13 Sep
2024
13 Sep
'24
4 a.m.
I'm a bit late to the party, but I figured I'd chime in here anyway
8-}
I was the maintainer of VMS Finger from V50.1.00 (when I took it over
from Rand Hall) until V50.1.35 which was the last release in July 2000.
Which Finger you get by default (and what it supports) on VMS depends on
which TCP/IP package you have. There's no native DECnet-only Finger.
I've started working on VMS Finger again, including back-porting the
V50.1.35 back to VAX/VMS - VAX support was essentially frozen at
V50.1.29.
Idle time on VMS is a bucket full of eels - VMS kept track of idle
time
on physical terminals. I'm not sure if it still does. It never did it
for
terminal-like connections. Brian Schenkenberger wrote a loadable execu-
table image, loaded at boot time, that provides idle monitoring for TT
devices, as well as hooks to add monitoring of other terminal devices.
A separate utility hooks into it during normal systartup_vms.com proces-
sing to add monitoring to RT devices (since that device didn't exist at
boot time). Although it is copyrighted by him, he allows it to be dis-
tributed with VMS Finger (and it works on both VAX and Alpha). I never
had an Itanium system of my own (and never desire to), so if you have
one
and want to run Finger on it, drop me an email and I'll send you a test
kit once I have VMS Finger closer to release state.
Here's an example of VMS Finger (running on a real VAX to a virtual-
ized Alpha):
VX4200::$ finger @server/idle/version
[SERVER.DECnet]
OpenVMS Finger: Version V51.1.36 of 23-Aug-2024
Unauthorized Access Strictly Prohibited
SERVER DS10 616 MHz, OpenVMS V8.4-2L1, Thu, 12-Sep-2024 21:28, 4 Users,
0 Batch
Uptime 19 18:55, since Sat, 24-Aug-2024 02:33, Load: 0.06 0.04 0.07
PID Username Program Term Login CPU Idle Location
TT Type
0000AD16 TERRY $ NTY13: 02:55 0:00 1:19
bedroom.glaver.o VT3xx
0000AA2B TERRY Ltpad NTY14: 02:56 0:00 18:30
bedroom.glaver.o VT3xx
00008634 TERRY Ua NTY12: 16:47 0:38 1:19
portable3-wl.gla VT3xx
0000C496 TERRY $ NTY15: 14:00 0:00 2
office.glaver.or VT3xx
0000C497 TERRY Ltpad NTY16: 14:01 0:00 7:26
office.glaver.or VT3xx
Some info on that display - by default, if the node being fingered
looks like it could be a DECnet Phase IV node, it tries DECnet first.
If you specify something that either isn't a known DECnet node or can't
possibly be a DECnet node, it uses TCP/IP:
VX4200::$ finger @server.glaver.org/idle/version
[SERVER.GLAVER.ORG]
OpenVMS Finger: Version V51.1.36 of 23-Aug-2024
Unauthorized Access Strictly Prohibited
SERVER DS10 616 MHz, OpenVMS V8.4-2L1, Thu, 12-Sep-2024 21:31, 4 Users,
0 Batch
Uptime 19 18:57, since Sat, 24-Aug-2024 02:33, Load: 0.07 0.07 0.07
PID Username Program Term Login CPU Idle Location
TT Type
0000AD16 TERRY $ NTY13: 02:55 0:00 1:21
bedroom.glaver.o VT3xx
0000AA2B TERRY Ltpad NTY14: 02:56 0:00 18:33
bedroom.glaver.o VT3xx
00008634 TERRY Ua NTY12: 16:47 0:38 1:21
portable3-wl.gla VT3xx
0000C496 TERRY $ NTY15: 14:00 0:00 4
office.glaver.or VT3xx
0000C497 TERRY Ltpad NTY16: 14:01 0:00 7:29
office.glaver.or VT3xx
VMS Finger will still try to link code for use with Joiner Associates'
JNET (BITNET) networking stack if you ask for it, but it is untested for
decades. If anyone is still running JNET and connected to something,
drop me an email.
I'm only testing as far back as VAX/VMS V7.3 right now. Eventually
I'll
see how far back I can go. Hopefully VMS V5.5-2 and ideally VMS V4.4.
So much for VMS Finger...
I'm also the creator of RSTS/E Finger. It is DECnet-only, but can be
con-
figured to use any DECnet node as a gateway, either to other DECnet
areas
or to TCP/IP hosts.
Here's RSTS/E 10.1 being Fingered from VMS:
SERVER::$ finger @pidp11/version
[PIDP11.DECnet]
RSTS/E Finger: Version V1.2-09 of 06-Sep-2024
RSTS/E Your Organization Name Here PiDP-11
PIDP11 PDP-11/70, RSTS V10.1-L, Friday, 12-Sep-1924 21:33, 9 Jobs, 63
Max.
Uptime 4 07:33:52, since Monday, 8-Sep-1924 14:00
05-Sep-24 - Your message could be here! Edit FINGER$:FINGER.MSG to
change it.
Job Username PPN Progrm Term Login CPU ST Location
TTType
1 SYSTEM 1,2 ERRCPY Det 00:00 SR - Detached -
2 SYSTEM 1,2 MAILQ Det 00:01 SR - Detached -
3 SYSTEM 1,2 OMS Det 00:03 SL - Detached -
4 SYSTEM 1,2 PBS... Det 00:06 SL - Detached -
5 SYSTEM 1,2 EVTLOG Det 00:00 SL - Detached -
6 SYSTEM 1,2 MESMAN Det 00:00 SL - Detached -
7 TERRY 20,254 DCL KB33: 14:01 00:00 ^C SERVER::[11,376]
VT320
8 TERRY 20,254 DCL KB34: 02:57 00:00 ^C SERVER::[11,376]
VT320
9 SYSTEM 1,2 FINSRV Det 00:00 RN - Detached -
And here is RSTS/E 10.1 Fingering an Internet host:
$ finger @mim.stupi.net
[MIM.STUPI.NET via routing host SERVER]
[SERVER.DECnet]
[MIM.STUPI.NET]
RSX-11M-PLUS system MIM. Fri Sep 13 03:39:27 2024. Up: 1 day, 4:44.
Luser Real name Term Idle Logged in From
BILLQUIST Johnny Billquist TT15: 17 12 Sep 14:53
s-5eeaac7c-74736162
RSTS/E Finger requires RSTS/E V9.6 or later, since the DECnet/E
it relies on is V4.1, which itself requires RSTS/E V9.6 or later.
Moving right along:
I also wrote an MS-DOS Finger implementation. That isn't as useless
as it sounds. If you just say "finger", you get the message "You are
the only user, of course". But like RSTS/E Finger, it uses DECnet
(Pathworks or whatever product name du jour that product has). The
code still exists, but I don't know of any modern Microsoft Windows
system that has a DECnet stack available for it. If anyone knows of
a DECnet implementation that runs under Windows 10, let me know and
I'll resurrect MS-DOS finger as a CLI application for Windows. I can
even sign it 8-}
Once I have VMS and RSTS/E Finger updated to where I want them,
I'd love to have a network interoperability bake-off with as many
other implementations as possible. Probably the oddest one I ran
into in my testing 30+ years ago was the front-end CPU for a Cray.
--
Terri Kennedy