MIM::DECNET.TXT states that area 63 is "Reserved for hidden area testing". Is area 63 routing suppressed by PyDECnet and/or any other methods of connecting to HECnet? If one were to play around with local nodes in area 63 without remembering to bring down the upstream HECnet connection, what would happen?
I am interested in creating some useful semi-turnkey SIMH VAX instances to share with friends who are interested in playing with VAXen and/or connecting to HECnet, but are hesitant because of the learning curve involved. I figured it might be desirable to set up the simulations to use nodes in area 63 by default. I'll naturally want to test out intercommunication with my other simulations and real VAXen, and I'd like to understand whether I need to shut down my PyDECnet connection to HECnet while I am doing that.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
https://www.nf6x.net/
Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS.
This is version 2.6 of BQTCP/IP.
It's been five months since the last official update, and there been
various smaller improvements.
Highlights:
. Improved TCP performance.
. Bugfixes in DNS subsystem.
. Fixed various MAIL bugs that caused issues.
. Improved MAIL performance, handling and features.
. Added EPSV and EPRT to FTP and FTPD.
. Improved TELNETD performance.
Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release:
TCP:
. In TCP, Change IO.REJ to create a socket in Time Wait, so that we
don't get multiple requests for something we reject.
. Improved TCP congestion window handling.
. Improved TCP retransmit recovery logic.
. Correct TCP slow timer handling. If KAF is active, cancel timer.
. Improve TCP sender. If the only thing motivating a send is a window
update, we always delay it.
. Added not starting new processes if pool is low.
. Changed TCP PU.RXP option to always return partial data, independent
of push flags.
DNS:
. Bugfix for resolver. If DNS resolving results in multiple answers,
the resolver only handled the first answer correctly.
. Bugfix for resolver. If a DNS response is received, which has an
empty answer section, that is also an answer.
. Improve resolver cache. If we get multiple identical answers,
only cache one copy.
TELNET/TELNETD:
. Added timeout to telnetd console logging I/O.
. Changed TELNET server to delay small sends.
. Improved telnet server to not set push on data sent.
. Improved telnet client to use PU.RXP when in binary mode.
. Improved telnet client. If connecting to something else than port 23,
assume we don't do telnet negotiations. However, if remote side
start
doing them, we will also start doing them.
FTP/FTPD:
. Added EPRT and EPSV handling to FTPD. Improve EPSV handling in FTPD.
MAIL:
. Improved mail reader screen handling.
. Fix MAILD to remove temporary files if connection is dropped.
. Improved MAILD SMTP receive parsing.
. Fix various priv issues in mail reader causing notification problems.
(Bugs reported by Kevin Jordan)
. Added mail label handling in mail reader.
. Bugfix in mail. FILE command filed wrong mail.
. Added better handling of locked records in mail.
. Improved mail submission processing to not wait until
mail actually delivered before returning status.
. Improved performance in adding mails to a mailbox.
IPNCONFIG:
. Updated IPNCONFIG.CMD for managing DECnet over IP connections.
Contributed by Oleg Safiullin
NETSTAT/RMD:
. Changed port lists in RMD and NETSTAT to not include local address
by default.
. Change TCP state texts. Previous LISTEN is now ACCEPT.
Previous SERVER is now LISTEN.
BQTLIB:
. Bugfix in BQTLIB. BP2 multiple IO code could misbehave.
Some additional notes:
As usual, I would recommend people to update as soon as possible.
The changes are not critical, but will lead to a much better experience.
For the RSX fixes to be applied, it is necessary to answer yes to the
question about installing RSX patches. Otherwise those fixes will not
be installed. This does not lead to any failures, but it might lead to
some components not running exactly the way you might be expecting (such
as daemons running under the wrong user).
As usual, the distribution is available from:
ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk
ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap
ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk
!!! BQTCP is also available through RPM !!!
(As an additional note, I have become aware of that there is some device
proxying access to the ftp service at Mim. This might lead to failure to
transfer large files. If you observe such problems, try connecting to
Mim at port 10021 instead, which is an alternative port for the ftp
server, and which circumvents the proxy.)
The documentation is also available through ftp on Mim, or also at
http://mim.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc
I hope people find this update useful.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Hi,
I might have posted this to just Paul and Johnny but it's probably good for a bit of general discussion and it might enlighten me because I often have a lot of difficulty in separating the layers and functionality around tunnels of various types, carrying one protocol on top of another.
I use Paul's excellent PyDECnet and about half the circuits I have connecting to others consist of DDCMP running over UDP. I feel as though there's something missing but that might be misunderstanding. A DDCMP packet is encapsulated in a UDP one and sent. The receiver gets it or doesn't because that's the nature of UDP. I'm discovering it's often the latter. A dropped HELLO or its response brings a circuit down. This may explain why there's a certain amount of flapping between PyDECnet's DDCMP over UDP circuits. I notice it a lot between area 31 and me but but much less so with others.
In the old days, DDCMP was run over a line protocol (sync or async) that had its own error correction/retransmit protocol, was it not? So a corrupted packet containing a HELLO would be handled at the line level and retransmitted usually long before a listen timer expired?
Are we missing that level of correction and relying on what happens higher up in DECnet to handle missing packets?
I'm having similar issues (at least on paper) with an implementation of the CI packet protocol over UDP having initially and quite fatally assumed that a packet transmitted over UDP would arrive and therefore wouldn't need any of the lower level protocol that a real CI needed. TCP streams are more trouble in other ways.
Just some thoughts
Keith
Yes, ANF10 also uses Ddcmp.
On simh Anf10 also uses the Dmr/Dmc implementations.
RV
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: Saturday, 27 March, 2021 20:06
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Old protocols in new ones
On 2021-03-27 18:59, John Forecast wrote:
>
>> On Mar 27, 2021, at 11:06 AM, Mark Berryman <mark at theberrymans.com
>> <mailto:mark at theberrymans.com>> wrote:
>>
>> DDCMP was originally designed to run over intelligent synchronous
>> controllers, such as the DMC-11 or the DMR-11, although it could also
>> be run over async serial lines. Either of these could be local or
>> remote. If remote, they were connected to a modem to talk over a
>> circuit provided by a common carrier and async modems had built in
>> error correction. From the DMR-11 user manual describing its features:
>> DDCMP implementation which handles message sequencing and error
>> correction by automatic retransmission
>>
>
> No. DDCMP was designed way before any of those intelligent controllers.
> DDCMP V3.0 was refined during 1974 and released as part of DECnet Phase
> I. The customer I was working with had a pair of PDP-11/40?s, each
> having a DU-11 for DECnet communication at 9600 bps. DDCMP V4.0 was
> updated in 1977 and released in 1978 as part of DECnet Phase II which
> included DMC-11 support. The DMC-11/DMR-11 included an onboard
> implementation of DDCMP to provide message sequencing and error
> correction. Quite frequently, customers would have a DMC-11 on a system
> communicating with a DU-11 or DUP-11 on a remote system.
Right. Smart controllers with DDCMP in firmware on the controller itself
was definitely not the first implementation.
But I don't have the full history of DDCMP as such. But it sounds
reasonable that the original DECnet could have been using DDCMP already.
But was that the first implementation of DDCMP? You mentioned V3.0,
which would imply that there were even older versions since before DECnet.
Did ANF-10 use DDCMP?
Johnny
>
> John.
>
>> In other words, DDCMP expected the underlying hardware to provide
>> guaranteed transmission or be running on a line where the incidence of
>> data loss was very low. UDP provides neither of these.
>>
>> DDCMP via UDP over the internet is a very poor choice and will result
>> in exactly what you are seeing. This particular connection choice
>> should be limited to your local LAN where UDP packets have a much
>> higher chance of surviving.
>>
>> GRE survives much better on the internet than does UDP and TCP
>> guarantees delivery. If possible, I would recommend using one these
>> encapsulations for DECnet packets going to any neighbors over the
>> internet rather than UDP.
>>
>> Mark Berryman
>>
>>> On Mar 27, 2021, at 4:40 AM, Keith Halewood
>>> <Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org <mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I might have posted this to just Paul and Johnny but it?s probably
>>> good for a bit of general discussion and it might enlighten me
>>> because I often have a lot of difficulty in separating the layers and
>>> functionality around tunnels of various types, carrying one protocol
>>> on top of another.
>>> I use Paul?s excellent PyDECnet and about half the circuits I have
>>> connecting to others consist of DDCMP running over UDP. I feel as
>>> though there?s something missing but that might be misunderstanding.
>>> A DDCMP packet is encapsulated in a UDP one and sent. The receiver
>>> gets it or doesn?t because that?s the nature of UDP. I?m discovering
>>> it?s often the latter. A dropped HELLO or its response brings a
>>> circuit down. This may explain why there?s a certain amount of
>>> flapping between PyDECnet?s DDCMP over UDP circuits. I notice it a
>>> lot between area 31 and me but but much less so with others.
>>> In the old days, DDCMP was run over a line protocol (sync or async)
>>> that had its own error correction/retransmit protocol, was it not? So
>>> a corrupted packet containing a HELLO would be handled at the line
>>> level and retransmitted usually long before a listen timer expired?
>>> Are we missing that level of correction and relying on what happens
>>> higher up in DECnet to handle missing packets?
>>> I?m having similar issues (at least on paper) with an implementation
>>> of the CI packet protocol over UDP having initially and quite fatally
>>> assumed that a packet transmitted over UDP would arrive and therefore
>>> wouldn?t need any of the lower level protocol that a real CI needed.
>>> TCP streams are more trouble in other ways.
>>> Just some thoughts
>>> Keith
>>
>
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
I just fixed a bug in PyDECnet that produces wrong routes if you use the --latency parameter on circuit configuration entries.
The fix is rev 580.
paul
HI,
My VAX is now back online again (so am I) - looks like my "Hecnet-hub"
is no longer accepting my node 29.400.
I would like to get back on-line.. anyone has an idea how to get back on
the line ?
Regards,
Ales
I received an RX4640 for my birthday today (ok a few weeks early). 4 cpu, 12Gb ram, 2x 72Gb discs. It also appears to have 2 smart array controllers and some fibre channel cards (pci-x)
I put VSI VMS on it.
It?s going to be ANBUS on the HECnet.
Boy is it loud!
And warm....
:)
Right, now back to that CI for SIMH that I parked a while back....
Buzzing!
? I'm tinkering with putting together a MicroVAX I system. They only
ran on a few versions of VMS.
? Does anyone have a copy of VMS handy for any version between V4.1 and
V5.1? On HECnet would be great.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at comcast.net
Hello everyone,
I am trying to get DECnet working on a simulated VAX 780 (with simh) with a
3.x version of VMS. This is largely for nostalgic reasons.
I have the version of VMS 3.0 from John Dundas that Supratim posted nearly
a year ago. I have also built a VMS 3.0 system by installing VMS from the
VMS 3.0 distribution tape. Both of those systems seem to work well.
However I am failing to find a way of getting DECnet working. I have a
DECnet end node key (and a routing key, come to that) from
http://iamvirtual.ca/VAX11/VAX-11-software.html but that says that it only
works for VMS 3.4 or later. I did try it on 3.0 anyway, but it did not get
DECnet to work. It complains about needing a license.
Can anyone help me either upgrade my VMS 3.0 system to VMS 3.4 or higher
(or just install the higher version from scratch), or help me find a DECnet
key that works with VMS 3.0.
Cheers
Peter Allan
