[HECnet] Announcing TCP/IP V2.18 for RSX-11M-PLUS

Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is version 2.18 of BQTCP/IP. It's been a while since the last release, and quite some improvements have been done in several subsystems. Some of them are rather significant, and a recommendation to update to this new version soon is recommended. Highlights: . IP logging facility have been added, logging various bad packets. . Improved IP multicast handling. . Added functionality to have system not respond to Multicast packets that could potentially be abused for DDoS attacks. Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release: Ethernet: . Bugfix. The initial multicast list enabled on ethernet was wrong at the MAC level. . Bugfix. Network directed broadcasts did not get correct dst MAC. . Various optimizations and improvements handling broadcasts, multicasts and route lookup processing. . Bugfix. ETHACP didn't properly pick up ethernet multicast indication. IP: . Improved statistics around IP fragmentation. . Added IP transmit broadcast statistic ICMP: . Bugfix. ECMP ECHO requests to broadcast was responded with a MAC broadcast, even though we had an IP address it should go to. . Improved ICMP histogram statistics handling. IGMP: . Bugfix in IGMP. Timer processing for IGMP reports didn't work properly. UDP: . Added information about broadcast and multicast response block to UDP receive IOSB. TCP: . Changed TCP to still deliver received data if remote does an RST after. . Clean up TCP reset handling. . Cleaned up TCP counters. . Improved TCP QIO write operations to include CR+LF if VFC says so for any mode. . Changed conditions for TCP keepalive vs. window probe. DHCP: . Improved DHCP client to do broadcasts that are not looped back. . Improved handling of address changes in DHCP and router table. . Changed resolver to not use DHCP provided resolvers, if a more specific resolver have been requested by logical name. DNS: . Added more logging about tracking bad server in DNS. . Bugfix in DNS. Under some circumstances, the parsing could reject correct packets. . Changed DNS to better handle CNAMEs. . Improved handling of non-responding DNS servers in resolver. . Bugfix. RESACP didn't properly detect truncated responses. . Bugfix. RESACP failed to properly handle F11 hostnames. IFCONFIG: . Added HELP command to IFCONFIG. . Added IFC SET IP MULTICAST RESPONSE ENABLE/DISABLE and IFC SHOW IP MULTICAST. . Bugfix in IFCONFIG with SHOW LOG failing. . Changed IFCONFIG to always show interface network mask numeric. FTP/FTPD: . Bugfix. FTPD got into a bad state if a directory listing was requested with an illegal file name, or other error. . FTP improved error handling in communication. . Bugfix. FTP/FTPD could get the wrong file if a directory operation was done before reading a file. Multinet: . Added handling of transmit errors in Multinet. . Added calling SPOOF from Multinet when there seems to be bad behavior from a remote host. RWHOD: . Improved rwhod error reporting. SMTP: . Improved SMTP send hostname processing. . Improved SMTP mail sending. LOGGER: . Added IP LOGGING task and functionality. TELNETD: . Bugfix in TELNETD. Under some circumstances, TELNETD could crash the system. LPT/LPQ: . Improved LPT and LPQ printer logical name processing. RMD: . Changed RMD task header page to show more information on TC: Some additional notes: As usual, I would recommend people to update as soon as possible. The changes are somewhat critical, but will also lead to a much better experience. 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, DECnet or LAT. TNC2 can get information about remote connections over DECnet as well, but this requires updates to DECnet. Such patches are not available separately at this time, but are included in the RSX image provided from Johnny Billquist. The TT: driver patches also allows the updated MCR to give more information with the DEV command (SHOW TERMINAL in DCL). The patched TT: driver also makes is possible to get telnetd fully vectorized, as this version provides two more addresses that are required by telnetd to access information in the kernel. 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. *** NOTE *** MIM have moved to a new address, and a new name. The correct name is now Mim.SoftJAR.SE. I hope that this will now not need to change again. *** NOTE *** As usual, the distribution is available from: ftp://mim.softjar.se/bqtcp.dsk ftp://mim.softjar.se/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.softjar.se/tcpipdoc I hope people find this update 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