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scm command line questions and problems


David Sedlock (16112012) | asked Aug 13 '09, 4:00 a.m.
1) If the workspace is open in Eclipse, I can't use scm:

C:\UserData\sedlock\rtc\workspace01\comp3>scm status
Could not initialize data area:
Another RCP application is running in this local workspace. File locked at file:C:\UserData\sedlock\rtc\workspace01

This is not good.

2) scm.exe seems to work fine in cygwin, except for the status command, which returns nothing:

************
sedlock@mucn13423 /cygdrive/c/UserData/sedlock/rtc/workspace01/comp3
$ scm.exe status

sedlock@mucn13423 /cygdrive/c/UserData/sedlock/rtc/workspace01/comp3
************

3) The doc says that if I login first, I should not be prompted for credentials, but I am always prompted for password.

C:\UserData\sedlock\rtc\workspace02>scm status
Password (sedlock @ https://localhost:9443/jazz/):

I can only use scm comfortably by supplying the password with -P.

4) There seems to be about a 20 second delay before anything happens after invoking scm. This is obviously a serious obstacle to using it in scripts where you may want to invoke it several times or in a loop.

I was going to benchmark RTC checkin vs. CC checkin with a loop that checks in files individually, which is perfectly fine with cleartool, when I realized that RTC was going to perform far worse than CC. I changed the script to check in the files in one go, and found that RTC checkin is, in my setup, about 3 times faster. But it is not always feasible to batch invocations of scm together.

I guess the overhead is the server login. I think you've got to implement some way of saving state so that invocations of scm within one login session do not require new server logins, but start to do their job immediately.

11 answers



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Mike Johnson (28624221) | answered Aug 13 '09, 8:42 a.m.

4) There seems to be about a 20 second delay before anything happens after invoking scm. This is obviously a serious obstacle to using it in scripts where you may want to invoke it several times or in a loop.

I was going to benchmark RTC checkin vs. CC checkin with a loop that checks in files individually, which is perfectly fine with cleartool, when I realized that RTC was going to perform far worse than CC. I changed the script to check in the files in one go, and found that RTC checkin is, in my setup, about 3 times faster. But it is not always feasible to batch invocations of scm together.

I guess the overhead is the server login. I think you've got to implement some way of saving state so that invocations of scm within one login session do not require new server logins, but start to do their job immediately.

David,
We are also piloting RTC, and had the same issue about the scm startup performance. See the messages near the end of thread -- http://jazz.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5987 The summary is that they are looking @ improving the startup time in the next couple of versions.

Regards,
Mike Johnson

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David Sedlock (16112012) | answered Aug 13 '09, 9:06 a.m.
This is good to know, but the posting you refer to seems to think the overhead is all due to java. I speculate there is also the overhead of a new login to the server. It would be good to get a confirmation about this. In any case a speedup from 20 to 14 seconds is not yet in the ballpark...

I don't presume to think for the developers, but to me it's fairly clear that scm has to be implemented in a low-overhead language (e.g. C) and it should simply send the command over to a client proxy, which is started with "scm login" and remains logged in to the RTC server till "scm logout". It in turn sends the command over to the server and funnels the output back to scm. I can't see any other way to avoid both Java and login overhead.

BTW, if there is an RTC Eclipse instance running on the client, maybe it could act as the preferred proxy, thus completely avoiding overhead.


4) There seems to be about a 20 second delay before anything happens after invoking scm. This is obviously a serious obstacle to using it in scripts where you may want to invoke it several times or in a loop.

I was going to benchmark RTC checkin vs. CC checkin with a loop that checks in files individually, which is perfectly fine with cleartool, when I realized that RTC was going to perform far worse than CC. I changed the script to check in the files in one go, and found that RTC checkin is, in my setup, about 3 times faster. But it is not always feasible to batch invocations of scm together.

I guess the overhead is the server login. I think you've got to implement some way of saving state so that invocations of scm within one login session do not require new server logins, but start to do their job immediately.

David,
We are also piloting RTC, and had the same issue about the scm startup performance. See the messages near the end of thread -- http://jazz.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5987 The summary is that they are looking @ improving the startup time in the next couple of versions.

Regards,
Mike Johnson

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Evan Hughes (2.4k1318) | answered Aug 13 '09, 10:15 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
1) If the workspace is open in Eclipse, I can't use scm:


That is correct. That will likely change further down the line - possibly in 2.0.0.2 or 3.0. I've submitted bug 90047 to track this one.

2) scm.exe seems to work fine in cygwin, except for the status command, which returns nothing:


Please open an RTC bug and file it against Source Control/Client Library/CLI.

3) The doc says that if I login first, I should not be prompted for credentials, but I am always prompted for password.


'scm login' doesn't save your password unless you pass the -P option in. That's changing with 2.0.0.1 - you'll be able to supply a '-c' which will tell the CLI to save your password no matter what.

I've submitted doc bug 90044.

4) There seems to be about a 20 second delay before anything happens after invoking scm. This is obviously a serious obstacle to using it in scripts where you may want to invoke it several times or in a loop.


There are some experimental features going in 2.0.0.1 that should improve start and run times of the CLI. In the meantime, (as mentioned elsewhere) try running with other VMs. You should see an incremental performance improvement.

e

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David Sedlock (16112012) | answered Aug 14 '09, 4:16 a.m.
'scm login' doesn't save your password unless you pass the -P option in. That's changing with 2.0.0.1 - you'll be able to supply a '-c' which will tell the CLI to save your password no matter what.


But I do use the -P argument with login. Here is the cmd I use:

scm.exe login -r https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz -u sedlock -P sedlock -n rtc

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Andrew Hoo (1.0k1) | answered Aug 14 '09, 9:01 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
That looks correct. Then afterwards anywhere you see a command that
requires a -r, you should be able to pass in "rtc" because that is the
nickname you have specified, and it will use the uri, user name and
password you have specified.

Please file a bug if you're finding this is not the case.


On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:23:05 -0400, David.Sedlock.infineon.com
<David> wrote:

'scm login' doesn't save your password unless you pass the -P
option in. That's changing with 2.0.0.1 - you'll be able to supply a
'-c' which will tell the CLI to save your password no matter what.


But I do use the -P argument with login. Here is the cmd I use:

scm.exe login -r https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz -u
sedlock -P sedlock -n rtc



--

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Evan Hughes (2.4k1318) | answered Aug 14 '09, 9:09 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
But I do use the -P argument with login. Here is the cmd I use:

scm.exe login -r https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz -u sedlock -P sedlock -n rtc


That's a bug. On initial login, could you verify that a line is added to ~/.jazz-scm/repositories.txt?

If everything is working, it should look like:
https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz,rtc,sedlock,garble


If your password isn't being stored, it will look like:
https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz,rtc,sedlock,



If your password isn't being stored, please open a bug and assign it to me.

e

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David Sedlock (16112012) | answered Aug 14 '09, 9:52 a.m.
If everything is working, it should look like:
https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz,rtc,sedlock,garble


It looks exactly like this except for "garble".

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Evan Hughes (2.4k1318) | answered Aug 14 '09, 1:18 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
If everything is working, it should look like:
https://mucn13423.eu.infineon.com:9443/jazz,rtc,sedlock,garble


It looks exactly like this except for "garble".

Please run 'scm logout -r rtc', then log in again with the full set of credentials (ie, include the -P as you alluded to above). Do you get the full record (ie, with garble)?

If not, please submit a bug. I'd love to see this reproduced and reproducible. I really can't see what would be causing it.

e

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Evan Hughes (2.4k1318) | answered Aug 18 '09, 4:32 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
David submitted bug 90289 to track this.

e

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Harry Koehnemann (30125238) | answered Sep 14 '10, 3:43 p.m.
Was this issue resolved in 2.0.0.2? This discussion sites the WI below, which says it was resolved in 2.0.0.2

https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=90047

However, if I 'scm status' a repo workspace loaded using the Eclipse client, I see the original poster's error. If I halt Eclipse, the command works fine. In 2.0.0.2, can we mix Eclipse and command line scm?

D:\workspaces\workspace\Docs>scm status
Could not initialize data area:
Another RCP application is running in this local workspace. File locked at file: D:\workspaces\workspace

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