[HECnet] Announcing TCP/IP V2.12 for RSX-11M-PLUS

Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is version 2.12 of BQTCP/IP. It's been four months since the last official update. Some major improvements and bugfixes have been done, and it is strongly recommended that systems are updated. Highlights: . Performance improvements . Bugfixes Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release: Ethernet: . Tweaked default configuration for ethernet to improve performance. TCP: . Implement TCP window scale option. . Implemented full TCP retransmit timeout computation according to RFC. Multinet: . Changed Multinet/TCP to use push for data, and delayed ack. SPOOF detection: . Changed call to notify about spammers. Resolver: . Bugfix. Resolver library handled IP address string wrong. IFCONFIG: . Improved IFCONFIG SHOW ARP to read multiple entries before printing anything out. . Added max pool allocation statistics. TELNETD: . Fix telnet server to not delay/buffer output if a write with breakthrough happens. . Improve telnetd performance by doing more buffering and fewer packets. . Improved behavior of TELNET and FTP with timeouts and multiple addr. FTPD: . Fix FTPD timeout through FTPD$TIMEOUT logical . Fixed idle timeout handling to FTPD. . Changed FTPD to use ast notifications for incoming commands, instead of QIO. That way, no I/O is normally active, and things like task extensions can proceed without problems. MAILD: . Improved MAILD SMTP error handling when happening in the middle of an ongoing connection. . Rewritten MAILD queue RMS processing. . Improved MAILD. Mail content was artificially wrapped because of buffer length limit. This limit was now raised to proper value. . Improved MAILD SMTP send connection error handling. . Changed MAILD MAIL11 reception to do delivery in separate process. . Fixed MAILD SMTP$RELAY handling. . Added capability to act as relay for mail for other systems. . Bugfixes in mail handling and error reporting. . Added ability to handle multiple IP addresses for host in MAILD NTPD: . Added improved exit status to NTPD to indicate if time changed. TELNET: . Added ability to handle multiple IP addresses for host in TELNET . Improved behavior of TELNET with timeouts and multiple addr. FTP: . Added better error message to FTP in case of timeout. . Added PORT command to FTP client. . Improved FTP HELP command. Improved FTP help file. . Added ability to handle multiple IP addresses for host in FTP . Improved behavior of FTP with timeouts and multiple addr. MAILRD: . Improved MAILRD command line parsing. . Changed MAIL DIRECTORY listing format slightly. 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. 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. 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