Tech Info 078: Script Server not working reliably on Mac OS 10.3 Panther

HELIOS Tech Info #078

Tue, 02 Mar 2004

Script Server not working reliably on Mac OS 10.3 Panther

A change in the Perl 5.8 version distributed with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther results in Script Server getting interrupted by signals during the read operation from “opisrv”.
As soon as a workaround or fix is available, this information will be distributed by a follow up to this Tech Info.
HELIOS prepared a tar file with a Perl 5.8.3 distribution and an additional HELIOS startup script. The original Perl version on Mac OS X will be left untouched and the new Perl distribution will be stored to “/usr/local”.
You can download the archive from the HELIOS web site, “Support” section, “HELIOS products on Mac OS X”.
Copy the archive “perl-5.8.3-osx.tgz” to your server running Mac OS X 10.3 and HELIOS ImageServer and run as user ID “root” the following command sequence:
# cd /
# tar xzvf <path_to_tgz>/perl-5.8.3-osx.tgz
# cd /usr/local/helios
# bin/stop-helios now
# bin/start-helios
# var/run/runperl -v
The output of runperl -v should contain the following text:
This is perl, v5.8.3 built for darwin-2level
In case you did not install HELIOS products at their default location “/usr/local/helios”, copy the file “/usr/local/helios/etc/startstop/15uselocalperl”
to “<your_helios_directory>/etc/startstop” and make sure that it is executable.
To test the proper functioning of Script Server, change and save the Script Server configuration with EtherShare Admin. You can uncomment one of the provided examples in “Lists/Script Server/Configuration”: 
#Examples:
#TEXT:.ps:/demovol:printps:root:PRINTER=lw,SCRIPTDEBUG=1
#PDF :.pdf:/demovol:printpdf:demouser:
change to 
PDF :.pdf:/demovol:printpdf:demouser:
When you choose in EtherShare Admin ¡Lists/Script Server/Log File” after the configuration change is finished, check that it lists at the end some new lines with “Config line” and “scriptsrv[<pid>] started” with the time of your change: 
03.03.2004 15:11:30 Config line 26: PDF :.pdf:/demovol:printpdf:demouser:
03.03.2004 15:11:31 scriptsrv[1816] started
In case you did not yet configure Script Server, make sure that the directory path provided as third parameter, “/demovol” in our example, does exist and is located inside an EtherShare / PCShare volume.
Otherwise you will see additional lines with “ignore config, directory invalid...” or similar.
When a newer Perl for MacOS X 10.3 becomes available which does not interrupt read operations anymore, you can simply remove the HELIOS startup script:
rm /usr/local/helios/etc/startstop/15uselocalperl