[HECnet] Public Services over DECnet

Hi Mark, Your email strikes a chord; I was exactly in this position a couple of years ago. My experience with OpenVMS was mostly doing SYS$QIOs, ASTs and Event Flags controlling factory shop-floor equipment with not much of DECnet in the mid 90's; and I bailed to Unix/Linux/IP shortly before Robert Palmer completed the demise of Digital Equipment Corporation. I have been playing around (got blocked from HECnet twice for inadvertently flooding the entire network with ethernet loopbacks while experimenting) and wanted to share my experience so far. _File Sharing_ Anonymous file sharing is achieved using the File Access Listener service (FAL) that comes with DECnet implementations. Anonymity is achieved by proxy - this basically means you configure DECnet? to map anonymous users to a FAL user, and all files in this proxied FAL user's directory are then available publicly. You can do a "DIR <NODENAME>::" to almost any HECnet node and see the files their owners have made publicly available. Installing FAL server on OpenVMS is a no brainer; the DECnet installation script will ask questions and set it up. Other operating systems are tricky to various degrees, but by all means go for it, it is exciting! I have been experimenting on DECnet stacks on various operating systems, and so far have got FAL to work accessing files from other nodes on HECnet: OpenVMS VAX 7.3: ??? DIR QCOCAL:: ??? DIR CLOUDY:: ??? DIR IMPVAX:: OpenVMS Alpha 8.3: ??? DIR RAPTOR:: RSX-11M-PLUS / PDP-11/24 ??? DIR JUICHI:: Linux Ubuntu 14: ??? DIR FEDACH:: ??? DIR FOMFOR:: DEC Ultrix: ??? DIR OSTARA:: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 - _This actually returns the entire content of C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32, I do not know how to peg FAL server to a specific directory on Windows NT_: ??? DIR ENTEE4:: Microsoft Windows XP? - Again, this returns the entire content of C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32! ??? DIR ENTEE4:: _Forum/BBS/Conference__ _ DEC NOTES was, as mostly the case, pioneering and years ahead - I could get technical answers from across the world over the global EASYNET before the internet became popular. However I think there needs to be some NOTES servers somewhere on HECnet for the rest of us to launch NOTES and chat. Maybe there is one, I do not know, Johnny may. _MUDS etc_ The OpenVMS freeware archives contain a few networked games - they are easy to install - I will gladly play with others as others will if you put them up! _Web Server_ Not really DECnet, but if you have DEC TCP/IP for OpenVMS installed, both WASD and OSU HTTPD work fine. My examples - http://sanyalnet-openvms-vax.freeddns.org:82/ is served by WASD for OpenVMS/VAX 7.3 and http://sanyal.duckdns.org/ is served by OSU HTTPD on OpenVMS/Alpha 8.3. Have a glorious 2018 playing with DECnet, Supratim On 12/30/2017 02:27, Mark J. Blair wrote: