Dave that one is windows specific for the DMS approach. See 2010 tt_sas01 making your Sas programs environment aware. It is a setting just got from the OS and Sas config. It will not work in a sas bi/di approach what is getting more common these days as server based. As for batch or analytics the evironment dtap and program as sysin option or in stream code are known at start why are you trying to detect that afterwards. Use the knowledge you have at the start of programs or code. ... View more

David, the naming convention wit a drive letter is the full physical path as related to the windows machine the process is running on. That is what you find in the examples. Reading your question it could be you are asking for resources on other windows machines. That could be solved in different ways. An admin on a windows domain could set up a dfs approach. By that the domain network connections are made on that server to possible many other locations and machines. Still offering that local drive letter but hiding all those other machines. That is often used as it made migrations easy. Having unc names wit a server name \\server\networkname  with the server in the same netbios dns  name or using the full ip a dress you can explicitly use other machine resources. All is there at http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63285/HTML/default/viewer.htm#refextfile.htm That unc naming usage is with a windows sas session and not that easy with Unix.  The member fileref usage is generic. ... View more

The classic sas DMS is connected to a terminal or running on your desktop. It is based on having some source (input) getting results (output) and a log file. It is the approach of batch processing with punch cards in the 60's. With Sas bi/di there is a metadata server object and more. It is more Iike a dbms system wit a data and system dictionary. All new solutions are based on that. Sas studio and Eguide server based. You can have more and shared sessions with those. Eguide studio sare sending the results and log after processing. Not terminal  based anymore. You will break that with an abort. ... View more

The option errorabend or better syntaxcheck mode is the default for batch processes. For interactive mode a human is expected to react. That is why sas has chosen to continue as much as possible. Do not use the option errorabend in a sas bi environment as cit could lose necessary informstion and sessions. There are whole documented chapters on configuring error handling as it more complex as suspected. ... View more

It doesn't make any sense stating your applications are at Windows but your directories and files are at Unix. The reason is that a SAS application is a bundle of files (suffix .sas)at the OS level in your case Unix. As your users have their home directories at Unix (mostly a part of the /home filesystem) the classic Unix security should be understood. There is a lot misunderstanding about that. Let start: * is the owner of the directory files that are setting the security for new items. There is no centrally managed security for that is is with Windows. * the HFS structure is the one that should be centrally architecture as that one can be managed with groups. Better sais each level can be used for limiting in a hierarchy with just one group each level. That is different with Windows allowing many groups at each level with different rights. * There is no search for checking allowance in one of the others as of owner / group / others for each level. This is having adding another concept of putting jerks in special groups to limit rights. That is the other way of thinking as groups only allowing rights as is common with Windows and SAS metadata. * You will need the execute rights on directies being set (traversal) it is change dir not the executing of files. The sticky bit on directories can be needed to  allow others to write/update files but not deleting them * in most examples of the chmod you will see 3 numbers. In reality there are 4 octets. Let the users use a wel behaved ssh she'll or sftp program to check all this is done correctly by them as the owner. Eguide is accessing those conforming os level rights as they cannot be overruled by SAS.  You are having some issues there. ... View more

Paul, the argumentation for trying to limit SAS usage that way is advocating the usage of R instead of SAS or the lamp stack competition bi usage. Both ends do not make sense. The full access including shell as wanted for the well high educated dat scientists or the dumb isolated predefined click processing by standard end users. The os level auditing is a reliable one but needing cooperation with it departments. There is a gap in that alignment. The business requirements as of regulations is another one. ... View more