Users are unable to work in two of our ClearCase servers

Question

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 Two years ago I inherited the responsibilities of maintaining our ClearCase system which is extremely outdated and I have no previous experience working with it at all.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.

Answer 1

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:

• cleartool describe
• cleartool lsview
• cleartool fix_prot
• cleartool protectvob

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

Answer 2

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.