OpenVMS Developer's Guide to VMSINSTAL

This manual serves as a guide for developers designing installation procedures for optional (layered) software products that run on the OpenVMS operating system. It details the use of VMSINSTAL, Digital's recommended command procedure for product installation, which aims to ensure uniform standards, compatibility, and efficient installation processes.

Key aspects covered include:

• Product Kits: How to build product kits using SPKITBLD.COM, including save set identification, volume labeling conventions, and file types.
• VMSINSTAL Functional Overview: A step-by-step description of how VMSINSTAL initializes the environment, restores save sets, manages work directories, and handles system failures. It emphasizes VMSINSTAL's two-phase installation with a "safety mode" feature for deferred critical operations and crash recovery.
• KITINSTAL Command Procedure: Guidelines for writing the KITINSTAL.COM procedure, which orchestrates the product installation using VMSINSTAL's callback subroutines. This includes naming conventions, logical references, error handling, and the structure for Installation Verification Procedures (IVPs).
• VMSINSTAL Callbacks: A comprehensive reference of specialized subroutines (callbacks) that KITINSTAL invokes to perform specific tasks, such as adding identifiers, prompting for user input, checking network/disk utilization, managing files (creating, deleting, moving, updating), creating directories, patching images, printing files, and updating system accounts or libraries.
• Options and Parameters: Descriptions of various installer-focused and developer-focused options that can be used when invoking VMSINSTAL, such as auto-answer, alternate working devices, file logging, release notes display, debugging, quality assurance mode, and statistics generation.

The document stresses adherence to guidelines for product identification, naming conventions, and proper use of VMSINSTAL's logical names and callbacks to ensure successful and consistent installations.