New subject: [PiDP-11] Announcing TCP/IP V2.11 for RSX-11M-PLUS

25 Dec 2022

Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS.

This is version 2.11 of BQTCP/IP.

It's been eight months since the last official update. Some major 
improvements and bugfixes have been done, and it is strongly recommended 
that systems are updated. Some of the errors fixed could cause system 
crashes under the right conditions.

Highlights:

. Improved TCP performance
. Added better error messages to FTP/FTPD as well as more features and 
better handling.

Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release:

TCP:
. Corrected checksum computation. Checksum values of 0 should be 
replaced by -1.
. Improved TCP retransmit strategy.
. Improved TCP NVT send processing code.
. Improved TCP receive packet sequence number processing.

TELNETD:
. Improved telnet server to handle abort as stop accepting new 
connections, and exit when the last existing connection is closed.

FTP/FTPD:
. Improved error messages from failed file operations in FTP/FTPD.
. Changed FTP GET command to issue SIZE before PORT/PASV/EPSV
. Changed FTPD RETR command to not push after file attributes.
. Added MDTM command to FTPD.
. Improved error messages on failed FTP OPEN command.
. Added handling of progress updates in FTP client so that it don't 
possibly issue many QIOs.

LPT/LPQ:
. Added inhibit of task and session logical name table search for LPT/LPQ.

MAILD:
. Bugfix in MAILD logging for MAIL11SND. Remote string could get corrupted.
. Improved MAILD. At SMTP receive, if the remote host is bad, we 
returned 550. Changed to 454, as host lookups is not a permanent error.
. Improved mail delivery logging.
. Added sender string as configuration to mail.
. Updated mailbox format.
. Improved mail error handling.
. Improved MAILD SMTP reception host filtering.
. Added ability to block mails from hosts with certain reverse DNS.

HTTPD:
. Added 400 response to http requests with no host header option.
. Made URL matching case insensitive in HTTPD.
. Improved processing of URLs in HTTPD.

MULTINET:
. Changed MULTINET to use nagle with immediate ACK.

RSX patches:
. Improved NCP as provided in RSX patches.

Installation:
. Improved installation procedure to handle installation from non-system 
disk.

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 
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.

Merry Christmas,

	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