2 Aug
2022
2 Aug
'22
5:25 p.m.
I like that idea, although I do wonder how many "real" applications would
really need, want, or even try to support DECnet directly in these
modern times? For the terminal server case that I am initially interested
in building, CTERM and a few network diagnostic tools would keep me very
satisfied, Adding in some file transfer capabilities would be simply
awesome.
It would be really useful even if some of these functions were only exposed
through internal PyDECnet sub-commands instead of being available
system-wide. I've been happily using PyDECnet for a couple of years, but I
haven't yet upgraded to your new test releases, and I haven't kept up on
what all is included in your future plans? Regardless, I suspect that any
somewhat easier way to keep a version of DECnet running on Linux with even
the minimal set of tools would be appreciated by many around here. How do
you think the performance would be with CTERM written in Python?
On Tue, Aug 2, 2022 at 10:46 AM Paul Koning <paulkoning(a)comcast.net> wrote:
On Aug 2, 2022, at 10:40 AM, Brian Angus
<brian.angus(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
I'm not a programmer, at least not a very good one, and I'm quite happy
to
expose my ignorance in the effort to learn something new, so I was
wondering how real this dependency is on having Linux kernel support for
DECnet. We are quite able to put DECnet packets out on the wire using
various user mode processes such as with our favourite emulator SimH. I
currently run VAX DECnet on several linux boxes without any special or
unusual kernel shenanigans using a simple TAP ethernet driver. I also use
other non-IP based protocols such as LAT that do not require any special
kernel mode modules, drivers or privileges.
Wouldn't it be awesome if we could install a "simple" DECnet daemon on
Linux and tweak the few user mode commands that we still use to point to
that instead of the special kernel drivers that are needed today. This is
probably just wishful thinking, but a very simple non-kernel DECnet
implementation might help ensure its survival for a few more decades.
I could well be completely wrong, but I thought I would ask anyway.
What kernel support gives you is the ability to use the standard "socket"
kernel API to communicate using DECnet. User mode code means a different
API.
Now if Linux were to add a way to create a user-mode back end to sockets,
sort of like a socket analog to FUSE (file system in user mode), then you
could do DECnet in user mode and still get sockets.
Hm... SUSE? (Oh well, that acronym is taken...)
paul
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