INFO-VAX Sun, 17 Jun 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 327 Contents: Re: Another opportunity Re: Another opportunity Re: Another opportunity Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Re: Comparative patch installation (was Re: DECwindows Newbie Re: DECwindows Newbie Re: DECwindows Newbie HCL hiring Unix/AIX/Solaris Admins -Noida/Chennai How will VMS be killed ? Re: How will VMS be killed ? Re: How will VMS be killed ? Re: How will VMS be killed ? Re: How will VMS be killed ? Re: Of CERT and VMS Re: Of CERT and VMS Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Re: Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Re: Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Re: PLUG: PMAS Quayle Consulting blog Re: TCPIP Services SFTP Re: TCPIP Services SFTP Re: Thanks for the Help Robert ! Re: Why partitioned disks on VMS would be useful Re: Why partitioned disks on VMS would be useful [VMS 7.3-2] SYLOGIN run twice at batch job release after /RETAIN=ERROR? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:36:03 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Another opportunity Message-ID: On 06/16/07 07:42, Vance Haemmerle wrote: > Stephen Hoffman wrote: > >> Tru64 UNIX retired all DEC 3000 boxes and slews of controllers, >> which caused a minor uproar. >> > > What gets me is that the last to support these is Tru64 version 5.1 > and only 5.1A and 5.1B have aggregate patch kits. You could always try to install NetBSD (or maybe Linux, but it doesn't like TURBOchannel). http://www.netbsd.org/ports/alpha/models.html -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:35:17 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: Another opportunity Message-ID: <46748fd3$0$90263$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Michael Kraemer wrote: > ultradwc@gmail.com schrieb: >> oops, I forgot the linux mentality that its not free, > > linux mentality isn't "free" but "affordable". > Or why do you think people still buy distribution CDs > although Linux is "free" ? > BTW, it is new to me, that Oracle etc give away > their Linux stuff for free. In general it is free. You pay for support. Oracle does not have a Linux they support Redhat. You can get Redhat from Redhat or Oracle with support. Or get it from Centos or White Box (minus a few Redhat graphics) for free without support. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:18:05 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Another opportunity Message-ID: <2C2di.184282$mJ1.17578@newsfe22.lga> On 06/16/07 20:35, Arne Vajhøj wrote: > Michael Kraemer wrote: >> ultradwc@gmail.com schrieb: >>> oops, I forgot the linux mentality that its not free, >> >> linux mentality isn't "free" but "affordable". >> Or why do you think people still buy distribution CDs >> although Linux is "free" ? >> BTW, it is new to me, that Oracle etc give away >> their Linux stuff for free. > > In general it is free. You pay for support. > > Oracle does not have a Linux they support Redhat. > > You can get Redhat from Redhat or Oracle with support. Not quite true. /Oracle Unbreakable Linux/ is a CentOS-like fork of RHEL4 AS. http://www.oracle.com/technologies/linux/el4cert-ds.pdf > Or get it from Centos or White Box (minus a few Redhat > graphics) for free without support. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:09:57 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Message-ID: <9AWci.68$Zg5.17@newsfe19.lga> On 06/16/07 11:27, Main, Kerry wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Ron Johnson [mailto:ron.l.johnson@cox.net] >> Sent: June 15, 2007 9:29 PM >> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >> Subject: Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? >> >> On 06/15/07 18:44, David J Dachtera wrote: >>> Dave Froble wrote: >>>> John Smith wrote: >>>> >>>>> 4) What about staff retention - have they mentioned that their >> staff may >>>>> want to have relevant *marketable* experience with the >> technologies that can >>>>> get them new jobs if the company downsizes/outsources them? I'm >> sure that >>>>> has to be in the minds of everyone in the IT divisions except >> perhaps the >>>>> CIO. >>>> I see this argument used all the time. Frankly, I don't understand >> it. >>>> Is it part of an employer's responsibility to train employees for >>>> their next job? >>> It depends. >>> >>> Part of keeping good people includes training them to be more and >> more >>> productive. It's common knowledge that keeping good people is >> cheaper and less >>> risky than turning staff over just because of technology changes. >> However, replacing a $100,000 employee with "lots of process >> knowledge that might not be so useful anymore" with a $60,000 "knows >> the new tech" new hire is easier for the employer. >> > > Bottom line question is whether it is easier to train the old employee > with new technologies and keep that invaluable experience, or teach the > rookie about all of the business, support, app development processes > that the Company uses. > > Since almost all environments requires some interfaces between the old > and new applications, teaching the existing employee the new skills is > an order of magnitude cheaper than hiring some rookie. Your employer, apparently, does not agree with you. :( > Especially if the old-new interfaces are required, because developing > these often requires a good understanding of the old environment and the > new technologies. > > And I know it is not to common these days, but I would also ask if the > new technologies really add value or is it being driven by hype in the > App / EA groups or consultants on board who want to expand their CV's? S/W development houses don't sell (much) more s/w to satisfied, static customers of mature products. They *need* churn to spur revenue growth. Magazines don't sell more subscriptions, web sites don't generate more page hits when talking about mature products. Hardware companies don't sell much more stuff in a mature market. Thus, they all (sometimes knowingly, sometimes fortuitously) collude to foment churn. Besides, most westerners don't follow in their father's footsteps anymore. They want to do something new and exciting. But, you say, Unix is older than VMS! Yes, but it's cryptic and malleable and not DP. That lets a young man (face it, the male:female computer *geek* ratio is pretty high!) obtain knowledge that few others have, and the ability to do things that few others can do. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:23:09 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Message-ID: On 06/16/07 11:18, Main, Kerry wrote: >> -----Original Message----- From: John Smith >> [mailto:a@nonymous.com] Sent: June 13, 2007 1:07 PM To: [snip] > >> So how about this -- since you've had experience with many of >> these situations, --create a no-names list you can post here >> with the following attributes: >> > > So you assume there is some master list or DB somewhere in the > universe that lists this and that I have access to this? Microsoft does, as part of their battle against Linux. > [snip..] > > As I mentioned before, part of the problem is that experienced > Techies and managers are to afraid to speak up and use their > experience to ask a few simple questions about changing. They are > to afraid they might get labelled with the dino label. I tried, about 8-9 years ago. Suggested that a new business project be written in the best business language: COBOL. Was ignored, of course. The project has been a memory- & CPU-hogging doesn't-work-well- with-VMS pain in the arse ever since then. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:01:12 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Message-ID: <40c4b$46744191$cef8887a$2803@TEKSAVVY.COM> Main, Kerry wrote: > Since almost all environments requires some interfaces between the old > and new applications, teaching the existing employee the new skills is > an order of magnitude cheaper than hiring some rookie. But when it comes to hiring from the outside, they will hire those with the "new skills", not the ancient VMS skills, despite those skill being accompanied with lots of real life experience instead of playing dungeons and dragons on a PC and claiming those hours as Windows experience. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jun 2007 20:40:03 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Anyone know why the Alpha market is so so quiet? Message-ID: <5dj053F34721fU1@mid.individual.net> In article , "Main, Kerry" writes: >> > > Bottom line question is whether it is easier to train the old employee > with new technologies and keep that invaluable experience, The only problem with that is unless you have contracts like EDS you have no guarantee that the training you provide won't result in the the employee moving to someone who is in aposition to offer higher pay because they didn't have the expense of educating the employee. Employees today seldom consider things like loyalty and usually just go to the highest bidder. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:24:29 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: Comparative patch installation (was Re: Message-ID: <46748d4b$0$90276$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <466a2aa0$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: >> The end users advantage is that thery are not dependent on a >> single company. > > So what do they do when RedHat no longer supports the version they > bought? Start over with Debian? Hardly an option in a lot of cases, > where _everything_ must be 100% tested and proven right. Pay you to support it, because you have access to the all the code. Or maybe slightly more realistic they pay Oracle, which now offers support for Redhat Linux. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:52:59 GMT From: "Robert Jarratt" Subject: DECwindows Newbie Message-ID: 20 years ago I used to use VAXen that did not have DECwindows, but now that I have a VAXstation at home with a hobbyist license I would like to try it. I do not have a monitor for the VAXstation so I must use my Windows XP PC. I have installed Cygwin/X and I have XDM running on the VAX. I can connect to the VAX using the command XWin -ac -query . This gives me a login prompt, after I login I get a Session Manager window with four menu options (Session, Application, Options and Help), but nothing resembling any sort of "desktop". First of all, is that what I should see? Second, if I click an application such as Clock on the Applications menu, it takes me back to a login prompt. Why might this be? I have searched the web for a simple step-by-step guide to setting up a scenario like mine, but I have not found anything. Can anyone give me a good pointer? Thanks Rob ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:36:54 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: DECwindows Newbie Message-ID: <8c73b$46748234$cef8887a$29692@TEKSAVVY.COM> Robert Jarratt wrote: > First of all, is that what I should see? Yep. An uncustomised decwindows desktop is like that. Simple. But you can define a whole bunch of thing to hahpen when you login to create stuff on your desktop etc. If you had an alpha as a server, you would have the choice between the traditional decwindow or the CDE desktop which is fancier looking. But on vax we only have the traditional decwindows. > Second, if I click an application such as Clock on the Applications menu, it > takes me back to a login prompt. Why might this be? That is really not normal. Can you telnet or login to the vax ? If so, you can do the following (from a privileged account) $SET DISPLAY/CREATE/EXEC/TRANSPORT=tcpip/NODE=xxxxx $DEFINE/SYSTEM DECW$DISPLAY f$TRNLNM("DECW$DISPLAY") This creates a permanent DECW$DISPLAY pointing to your PC. Then: $ MC DECW$STARTLOGIN : this pops up the real login screen on your display. And while it isn't 100% reliable, when you get back on, the login screen often comes back on its own without having to reissue the MC DECW$STARTLOGIN. (this is because of the /EXEC when you create the display device which causes the device to survive a logout.) The XDM software on VAX is rather dated and and I not 100% sure it creates processed properly. If you try the "DCL Command" in the COmmand menu, this is sort of integrated in the session manager and if that also causes a new login to start, it means that somethint is really screwed up. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 03:02:32 +0200 From: Michael Kraemer Subject: Re: DECwindows Newbie Message-ID: Robert Jarratt schrieb: > 20 years ago I used to use VAXen that did not have DECwindows, but now that > I have a VAXstation at home with a hobbyist license I would like to try it. > I do not have a monitor for the VAXstation so I must use my Windows XP PC. I route (almost) all my vintage workstation's (including VAXstations) gfx via a KVM-switch to an SGI-Monitor with a VGA inlet. Works fine for me. "Only" problem is to convert the usual 3W3 output of VAXstations to a VGA connector, but this can be done with an RGB BNC intermediate. To my own surprise even a modern flat screen monitor may work with gfx cards of 1991 vintage this way. > I > have installed Cygwin/X and I have XDM running on the VAX. I can connect to > the VAX using the command XWin -ac -query . This gives me a > login prompt, after I login I get a Session Manager window with four menu > options (Session, Application, Options and Help), but nothing resembling any > sort of "desktop". > > First of all, is that what I should see? yes, it looks lowly by today's standards, but that's the certain "retro" feeling ... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:45:02 -0700 From: dbaguru Subject: HCL hiring Unix/AIX/Solaris Admins -Noida/Chennai Message-ID: <1182059102.682175.151710@n15g2000prd.googlegroups.com> HCL hiring Unix/AIX/Solaris Admins -Noida/Chennai HCL is hiring the following resources :- 1. Sun Solaris Admins - 2+ Yrs Exp - 100+ Positions 2. HP Unix Admins - 2+ Yrs Exp - 100+ Positions 3. IBM AIX Admins - 2+ Yrs Exp - 100+ Positions 4. Linux Admins - 2+ Yrs Exp - 50+ Positions Locations are Noida / Chennai / Bangalore / Gurgaon Please send profiles at dbagurus@yahoo.com at the earliest... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:07:31 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: How will VMS be killed ? Message-ID: <6c02b$4674511e$cef8887a$5935@TEKSAVVY.COM> Any thoughts on how HP will handle VMS' retirement ? if IA64 is cancelled, then VMS would probably be handled the same way as True64. Not ported to the 8086 and HP would complete the next version of the OS and then put it in maintenance mode for 5 years. When you consider those still on VAX at 5.5-2, those would probably remain on it for some time to come. But others are rely on 3rd party products like Oracle would likely be on some migration to IBM/Sun/Dell in a fairly rapid mode (less than 5 years). Whether Bruden survives as a VMS outfit or not, I do not know, but they might become the logical support resoiurce for the remaining VMS customer base. (A bit like Parsec with the PDP11 software). I think that VMS would fairly quickly become defunct, perhaps similarly to OS2, with some die hard fans remaining. VMS skills would instantly become as worthless as DG's AOS-VS skills. But a few might get lucky if the remaining VMS shops get desperate to find anyone with VMS knowledge and willing to work on VMS (aka: legacy worthless skills). Would HP kill VMS before IA64 in the hopes of getting customers to move to HP-UX ? (and when IA64 is killed, HP-US might have enough customers to pwarrant a port to the 8086). Perhaps one way to cause HP to think twice about killing VMS would be if the user community was VERY organised (back to a single DECUS name for starters) and made serious (but quiet/private) threaths that should HP pull the plug on VMS, the community would mount a very public bopycott HP campaign and show HP as a company you cannot trust your business to and should avoid. Really, when you think about it, of someone like Stallard/Livermore at HP can, at their whim, ruin your own personal carreer and make you worthless in society by zapping your skills, what have you got to loose by trying to stain HP as much as you can ? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:45:39 -0500 From: bradhamilton@comcast.net (Brad Hamilton) Subject: Re: How will VMS be killed ? Message-ID: In article <6c02b$4674511e$cef8887a$5935@TEKSAVVY.COM>, JF Mezei wrote: >Any thoughts on how HP will handle VMS' retirement ? Are you privy to some information unavailable to the rest of us? Perhaps Bob has talked to God recently, gotten the straight poop, and passed it on to you. :-) [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:44:16 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: How will VMS be killed ? Message-ID: <3a98e$467475dd$cef8887a$25962@TEKSAVVY.COM> Brad Hamilton wrote: > Are you privy to some information unavailable to the rest of us? Perhaps Bob > has talked to God recently, gotten the straight poop, and passed it on to you. No, I am not privy to such information. But I have had a very uneasy feeling that is growing about some impending doom on our way. Cerner told to move to HP-UX from VMS has a big part in this. The poor folks in VMS engineering wouldn't have a clue of what is coming because I suspect that this is something happening at the stallard/livermore levels who make the big negotiations with important ISVs such as Cerner. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:12:13 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: How will VMS be killed ? Message-ID: On 06/16/07 18:44, JF Mezei wrote: > Brad Hamilton wrote: >> Are you privy to some information unavailable to the rest of us? >> Perhaps Bob >> has talked to God recently, gotten the straight poop, and passed it on >> to you. > > > No, I am not privy to such information. But I have had a very uneasy > feeling that is growing about some impending doom on our way. Cerner > told to move to HP-UX from VMS has a big part in this. Would you really move to HPUX, or split to AIX/Solaris/Linux? > The poor folks in VMS engineering wouldn't have a clue of what is coming > because I suspect that this is something happening at the > stallard/livermore levels who make the big negotiations with important > ISVs such as Cerner. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:38:28 -0000 From: ultradwc@gmail.com Subject: Re: How will VMS be killed ? Message-ID: <1182047908.613812.90650@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> On Jun 16, 5:07 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Any thoughts on how HP will handle VMS' retirement ? > > if IA64 is cancelled, then VMS would probably be handled the same way as > True64. Not ported to the 8086 and HP would complete the next version of > the OS and then put it in maintenance mode for 5 years. > > When you consider those still on VAX at 5.5-2, those would probably > remain on it for some time to come. But others are rely on 3rd party > products like Oracle would likely be on some migration to IBM/Sun/Dell > in a fairly rapid mode (less than 5 years). > > Whether Bruden survives as a VMS outfit or not, I do not know, but they > might become the logical support resoiurce for the remaining VMS > customer base. (A bit like Parsec with the PDP11 software). > > I think that VMS would fairly quickly become defunct, perhaps similarly > to OS2, with some die hard fans remaining. > > VMS skills would instantly become as worthless as DG's AOS-VS skills. > But a few might get lucky if the remaining VMS shops get desperate to > find anyone with VMS knowledge and willing to work on VMS (aka: legacy > worthless skills). > > Would HP kill VMS before IA64 in the hopes of getting customers to move > to HP-UX ? (and when IA64 is killed, HP-US might have enough customers > to pwarrant a port to the 8086). > > Perhaps one way to cause HP to think twice about killing VMS would be if > the user community was VERY organised (back to a single DECUS name for > starters) and made serious (but quiet/private) threaths that should HP > pull the plug on VMS, the community would mount a very public bopycott > HP campaign and show HP as a company you cannot trust your business to > and should avoid. > > Really, when you think about it, of someone like Stallard/Livermore at > HP can, at their whim, ruin your own personal carreer and make you > worthless in society by zapping your skills, what have you got to loose > by trying to stain HP as much as you can ? if that ever happened, most are still on alpha and vax and they would just ride that investment out as long as they could ... remeber, Process software has TCPware and multinet and PMDF and a lot of other products to keep vms viable for years ... after about 10 years though many would just hop to linux as HP unix has nothing to offer over their VMS investment ... and Synergy DBL also would support existing dibol customers and after 10 years they could very easily port to linux or whatever else comes along in ten years ... 10 years is a long time and a lot can change in that span, so if HP were smart, they would just continue supporting VMS or eventually lose almost everyone ... of course, since HP obviously has NIH syndrome that may overrule smart ... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:14:23 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: Of CERT and VMS Message-ID: <46748aed$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> JF Mezei wrote: > Say one were to find a way to use brute force to get to a > username/password on VMS without any usable logging. One were to write a > letter to VMS management asking them to forward this to the appropriate > product manager. Should not be possible without access to SYSUAF.DAT. > How long should one wait for some acknowledgement before starting to > publically warn the user community ? Give them a couple of months. > Should such warning be limited only to C.O.V, or should we use this > opportunity to market VMS by going to CERT ? I would not consider CERT advisories for marketing. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:43:53 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Of CERT and VMS Message-ID: <7b0bf$467491e3$cef8887a$6398@TEKSAVVY.COM> Arne Vajhøj wrote: > Should not be possible without access to SYSUAF.DAT. There are a number of applications besides loginout.exe which have access to sysuaf.dat. > Give them a couple of months. Interesting. I was expecting responses in terms of days/weeks. (Not in terms of a patch but in terms of acknowledgement that they agree it is a problems and that it would be fixed. > I would not consider CERT advisories for marketing. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It might force HP to make a public statement about VMS, and publically deny that staff cuts have affected the ability to fix known design issues. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:37:30 -0700 From: Charlie Subject: Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Message-ID: <1182029850.581512.324590@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> Does anyone know of any links for these manuals? chg ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:39:34 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Message-ID: In article <1182029850.581512.324590@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, Charlie writes: > > >Does anyone know of any links for these manuals? > >chg What version exactly? I could put them up for you. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:28:33 -0700 From: Charlie Subject: Re: Old UCX 4.0 manuals on line anywhere? Message-ID: <1182036513.176055.141500@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On Jun 16, 6:39 pm, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <1182029850.581512.324...@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, Charlie writes: > > > > >Does anyone know of any links for these manuals? > > >chg > > What version exactly? I could put them up for you. > > -- > VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM > > "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" uhhhh 4.0 :) that's what comes back from show version..... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:23:03 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: In article <1182015689.431670.46400@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, rtk wrote: > On Jun 16, 8:12 am, "Craig A. Berry" > wrote: > > You'll want to read the section in the FAQ on doing a minimum boot for > > situations just like this where you don't have licenses installed: > > > > http://www.hoffmanlabs.net/vmsfaq/vmsfaq_007.html#index_x_454 > > This was helpful. I am at least able to boot w/o DECwindows starting > up. I manually entered the license information for DW-MOTIF using > LICENSE and got no error. If I do a SHOW LICENSE I get: > > Product Producer Units Avail Activ Version > Release Termination > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > --------------------------------------------- > DW-MOTIF DEC 0 0 100 0.0 > (none) 19-JUN-2008 > OPENVMS-ALPHA DEC 0 0 A 0.0 (none) 19- > JUN-2008 > > I still get the message on the license check failing when I logon at > the DECwindows prompt. Also, I've looked through the license file and > I don't see anything obviously related to TCP/IP. > > I'm sure it is something silly. All help appreciated! > Try $ LOAD LICENSE from the DCL prompt. -- Paul Sture ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:45:13 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: In article , "P. Sture" writes: > Try > > $ LOAD LICENSE > > from the DCL prompt. If that doesn't work, try $ LICENSE LOAD from the DCL prompt. :) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:54:50 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: <07061613545071_202003EE@antinode.org> From: "P. Sture" > > I still get the message on the license check failing when I logon at > > the DECwindows prompt. Also, I've looked through the license file and > > I don't see anything obviously related to TCP/IP. > Try > > $ LOAD LICENSE And TCP/IP is the UCX PAK. (VMS-Ultrix Connection.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:10:15 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) wrote: > In article , "P. > Sture" writes: > > > Try > > > > $ LOAD LICENSE > > > > from the DCL prompt. > > If that doesn't work, try > > $ LICENSE LOAD > > from the DCL prompt. :) Well caught, thanks. -- Paul Sture ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:46:48 -0700 From: rtk Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: <1182034008.108178.279090@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Jun 16, 12:45 pm, hel...@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig--- remove CLOTHES to reply) wrote: > If that doesn't work, try > > $ LICENSE LOAD > > from the DCL prompt. :) That did the trick! DECwindows is working, I can log in, and, thanks to the tip on UCX, I have TCP/IP working and I can use ftp and telnet, to and from the Alpha. Now to figure out how to create a user account and how to use the other disk drive in the system which SHOW DEV says is online but not mounted. Ron ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:08:21 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: <07061619082104_202003EE@antinode.org> From: rtk > That did the trick! [...] What could go wrong? > Now to figure out how to create a user account Unless you took a short cut somewhere, there should be a time-tested (but unsupported) procedure at or near: SYS$EXAMPLES:ADDUSER.COM > and how to use the > other disk drive in the system which SHOW DEV says is online but not > mounted. INITIALIZE (once), then MOUNT (probably /SYSTEM, at every system start-up). For a good time: http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/index.html http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/os83_index.html Or pick a version from there, and look for "HP OpenVMS System Manager's Manual, Volume 1: Essentials", and its friends. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:19:30 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: OpenVMS hobbyist license woes Message-ID: <3345a$46747e1e$cef8887a$26066@TEKSAVVY.COM> rtk wrote: > Now to figure out how to create a user account and how to use the > other disk drive in the system which SHOW DEV says is online but not > mounted. $SET DEF SYS$SYSTEM $MC AUTHORIZE UAF> add jdoe /uic=[30,10]/account="MyUsers"/password="SalmaHayek" - /device=DUA0:/defdir=[users.jdoe]/owner="John Doe"/lgicmd=login UAF> show JDOE will give you an idea of what was actually created. UAF> HELP ADD and HELP MODIFY will give you the full list of parameters. The UIC is made of 2 numbers (in octal form, so digits from 0 to 7 only) . First number is the group number. Second is the user number within that group. Security is based on the UIC, not on the actual username. You can have many usernames that have the same UIC. When you create a user in a new group, the /account="" is used to name the group. When creating a user in an existing group, it isn't needed. /device and /defdir point to the user's home directory when he logins. /owner is just a nice string to provide the full name of other info about that user. /lgicmd defines the default command procedure to execute upon login. (the .com is implied). Once this is done, you need to: CREATE/DIR DUA0:[users.jdoe]/owner=jdoe This creates the directory owned by the new user. If the "users" directory doesn't exist yet: CREATE/dir dua0:[users]/owner=system/prot=w:re/versions=2 (someone may correct me on the protection to give the directory that would hold user directories). you can then login under that user and create your own login.com file to execute various stuff when you login. sys$manager:login.template provides an example. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 05:08:33 +0930 From: Mark Daniel Subject: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com> And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while (obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the 2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! This is something like 328 per day!! Bastards!!! In addition to these, I see in my mail perhaps five more per day, and most of those only because they match some fairly liberal entries in my allow list. Obviously without some filter of this sort having a well-known e-mail address would be completely unmanageable. PMAS seems to be doing an excellent job (I know this is a plug for a commercial product but just having trawled through the subject fields of all these messages and not noticed a false positive I was most impressed to think I didn't have to do this daily - I should add I am not affiliated in any way with PSC nor is this a solicited endorsement). It would also appear that sex, drugs and rock-n-roll^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H'job' recruitment continue to sell. -- There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia. [Kurt Vonnegut; The Sirens of Titan] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:06:17 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel writes: > And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). > > Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just > opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for > it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while > (obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the > 2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". > That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! > This is something like 328 per day!! That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. > these, I see in my mail perhaps five more per day, and most of those > only because they match some fairly liberal entries in my allow list. > Obviously without some filter of this sort having a well-known e-mail > address would be completely unmanageable. In the old days, addresses were harvested from usenet, web pages etc, and keeping them secret, or at least not posting them in plain text, did have a very noticeable effect. These days, addresses are collected by viruses on PCs, so if anyone has your address in some PC address book, then the spammers have it. Also, dictionary attacks are popular; they get everything, but a long address might cut down spam. Here are just the latest on my cluster: check_user: User xnwvcqvf is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL check_user: User antalyaivr is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 06:00:25 +0930 From: Mark Daniel Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1378epeqmed989f@corp.supernews.com> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote: > In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel > writes: > > >>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >> >>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >> This is something like 328 per day!! > > > That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an > RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. There has often been discussion in this forum regarding the use of such black-lists by TCP/IP Services. Only being an end-user of this product I'm not familiar with the mechanisms by which it operates (though I believe I remember someone saying the principles were based on SpamAssassin) and whether it uses RBLs. >>these, I see in my mail perhaps five more per day, and most of those >>only because they match some fairly liberal entries in my allow list. >>Obviously without some filter of this sort having a well-known e-mail >>address would be completely unmanageable. > > In the old days, addresses were harvested from usenet, web pages etc, > and keeping them secret, or at least not posting them in plain text, did > have a very noticeable effect. These days, addresses are collected by > viruses on PCs, so if anyone has your address in some PC address book, > then the spammers have it. Also, dictionary attacks are popular; they Early-on I decided not to bother obfuscating my address on the basis that it only needs to leak the once into a public place. Of course you underscore that now it only has to leak from a private place. > get everything, but a long address might cut down spam. Here are just How so? > the latest on my cluster: > > check_user: User xnwvcqvf is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL > > check_user: User antalyaivr is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL > -- Gimcrack religions were big business. [Kurt Vonnegut; The Sirens of Titan] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:06:14 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1182024374.015798.183280@c77g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On Jun 16, 4:30 pm, Mark Daniel wrote: > Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote: > > > > > In article <1378bo75v2pl...@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel > > writes: > > >>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). > > >>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just > >>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for > >>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while > >>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the > >>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". > >>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! > >> This is something like 328 per day!! > > > That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an > > RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. > > There has often been discussion in this forum regarding the use of such > black-lists by TCP/IP Services. > > Only being an end-user of this product I'm not familiar with the > mechanisms by which it operates (though I believe I remember someone > saying the principles were based on SpamAssassin) and whether it uses RBLs. > > >>these, I see in my mail perhaps five more per day, and most of those > >>only because they match some fairly liberal entries in my allow list. > >>Obviously without some filter of this sort having a well-known e-mail > >>address would be completely unmanageable. > > > In the old days, addresses were harvested from usenet, web pages etc, > > and keeping them secret, or at least not posting them in plain text, did > > have a very noticeable effect. These days, addresses are collected by > > viruses on PCs, so if anyone has your address in some PC address book, > > then the spammers have it. Also, dictionary attacks are popular; they > > Early-on I decided not to bother obfuscating my address on the basis > that it only needs to leak the once into a public place. Of course you > underscore that now it only has to leak from a private place. > > > get everything, but a long address might cut down spam. Here are just > > How so? He was referring to dictionary attacks. As with passwords: longer is stronger. As the length of the desired information gets longer, it takes much longer to try all the combinations for any given length. > > > the latest on my cluster: > > > check_user: User xnwvcqvf is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL > > > check_user: User antalyaivr is apparently a username but has no account: FAIL > > -- > Gimcrack religions were big business. > [Kurt Vonnegut; The Sirens of Titan] AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:16:24 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: In article <1378epeqmed989f@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel writes: > > get everything, but a long address might cut down spam. Here are just > > How so? For n characters, there are n 1-character usernames, n**2 2-character usernames etc. With 12 characters, there are n**12 usernames possible. Even the spammers won't try all of those. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 07:07:44 +0930 From: Mark Daniel Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1378inlfh9t5u05@corp.supernews.com> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote: > In article <1378epeqmed989f@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel > writes: > > >>>get everything, but a long address might cut down spam. Here are just >> >>How so? > > > For n characters, there are n 1-character usernames, n**2 2-character > usernames etc. With 12 characters, there are n**12 usernames possible. > Even the spammers won't try all of those. This suggests SPAMing not being attempted through the agent 'RCPT to:<...>'ing from a dictionary of common local-part strings (which one would think would be effort-intensive enough) but permuting strings through all possibilities. Surely that would be entirely too expensive merely to promote some softgels? Also, such SPAM-attacks would have an easily recognised signature (multiple, successive unknown recipients) and therefore be defeatable? -- I thank you for your attention, and I'm outta here. [Kurt Vonnegut; speech delivered posthumously] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jun 2007 20:47:13 GMT From: bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <5dj0ihF34721fU2@mid.individual.net> In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: > In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel > writes: > >> And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >> >> Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >> opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >> it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >> (obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >> 2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >> That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >> This is something like 328 per day!! > > That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an > RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or the load it puts on the system? bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:50:17 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: Mark Daniel wrote: > This suggests SPAMing not being attempted through the agent 'RCPT > to:<...>'ing from a dictionary of common local-part strings (which one > would think would be effort-intensive enough) but permuting strings > through all possibilities. Surely that would be entirely too expensive > merely to promote some softgels? Nop. You're not thinking like a spammer/criminal. If you cannot sent to annie@aol.com because AOL blocks you, what do you ? What do you do ? You create a message: MAIL_FROM: annie@aol.com RCPT_TO: random_junk@chocolate.com And if the receiving SMTP server does not immediatly verify the RCPT_TO (like VMS used to be, but thankfully fixed since TCPIP Serv. 5.4), then the receiving server accepts the message and will later send a bounce message to annie@aol.com. She gets to see a non delivery message with some cryptic gibberish username she probably things is some internal technical term and opens the attachement which contains the original message to see if it was something that she has sent. The act of opening that message sends money to the spammers. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 07:24:50 +0930 From: Mark Daniel Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1378jnna0ujn366@corp.supernews.com> JF Mezei wrote: > Mark Daniel wrote: > >> This suggests SPAMing not being attempted through the agent 'RCPT >> to:<...>'ing from a dictionary of common local-part strings (which one >> would think would be effort-intensive enough) but permuting strings >> through all possibilities. Surely that would be entirely too >> expensive merely to promote some softgels? > > Nop. You're not thinking like a spammer/criminal. Thankyou. > If you cannot sent to annie@aol.com because AOL blocks you, what do you > ? What do you do ? > > You create a message: > > MAIL_FROM: annie@aol.com > RCPT_TO: random_junk@chocolate.com > > And if the receiving SMTP server does not immediatly verify the RCPT_TO > (like VMS used to be, but thankfully fixed since TCPIP Serv. 5.4), then > the receiving server accepts the message and will later send a bounce > message to annie@aol.com. > > She gets to see a non delivery message with some cryptic gibberish > username she probably things is some internal technical term and opens > the attachement which contains the original message to see if it was > something that she has sent. The act of opening that message sends money > to the spammers. This is a different (albeit perhaps effective) scenario to a 'dictionary attack' using the RCPT dialog. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 07:37:44 +0930 From: Mark Daniel Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <1378kfui13fk00@corp.supernews.com> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article , > helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: > >>In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel >> writes: >> >> >>>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >>> >>>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >>> This is something like 328 per day!! >> >>That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an >>RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. > > > So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start > looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical > solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or > the load it puts on the system? > > bill Isn't this a little like suggesting a social solution to the problem of crime :-) I'd guess that as long as there is profit to be made there will be such activities. I have a telephone answering machine primarily to screen tele-marketers. Best AU$50 I ever spent. But the marketers will continue to call as long as people respond to those calls (with interest, dollars, etc.) Those who wish to speak to me leave a message (or I pick-up). Not had a single message from a marketer or charity asking me to call them back. The solution surely will be technological, perhaps digital signatures and associated PKI, to reduce the effectiveness of general SPAMing thus reserving the activity for specialised crime rather than the general mugging we all endure now. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:52:20 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <46745B94.3050108@comcast.net> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article , > helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: > >>In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel >> writes: >> >> >>>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >>> >>>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >>> This is something like 328 per day!! >> >>That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an >>RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. > > > So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start > looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical > solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or > the load it puts on the system? > > bill > Several years ago, I read that fewer than 200 men were responsible for 90% of the spam. If this is true, perhaps the solution is to ask the Mafia to deal with the problem, pro bono publico! Even if we had to take up a collection to pay them, it would be worth it. Actually, Comcast seems to be using a very good spam filter; I don't get very much spam. Most of the advertising I get is from outfits I've done business with; e.g. Corel, Amazon, Cyberguys, DeLorme, etc. A few years ago, I used to get spam in languages I could not read; Chinese, Arabic . . . . I don't see very much any more. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:28:59 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: On 06/16/07 16:52, Richard B. Gilbert wrote: [snip] > > Several years ago, I read that fewer than 200 men were responsible for > 90% of the spam. If this is true, perhaps the solution is to ask the > Mafia to deal with the problem, pro bono publico! Even if we had to > take up a collection to pay them, it would be worth it. That would be a one-time payment. They'd want to move in and take over the continuing revenue streams. > Actually, Comcast seems to be using a very good spam filter; I don't get > very much spam. Most of the advertising I get is from outfits I've done > business with; e.g. Corel, Amazon, Cyberguys, DeLorme, etc. > > A few years ago, I used to get spam in languages I could not read; > Chinese, Arabic . . . . I don't see very much any more. > -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jun 2007 23:22:45 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <5dj9m5F347nggU1@mid.individual.net> In article <46745B94.3050108@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> In article , >> helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: >> >>>In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel >>> writes: >>> >>> >>>>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >>>> >>>>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>>>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>>>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>>>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>>>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>>>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >>>> This is something like 328 per day!! >>> >>>That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an >>>RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. >> >> >> So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start >> looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical >> solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or >> the load it puts on the system? >> > > Several years ago, I read that fewer than 200 men were responsible for > 90% of the spam. If this is true, perhaps the solution is to ask the > Mafia to deal with the problem, pro bono publico! Even if we had to > take up a collection to pay them, it would be worth it. Considering that I get SPAM from more than 200 locations and there are probably more SPAM businesses than that I think it is a rather dubious statistic. > > Actually, Comcast seems to be using a very good spam filter; I don't get > very much spam. Most of the advertising I get is from outfits I've done > business with; e.g. Corel, Amazon, Cyberguys, DeLorme, etc. Yes, but filtering it at the destination still has it tracersing the net and using valuable and very finite resources for which they don't pay. > > A few years ago, I used to get spam in languages I could not read; > Chinese, Arabic . . . . I don't see very much any more. It's still there. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 00:02:46 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: In article <46745B94.3050108@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: >Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> In article , >> helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: >> >>>In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel >>> writes: >>> >>> >>>>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >>>> >>>>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>>>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>>>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>>>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>>>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>>>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >>>> This is something like 328 per day!! >>> >>>That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an >>>RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. >> >> >> So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start >> looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical >> solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or >> the load it puts on the system? >> >> bill >> > >Several years ago, I read that fewer than 200 men were responsible for >90% of the spam. If this is true, perhaps the solution is to ask the >Mafia to deal with the problem, pro bono publico! Even if we had to >take up a collection to pay them, it would be worth it. > >Actually, Comcast seems to be using a very good spam filter; I don't get >very much spam. Most of the advertising I get is from outfits I've done >business with; e.g. Corel, Amazon, Cyberguys, DeLorme, etc. > Do Comcast quarantine suspected spam or tag it or are you not seeing it because they are deleting it ? If the latter then you are probably also having some legitimate mail deleted. I don't think any provider of Anti-spam content scanning software claims more than a 98% accuracy rating which of course means they get it wrong for two messages out of every hundred. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >A few years ago, I used to get spam in languages I could not read; >Chinese, Arabic . . . . I don't see very much any more. > ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 2007 01:04:36 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <5djfl4F3575eiU1@mid.individual.net> In article , david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk writes: > In article <46745B94.3050108@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: >>Bill Gunshannon wrote: >>> In article , >>> helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: >>> >>>>In article <1378bo75v2pl6a1@corp.supernews.com>, Mark Daniel >>>> writes: >>>> >>>> >>>>>And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). >>>>> >>>>>Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just >>>>>opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for >>>>>it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while >>>>>(obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the >>>>>2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". >>>>>That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! >>>>> This is something like 328 per day!! >>>> >>>>That seems about average. I've resorted to using ZEN.SPAMHAUS.ORG as an >>>>RBL. That gets rid of the lion's share. >>> >>> >>> So, how bad does it have to get before I can expect people to start >>> looking at my suggestion for a social solution rather than technical >>> solutions that may hide the problem but certainly don't reduce it or >>> the load it puts on the system? >>> >>> bill >>> >> >>Several years ago, I read that fewer than 200 men were responsible for >>90% of the spam. If this is true, perhaps the solution is to ask the >>Mafia to deal with the problem, pro bono publico! Even if we had to >>take up a collection to pay them, it would be worth it. >> >>Actually, Comcast seems to be using a very good spam filter; I don't get >>very much spam. Most of the advertising I get is from outfits I've done >>business with; e.g. Corel, Amazon, Cyberguys, DeLorme, etc. >> > Do Comcast quarantine suspected spam or tag it or are you not seeing it because > they are deleting it ? > If the latter then you are probably also having some legitimate mail deleted. > I don't think any provider of Anti-spam content scanning software claims more > than a 98% accuracy rating which of course means they get it wrong for two > messages out of every hundred. That is one of the biggest and growing problems. You really have two potential losses of customers. One is the false positives from Anti- SPAM software, much of which may not even be within your control. The other is this idea of munging email addresses. I work with people who actually teach this stuff and have been working with computers longer than most people. If they hit reply and the message bounces they don't have a clue why and couldn't possibly look at an email address and tell that it is not someone's real address. And as for finding a munged address in the body of the message, deciphering it and then using it to send a message. Not a snowballs chance!!! So, because of actions that people are being forced to use today because of SPAM, how much business is being lost? And, as things stand now, it will only get worse because as fast as people come up with supposed anti- SPAM methods the SPAMers find a way around it. So, what is the technological solution? bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:16:21 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: <46748b63$0$90275$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Mark Daniel wrote: > And I thought the SPAM load was moderating (silly me). > > Looking for a specific e-mail I thought I should have received, I just > opened my PreciseMail Anti-SPAM quarrantined messages page to search for > it (without success). I don't do this often and haven't for a while > (obviously not since the last upgrade). Towards the top of the > 2,967,263 byte report page is a (new to me) item "(Messages: 4605)". > That's four and one half thousand quarrantined SPAM in the past 14 days! > This is something like 328 per day!! That is not unusual ! Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:26:45 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: PLUG: PMAS Message-ID: On 06/16/07 20:04, Bill Gunshannon wrote: [snip] > > So, what is the technological solution? Hardened operating systems and some sort of email-account pre-registration with organizations that issue web-of-trust PGP/GPG digital signatures. Every user would need to think of a strong passphrase before being allowed to send email. All emails would have to be signed. Using computers and the internet would become *much* more complicated and usage would plummet. Computers would then only be used by geeks and other sundry propeller-heads and technophiles. Life will be good again! -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:22:52 -0400 From: "Stanley F. Quayle" Subject: Quayle Consulting blog Message-ID: <46742A7C.1456.E8CF0F6@squayle.insight.rr.com> I've started a VMS blog at http://www.stanq.com/blog/ I invite you'all to take a look... --Stan Quayle Quayle Consulting Inc. ---------- Stanley F. Quayle, P.E. N8SQ Toll free: 1-888-I-LUV-VAX 8572 North Spring Ct., Pickerington, OH 43147 USA stan-at-stanq-dot-com http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html "OpenVMS, when downtime is not an option" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:41:42 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: TCPIP Services SFTP Message-ID: In article <%DQci.1$sV1.0@newsfe12.lga>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes: > Oh. It's sooooooo much better now. Now I can't even log in via ssh. Is the service enabled? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jun 2007 20:52:34 +0200 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: Re: TCPIP Services SFTP Message-ID: <46744d92$1@news.langstoeger.at> In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: >In article <%DQci.1$sV1.0@newsfe12.lga>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG >writes: > >> Oh. It's sooooooo much better now. Now I can't even log in via ssh. > >Is the service enabled? Of course. The bad news is, that a new SSH config file is required (ECO 5/6) The good news is, that the template works out of the box (for most of us)... -- Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER Network and OpenVMS system specialist E-mail peter@langstoeger.at A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:29:28 GMT From: Malcolm Dunnett Subject: Re: Thanks for the Help Robert ! Message-ID: Robert Deininger wrote: > management capabilities. > > Here's a URL that I guess needs more advertisement: > http://docs.hp.com/ > > You won't find all of HP's documents here, but if you type the model name > of any of the Integrity servers (for example rx3600) into the search box, > it will return pretty much all of the available manuals for that system. > (Along with some junk hits.) > WHAT! RTFM! Surely you jest! :-) Seriously, I do make great use of the various on-line manuals at the HP site and have found them very valuable. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:10:39 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: Why partitioned disks on VMS would be useful Message-ID: <1182024639.284501.270780@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On Jun 13, 11:51 am, Stephen Hoffman wrote: > davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > > As far as I am concerned there are only two good uses for partitioning :- > > > 1) Cutting up a very large disk into smaller disks so as to be able to use a > > smaller clustersize (usually on older versions of VMS). > > > 2) Being able to boot multiple OSs from a single disk (eg Windows, Linux) > > Add: Multiple different operating systems, and multiple versions of one > operating system. > > And partitions can be good for scratch areas, and for setting aside > storage for specific tasks -- this is a classic IBM mainframe approach > that avoids disk-full errors in mid-flight, something which does have > its application for monster-scale batch and critical applications. > > Most of these partitioning tasks can be transparently implemented by all > but the lowest-end RAID storage controllers, without involving the host > system. At all. (The Drobo USB widget is slick, but currently has > knowledge of the file system. Which means it won't work with OpenVMS.) > > I'd personally place ZFS at least a kilometer above disk partitioning on > the to-do list, however. ZFS changes many of the ways that storage is > processed, and it massively extends the existing 32-bit limits within > current OpenVMS storage I/O. (1 TB now, and architecturally 2 TB.) > > As for multiple storage bays, the low-end server boxes have three or > eight bays. Even the BL860c blade has two bays built in. > > Laptops, the iPAQ Desktop, the thin clients, and the MicroVAX and > VAXstation 2000 series had a single fixed-disk bay, but most anything > else I can think of within the low- to mid-range has multiple bays. You > could even stuff two disks into a BA23. I can't recall any current or > even remotely recent OpenVMS systems with just one fixed-disk bay. > (Yes, some of the big servers either have/had no bays, or you could > stuff a BA356 or newer in the cabinet, or you had to connect to external > storage via SCSI or FC or such.) > > --www.HoffmanLabs.com > Services for OpenVMS I think it might be a good idea to partition a PC's drive into system, apps, data, and maybe scratch. This way you could defrag the system partition by itself (I think that needs it the most), easily backup your data (except bookmarks/favorites and application settings), and clobber a scratch area with a FORMAT command. Of course getting a clean separation from current PC's might not be easy, but maybe it should be a design goal. Sound good? AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 20:23:16 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: Why partitioned disks on VMS would be useful Message-ID: Sunday, 27-NOV-2005 12:09:22.00 In article <1182024639.284501.270780@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > I think it might be a good idea to partition a PC's drive into system, > apps, data, and maybe scratch. Interestingly, these are precisely the shadow sets I have on my cluster: DISK$SYSTEM (a.k.a. SYS$SYSDEVICE), DISK$SOFT, DISK$DATA and DISK$SCRATCH. I also have DISK$USER. Good minds think alike. :-) DISK$SYSTEM: rather static (SYSUAF, log files etc mostly off the system disk), non-static stuff not important; needs some effort to reproduce (install LPs etc) DISK$SOFT: stuff neither from me (nor other users) nor from DEC/Compaq/ HP, changes infrequently, moderately easy to reproduce DISK$DATA: stuff which is somewhere else, easily reproducible if destroyed (contains large data sets to be worked on which are stored somewhere else, photographs etc which are also on CDs) DISK$SCRATCH: temporary stuff which can disappear at any time DISK$USER: all the hard work put in by the users, very difficult if not impossible to reproduce, changes often ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jun 2007 20:50:03 +0200 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: [VMS 7.3-2] SYLOGIN run twice at batch job release after /RETAIN=ERROR? Message-ID: <46744cfb$1@news.langstoeger.at> I just had a case where a (very simple) batch job failed (the reason is still unknown, but not the point here) and got retained (/RETAIN-ERROR) After a $ SET ENT/REL of this failed ("retained on error") job, the new logfile showed that the SYLOGIN ran twice before it entered LOGIN (and no, neither LOGIN nor SYLOGIN calls SYLOGIN anywhere ;-) Does anyone have already seen such a behaviour? (I don't know why it happens and I seem unable to reproduce it so far) just curious TIA -- Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER Network and OpenVMS system specialist E-mail peter@langstoeger.at A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.327 ************************