When is 'Server' not the same as 'server' ?

...when you're working with Unix software, that's when.

Recently I've been working with a flexible batch management system on Windows 2000 Server. I've been setting up a test system which mimics exactly that which is currently in a production system, using a VMware virtual server environment.

All has been going exceptionally well, but one thing (the batch handling system) remained a problem. Strange things were happening. Some things worked, others didn't. Strange apparent corruptions were in the database, despite them being a direct export/import from the production system to the test system. Wierd. Nothing obvious was wrong.

Then I had one of those light bulb moments. I remembered that the batch system running on Windows 2000 Server was a port from an original Unix application. Unix, as you may or may not know, is case sensitive. So when you refer to a system's TCP/IP name as 'Server', it's not the same as 'server'. Windows doesn't really care either way, but Unix does, and this original Unix application did care, even when running on Windows! A reasonably good explaination of Unix case sensitivity can be found here.

So, I quickly tested out this theory and renamed a machine from 'Server' to 'server' (I'm using false names here to protect the identity of the real server...) and it worked. Panic over.

TTFN

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