Octopus Administrator's Guide
Octopus Operations

When the Octopus utility is started, it automatically starts the number of OctoEng's specified in the NumberOfEngines parameter for each Subclass having a valid section in the nucleus.ini file. If the OctoEng's are located on a remote computer, Octopus uses an Octopus Agent to start them. The Octopus database (as specified by the DatabaseName parameter in the OCTOPUS section of the nucleus.ini file) is started in a variant of Persistent mode (Mode 4) on each OctoEng. The name of the core database is specified by the PrimaryDB parameter in the OCTOPUS section of the nucleus.ini file.

Starting the Octopus Daemon/Service

UNIX

To start the Octopus daemon, use the following command (executable only by ROOT):

/sbin/init.d/octopusd start

Windows

Automatic Service

If Octopus is installed and configured as an Automatic service, it will start automatically when the system is started.

Manual Service

There are several ways to start Octopus manually:

1. If Octopus is installed and configured as a Manual service, it can be started from the Services applet:

Windows 2000: Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

On the Services applet, right-click the Octopus service, then choose Start.

2. To start the Manual service from the command line, enter:

NET START OCTOPUS

3. If the Windows Resource Kit has been installed on the system, the Manual service can also be started from a command prompt (local or remote) by issuing the following command:

SC server-name START OCTOPUS

where server-name is the host name of the computer on which the Octopus program resides.

Starting a Single Octopus Instance Controlled by the Daemon/Service

It is possible to start a single instance of Octopus controlled by the Octopus daemon/service, using the OctoStartup program. This allows one instance of Octopus to be started when multiple instances are stopped (in such a situation, using the standard startup methods would start all the instances).

In order to enable OctoStartup functionality, a [SERVICEOCTOPUS] section must be added to the nucleus.ini file, containing a PORT parameter that specifies the port on which the daemon/service will listen and (optionally) the BindToAdaptors parameter to specify the network adaptor(s) to be used (the default is all adaptors on the local host). For example:

[SERVICEOCTOPUS]
PORT=8050

Note that if the PORT parameter is missing from the SERVICEOCTOPUS section, OctoStartup functionality will not be enabled.

To invoke OctoStartup, use the following syntax:

octostartup host-name:port-number octopus-instance-name

where:

• host-name is the Octopus host name, or the value of BindToAdaptors parameter in the [SERVICEOCTOPUS] section of nucleus.ini if specified
• port-number is the value of the Port parameter in the [SERVICEOCTOPUS] section of nucleus.ini
• octopus-instance-name is the name appearing in the nucleus.ini section header for the desired Octopus instance.

 

Starting Octopus Manually

To start Octopus (standard application) manually, use the following command:

octopus octopus-section-name

where octopus-section-name is the section header for the desired Octopus instance as it appears in the nucleus.ini file.

Starting Octopus Agent Manually

To start Octopus Agent manually, use the following command:

octoagnt

Note that a nucleus.ini file containing a correctly configured [OCTOPUS AGENT] section must be present on the host machine in order to start an Octopus Agent.