Atalla Boxcar Reference Guide (G06.24+)

Atalla Boxcar Reference Guide—526564-005
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Boxcar Overview
Boxcar is a process that runs in a HP Non-Stop server. It is designed to improve the
overall efficiency of communication between host application process(es) and Atalla
NSPs that support Ethernet TCP/IP communications. Boxcar acts as a funnel for
transactions, accepting commands from a large number of application processes and
sending them to available sockets on the Atalla NSP. Boxcar provides an interface to
one Atalla NSP. Multiple NSPs would each have their own Boxcar process running on
the HP Non-Stop server.
Boxcar is a Non-Stop context free server application. The ability to be context free
comes from the I/O buffer design, and allows more efficient Boxcar operation, as it is
not necessary to maintain and checkpoint contexts for each Boxcar opener. Boxcar
maintains the contexts of application processes in a buffer using a multi-threaded
process to increase communication efficiency. Boxcar sends a command to the first
open, available socket. Boxcar can send up to a maximum of 14 commands
simultaneously. When all sockets are busy, Boxcar queues subsequent commands in a
buffer, up to a maximum of 4047 commands, and thereby effectively supports up to
4047 opens.
Boxcar does not perform any error checking on the command syntax that a host
application is sending to the Atalla NSP. The Atalla NSP is responsible for formatting
and returning error codes in response to any invalid or improperly formatted
commands. This off- loads bookkeeping tasks from Boxcar and improves its efficiency.
By default, Boxcar requires 133 MB of swap space to start, if sufficient disk space is
not available, boxcar will abend.
Software Installation
Boxcar (product ID T0409) is distributed as an independent product (IP), follow the
installation instructions provided on the CD-ROM.
Initialization
Boxcar is started and initialized via an obey file. Initialization includes opening the log
file or process, establishing the socket connections, and sending an echo command to
each socket. The obey file is also used to establish the Boxcar runtime configuration.
See Sample Obey File.
Log
When the Boxcar process is started, it first attempts to open a log. The Boxcar log can
be a disk file or a process. The log is opened first so any subsequent error conditions
can be recorded. If the log cannot be opened, a fatal error is generated and Boxcar
abends. When Boxcar starts, it logs the configuration information and the status of its
backup process. It also sends commands <1101#>, <9A#ID#>, and <9A#KEY#> to the
Network Security Processor to obtain configuration information. The responses to
these commands are recorded in the log.