Stefan:

Thanks for the analysis and information.  Why am I not surprised that the "No error" came from Windows!? 

I tried some of your suggestions with the following results:

1.  Ping ==>= works as expected on the failing machine; that is, can successfully ping "max13"  I also can ping successfully in the reverse direction; that is, from "max13" to my "client" machine.

2.  NSLookUp ==>does not work on any of the 3 machines.

3.  Added the computer name "max13" to HOSTS file; ==> observed no change in behavior (i.e., still fails)

I did notice that on the 2 machines that function as desired that there is no anti-virus software installed, while on the non-funcational machine there is A-V SW installed.  I am able to bring up eLOG via the browser on the non-functional machine, so am unsure if the A-V SW is a factor; that is, why does ELOG via browser work as expected, but not via command line. 

QUESTION:  does command line ELOG connect differently than ELOG through the browser?

I ask this question for perhaps the A-V SW *is* blocking some port or whatever, and I will need to ask our IT department how to remove such a restriction.

Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: elogd 2.7.2 built Feb 14 2008, 20:55:38 
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: revision 2041
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: FCKedit detected
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23763]: Cannot restore original GID/UID.
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23763]: Cannot remove pidfile "/var/run/elogd.pid" ; Permission denied
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: Server listening on port 80 ...

The error message above come from the PID file /var/run/elogd.pid which cannot be removed. This file is only for information purpose, to tell any script which PID the elogd daemon has. If one elogd crashed in the past, the file might still be there although the program is not running, causing some error to show up, but which can normally be ignored.

The fact that elogd stays for about 30 seconds can only be contributed to the fact that you have very large logbooks, which are scanned during startup. You can check this by starting elogd interactively with the "-v" option. Then you will see the scanning process. The next thing is if you really get a crash, you can produce a core dump, so it can be analyzed to figure out where elogd has crashed. To my knowledge the only way you can do that is by having some logbooks with invalid data. Can you try your set-up with empty logbooks?

- Stefan

The error is produced by the C routine "gethostbyname". This routine tries to obtain the IP address of your host max13 and fails. The error "no error" is the error passed to elog from the underlying operating system, so please blame Windows for that. I guess you have a problem that on the machine you get the error you have some DNS problem, so this machine does not know max13. Try to "ping" max13 or do a "nslookup max13" to verify this. Maybe you have to add your domain after max13, or put this machine explicitly into \Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

I added some version information being displayed with the "-?" option. This feature will be contained in the next release.

I automatically install software on 3 machines in our lab, and at the end of the process, use eLOG to record relevant information for each machine (all running Windows XP) via the command line program elog.exe.  2 of the machines log their info correctly, but on third machine, I get the following error:

    Cannot retrieve host name: No error

The error is not very clear (i.e., the error is "no error"?), and furthermore, operationally, the error makes no sense to me, for the three machines are supposedly configured the same.  Additionally, the elog.exe used is stored on a network drive, as are the other batch files that all3 machines use, so it is not as a problem could creep in due to differing versions/configurations of files.

Just in case I am overlooking something, here's the command line invocation (I've X'd out sensitive information):

C:\>x:\@adat\tools\elog.exe -h max13 -l "Maxtee" -u xxxxxxxxxx xx1234   -a Tester=AULS_xxx_y    -a M
achine="Mercury 99"   -a "Module Type"=Controller   -a "Action Description=Configuration Change"   -
a Title="AULS upgraded to 1.2.7344 from [1.1.7343]."   -a "Card Count=998352"   -m X:\@ADAT\InterimP
F\MERCURY29.Blat_Msg1_PostBoot.TXT 1>X:\@ADAT\InterimPF\MERCURY29_eLog_CmdLineOutput1_(PostBoot).txt

Cannot retrieve host name: No error

Obvoiusly, there *must* be some configuration difference between the 2 working and 1 non-working machine, but I am at a loss to figure it out.

I am not sure which version of eLOG is being used, but the size of the elog.exe is 139,264. 

I suggest a new option be added to display the version information, or display the version info whenever eLOG is execute, or display the version info when "-?" option is used.

I installed elog 2.7.2 rev 2041 into /data/elog on Redhat ES 4 Update 4. This is my initial elogd.cfg file:

[global]
port = 80
Resource dir = /data/elog/elog
Logbook dir = /data/elog/elog/logbooks
Logfile = /data/elog/elog/logs/access_log
Logging level = 2
Resolve host names = 0
Usr = nobody
Grp = nobody

[demo]
Theme = default
Comment = General linux tips & tricks
Attributes = Author, Type, Category, Subject
Options Type = Routine, Software Installation, Problem Fixed, Configuration, Other
Options Category = General, Hardware, Software, Network, Other
Extendable Options = Category
Required Attributes = Author, Type
Page Title = ELOG - $subject
Reverse sort = 1
Quick filter = Date, Type

and start elogd - all is right with the world, everything is working properly. I shut down elog and try to add more logbooks using this template:
[A-B]
Subdir = cr_a-b
Comment = Change requests for Customers A-B
Menu commands = New, Reply, Download, Find, Last day
List Menu commands = New, Find
Display mode = summary

I create 14 of them, one for every 2 letters of the English alphabet and 0-9. The logbook name and Subdir change appropriately. When I start elog, it stays up for about 30 seconds, then crashes. No messages are recorded in syslog nor in the logfile. The only thing that looks suspicious are a couple lines in syslog:
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: elogd 2.7.2 built Feb 14 2008, 20:55:38 
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: revision 2041
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: FCKedit detected
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23763]: Cannot restore original GID/UID.
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23763]: Cannot remove pidfile "/var/run/elogd.pid" ; Permission denied
Feb 15 17:11:05 iadopsutil04p elogd[23761]: Server listening on port 80 ...

This is obviously the child process responsible for the highlighted lines and it's coming from the cleanup function. Why it's getting called is beyond me.
Ideas?

Hi

I tried the 'Preset ticket = TCK-#####' method to create unique numbers for our application. This worked very nicely until we replied to a earlier message, if we then create a new message the system creates a sequential number after the last message number we replied to. For example if we have 10 messages. If someone replies to message number #2 then when a new record is created it is then assigned number #3 not #11, thus making a duplicate entry for #3.

 Any ideas?

Cheers Richard

From your point of view that request is reasonable, but the reason of having mxml in a separate top level directory is that I use it in many different projects. If I would keep a copy of mxml in each project, I would have to update all of them manually if there is a bug. On the other hand the code of mxml changes very seldom. If you look at the history, it got ~5 changes last year, while elog itself had hundreds. And since I do not change the API, a bugfix in mxml should be to the benefit of all elog versions. It is like with other projects which depend on a number of packages. Like if you install Apache for example, you need a certain version of OpenSLL, a certain version of libcrypt, and so on.  So think of mxml like another package you have to combine with elog.

The mxml source code should be moved into the elog-*/src directory. This requires changing the Makefile to:

MXMLDIR = src/mxml

Reason for change: if you want to build several versions of elog and you unpack the distributions in the same top-level directory, the most recently unpackaged version will overwrite the mxml directory contents, possibly introducing bugs.