Blogging about all things SAS

Within the SAS9 environment there are a number of key configuration files, which are unfortunately normally scattered all over the place.

These are some that you need to know about:

• C:\Program Files\SAS\SAS 9.1\sasv9.cfg
  Contains configuration information to be used when SAS is launched such as WORK and SASUSER directories

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ObjectSpawner\OMRConfig.xml
  Contains information about the startup of the object spawner

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\omaconfig.xml
  Contains user information used when the metadata server initializes

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\sasv9.cfg
  Contains configuration information about SAS session startup

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\MetadataServer\Sasv9_MetadataServer.cfg
  Contains configuration information to be used when the SAS Metadata Server is launched such as OBJECTSERVER parameters and log file locations

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\appserver_autoexec.sas
  Contains SAS session startup commands that should be run at the start of session startup, included in autoexec_solutions.sas

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ConnectServer\OMRConfig.xml
  Contains startup information used by the Connect Server upon initialization to retrieve the proper configuration information

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ObjectSpawner\OMRConfig.xml
  Contains startup information used by the Object Spawner upon initialization to retrieve the proper configuration information

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\OLAPServer\sasv9_OLAPServer.cfg
  Contains SAS configuration parameters specific to the SAS OLAP Server and the sessions associated with the SAS OLAP Server

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ShareServer\sasv9_ShareServer.cfg
  Contains SAS configuration parameters specific to the Share Server and the sessions associated with the Share Server

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ShareServer\libraries.sas
  Contains initialization for the Share Server and library assignments that should be made accessible via the Share Server

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\ShareServer\startShareServer.sas
  Contains initialization Share Server startup commands

• C:\SAS\Config51\Lev1\SASMain\StoredProcessServer\sasv9_StorProcSrv.cfg
  Contains SAS configuration parameters specific to the SAS Stored Process Server and the sessions associated with the SAS Stored Process Server

Enterprise Guide shows a file folder under the SASApp (or SASMain) server in the EG Server list pane, which enables users to save their EG projects on the server.

By default this points to the users personal folder on the server (based upon their login name) and therefore other users can’t see any projects that are saved there.

Often you want to be able to see these projects easily, when you need to re-run one or if the user who created is away (yes Sam I am talking about you!).

On the SAS support site there is a SAS Note that outlines how to change this setting.

Basically you edit the definition for the workspace server, but the options are a little hard to find:

1. In SAS Management Console, navigate to this location:
   1. Server Manager > SASMain – Logical Workspace Server > SASMain – Workspac Server.
2. Right-click and select Properties.
3. Select Options tab.
4. Select Advance Options button.
5. Select File Navigation tab.
6. Select Specify Path and field, type the path.
   1. I.e C:\EGProjects
7. Select OK and OK.

Then create separate folders under this location to enable the EG Projects to be stored by subject area.

Also don’t forget to change the file system security on these fodlers to allow users to read /write to it.

Of course the other option is to save the EG Projects in the Metadat tree / Webdav.

The benefit of this is that you are supposedly able to do impact analysis of these projects. (Has anybody tried this?)

I haven’t had a lot of luck getting the Webdav storage for EG working consistantly (and I like to be able to see the EG Projects in the file system for some reason as well)

Just cleaning out some old notes to my self and came across a good overview of how to use SAS Information Map Studio over on the South Central SAS User Group site.

View the Information Map Studio overvie paper here.

Its a great paper by Kevin Davidson, not to long but covers the basics well.

Struck a frustrating problem the other day where new users were unable to login to the SAS Portal.

When they tried they would get an “incorrect login” error, even though we could login in succesfully to any other windows environment (we are using windows authentication)

So off to the log files we went and we noticed this gem:

   UpdateMetadata return code=807fe8f4....
   DoRequest return code=807fe8f4....
   The user does not have permission to perform this action.

Which according to this SAS Support article:

Usage Note 20381: The login might fail with a permission error

and states that the user does not have writemetadata permission on the Portal Application Tree, which means when they login the Portal cannot create a new folder in the metadata to hold their portal preferences.

Of course I would say that the error message that was displayed to the user was far from helpful, but as I was tightening metadata security before this started appearing then it all makes sense.

Thank SAS for the logs otherwise I think we would be chasing this one for a while.

If you ever try to create a dataset or any other write function to a Metadata based Libname, from within SAS Enterprise Guide you will have encountered the old “METAOUT=DATA” error message.

What this says is that due to the libname bing a metadata based libname you can’t write to it.

Well there is an easy way to fix this:

1. In SAS Management console go to the properties of the desired libname
2. Click on the extended attributes tab
3. Create an new entry with the following values
   1. Name = AssignMode
   2. Value = 2
4. Try it via EG now and Helens your auntie (but not your prime minister – apologies to non kiwis its a GIS joke!)

This lovely option is easily found here:

http://support.sas.com/kb/20/760.html

Other option values you can use are:

0 Assign using SAS Enterprise Guide
1 Assign using the META engine, METAOUT=ALL (default META engine behavior)
2 Assign using the META engine, METAOUT=DATA
3 Assigned by the SAS server (pre-assigned)
This info (and a raft of other cool Enterprise Guide stuff) can be found here:

http://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts788.pdf

Its been a while since I found time to blog, apologies.

I have been lucky enough to be helping on a few projects and working with a few SAS Solutions, including:

• SAS Strategic Performance Management
• SAS Activity Based Management
• SAS Marketing Automation

So interesting times.

But the good thing is I now have quite a few subjects to blog on and a few tips and tricks learn’t along the way.