Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is version 2.9 of BQTCP/IP. It's been three weeks since the last official update, which is rather short. But there are two significant things that been solved since the last release, which is motivation for a release so shortly after the previous one. Highlights: . Bugfix in name resolved that could cause system crashes under some conditions. . Improvements to DECnet performance. Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release: TCP: . Improved the handling when both sides sends FIN at the same time. DNS: . Bugfix in resolver. Under the wrong conditions, the system could crash. It was a combination of failing DNS, short timeouts on the query itself, and a race condition in the code in this case. So the chances of hitting it were extremely low, but it can happen. MAIL: . Improve handling of hosts with no reverse dns, or giving fake information or trying to do weird commands. Such hosts are not blocked anymore, but are tracked, and only mails to postmaster from such hosts are accepted (this is more in accordance with the relevant RFCs). . Added postmaster sending a warning mail when mail delivery isn't immediately successful, to make people aware that there might be problems. . Improved mail queue processing, making the mail queue not be locked for longer periods. TELNETD: . Improved connection tracking. FTPD: . Add logging of whether transfers completed successfully or not in logs. IPC library: . Bugfix. The _notify() function didn't work right. RSX: . Added patched ECL module for DECnet to improve performance. 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, and might avoid system crashes in rare circumstances. 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. 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... 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, but drops packets. This is sortof 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. As usual, the distribution is available from: ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk ftp://mim.update.uu.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.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc I hope people find this update useful. On a final note, Mim have moved. Mim.Update.UU.SE still points to the machine, but the actual name is now Mim.Stupi.NET, and in case Update.UU.SE cease to work at some point, Stupi.NET should still be fine. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol