- HECnet - lists @ Update

by Johnny Billquist

I wonder if anyone can help me remember/locate a language/compiler for RSX that some third party did. It was allowed to be used on a hobbyist basis in the early 2000s, if I remember right. My brain says XDT or GCML as the company, but searching for that gave me nothing. The language might have been something like RPG II, but again, I am not at all sure my brain is remembering things right. I thought I also had it downloaded and stashed away somewhere, but cannot find anything now that I'm searching. So now I'm hoping this things a bell for someone, somewhere, and I can get my brain sorted, and another tool added on Mim (eventually). :-) 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

2 years, 3 months

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RSX-11 SYSGEN (NOOB) QUESTION

by Mark Curtis

Hi All, I've dusted off my PiDP11/70 running RSX-11M+ (v4.6). Anyway the "stock" image that came from the PiDP site is not to my taste so I've been trying to customise it. Nothing fancy just changing the system name from the standard "PiDP11" to "WITHER". I should stress that I am an utter noob and have zero experience with RSX-11 so doubtless I will use the wrong terms and I know my issues are due to that lack of understanding. To make my life easier with SYSGEN I was using the existing answer files (SYSGENSA1.CMD, etc) and simply editing the items I want. The trouble is, generating a system with these files is producing a system image that has a very small secondary pool (SECPOL). That then produces various errors with commands grumping that there is insufficient SECPOL.... I have figured out how to expand the secondary pool from the command line (which prevents any grumping) but I would like to permanently fix the situation. From the documentation that I've read, and as I understand it, I should be able to pause the SYSGEN and edit files manually mid-generation. In this case I should be able to edit the "SYSVMR.CMD" which is generated at an earlier phase within SYSGEN and then continue the SYSGEN which will then utilise the file (SYSVMR.CMD) in one of the later phases . Except, it does not seem to work. Editing the SYSVMR.CMD file prior to starting SYSGEN clearly overwrites the changes during an early stage. Pausing the SYSGEN and editing the SYSVMR.CMD file mid-generation does retain the settings but does not appear to make any difference to the final image. By way of a little more explanation. I'm presuming once I've "paused" the SYSGEN all I need to do is EDT the SYSVMR.CMD file (in other words, I'm not doing anything further, running any other commands or what-not). All I'm doing is editing the SYSVMR.CMD file (specifically the "SET /PAR=SECPOL" line), and restarting the SYSGEN with "UNS AT.<ESC>". I presuming I am missing out either a vital step or command or completely misunderstanding the "set /par=secpol" line. Any pointers gratefully received Mark

2 years, 3 months

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KL10/RP06/TU77 Power requirements

by Thomas DeBellis

I got asked what the power requirements would have been for 1985 vintage KL10 based system. Does anybody know where I would be able to find such information? I had thought it was in the site installation guide, but I haven't found an online version, yet. About the only thing I can remember is that it was three phase power and that the power supplies were very inefficient.

2 years, 3 months

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Bard writes a song about DECnet

by Supratim Sanyal

I asked Bard to “Write a song about digital equipment corporation’s DECnet network”. The AI is surprising, the ending surreal. (Verse 1) Digital Equipment Corporation, DECnet was your creation. A suite of network protocols, To connect your computers. (Chorus) DECnet, DECnet, It was the best network around. DECnet, DECnet, It connected us all. (Verse 2) You could connect your PDP-11s, To your VAX/VMS machines. You could share files and printers, And communicate with ease. (Chorus) DECnet, DECnet, It was the best network around. DECnet, DECnet, It connected us all. (Bridge) But then the internet came along, And DECnet fell out of favor. But it will always be remembered, As the network that connected us all. (Chorus) DECnet, DECnet, It was the best network around. DECnet, DECnet, It connected us all.

2 years, 3 months

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Copying known nodes command.

by Brian Roth

Hello all, Just added a simh vax 11/780 to HECnet node 31.270 (FATTY) . Circuit is up. Using the copy known nodes command I get "unable to connect to listener" error. Any thoughts on this? Thank you, Brian.

2 years, 3 months

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Re: DECnet/8 (was: Re: Copying known nodes command.) --> Mail to Paul @18-nov-2021> RE: Decnet8 and Pydecnet met Pdp8 --> update 8

by R. Voorhorst

L.S. ( & Paul), I sent the mail below (in Dutch) to Paul regarding Decnet-8. In short the conclusions translated: 1. I ironed out some minor bugs and got it running on a Simh Pdp8A simulator with KT8 in Km8 mode with 32 kW memory on Rts8-V2b and with Os8 in 12 kW in background. It has working basic Tlk/Lsn and Nip functionality (see display of Nip below) based on serial lines Ttix/Ttox and with/without Kg8 crc support. It is not very useful beyond that, unless provided with customer programming, and the ddcmp communication can easily be disrupted/poisoned by introducing incomprehensible net traffic packages from Pydecnet (routing messages); the error recovery is not well enough or absent and will kill the line communications leading to a software reboot. Within the Pdp8 framework it is stable (enough?) though. Decnet8 should also work with Dp01/Dp8E sync lines but these are not (yet) implemented and with the DKC8-A parallel interface (also not implemented) 2. This config could be reconfigured and made runnable on a standard Simh Pdp8. As only Decnet8 packet exchange is looked for, the original setup will do. 3. For future expansion the standard max 32 kW memory will not be enough and for Pdp8a Kt8 with up to 128 kW support, Decnet-8 has to be converted to Macrel/Link code within Rts8-V3. It could run with Os8 background in 342 kW and with a bank-contained Fpp8 in another 32 kW it leaves 65 kW for Rts8 and Decnet8. That conversion is not difficult to do but a job which has to be (and will be) done soon enough. 4. To make it more usable, Decnet8 will have to be lifted to Phase-II which is somewhat :( more work. Not too much differences in Ddcmp but much more in Nsp It is all a matter of available resources. 5. I can provide Paul with the basic config that still runs over here so that he can play around. Best regards, Reindert -----Original Message----- From: Robert Armstrong [mailto:bob@jfcl.com] Sent: Monday, 13 March, 2023 20:12 To: 'The Hobbyist DECnet mailing list' <hecnet(a)lists.dfupdate.se> Subject: [HECnet] Re: DECnet/8 (was: Re: Copying known nodes command.) >Paul Koning <paulkoning(a)comcast.net> wrote: >I just went back to the "decnet8.doc" file which is a DECnet for RTS-8 >user manual and internals document. Among other things, it describes >the protocol (DDCMP and NSP). > >I don't know much about PDP-8 software, but if someone manages to get >that code running I'll take a stab at PyDECnet support for talking to it. Can pyDECnet do asynchronous DECnet over a telnet port? I'm thinking the easiest way to set this up for debugging/testing would be to use simh for the PDP-8 and a virtual KL8-E connected to pyDECnet. Ultimately it would be nice to run it on real hardware with a real async DDCMP connection, but that's for later. Bob _______________________________________________ HECnet mailing list -- hecnet(a)lists.dfupdate.se To unsubscribe send an email to hecnet-leave(a)lists.dfupdate.se **************************************************************************** ******************************** Dag Paul, Er is inmiddels weer wat water door de rivieren gestroomd en ik heb basis decnet8 werkend gekregen: ****************** NETWORK INFORMATION PROGRAM V1D PHYSICAL LINE STATUS [DDCMP V1A] LINE NODNAM (#) STATE DRIVER VRSN UP SINCE 0 SWBZ04 (161) ON-LINE KL8J 1A 0:46:13 17-NOV-76 1 SWBZ02 (157) OFF-LINE KL8J 1A LOGICAL LINK STATUS [NSP V1C] CHAN STATE LINE TASK SRCE-NAME[PPN] TYPE LINK DEST-NAME[PPN] TYPE LINK 1 UNUSED 0 35 TLK [1,3] 0 6 2 UNUSED 0 36 TLK [1,2] 0 2 PHYSICAL LINE ERROR STATUS LINE 0: NO ERRORS 16 MESSAGES TRANSMITTED 12 MESSAGES RECEIVED LINE 1: NO ERRORS 0 MESSAGES TRANSMITTED 0 MESSAGES RECEIVED ******************* Het bleek nog niet eens zo moeilijk te zijn meer een zaak hoe de decnet configuratie volgens de lokale spelregels met eigenaardigheden om te zetten in assembler parameters en dan het rts-8 systeem te bouwen. De onderlaag lijkt (voorlopig) goed genoeg te werken, maar de cliënten TLK/LSN voldoen niet compleet aan hun specs. Maar ook de selectie van node naam blijkt niet afdoende; een pakket naar een node die niet adjacent is wordt gewoon door de adjacent node als bestemming geaccepteerd terwijl de bestemming node naam niet de juist is. Met name het zenden van berichten naar de eigen node werkt niet en dus ook de default commando's niet waar de eigen node naam wordt geëvalueerd. Het lijkt dat decnet8 de mogelijkheid van een alias definitie niet ondersteunt. Ook lijkt 0:: niet een optie te zijn als alias maar zou misschien wel moeten. Wat betreft de verdere weg is het duidelijk dat Decnet8 alleen zal werken binnen de niche Pdp8 en dat communicatie met andere types decnet nodes uitgesloten is. Dit betekent m.i. dat voor afdoende Decnet8 functionaliteit het product naar Phase-II moet worden opgetild met eventueel verzwakte functionaliteit door het weglaten van niet benodigde deel functies (Ddcmp MOP boot?). Dat betekent dat een Phase-II compatibele Decnet8 kan communiceren met de andere Phase-II nodes zoals al in aanleg aanwezig moet zijn geweest vlak voordat het product afgedankt werd. Zouden er nog ergens kopieën van rondzwerven? Enig idee? In elk geval betekent dit geen wijzigingen voor Pydecnet aangezien ik aanneem dat er verder geen Phase-I/? ondersteuningswensen voor Pydecnet aanwezig zullen zijn? Ik ga ervan uit dat Pydecnet wel de Phase-II intercept ondersteunt, anders moet er een Dec variant bestaan die dat kan invullen. Zijn er nog wetenwaardigheden die in acht moeten worden genomen voor het (eventuele) omzetten naar Phase-II? Decnet8 intercept zal m.i. niet tot het aangeboden palet gaan behoren. Kan Pydecnet omgaan met async lijnen die naar Tcp/ip sockets i.p.v. com poorten afgebeeld zijn? Nu lijkt het erop dat alleen synchrone lijnverbindingen werken in die modus wat een beperking inhoudt. Reindert **************************************************************************** ****************************

2 years, 3 months

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Another "joining HECnet" request

by Mike Shields

Hello all - long time member of the list, and about time for me to get a machine connected. I have a PiDP-11 running RSX-11M-PLUS 4.6 and BQTCP/IP. It's emulated, but is up 24/7 and I'm interested in allowing guest logins or other remote use of the machine. (Even if only to keep those sweet blinkenlights moving around in more interesting patterns than the idle loop!) I'm in Northern Virginia, USA and see that there are two areas in my neighborhood, 59 and 31. Who would I reach out to regarding connection to either area? Also - I'm no RSX-11m wizard (still learning), so I'd be interested in any pointers to the incantations necessary to forge the Multinet connection from RSX-11M-PLUS (if this is indeed the recommended approach). Thanks all - looking forward to getting packets flowing. - Mike

2 years, 3 months

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Re: A milestone

by Johnny Billquist

Yes, LEO was #1000. :-) Johnny On 2023-03-09 02:32, Brian Roth wrote: > Wow, very cool. I was just looking at my Directory of computer networks > at lunch the other day and scanning over the SPAN network from 1990.Its > hard to believe just 30 years ago there was a worldwide DECnet network > with over 17,000 computers, real machines doing real work. Its pretty > cool to actually see in detail every machine type on SPAN (almost > entirely DEC) , machine names, VMS version and even phone numbers. BTW > was my machine LEO the 1000th? > > > On Wednesday, March 8, 2023 at 03:47:26 PM EST, Johnny Billquist > <bqt(a)softjar.se> wrote: > > > I have been planning for a long time to post a small reflection when I > reached 1000 nodes registered in the hecnet nodename database. > > This happened tonight. I think it is a pretty cool thing. There are now > 1000 nodenames registered in this small hobby DECnet. I guess you could > say it's actually not that small. > > However, I know that rather few machines are actually online, and it > might even be that the majority of nodes registered have never been > online. My guess is that maybe 5% of the registered machines are usually > online. But I do not have any hard data to back this up. > > HECnet started out about 20 years ago from a desire I had to hook up a > PDP-11 I had at home, to some machines at my university, using DECnet. > At the time, I didn't have any TCP/IP for RSX, and the only way to get > any kind of networking was to try and come up with some way of getting > DECnet up. > > My first implementation basically just forwarded a serial port > communication between two Unix machines. And on each end I then hooked > that serial port into a PDP-11 running RSX, and used DDCMP for the > actual DECnet link. > > This worked, but was obviously not that fast, as the serial ports were > limited to 9600 bps. > > After a year or so, I figured I could instead write a small program that > would forward ethernet packets. Using UDP I basically had the same > property as a local ethernet, but it could be located somewhere pretty > far away. From a DECnet point of view, it would appear as if they were > on the same ethernet segment, while in reality they were nowhere near. > As DECnet have pretty long timeouts on things, it turned out this worked > without a hitch, and I could achieve much better throughput. > > Not long after that, the first other users were hooked up to HECnet as > well. This was maybe around 2003 or so. > > Another data point is that there are 113 different persons that have one > or more nodenames registered. > > Happy milestone, everyone, and thanks for being around. > > Johnny > > -- > Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus > || on a psychedelic trip > email: bqt(a)softjar.se <mailto:bqt@softjar.se> || Reading > murder books > pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol > _______________________________________________ > HECnet mailing list -- hecnet(a)lists.dfupdate.se > <mailto:hecnet@lists.dfupdate.se> > To unsubscribe send an email to hecnet-leave(a)lists.dfupdate.se > <mailto:hecnet-leave@lists.dfupdate.se> > > _______________________________________________ > HECnet mailing list -- hecnet(a)lists.dfupdate.se > To unsubscribe send an email to hecnet-leave(a)lists.dfupdate.se -- 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

2 years, 4 months

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Some area 29 stuff

by Keith Halewood

Hi, I've just noticed that nodes 29.600-699 had been allocated to someone and they've since disappeared from the HECnet node database... or possibly I imagined the whole thing... except for the fact that I had an inbound multinet circuit for nodes in that range. I've just removed the circuit and the firewall ACL for incoming on TCP port 9604. The circuit hadn't been used in some time. In no other particular order of peers: 29.400-403 (Ales Petan) has been gone a while. 29.450-469 (Trevor Warwick) similarly. 46.1-9 (Douglas Hall) has been gone for quite a long time. 52.* (Brian Hechinger) has been down for a few weeks... and has changed incoming IP address once or twice too. I'm not complaining, just wondering. Known areas are going dark at a rate greater than 0 too. Oh, and ANKE (1.1023) went >BANG< a few days ago. Regards Keith

2 years, 4 months

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A couple of minor issues with RSX BQ-IP apps

by peter＠whisker.org.uk

Hi, I have a couple of strange issues on RSX-11M-PLUS with the latest TCP/IP stack (build 14-FEB-2023 00:19). 1) If I create a LB{1,2]SYSLOGIN.CMD with a couple of entries such as: set /named set /vt2xx=ti: when I login, it executes the commands but then I can type nothing at all into the terminal screen, it is completely frozen. 2) When I try to send an e-mail (I think it is set up OK), it gives the following error: >SEN To: PETER.WHISKER(a)GMAIL.COM Connection to local node:: failed, CONN STATUS= 2 STATUS2= 0 SENT0 -- STOP ERROR The [IPLOG]MAILD.LOG shows: Sun, 19 Feb 2023 09:47:58 (MAI.0) MAIL11 got connection from CLIONA:: (Unknown M AIL11 V3.0) Sun, 19 Feb 2023 09:47:58 (MAI.0) Connection lost I'm a bit lost as to how to debug this further - has anyone else encountered it or can Johnny shed any light? Thanks Peter Whisker

2 years, 4 months

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HECnet connection error from RSX-11M-PLUS node

by peter＠whisker.org.uk

Hi, I'm attempting to connect to the area 29 node and Keith Halewood has very helpfully set me up with a listener. I've been getting a strange error on the Multinet link and updated to the latest BQ-IP from December 2022 before posting this. I continue to have the same problem after the update. My IP stack is fine - I can ping and get the NTPDATE time and I can access my RSX11M system via Telnet. The Node has the right area and number and I can access it from the other node using RMT. However when I try to bring up the link to HECNet I keep getting this error repeating: >NCP SET CIR IP-0-0 STA ON 14:29:03 COT -- Date is 13-FEB-2023 14:29:03 MLTNET V1.27 starting. > > 14:29:05 MLTNET - IP-0-0 XMIT fail. IOSB=-3 14:29:10 MLTNET - IP-0-0 XMIT fail. IOSB=-3 I can see the traffic leaving on my DSL router to the Area 29 router and the replies coming back. So I am bit mystified. I think IOSB error -3 is IE.DNR - Device not ready? Node details: >NCP SHO KNO NOD Known nodes summary as of 13-FEB-2023 14:32:39 Executor node = 29.850 (CLIONA) State = On, Identification = CLIONA RSX11M+ V4.6 Remote Active Next Node State Links Delay Circuit Node 29.1 (A29RT1) Unreachable 29.2 (A29RT2) Unreachable 29.852 (SADHBH) Reachable UNA-0 29.852 (SADHBH) Below is recent correspondence - I will post it hear as it may be helpful: Hi It’s set up as a “Level 2 router” – perhaps that is the problem? I’ve looped in Johnny in case he has an idea where the problem may be? Regards Peter >; ===================================================================== >; DEC - Section 1 - Define the target and remote nodes >; ===================================================================== >; >; Generating node 29.850 (CLIONA), Id = CLIONA RSX11M+ V4.6 >; Node type is level 2 router >; Highest node number in network is 1023 >; Highest area number in the network is 63 >; Network command terminal and layered product support will be included >; The MACRO-11 and FORTRAN/COBOL/BASIC+2 user libraries will be supplied >; >; The remote node names are: >; 29.852 (SADHBH) >; 29.2 (A29RT2) >; 29.1 (A29RT1) >; >; <EOS> Do you want to: >* <RET>-Continue, S-Skip, R-Repeat section, P-Pause, E-Exit [S]: >; >; From: Keith Halewood <Keith.Halewood(a)pitbulluk.org> The only thing I can think of is DECnet with more than 1 interface needs to be an L1 router and not an endnode. Other than that, I’m not at all familiar with RSX and Johnny’s IP stack. From: Peter Whisker [mailto:peter@whisker.org.uk] I'm getting IOSB error -3 which I think may be IE.DNR Device not ready. I can see the IP traffic going out and back on the interfaces both sides of my router. I need to check if I've missed some DECnet configuration. On Mon, 13 Feb 2023, 10:39 Keith Halewood, <Keith.Halewood(a)pitbulluk.org> wrote: I can see your connection attempts. The DECnet router 29.2 is reporting ‘unexpected packet type’, adjacent node 29.850, packet header 01 29.850

2 years, 4 months

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Joining HECnet

by peter＠whisker.org.uk

Hi, I have 20 years experience of PDP-11s and RSX-11M in particular which I haven't used much since 2000, so I have decided to brush up again and have spun up a couple of RSX-11M-PLUS 4.6 nodes in simh. They are happily chatting away over BQ-IP and LAT and I guess the next stage is to request a connection to HECnet. My two geographically nearest node areas are Northolt (UK) and London (UK) - both within 30km of me. It looks like Northolt area 29 (Keith Halewood) might have a main routing node. London is in area 8 with admin Sampsa Laine. I'm just wondering if either of these areas allow new connections ot what is the best way to go? Many thanks Peter Whisker Addlestone, Surrey UK.

2 years, 4 months

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A2RTR down for 2 hours on 2/27

by Robert Armstrong

FYI - AWS is doing maintenance on 2/27/2023 at 8AM GMT so A2RTR will be down. That's the middle of the night/very early morning for us here in the USA. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Amazon Web Services, Inc. [mailto:no-reply-aws@amazon.com] Sent: Friday, February 10, 2023 2:03 PM To: bob(a)sparetimegizmos.com Subject: Scheduled maintenance for Amazon Lightsail instances on Mon, 27 Feb 2023 08:00:00 GMT Dear Amazon Lightsail Customer, One or more of your Amazon Lightsail instances is scheduled for maintenance in a 2 hour window starting on Mon, 27 Feb 2023 08:00:00 GMT. Maintenance activity will result in the following Lightsail instance(s) in the us-west-2 region to be unavailable and then rebooted: HECnet If you have any questions or concerns please contact the AWS Support Team on the community forums and via AWS Premium Support at: http://aws.amazon.com/support Sincerely, Amazon Lightsail Team Amazon Web Services, Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com is a registered trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. This message was produced and distributed by Amazon Web Services Inc., 410 Terry Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210

2 years, 4 months

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SDF had put a PDP-10 on the Internet

by Zane Healy

Specifically it looks like a SC-40. https://twitter.com/sdf_pubnix/status/1623127551542702080 Zane

2 years, 5 months

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need help w/perplexing VAX networking issue

by Dave McGuire

This is "mostly" on-topic, as I'm trying to get a friend on HECnet. ;) Last night while putting together a system for a friend, I hit a VAX networking problem. I wasted hours on it. I go way back with VAXen and VMS, and have never seen anything like this. I need assistance. The platform is a MicroVAX 3400 (KA640) with integrated Ethernet, and a fresh install of VMS 7.3 with DECnet Phase-IV. I did nothing different on this machine that I haven't done a thousand times before on various VAXen. The symptom is that the interface seems to be able to receive, but not transmit. With LAT enabled, for example, it will see service availability broadcasts, but it never sends any packets when trying to establish an outbound connection. The MAC address table on the (Cisco) switch never gets an entry for that machine. The only thing that looked weird to me was the Ethernet interface device names. The template device for the Ethernet interface is ESA0, and I'd expected for the cloned devices for NETACP and LATACP to have been ESA1 and ESA2, but they turned out to be ESA3 and ESA4, with no ESA1 or ESA2 clones in existence. I'm not convinced that it's a problem, but it seemed odd. We tried two copies of every piece of hardware: chassis/PS, boards, cab kits, cables, switch ports on the other end, etc. I no longer have the system here, but will try to arrange for remote console access soon. I've never been so baffled (or frustrated) about a VMS networking issue. Does anyone have any ideas about this? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

2 years, 5 months

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Area 27 IP address change

by Mark Berryman

I had a bit of a go-around with Comcast over the weekend. The end result is that my addresses have changed. If you are one of my HECnet neighbors, my new addresses are: IPv4: 73.95.34.4 IPv6: 2601:281:c100:6d0:3870:e9fa:b78e:abd2 These are also always available in DNS as decnet.theberrymans.com. Mark Berryman Area 27

2 years, 5 months

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Announcing TCP/IP V2.11 for RSX-11M-PLUS

by Johnny Billquist

Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is version 2.11 of BQTCP/IP. It's been eight months since the last official update. Some major improvements and bugfixes have been done, and it is strongly recommended that systems are updated. Some of the errors fixed could cause system crashes under the right conditions. Highlights: . Improved TCP performance . Added better error messages to FTP/FTPD as well as more features and better handling. Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release: TCP: . Corrected checksum computation. Checksum values of 0 should be replaced by -1. . Improved TCP retransmit strategy. . Improved TCP NVT send processing code. . Improved TCP receive packet sequence number processing. TELNETD: . Improved telnet server to handle abort as stop accepting new connections, and exit when the last existing connection is closed. FTP/FTPD: . Improved error messages from failed file operations in FTP/FTPD. . Changed FTP GET command to issue SIZE before PORT/PASV/EPSV . Changed FTPD RETR command to not push after file attributes. . Added MDTM command to FTPD. . Improved error messages on failed FTP OPEN command. . Added handling of progress updates in FTP client so that it don't possibly issue many QIOs. LPT/LPQ: . Added inhibit of task and session logical name table search for LPT/LPQ. MAILD: . Bugfix in MAILD logging for MAIL11SND. Remote string could get corrupted. . Improved MAILD. At SMTP receive, if the remote host is bad, we returned 550. Changed to 454, as host lookups is not a permanent error. . Improved mail delivery logging. . Added sender string as configuration to mail. . Updated mailbox format. . Improved mail error handling. . Improved MAILD SMTP reception host filtering. . Added ability to block mails from hosts with certain reverse DNS. HTTPD: . Added 400 response to http requests with no host header option. . Made URL matching case insensitive in HTTPD. . Improved processing of URLs in HTTPD. MULTINET: . Changed MULTINET to use nagle with immediate ACK. RSX patches: . Improved NCP as provided in RSX patches. Installation: . Improved installation procedure to handle installation from non-system disk. 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, and might avoid system crashes in rare circumstances. The patches to the TT: driver cannot be applied automatically, but requires users to apply the patches themselves, and then run SYSGEN to generate a new system. Once added, the TNC2 task can be run at login, and will define logical names for the user telling where he is connected from, if using telnet or LAT. The TT: driver patches also allows the updated MCR to give more information with the DEV command (SHOW TERMINAL in DCL). The other patches to RSX can be applied automatically by IPGEN, either if used interactively when answering YES to the question about applying RSX patches, or by running IPGEN explicitly to do the patches, with the command: @IPGEN PATCH Specific information about the patches: LAT: Fixes a memory leak, and adds the ability to read where a terminal connection comes from when using LAT, using SF.GMC. RMSDAP: Fixes a bug in getting the file protection, so the XAB gets filled in correctly for remote files. RMSDSP: Fixes that some numbers were displayed in signed octal, which should have been displayed in decimal or unsigned octal, depending on number. DCL: Added terminal attributes for COLOR. MCR: Too many fixes to be listed here... INS: Fixes that users cannot circumvent protection on common regions. HEL: Fix that users can login with session ID, or with directory, in addition to name and UIC. ACNT: Add no password change attribute to accounts. PSW: Add no password change handling. SYL (SYSLOG): Add terminal idle tracking on accounts without idle logout. ECL: If the receiving machine is very slow, and the sending machine is very fast, and the receiver announce several large buffers available, ECL cannot keep up, and drops packets. This is a problem with the DECnet flow control, as it is used in RSX. The simple solution is to allow more outstanding buffers when receiving. A more complex solution would be to change how RSX DECnet do flow control, but that would require rewriting a fair chunk of the ECL module. NMVACP: Fix handling of "show known nodes" command, which could skip some nodes. NVP: Add ability to use session ID or directory name for user identity in DECnet nodename specifications. EPM: Fix handling of ethernet multicast. NTDEMO: Fix that hosts without names should display DECnet address. NCP: Parse of additional information types in NICE messages. As usual, the distribution is available from: ftp://mim.stupi.net/bqtcp.dsk ftp://mim.stupi.net/bqtcp.tap !!! BQTCP is also available through RPM !!! (As an additional note, if there are any problems communicating with Mim using port 21, the ftp service is also available at port 10021) The documentation is also available through ftp on Mim, or also at http://mim.stupi.net/tcpipdoc I hope people find this update useful. Merry Christmas, 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

2 years, 6 months

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1
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What are your DAP flag bit definitions?

by Thomas DeBellis

I was writing a routine to break out DAP flag bits to aid debugging when I noticed a possible discrepancy between DAP V5.6 and Tops-20, viz: DAP Bit Bit Meaning PDP-10 Bit Tops-20 DAP Symbol 0 Stream Identification Field Present 1B35 HD$SID 1 Length Field Present 1B34 HD$LEN 2 Extended Length Field Present 1B33 HD$LN2 3 Bit Count Field Present 1B32 HD$BCT 4 Reserved 1B31 HD$SEG 5 System Specific Field Present 1B30 6 Not last message of segmented message 1B28 DAP V5.6 reserves bit 4 and defines bit 6 to flag that a segmented message is being sent and that this is not the last message. In other words, that there will be another message. Tops-20 is using bit 4 for this purpose and by rights it would appear that it should be using bit 6. I will go see if I can't scare up what Tops-10 is doing, but I was wondering if anyone knew what other OS's are doing.

2 years, 7 months

3
12
0 0

How Poor is your Man's Routing?

by Thomas DeBellis

Tops-20 NFT, FAL and NRT will do something called Poor Man's Routing (or PMR, for short). The Tops-10 NRT client will also do it. PMR is something I dimly recall from Phase II or III; this was back before 36 bit hosts could do full routing. Here is some background: On CCnet, we had enough 20's that not all could be connected to each other in a star network. Not even Columbia had enough KMC's to 'star' our 20's; the closest we got was a ring. CMU had even more. When a 20 wasn't next door to whatever system you wanted to get to, you had SET HOST to one that did and then do another SET HOST accordingly. Or maybe you had to do that a few times. The manual procedure and all the accounts involved was clunky enough that pretty much only systems staff did this. It was out of the question for researchers and paying customers. So I /think/ some site on CCnet came up with the idea of automating it to a certain extent. It was called "Poor Man's Routing" and the way it worked is that you specified the route to the system in question. Let's say you were on NODE*A*:: and wanted to go to NODE*C*:: yet did not have direct connectivity. If both NODE*A*:: and NODE*C*:: had connectivity to NODE*B*::, then the relevant part of the configuration looked something like this: NODE*A*:: ↔NODE*B*:: ↔NODE*C*:: If NODE*B*:: was a PMR host, then you could do something like SET HOST NODE*B*::NODE*C*:: and the parser would convert this to some intermediate string. Instead of opening a connection on DECnet object 23, it would use object 123 and NODE*B*:: was responsible for taking the rest of the string and getting you to the right place. It worked well enough if the systems in question weren't excessively loaded (which was invariably /never/ the case) and it saved us when the dates for version 6 slipped. I had been under the impression that some site on CCnet had done this and remember eagerly flushing all of it when we finished the field test. Much to my surprise an acquaintance of mine at Marlboro (Larry Campbell) formalized this with a separate module called DNCONN.MAC. I put this into a conditional assembly in part to save some address space (only to get blown out of the water by some vestigial code that had never been hit). Does anybody remember PMR? Did it exist for the other systems which supported DECnet? Just curious whether I should turn this on for anyone. PS: So much for my silly subject line of the day...

2 years, 7 months

2
2
0 0

DECnet equivalent of PSH?

by Thomas DeBellis

In TCP, something called the 'push flag' can be set to cause accumulated data in the monitor (which may be one or more packets) to be sent over the network. It is often abbreviated as "PSH". The Tops-20 FTP client and server both set PSH on the last packet of data from a file to send it on its way. This is done with a SOUTR% JSYS, which stands for *S*tring *OUT* *R*ecord. This is an overloading of the hardware record concept which is more commonly associated with nine-track magnetic tape. PSH can also be detected on input by doing a SINR%, which stops the network read early, instead of waiting for a full buffer of data (which might, in fact, never come). I believe DECnet transport implements the same semantics, but I would like to double check that. Where would I go in which part of what specification? Or does anybody know?

2 years, 7 months

4
13
0 0

Tops-20 NFT limited parse types for RSX systems?

by Thomas DeBellis

I recently had a number of connectivity issues that caused me to review my DECnet related batch jobs. The following is a snippet from the log file of GETNOD, which is the weekly batch job that fetches the latest HECnet node list from MIM::. I had updated it in part because of trouble-shooting, but the change isn't dramatic--it's rather more of a 'buff and polish'. The items in red are of note: 20:31:21 MONTR $@NFT 20:31:21 USER NFT>*SET DEFAULTS MIM:: /USER: 20:31:21 USER NFT>*SET DEFAULTS MIM:: /PASSWORD: 20:31:21 USER NFT>*SET DEFAULTS MIM:: /ACCOUNT: 20:31:21 USER NFT>*SET DEFAULTS MIM:: /OSTYPE:RSX11 ;<-- NEW 20:31:21 USER NFT>*DIR MIM::FIX.T20;0 20:31:21 USER 20:31:21 USER [Fork NFT opening DCN:MIM-FAL for reading, writing] 20:31:23 USER %Remote OS type /different/ from that specified with SET DEFAULT 20:31:23 USER 20:31:23 USER MIM::DU1:[DECNET] 20:31:23 USER FIX.T20;161;P775656 18 35840(8) 18-Oct-2022 09:59:43 There is nothing fatal about the message, but it was surprising. Investigating the parse table for OSTYPE in NFT.MAC shows: OSTTBL: XWD OSTSIZ,OSTSIZ ;ARGUMENTS FOR /OSTYPE T (IAS,.OSIAS) ;Operating system type ; T (OS-8,.OSOS8) T (RSTS,.OSRST) T (RSX11,.OSRXM) T (RT11,.OSRT) T (TOPS10,.OSTP10) T (TOPS20,.OSTP20) T (VMS,.OSVAX) So the above shows only a single RSX parse item and I had wondered about that, given all the various flavors of RSX. Further investigation into DAPSYM.MAC shows what Tops-20 DAP actually knows about (in octal). .OSRT==1 ;RT-11 .OSRST==2 ;RSTS/E .OSRXS==3 ;RSX-11S .OSRXM==4 ;RSX-11M .OSRXD==5 ;RSX-11D .OSIAS==6 ;IAS .OSVAX==7 ;VAX/VMS .OSTP20==10 ;TOPS-20 .OSTP10==11 ;TOPS-10 .OSOS8==12 ;OS-8 .OSRXP==13 ;RSX11-M PLUS That's more like it, I would assume. So I guess the fix here is to put a few more entries into the NFT parse table. Johnny, which one of the above is MIM:: reporting? I guess 13?

2 years, 7 months

10
73
0 0

PyDECnet, IPv6 and GRE

by Keith Halewood

Hi, Is anybody out there using PyDECnet and GRE over IPv6 who would be willing to set up a circuit between A29RT2 (29.2) and their router? Regards Keith

2 years, 7 months

4
3
0 0

VAXPAX?

by Robert Armstrong

Does anybody have an image of the VAXPAX (the VAX-11 diagnostic pack for 7xx machines, 8xxx, machines, and maybe a few others)? I have one, but it's a fairly old version. It doesn't have any of the 82xx/83xx diagnostics and EVRLA doesn't know about RA70s. Thanks, Bob

2 years, 8 months

3
5
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Ad-hoc connection to hecnet?

by Mark Wickens

Good evening all Is there a way to connect to hecnet without requiring a nat rule? For declegacy next weekend I'd rather use the halls WiFi and I don't have access to their router. Thanks, Mark

2 years, 8 months

12
36
0 0

Seeking DEC BN25B-nn Optical Fiber Cable

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

This is a twin/duplex cable of varying length with 100/140 um "multimode" cores and SMA-906 connectors. SMA-906 connectors have the stepped center-pin, compared to the SMA-905 which is a simpler straight pin. It's used, for example, by the LAN Bridge 100. For additional information see pages 169 through 335 (of 452) in http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/comm/EK-CMIV7-RM-005_Communications_Options _Minireference_Manual_Vol7_Aug88.pdf Probably it has an orange sheath so it would be somewhat distinctive in your tangled pile of cables :-}. Thank you for looking, paul

2 years, 8 months

2
4
0 0

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