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I need some help. Two years ago I inherited the responsibilities of maintaining our ClearCase system which is extremely outdated and I have no previous experience working with it at all. Today, users are having problems checking out files from two of our ClearCase servers and I am not even sure where to begin. I have searched the internet to no avail. I ran the following commands to try and troubleshoot it but I am stuck now and I don't know where to go from here.

Below is what happends when the user tries to checkout a file:

cleartool co Makefile
Checkout comments for "Makefile":
.
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Unable to locate versioned object base with object id:"e2a51855.b3f511d3.ad28.00:01:80:8e:4e:e8".
cleartool: Error: Trouble finding the global definition for local type "development".
cleartool: Error: Unable to check out "Makefile".

I have looked around and can't seem to find out how to resolve this.
These particular servers are running an older version of RedHat (Linux 3.10.0-123); and the logs I found don't give me enough information to know what to do next. Our ClearCase version is 8.0.1.5

Below are the results of various commands I have run to try and troubleshoot the issue:

[vobadm@lgbuild3] cleartool desc /vob/admin_vob
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
Non-MVFS directory "/vob/admin_vob"
  Modified: Thu 16 Dec 1999 03:10:58 PM EST
  Protection:
    User : vobadm   : rwx
    Group: eng      : r-x
    Other:          : r-x

Finally, I read that the VOB may be locked, but this is what happens when I run the unlock command:

[vobadm@lgbuild3]$ cleartool unlock /vob/admin_vob
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Unable to access "/vob/admin_vob": error detected by ClearCase subsystem.

Per VonC, I ran the following commands and here is the results:

[vobadm@lgbuild3 log]$ ct descr -l vob:/vob/admin_vob
cleartool: Error: Unable to determine VOB for pathname "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob".
cleartool: Error: Unable to determine VOB for pathname "/vob/admin_vob".

Any help or guidance as to where I should look at next would be greatly appreciated.

Luis
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2 Answers2

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It depends on your version of ClearCase and OS (for ClearCase server and client), but the four main command you need to look at are:

First, you can describe your vob, to check its associated ACL (owner/group), as I did here:

cleartool descr -l vob:/vobs/vobtag

Then you can check the same for your user views, as in here:

cd /path/to/my/view 
cleartool lsview -l -full -pro -cview

Depending on the rights you see, you might need to fix_prot the vob itself (maybe even protectvob if you need additional groups.
Or simply fix_prot the views to make them compatible with the main group of the Vob.

For the error:

cleartool: Error: Unable to determine VOB for pathname "/vob/admin_vob"._vob

You need to at least create a tag for that vob:

ct mktag -vob -tag /vob/admin_vob -pub -password clearcase -host yourVobServer -gpath /shared/path/to//vob/admin_vob.vbs /shared/path/to//vob/admin_vob.vbs
VonC
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  • Thank you VonC. We are using clearcase 8.0.1.5 (Linux 3.10.0-123) Below is the result of the above commands: ```bash cleartool descr -l vob:/vob/admin_vob cleartool: Error: Error from VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob"._vob cleartool: Error: Trouble opening VOB database: "/vob/admin_vob"._vob cleartool: Error: Unable to determine VOB for pathname "/vob/admin_vob"._vob ``` – Luis Jul 26 '20 at 02:19
  • I am new to this forum and I am learning. I have added more description to my original question and added the results you recommended. As for fix_prot, I can't seem to find that command. – Luis Jul 26 '20 at 02:26
  • @Luis [Forum?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/362473/how-do-i-respond-to-assertions-that-stack-overflow-is-just-like-a-forum) – Andreas is moving to Codidact Jul 26 '20 at 03:00
  • @Luis I have edited my answer to address your error message. – VonC Jul 26 '20 at 15:20
  • @VonC Von, Thank you very much, I was not able to create the tag, it gave me an error that I forgot to write down because it pointed me to the VOB server. However, the VOB server was not responding to telnet, ssh or even console. It seemed to be hard-locked so I had not choice but to force power it off and after it rebooted, I can't run clearcase anymore because it tells me there are no available licenses and I am also getting notifications that the server is unable to get replicas of two VOBs: admin_vob and docs. I will probably need to hire someone to help. – Luis Jul 26 '20 at 18:26
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The first message had a clue that may be significant:

cleartool: Error: Unable to locate versioned object base with object id:"e2a51855.b3f511d3.ad28.00:01:80:8e:4e:e8".

You should run either

cleartool lsvob -long /vob/admin_vob

or

{cc install}/rgy_check -vobs

It is possible that the VOB got unregistered. It's not supposed to happen... But... You may get lucky and only need to run cleartool register -vob {vob storage path} or the equivalent with -host and -hpath if the VOB is on a NAS.

You should also look at the db_server logs on the VOB server to see if there are additional messages. The simplest way is go to the vob server host (ssh, local login, etc) and open /var/adm/rational/clearcase/log/db_server_log. Alternatively, immediately after you get the error on cleartool desc vob:/vob/admin_vob, run cleartool getlog -host {vob server name} db

That will at least get you started. Without knowing what's actually happening under the hood, I can't offer too many suggestions, and for various reasons dealing with my employment, I can't get into too much detail after we know, but I can at least offer pointers and other questions.

You're right that 8.0.1.5 is gloriously out of date. 8.0.1.x has been out of support since April 30th 2018. The current versions are 9.0.1.10 and 9.0.2.1(or 2). If you're also using ClearQuest, you'll have to move to 9.0.2.x to upgrade to the current release as CQ 9.0.1.0 is no longer available for download.

This issue is not related to the old version of CC, but you may need to work with support in order to resolve the issue, which may necessitate an upgrade to a supported release.

Brian Cowan
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  • Brian, Thank you very much, it appears that the problem is a lot more severe that I expected. Our VOB server was locked hard. Could not login via SSH, Telnet or Console so it had to be force powered off. After rebooting, the system now states we do not have clearcase licneses and the Job Scheduler states it cannot find replicas of the following two VOBs: admin_vob and docs. I may need to hire outside help for this as I have no idea where to go from here. – Luis Jul 26 '20 at 17:39
  • Sometimes when the license server starts, particularly on newer Linux versions, the albd starts before the network is all the way up, and this sometimes makes it reject the licenses. Try restarting clearcase (/etc/clearcase stop, followed by the same script for starting it) to get the license server back, and try the rest to check your registry, etc. – Brian Cowan Jul 28 '20 at 00:46