Run Autosys Job from network drive

[Anon Anon]

Hi All,

I've this issue which is driving me crazy.

The facts:
autosys 4.5 windows client
W2k3 machine
autosys workload works fine

The issue:
I want to run scripts from a network drive (in this case the O:\ drive). The drive is mounted using a net use /persistent:yes.
But when I run the script form autosys (the command in the command box is O:\test\test.bat) it says in the logging: "the system cannot find the drive specified".

Now I run a job which is located on the local D:\ drive which does the following:
1.- net use O: \\networkdrivetomount\hiddenshare$
2.- O:\test\test.bat

Now the result is good.

So, to directly run a script from the O: (network) drive with autosys gives me problems, but when I use a script which is located on a local drive and form there I run the script which is located on the network gives back a possitive result.

Anybody any idea?

Thanks,

Danny

[Joseph Poutre]

Autosys doesn't like drive letters. Autosys likes UNCs.
This is still true in R11. Use of UNCs is one of our best practices.

Drive letters are also less reliable than UNCs, as a UNC points to a specific location, while a drive letter assumes the same letter will always be assigned to the same server and path.

Joe Poutre
BNP Paribas

[Anon Anon]

Hi Joe,

You're right, but the problem I'm having with using an UNC path within autosys is the limited space I can use in the command box.

For example when I use extra parameters to copy files from and to I just don't have enough space in the command box.

Any ideas still about the drive letter?

Cheers,

Danny
BNG

[Anon Anon]

Danny, as per Joe, you need to avoid using drive letters. Mappings to drive letters are not persistent across systems or even user sessions.
When an AutoSys job runs as 'owner: ***', its not executing the full log in mechanism that happens if you log in manually. Worse still, the behaviour for mapped drives is not even consistent across differetn versions of windows.

TL;DR - use UNC

[Joseph Poutre]

Hilgie wrote:

Hi Joe,

You're right, but the problem I'm having with using an UNC path within autosys is the limited space I can use in the command box.

For example when I use extra parameters to copy files from and to I just don't have enough space in the command box.

Any ideas still about the drive letter?

Cheers,

Danny
BNG

Use a Shortcut, or declare a variable in a Profile, to substitute for part of long path names.

JoeP

[Anon Anon]

Hi Joe,

I'm sorry about the delay. But it's a hectic time here, so I'm very short on time.

Can you explain this to me a bit further? Or is there a way to see some examples? (declare a variable in a Profile, to substitute for part of long path names)

Cheers,

Danny

BNG

[Joseph Poutre]

You need to call up the Job Profiles(INS) tool for the instance on the host on which you want to run the job, where INS is the three letter name for the instance. For example, you could create a profile named MYPROFILE and set this:

Variable: LONGPATH1
Value: \\hostname\topdirectory\subdir\subsubdir\subsubsubdir

Then you could use this in a filewatch job:

watch_file: %LONGPATH1%\filename
profile: MYPROFILE