IBM Support

itmpatch utility appends an extra slash at the end of CANDLEHOME variable

Troubleshooting


Problem

After installing an agent interim fix using the itmpatch utility, the process shows multiple slashes.

Symptom

After installing an agent interim fix (in this example we will use the Unix OS agent) using the itmpatch utility, the process shows an extra slash when displayed using the "ps -ef" command.

For example, using this command to install the patch:


<CANDLEHOME>/bin/itmpatch -h /opt/IBM/ITM -i <path of IFIX tar>

After the patch is installed and you display it using this command:
# ps -ef | grep kuxagent
root 32338 1 0 08:46 pts/1 00:00:00 /opt/IBM/ITM//aix526/ux/bin/kuxagent

Notice the extra slash after ITM

Cause

The reason why the extra backslash is present in the pathname is because the itmpatch utility can accept a user specified CANDLEHOME value as input when the user specifies a value using the -h option. It is possible for the user to execute itmpatch without having previously exported the CANDLEHOME environment variable.

When the input parameter is read, itmpatch cannot assume that the customer provided a valid directory name. It is possible for a user to mistakenly supply a filename or a directory name. The itmpatch utility inserts one backslash after the CANDLEHOME environment variable and henceforth uses that CANDLEHOME environment variable for all of its processing.

One of the multiple processing steps that itmpatch implements is to start the agents once the updates have been applied. The utility implements this by executing the ITM command "CandleAgent -h start <pc>". Where the -h value is the CANDLEHOME environment variable that itmpatch has fabricated during its startup.

The CandleAgent utility will append backslash to the CANDLEHOME pathname since it too needs to insure that the CANDLEHOME pathname is valid for its purposes, and that is the reason why the superfluous backslash appears in the startup of agents when they are invoked from itmpatch.

Resolving The Problem

The extra backslash does not cause any problems and once the agent is stopped and restarted it will not show up again. It only shows up when the itmpatch utility starts the agent after the patch is applied.
Multiple backslashes in Unix are treated as one backslash according to the "Single Unix Specification".

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Document Information

Modified date:
17 June 2018

UID

swg21694895