx Corp.

CTP Definition Lawson’s Definition: "Critical Transfer Packages ( CTP's )" are individual "high priority" fixes that are available to download immediately without waiting for the scheduled Maintenance Service Package. Many CTPs released every week

MSP Definition Lawson’s Definition: "Maintenance Service Packages ( MSP's )" consist of scheduled, periodic groupings of individual, critical fixes. Each new Transfer Package is built upon the previous one, so all fixes are included in the newest available CTP. Released every 2-3 months NOT installed like a collection of CTPs!

MSP: When and How Often netASPx applies all MSPs Give MSPs time for critical problems to be resolved (1 month) Review CTPs released within 2 weeks of an MSP for applicability Watch Topica mailing lists for impressions (

MSP: Experiences Call volume increases for a short duration after Issues are often serious in nature Number of issues and severity closely related to the amount and quality of the testing performed! Develop test plans with end user involvement. Test processes and programs, not just programs

CTP: When and How Often Other than those reviewed after an MSP, CTPs are applied only upon an issue CTPs are more problematic than MSPs netASPx has applied over 100 unique CTPs since August, 2002

Application Maintenance Toolset Suite of utilities for installing applications and applying MSPs and CTPs Downloaded from support.lawson.com (Transfer Packages) Includes lasetup, appmetaload, patchcompile, and the metadata load and dump programs

lasetup initial Used for a new installation or point release Rolls $LAWDIR/ /Admin/install.log Overwrites source files without backup Performs sysloads

lasetup staged (MSP) Files staged to designated location then compared to program code in productline Programs found to be more recent than code in the MSP are replaced, but logged in the install.log as “Reverted” All files to be replaced are backup up to $LAWDIR/ /backup/ _MSP# GEN database information for programs NOT backed up. CTPs that were “Reverted” must be reapplied

Backing out an MSP Preparation: Complete data backup (expsysdb) Backup of LADBDIR and LAWDIR Optional prep step: sysdump (more options for recovery)

Backing out an MSP (cont) Procedure: 1.Backup data (if unsure of backup or potential exists that updated data may need to be retrieved) 2.Drop tables (bldxxxddl –UDq ) 3.Restore LADBDIR and LAWDIR 4.Startladb 5.bldxxxddl –Uq 6.Restore data (impexp) 7.startlaw

lasetup patch (CTP) Files to be replaced are compared for more recent versions. More recent versions are not replaced. Replaced files and GEN information to be updated is backed up to $LAWDIR/ /backup/ GEN data not updated yet

appmetaload (CTP) Applies changes to the GEN database related to a program or library Information related to workfiles, messages, etc. loaded for you. No more manual entry,, except… Database changes (dbdef) not handled

patchcompile (CTP) Determines all programs related to the patch that must be recompiled and submits them. Optionally creates a script to submit all compiles.

Backing out a CTP No prep required 1.Copy program files from $LAWDIR/ /backup/ back to appropriate location 2.Go through “meta” directories (ex. Metagl) and run appropriate metaload program for each file found. ( ex. metaloadmsg AP20.msg ) 3.If manual database changes were done, those must be reversed manually. (dbdef, blddbdict, dbreorg) 4.Recompile productline or rerun patchcompile

Under the Covers Version comparison: Version compared using the first line in every program file. This line has: Any change to the file changes the chksum value. If chksum doesn’t match the header, version ignored and program overwritten in all circumstances. A Perl programmer could easily write Perl to regenerate the chksum value

Under the Covers (cont) Metaload series of programs do not do a merge within the GEN database. Deletes within GEN are performed on a backout. Be careful if you run the metadump programs. They do not write to stdout. Overwrite files in the current directory. Metadump files fairly easy to read. Contain “prefix” of GEN tables to be updated. Confirm prefix by running dmpdict GEN. Look for index (ie. PGMSET1 - PGM is prefix)

Handling Program Modifications Use the UNIX diff utility to see changes. (works on NT too with MKS Toolkit or others) diff $LAWDIR/dev8/backup/12345/apsrc/AP20PD $LAWDIR/dev8/apsrc/AP20PD diff can also create a merged version of two programs for you: diff –D12345 $LAWDIR/dev8/backup/12345/apsrc/AP20PD $LAWDIR/dev8/apsrc/NA20PD (merged program will not compile until edited)

Questions