Technical Tips

How to remove PREFERENCE users from a volume no longer on my system

With the introduction of PREFERENCE release 7.9.0 the PREFERENCE Volume Manager facility was added.  Two of the new features under this facility are “List Users Registered to Nonexistent Programs” and “List Nonexistent Programs with Registered Users”.  These features will provide the supervisor with a list of old GSPUSER file entries (orphaned user-IDs) that were not deleted before the corresponding volume was removed from the system.

To prevent the creation of orphaned users on a PREFERENCE system a writer should perform the following before removing the volume from the system: 

1. Sign on as a supervisor.

2. From the Type Command Line type "w (volume name)" and press ENTER to go into writer mode on the volume to be removed.

3. From the main writer menu select “8  Administer users”.

4. Select “F2  Remove   readers”.

5. Select “F2 Remove all readers”.

6. Select “F3 End” to return to the “Administer users” menu.

7. Select “F5 Remove   writers”.

8. Select “F2  Remove all writers”.

9. All users have now been deleted and the volume can be removed.

Now that we know how to prevent the situation, how do we cleanup the GSPUSER file when we have neglected to remove the users before removing the program?  The solution below shows both how to get a list of orphaned user-IDs and how to remove them.  The general idea is to re-register the volume as a non-ease course and remove the readers using supervisor commands.  Removing writers involves a bit more work.  The procedure follows:

1. Sign on to PREFERENCE as a supervisor.

2. If you are at the “Type Command Line”, enter “menu” to go to the “Supervisor Main Menu”.

3. Select “F14 PREFERENCE Volume Manager”.

4. Select “USERS INACTIVE” with an “x” and pressing ENTER.

5. Select “NONEXISTENT PROGRAMS WITH REGISTERED USERS” with an “x” and pressing ENTER.  Record the list of nonexistent programs.

6. Perform the following steps for each volume on the “list of nonexistent programs”.

7. From the "Type Command Line" re-register (volume name).

8. Enter "w (volume name)" and press ENTER.

9. Enter "rms" and press ENTER.

10. When prompted with "ENTER DELETE OPTIONS ->" enter "all" and press ENTER.

11. You should receive a response such as “4 STUDENTS REMOVED.  etc.” with a prompt to “ENTER DELETE OPTIONS ->”.  Enter "end" and press ENTER.

12. Enter "ss all" and press ENTER. All readers (displays as students) should be deleted.  However, there may still be writers (displays as authors) registered to the volume.  Record the listed user-IDs.

13. Enter "cbr" and press ENTER.

14. Respond to "(volume name) IS TO BE SET UP AS A CBR VOLUME. OK TO VERIFY." prompt with "ok" and press ENTER.

15. From the writer menu press F8 Administer users.

16. Use "F5 Remove writers" to remove the remaining writer user-IDs.

17. From the "REMOVE WRITER FACILITY" menu select "F1 Remove a writer"

18. Enter each writer user-ID one at a time and press ENTER until all writer user-IDs have been removed.

19. Press "F3 to END" until you exit from the writer menu back to the type command line.  Remain in writer mode on the selected volume.

20. Enter "ss all" and press ENTER.  All users should now be deleted.  If any writers were missed, enter "cbr", press ENTER and go to step 15 above.

21. Remove the volume by entering "remove program (volume name)".