HECnet March 2024

hecnet@lists.dfupdate.se

4 participants
6 discussions

by Johnny Billquist

I've seen/heard of various stories about how people update their nodename databases on their machines, hacking together scripts, and processing files. So I figured I should write a small mail about the topic (I should create a web-page with this information as well). The main/basic point is that people are creating work for themselves they really don't need. Exactly how you update your nodename database on your machine depends on what OS you are running, but there are basically prepared tools and scripts already existing for pretty much any scenario. And if you happen to have a system or need not currently covered, I can easily create one for you as well. But before going into the solutions, let me explain a bit about the source of the data here. DECnet phase IV do not have a centralized nodename system like DNS. Each node in the DECnet network has its own nodename database, and every machine can have its own name for another machine, independent of what that other machine thinks its own nodename is. However, in order to make it easier for multiple people and machines to talk, it helps if everyone have a somewhat similar database. And here is where the nodename database in MIM comes it. The nodename database that I have on MIM is not the regular DECnet nodename database. Instead I'm using DATATRIEVE to maintain a nodename database, which contains more information than just the number and name. It contains the owner, information about the software and hardware of the node, the location, and when things were updated. This database is what is queried when someone goes to http://mim.stupi.net/nodedb . And that page is generated by just making queries in DATATRIEVE. If someone have a host with DATATRIEVE on it, it is even possible to remotely access this DATATRIEVE database over DECnet (you'll only have read-only access). I have been considering possibly adding a web interface for people to possibly be able to update their own information remotely, but so far that's been a low priority thing. Maybe one day... From this DATATRIEVE database I can then generate the DECnet nodename database on MIM. This is a simple makefile actually. Whenever I run it, it will create a bunch of different files (I'll get to that in a moment), and detect if any changes have happened on the DECnet level of things. If so, it will send a mail to people who have requested it, informing them that the nodename database have been updated, and they should update the nodename database of their own machines. I hope this makes it apparent that creating various files based on the nodename database is actually very simple. This is in a sense what DATATRIEVE is good at. Creating reports is sortof what all these output files are. So - what files do I create today? Well, here is a short list: FIX.CMD - This is a script file suitable for RSX systems using CFE. However, it's sortof specially tailored for MIM, so it's not a file I would recommend anyone else to use. FIX.COM - This is a script for VMS systems using phase IV. FIX.PHV - This is a script for VMS systems using phase V. FIX.IMP - This is a script for VMS for anyone using DECdns. FIX.T20 - This is a script for TOPS-20. HECNET.PY - This is a definition file for PyDECnet. FIX.RST - This is a script for RSTS/E. NODENAMES.DAT - This is basically just the basic information is a simple output form from DATATRIEVE. It exist mostly for historical reasons, but I understand that lots of people actually take this file, and then write code to process, extract and apply information from this file. In addition, some systems can directly import nodenames from another machine on DECnet, meaning you do not have to fetch and run any scripts at all. So here is the actioins you need to do on each system in a summarized form: RSX: In RSX, there is a tool called NNC which copies definitions from another node. Copy over MIM::HECNET:NNC.BAT which is a batch file you can use which does all the work of importing the latest definitions from MIM and updating your local system. All you need to do is just "SUBMIT NNC.BAT" and you are done. VMS: With phase IV, the node copy capability is build into NCP. All you need to do is: "NCP COPY KNOWN NODES FROM MIM TO BOTH" and you are done. With phase V, copy over FIX.PHV and run it, or just directly run it from MIM like this: "@MIM::HECNET:FIX.PHV" If you run DECdns, grab FIX.IMP, and run it with whatever tool is used to manage this (sorry that I can't help more, I don't really have any experience with DECdns). TOPS-20: Grab MIM::HECNET:FIX.T20 and run in in the NCP submode of OPR (if I remember the setup correctly). RSTS/E: Grab MIM::HECNET:FIX.RST, and run it with "@FIX.RST". PyDECnet: Fetch hecnet.py by doing "wget mim.stupi.net/hecnet.py". Place that where you have configured PyDECnet to get the nodenames from, and you are good (not sure if you need to restart PyDECnet). Now. If you have some other system with some specific format you need, just let me know, and I'll create such a file as well. It's trivial for me to do this from DATATRIEVE. If you spot something wrong/bad in some file created today, let me know, and we'll fix it. If you see any errors or omissions in the information in this mail, let me know, and I'll get it corrected. I will create a web page with this information as well. If you want to get a mail whenever the nodename database is updated, just let me know and I'll add you to the list. And HECnet is slowly growing. Occasionally a completely new person/site gets connected. Occasionally people add more nodes. The online presence seems pretty constant. At the moment 19 areas are online. In area 1, currently there are 19 machines online. Looking at Paul's HECnet map (http://akdesign.dyndns.org:8080/map), there are machines online in quite different locations, covering a large part of the world. I find this cool, and even though there isn't a lot being done, it's still fun. Well. Have a nice weekend everyone, and I hope some people find this information useful. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

1 month

IP Address change for A29RT2 (29.2) tomorrow (27th Feb) at 11:00 UTC

by Keith Halewood

Hi, There will be an IP address change for inbound/outbound DMC, Multinet, GRE and GRETAP connections to A29RT2 (29.2) tomorrow (27th Feb) at around 11:00 UTC. 82.70.71.174 will change to 77.104.155.22 There will be no change to the IPv6 prefix... apparently. Please update your routers accordingly... and keep the previous config around, just in case. What could possibly go wrong? Regards Keith

6 months, 1 week

Some new nodes

by Keith Halewood

Hi Johnny et al. Some new nodes to be added to the HECnet registry please. BUZZEL 29.113 CORRIN 29.114 Both are VMS 9.2.2 x86-64 running under Debian Qemu/kvm. They are clustered together via shared virtual SCSI discs. Seem to be working quite well. Terrible timing however, what with the bombshell VSI just dropped about the community licences. I'm tempted to become an Ambassador - I may have something to contribute in the VMS runtime department, along with LLVM. Ah well. Regards Keith

7 months, 4 weeks

PANDA II Current Status

by Thomas DeBellis

I discovered a pernicious boot race condition in FAL. Early in system start up, only the boot structure (which may not be the login structure), is recognized by Tops-20. MOUNTR has to start and identify those other structures which should be made available and their settings, which it does by looking at where they are persisted in SYSTEM:DEVICE-STATUS.BIN file. Until MOUNTR has completed structure identification, any RCDIR% might fail for a non-boot structure. This is exactly what happens for FAL, which is running asynchronously and sometimes crashed during start up. One quick and dirty hack was to simply wait to start FAL, which I did, but that has its own problems which I won't detail here. I tried some other hacks, such as doing the mount from the EXEC, which had other different drawbacks. The real thing to do is to issue a mount request for the structure from FAL itself and--once Galaxy is up and running--is processed, will make RCDIR% safe to do (or safer, anyway). At any rate, there should be no timing issue in this case. As Columbia's Galaxy programmer in the 1980's and having done some minor work in LCG's Galaxy group in the late 1970's, I actually knew how to do such a request and did so, having written some sub-routines to issue queue requests for our ID system in the 1980's. So, I decided to fix FAL to 'do the right thing' and wound up down another rabbit hole. I should emphasize "/knew/ how to do", as doing that kind of Galaxy IPCF request is kind of hairy, particularly if you haven't done it in four decades. After I looked at it for a while, I grew despaired at having to relearn it again. Incredibly, DEC defined a new JSYS called QUEUE% which seemed to do the trick. Briefly, it performs certain Galaxy requests on behalf of the user, converting it's simpler calling format to an internal Galaxy format, getting a PID, and returning the response. QUEUE% does a lot of cool things, including mount requests. Or at least it's documented to... Besides having its own bugs, there is no code in Galaxy handle a mount request from QUEUE%... The simpler format that QUEUE% is using is actually something that Quasar internally calls a 'short' queue request, which I had known about back in the day. What happens is that the QSRQUE module converts it into the regular ('long') format and away you go. This works fine for printing, plotting, punching, and other kinds of spooling requests, including batch jobs. There is no short format for mounting, QSRQUE has no code for this because mount requests are dispatched to MOUNTR... Nothing is persisted in the failsoft file. So I wrote a conversion routine to do exactly that before the request makes it to QSRMDA and thence to MOUNTR. Naturally doing all that resulted in a hailstorm of other issues as I pushed things a little farther than they had been designed for. It happens. I'm working through everything, bit by bit.

8 months, 2 weeks

VMS Phone Protocol

by Thomas DeBellis

Tops-20 has a version of the VMS PHONE protocol that I look at from time to time. Is there a published specification for this anywhere? I'd like to maybe do some work on the Tops-20 code, but I'd prefer not to reverse engineer what I don't have to. Besides VMS and Tops-20, what other systems speak PHONE?

8 months, 2 weeks

Area 27 IP address change (yet again)

by Mark Berryman

I finally got my issues with Comcast straightened out and I now have static IP addresses. They are IPv4: 50.185.8.122 IPv6: 2603:300b:6c4:21a0:c77b:4f58:27e4:6de2 These are also always available in DNS as decnet.theberrymans.com <http://decnet.theberrymans.com/> Hopefully, this will be the last change for a while. Mark Berryman Area 27

8 months, 3 weeks

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HECnet March 2024