Hi,
I'm including this in HECnet because it might be of general interest.
I have been creating the odd object here and there on a test router, using the mirror.py application class as a starting example, for listening to and talking to VMS processes that have opened up a task connection to them.
I can do something like:
$ open/read/write fio node::"=TIMESTAMP"
$ write fio "UTC"
$ read fio ts
$ close fio
$ show sym fio
The object waits for a message - the timezone required - and then returns with a message containing the VMS time string in the form dd-mmm-yyyy:hh:mm:ss.cc
It all work very well.
The dispatch method in the pydecnet application class code sends an accept when it gets a connect and then sends a message containing the timestamp when it receives a data message containing the timezone required.
A simpler version of this, in which the timestamp in UTC is sent immediately without waiting for a timezone string, would not work. I was trying to execute a conn.send_data(...) immediately after a conn.accept() and getting a 'WrongState' exception there and then. What am I missing?
Regards
Keith
I've been busy with my silly things as usual, and lately implemented a
FINGER client and server for RSX, and I realized there are a couple of
things to maybe check with other people on HECnet.
First of all - finger as such is a (sortof) well known tool/service on
the TCP/IP internet. And I've had a finger server and client for TCP/IP
under RSX for a long time, but have never really shared it, since it was
a bit "odd".
But even before this, I knew of a FINGER implementation available from
DECUS for RSX.
I've known that I wanted to make FINGER available for others for a long
time, but recently I started thinking of also adding in DECnet
capability in my finger implementation. So the last few weeks I've been
tinkering with this, and I've finally completed the work and made my new
finger implementation available as a package.
The FINGER from DECUS mentions the following:
FINGER is a utility to display information about a
selected user or group of users. It can be invoked for users
on the local node or on a remote node over DECnet, and is com-
patible with the VMS implimentation of FINGER. Full function-
ality requires an RSX-11M+ system with resource accounting and
DECnet.
So, not only have there been this RSX implementation from DECUS, there
apparently also exist(ed) an implementation from somewhere for VMS.
FINGER over TCP uses the well known TCP port 79, while the DECUS RSX
(and I assume VMS) DECnet implementation uses object number 117.
My implementation then responds to both these access paths, as well as
being able to query locally, and also try to connect to remote systems
using either of these methods.
And I now have this running on MIM::
So my questions are:
. Do anyone else have any finger service running on any HECnet node?
. Do anyone else know what other implementations even exist, and for
which OSes?
I do think FINGER is somewhat useful to find who might be logged in and
active, as well as finding out more information about people on
different systems in general. On the internet, finger servers are
nowadays unusual to see, since privacy and security concerned people
just feel that finger gives out way too much information anonymously.
So I am not encouraging people to run this if they have such concerns.
But like I said, personally, I do find it useful, and will keep it
available on any RSX system that I am running.
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
