INFO-VAX Fri, 10 Aug 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 435 Contents: Re: File Version limit Reset Glad to see Carly is not going hungry Re: Glad to see Carly is not going hungry Re: July the 4th Re: LDAP tools for VMS Re: OpenVMS and Smart Array Controllers Re: Suggestion: F$FAO question Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion championch X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 14:38:32 -0400 From: "Brian Tillman" Subject: Re: File Version limit Reset Message-ID: "Dave Gullen" wrote in message news:1186497485.215525.294410@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > It helps to make sure you've got enough spare slots underneath the > lowest version. Then you can automate, by having a job that scans for > all files abouve a particular version, say 25000, and automatically > lower versions or warn if there's no room. By definition, wouldn't the only requirement be one open slot, since the procedure RENAMEs the lowest to ;1 (freeing up the prior lowest slot)? -- Brian Tillman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 18:47:31 -0400 From: "John Smith" Subject: Glad to see Carly is not going hungry Message-ID: <71be0$46bb997c$cef8a1e5$26042@TEKSAVVY.COM-Free> She's picking up union scale appearance fees ..... http://youtube.com/watch?v=9EssksjXjIA Let's all celebrate the diversity of operating systems too..... -- OpenVMS - The never-advertised operating system with the dwindling ISV base. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:25:02 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Glad to see Carly is not going hungry Message-ID: On 08/09/07 17:47, John Smith wrote: > She's picking up union scale appearance fees ..... > > http://youtube.com/watch?v=9EssksjXjIA > > > Let's all celebrate the diversity of operating systems too..... What a P.C. pabblum driveler she is. No wonder she made a "successfull" CEO. -- 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: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:45:59 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: <1186703159.436877.34700@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 9, 7:18 am, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > In article <1186620249.987032.4...@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > >On Aug 8, 11:18 am, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > >> In article <1186442318.376946.4...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > >> >On Aug 6, 11:12 am, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > >> >> In article <1186363007.921609.27...@b79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes:>On Aug 5, 7:55 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > >> >> >> In article <1186334184.382451.138...@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > > >> >> >> >[...] > > >> >[...discussion about the document about Israeli "racism" omitted, but > >> >referred to below...] > [...] > > >> >> >Well, if the Wikipedia article is right, even the Soviets (not > >> >> >normally Jew-friendly, BTW) considered the Arab invasion into the > >> >> >fledgling Israel to be _illegal_ aggression. > > >> >> Can you not read - I agreed that it was an agression as defined by the UN > >> >> charter. If you want I'll say it's an illegal agression as defined by the UN > >> >> charter. Any invasion of a sovereign nation is an illegal agression as defined > >> >> by the UN charter unless sanctioned by the UN. > > >> >OK, maybe I missed it. But you seemed to be saying it was justified. > > >> Apartheid was legal in South Africa. > > >My point was that even the Soviets thought it was, in their opinion, > >unjustified. Why else would they claim it was illegal? > > >> (You may say that OK Apartheid was legal in South Africa but South Africa was > >> just one country whereas the legal status of Israel was defined by the " > >> world community" via the UN. However imagine for a minute that Hitler had won > >> the second world war and along with Japan and Italy and a few others had > >> setup his own new league of nations. Would you then be arguing that the Jews > >> outside his immediate control should meekly submit to rulings against them > >> because those rules were passed legally by that world community ?) > > >Of course not. > > >This is patently absurd. First of all, if Hitler had won WWII he > >wouldn't have let the Jews live long enough to fight back. And exactly > >how would they have fought back? They'd probably all be dead before > >the conquest was finished. > > There were many in the British cabinet calling for a peace deal with Hiltler in > 1940. Only Winston Churchill's determination to continue to fight kept Britain > in the war. If such a peace deal had occurred Hitler would have had a free hand > on the continent and in his war against Russia later on. That would probably > have satisfied Hitler - He would have had his lebensraum. > However that would have still left Britain's Jews, America's Jews etc out of his > direct control. Funny you should mention Russia. I believe Hitler and Stalin made a non-aggression pact, right? We all know how that turned out. Why would it be any different with Britain? The Nazis were pathogenic liars. I don't know of any basis for deciding how far around the world Hitler would have gone to exterminate all the Jews. He might have gone to the ends of the Earth for all we know. He murdered 90% of all those Jews he had access to. This is supposed to be an acceptable loss according to you? I heard once that trains carrying Jews to Auschwitz to be murdered were given priority over military trains, even when they were clearly losing the war, but I don't have a reference. It would be quite difficult to defend yourself without your own country when all those who surround you want you tortured and then dead. > >You're drawing a parallel between Hitler and the world of 1947? > > >OK, maybe you're saying that just because "the world" gave a small > >piece of land to the Zionists doesn't automatically make it right. > > Yes I am saying that in the viewpoint of the Arabs it wasn't right and that > their action in response was based upon that viewpoint. I am further saying > that the viewpoint of the Arabs on this issue is the viewpoint I would expect > any people who have lived in an area for generations to have in the > circumstances. Well, please keep in mind that the neighboring Arab countries haven't exactly been helpful to the Palestinians (P's) at any time AFAIK. They just use them as pawns. So I think they were far more interested in exterminating Israel than in helping the P's. > I'm frankly amazed that your anti-palestinian bias is so strong that you cannot > see that as a valid viewpoint. Your opinion. [...] > >> Until the British carved up the ottoman empire they were citizens of the > >> empire. The Arabs wanted the British out but they probably didn't really want > >> a Palestinian state as such - what they wanted and what lots of Arabs still > >> want is a single united Arab state, of which Palestine would have been a > >> province, comprising pretty much all of the Middle East ie the territory of > >> the ottoman empire. Before the first world war the whole of the Middle East was > >> the Arab's state as you put it. > >> Saying the Palestinians didn't have a state is like saying that Yorkshiremen > >> (those coming from the English county of Yorkshire) don't have a state. It's > >> true in the sense that Yorkshire is not a state but untrue in that it is part > >> of a larger entity - England and the UK. > >> Given the character of Yorkshiremen I can assure you that they would definitely > >> fight if someone gave half their county away. > > >And at the same time given them the other half all to themselves, and > >the other non-parallel is that I think Yorkshirites have a lot more in > >common with Britons than the P's or Arabs do. And why are Yorkshireman > >supposed to be the gold standard for what to do in this type of > >situation? > > What the hell is > > "I think Yorkshirites have a lot more in common with Britons than > the P's or Arabs do." > > supposed to mean. I was using Yorkshiremen and Britain/UK as an analogy for > Arabs and ottoman empire since you have this fixation that the arabs had no > state on the land of Palestine. The P's were under the Brits in 1948, not the Ottoman empire. It means that the situations again weren't analogous. [...] > >> The fact that following the first world war the British and French had carved > >> up the ottoman empire and the British were ruling as an occupying power had > >> little bearing upon how the Arabs viewed their ownership of land they had lived > >> on for uncounted generations. > > >But when Palestine was split between the Jews and Arabs, suddenly it > >was a big deal. > > In everywhere other than Palestine the same people continued to live on the > land they have lived on for generations. In Palestine you have a new nation > created which isn't for the existing people it is for refugees who have been > coming in ever greater numbers and for all those refugees "relatives" from > around the world. Right next to a nation created for them, which they never had before, then, or since, but could have had numerous times. The Jews had a country there once. During one period they had two countries there! The P's never had even one. And they still don't. [...] > >In the international arena, who is > >decide how just they are? Yes, people should fight against "unjust" > >laws. So they thought the creation of Israel was unjust. That's their > >opinion. Doesn't make it right. > > Forget right and wrong. In conflicts all that counts is viewpoints !!! > You may agree or disagree (as you evidently do) with their viewpoint but to > solve the conflict everybody needs to understand the others viewpoint. But they weren't willing to compromise one iota. > >> If you had setup Israel almost anywhere in the world without the explicit > >> consent of the local population you would have had the same reaction. > > >Anywhere else in the world would lose the parallel in that the > >inhabitants in the rest of the world have their own country. And I'm > >not convinced it would be the same reaction everywhere. Also, I'd like > >to point out that perhaps you don't give the S. African blacks enough > >credit for not slaughtering all the S. African whites. Many have been > >killed "in the spotlight of world attention". > > >> However there were "good" reasons for setting it up in Palestine. > > >> The Jews were being persecuted in Europe and saw settling in Palestine as a > >> way to escape that persecution. From their point of view Palestine was the > >> chosen land given to them by God. > > >Again, it was the SECULAR Jews who fought for the creation of Israel > >and the RELIGIOUS ones who fought very hard against it. > > But even the secular Jews based their claim on the biblical history of the Jews > in Palestine see the quote below from Weizmann. Otherwise, why as Balfour > asked, must the Jewish homeland be in Palestine. The events of the Bible correlate well to actual events as far back at least to the days of Saul [Ref.: Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984)]. It may not be accurate in every detail, but that doesn't matter. There is a lot of actual history of the Jews in that area. (And not so much for the P's and/or Arabs AFAIK.) This is actual history, not "Biblical fantasy". We're not talking Noah's ark, creation, or the Exodus here. There was no God argument made by the secular Zionists, AFAIK. [...] And kindly mark the beginning and end of your quotations from references in the future. And do some snipping. Thanks. > >> The declaration used the word home rather than state and specified that it's > >> establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing > >> non-jewish communities in Palestine". > > >I believe, in Israel, all religions are allowed freedom to worship as > >they wish, as long as it doesn't involve unreasonable things like > >killing all the infidels. This was not the case when Jerusalem was > >under Arab control. Only Islam was allowed. > > Reread your history. Jews have lived under Arab rule all over the world with > much much less persecution from Arabs than they have suffered under Christian > rule. Small Jewish communities have lived in Jerusalem for centuries under Arab > rule and were completely free to practise their religion. (Similarly small > Christian communities lived under Arab rule in Jerusalem and were free to > practise their religion). I've read that in recent times up until 1948 they weren't (1967 for the old city). I can't comment on the rest. [...] > >> However since they did not agree to it but just had this nation forced upon > >> them the Palestinians had a rather different point of view and reacted > >> accordingly. > > >You conveniently omit the fact that they were offered half for > >themselves and turned it down. If all of Palestine were given to the > >Jews, you'd have a better case. But you repeatedly keep ignoring that. > > Giving someone half of what they already own and claiming that makes it right > for you to take the other half doesn't strike me as a good or equitable deal. Ownership is not absolute. Consider Eminent Domain, e.g. Also Landmark Preservation. They "owned" it only because way back they conquered it. The Arabs have tremendously more land than the Israelis. Isn't that enough? Hey, it was ruled by Britain at the time, not the Arabs. At one time the Arabs conquered the area. What about the people they took the land from? > >> Both points of view are valid points of view. Noone is going to convince the > >> Israelis that their point of view is wrong - neither is anyone going to convince > >> the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab populations. > >> But to solve the problem both sides need to recognise the others point of view > >> and work towards a compromise position. > > >The 1947 partition plan was such a compromise. > > No the 1947 deal was something imposed. A compromise has to be agreed by all > parties involved. The Jews and Arabs both wanted the same piece of land. The partition plan gave each approx. half. That's a compromise. It wasn't a compromise agreed to by all parties, but it was a compromise, and I think a fair one. > I think I'll probably stop now. This discussion seems to be getting nowhere. > > David Webb > Security team leader > CCSS > Middlesex University AEF ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:16:10 -0700 From: daryljones@att.net Subject: Re: LDAP tools for VMS Message-ID: <1186683370.405166.312150@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com> On Aug 5, 10:17 pm, Malcolm Smeaton wrote: > Hello > > Does anyone know where I can get hold of some useful LDAP utilities for > VMS? > > For example ldapsearch, ldapadd, ldapmodify, ldapdelete > > -- > Regards > Malcolm Smeaton, Server Group Leader > Information and Communication Technology Services > University of Canterbury Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha > Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand > Phone: 64-3-364-2333 > Fax: 64-3-364-2332 > Email: malcolm.smea...@canterbury.ac.nz You will find the ldap* functions in the HP DCE for OpenVMS v3.2. I was able to get ldapsearch from OpenVMS 8.3 to work in accessing an LDAP directory on a Linux system. After a month of trying, I wasn't able to get ldapmodify to work. I opened a call with HP network group which knew anything about it.I even open a post on this site w/o any reply. Good Luck! Regards, Daryl Jones ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:31:53 -0400 From: Robert Deininger Subject: Re: OpenVMS and Smart Array Controllers Message-ID: In article <6KEui.4156$Aj6.540@trnddc01>, dittman@dittman.net wrote: > Robert Deininger wrote: > > In article , dittman@dittman.net wrote: > > > > In any case, as it's not supported I'd rather use the much cheaper > > > LSISAS1068 controller instead. > > > That's fine, but don't expect the same performance you'd get from a > > SmartArray controller. The cheap card has is basically a SAS controller > > with limited RAID thrown in as an afterthought. > > I haven't tested the throughput of the P600 but the LSISAS1068 > controller had about 75% of the performance of the built-in > U320 controllers with the HP 73GB 15K RPM U320 drives in my > quick BACKUP test. What sort of SAS/SATA disks did you use in the test? Sustained throughput tends to be limited by the rotational speed of the spindles. If you didn't have 15K disks, it was likely the disks, not the controller, limiting your throughput. > I'll test the P600 to compare (and run some better tests on both). > > Fortunately the speed is adequate for the purposes. I'm using this > for storing stuff I don't need fast access to but don't want to > have to pull off tape or CD/DVD. > > > > > Last I heard, in informal use, HP SATA drives work just as well as HP > > > > SAS drives with these controllers. To maximize the likelihood of > > > > success, make sure you have: > > > > 1. VMS V8.3 with the latest patches. > > > > 2. The latest FW and EFI driver for your controller. > > > > 3. The latest FW for your disks. > > > > > > I have loaded the latest of everything. I suspect that the actual > > > revision of the LSISAS1068 might be the issue. The one I have (a > > > SAS3080X-HP) has an A1 rev. The latest firmware for the LSISAS1068 > > > only supports the B0 and B1 revs. I'm going to keep my eye out for > > > a controller with a newer rev. to test. > > > The FW should be released in parallel for the A and B revs. I think it > > is in separate packages. And the A rev of the chip IS supported. > > I was talking about the firmware released by LSI for that specific > controller. They only have firmware for the B0 and B1 revs. in > the latest firmware. I'll try switching to the firmware used for > the HP controller (if it's available separately). If you're using FW released by LSI, as opposed to an HP release, I don't know if you're getting the fixes you need. And I don't know if the HP FW packages would work on a non-HP controller. > Another thing I'll try is getting a small SAS drive just to see if the > problem is SAS drives vs. SATA drives. > > > > Is the controller on the rx2660 and rx3600 integrated or on a > > > separate board? > > > Integrated on the rx2660. On rx3600 and rx6600, the card goes in one of > > the reserved core PCI slots. > > Is that card available separately? Yes and no. The rx6600 can use 1 or 2 of the cards, and it is possible to add the second card after the system is bought. But the card doesn't have an HP product number, AFAIK. (It has a part number, which is not the same as a product number.) So it may not be orderable like a conventional add-in card. Tell your sales contact that you need to order a second card for your rx6600 system, and see if you can get the right ordering information. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:48:46 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Suggestion: F$FAO question Message-ID: <46BBB5EE.9DB6899B@spam.comcast.net> Tom Linden wrote: > > On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:24:12 -0700, Tom Linden wrote: > > > HAFNER> echo f$fao("!5AS","5") > > 5 > > > > This left-justifies the output. Now looking at the HELP description I > > see > > > > !n<...!> None Left-justifies and blank-fills all > > data > > represented by the instructions . . . > > in > > fields n characters wide. > > isn't this superfluous? I ask because what I really wanted was > > right-justified. > > > > Too bad we don't have Rexx on VMS. > > I think that this !nAS directive should be extended as follows > !nASL same as !nAS > !nASR right justifies I'd suggest these instead: ![n]AL ASCII text, left justified (same as ![n]AS) ![n]AR ASCII text, right justified ...rather than try to accomodate inconsistencies in the operator length. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:50:46 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <46BBB666.4F81C66A@spam.comcast.net> Thomas Dickey wrote: > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > Thomas Dickey wrote: > >> > >> David J Dachtera wrote: > >> > You'll want to look into SMG. See the following... > >> > >> >> but all of them are complex > >> > >> > Not much worse than "termcap" and "curses", really... > >> > >> ...but certainly far more limiting. If the terminal supports features > >> not explicitly in one of DEC's terminals, SMG doesn't support it. > > > D'y'ever look at SYS$SYSTEM:SMGTERMS.TXT? > > certainly (I mentioned that a few years ago). > > > Need support for a terminal not in there? > > ditto - it can't do what I want. > (google is your friend) Perhaps, but I've no clue here what to search for. What do you want to do that SMG doesn't accomodate? -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:15:34 -0400 From: John Reagan Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: Paul Raulerson wrote: > (2) Langauges: I;m a COBOL bigot, and I >>like<< the COBOL compiler. It has a few warts (Y'all look into cutting down the number of error > messages generated because of a single typo please! :) but the language support is superb. It is easily used for even odd things (to COBOL) > like CGI processing. > > To a lesser degree, I like the Pascal and Fotran compilers as well. The Pascal compiler actually makes Pascal a useful langauage! > The Fortran compiler seems tight too. Better than Fortran on an ancient Perkin/Elmer! :) > You're welcome. -- John Reagan OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader Hewlett-Packard Company ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:29:05 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: John Reagan wrote: > Paul Raulerson wrote: > >> (2) Langauges: I;m a COBOL bigot, and I >>like<< the COBOL compiler. >> It has a few warts (Y'all look into cutting down the number of error >> messages generated because of a single typo please! :) but the >> language support is superb. It is easily used for even odd things (to >> COBOL) > > > like CGI processing. > > > >> To a lesser degree, I like the Pascal and Fotran compilers as well. >> The Pascal compiler actually makes Pascal a useful langauage! > > > The Fortran compiler seems tight too. Better than Fortran on an > ancient Perkin/Elmer! :) > >> > > You're welcome. John, you're probably the right person to suggest this to :-) ... How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors generated before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= Some languages seem quite nice about only getting 1 or a handful of errors for each coding error. Others (C particularly springs to mind) can generate hundreds or thousands of errors from a single typo. Usually, fixing the 1st few errors in a case like this fixes a great many instances, so in a typical code-compile-edit-compile loop, you only need to see a small set of compiler messages. It would be fairly trivial to implement, assuming that the compilers use a common error message printing routine, just initialize a global counter to 0, increment each time it prints an error, and exit with call sys$exit(SS$_TOOMANYERRORS) if the error limit is exceeded. (Allowing for informationals and warnings to not be counted.) (If it isn't clear, I'm proposing this across the board for all compiles, or as many as it is feasible for, not just COBOL.) -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 16:45:13 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: <07080916451345_202003EE@antinode.org> From: John Santos > John, you're probably the right person to suggest this to :-) ... > > How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors generated > before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= You mean like: CC /ERROR_LIMIT /ERROR_LIMIT[=number] /NOERROR_LIMIT Limits the number of Error-level diagnostic messages that are acceptable during program compilation. Compilation terminates when the limit (number) is exceeded. /NOERROR_LIMIT specifies that there is no limit on error messages. The default is /ERROR_LIMIT=30, which specifies that compilation terminates after 31 error messages. ??? alp $ cc /version HP C V7.1-015 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:12:01 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:29:05 -0700, John Santos wrote: > How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors genera= ted > before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT=3D > We have had that in PL/I for 30 years. The default is 100 but can be = changed by the user -- = PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:37:18 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: LOL!!! Steven M. Schweda wrote: > From: John Santos > >>John, you're probably the right person to suggest this to :-) ... >> >>How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors generated >>before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= > > > You mean like: > > CC > > /ERROR_LIMIT > > /ERROR_LIMIT[=number] > /NOERROR_LIMIT > > Limits the number of Error-level diagnostic messages that are > acceptable during program compilation. Compilation terminates when > the limit (number) is exceeded. /NOERROR_LIMIT specifies that > there is no limit on error messages. > > The default is /ERROR_LIMIT=30, which specifies that compilation > terminates after 31 error messages. > > ??? > I looked at HELP BASIC before posting just to make sure I wasn't missing something that had been implemented years ago, but didn't bother to look at C! Since my proposed syntax was exactly the same as what C actually does, it was probably lurking in the back of my brain somewhere. I'm sure I must have read the help at some point. :-) :-) :-) It's probably way too late to claim independent discovery :-( > alp $ cc /version > HP C V7.1-015 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 So okay, let's start over.... Hey, John Reagan! How ya doin'? Could you please implement C's "/ERROR_LIMIT" qualifier in other languages? Thanks in advance. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org > 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 > Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:56:18 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: Tom Linden wrote: > On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:29:05 -0700, John Santos wrote: > >> How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors generated >> before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= >> > We have had that in PL/I for 30 years. The default is 100 but can be > changed > by the user Decided to check... I've got C, BASIC, FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL, and Macro32 installed on my Itanium (V8.3), that I know of. However, there is no HELP for FORTRAN, COBOL or PASCAL. These were all installed by HP on it (porting workshop system). I later upgraded it from V8.2-1 to V8.3; perhaps the language help got zapped at that time. HELP CC says it supports /ERROR_LIMIT. HELP BASIC and HELP MACRO don't mention it. It seems to work in C, FORTRAN and PASCAL (syntacticly, i.e. it is accepted on the DCL command line.) However, it does not seem to work in Pascal; passing a junk file to the Pascal compiler causes it to generate one error for each line, no matter what value I put on the /error_limit qualifier. (It is possible /ERRO is a valid Pascal qualifier, and the behavior I'm seeing is perfectly correct, since I don't have HELP PASCAL to check against...) /ERROR_LIMIT causes %DCL-W-IVQUAL, unrecognized qualifier - check validity, spelling, and placement" for BASIC, MACRO and COBOL. Oh, and JAVAC and PERL both barf on it as well. :-) -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 18:17:38 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: <07080918173874_202003EE@antinode.org> From: John Santos > It seems to work in C, FORTRAN and PASCAL (syntacticly, i.e. it is > accepted on the DCL command line.) However, it does not seem to work > in Pascal; passing a junk file to the Pascal compiler causes it to > generate one error for each line, no matter what value I put on the > /error_limit qualifier. (It is possible /ERRO is a > valid Pascal qualifier, and the behavior I'm seeing is perfectly > correct, since I don't have HELP PASCAL to check against...) PASCAL /ERROR_LIMIT[=n] D=/ERROR_LIMIT=30 /NOERROR_LIMIT Terminates compilation after the occurrence of a specified number of errors, excluding warnings and informational messages. If you specify /NOERROR_LIMIT, the compilation continues until 500 errors are detected. By default, /ERROR_LIMIT=30 is enabled. alp $ pascal /version Compaq Pascal V5.8-88 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 Stealing (and mutilating) a bit of code (not that it worked right _before_ I mutilated it): alp $ pasc HELLOMOTIF [...] -PASCAL-F-ERRORLIMIT, Error Limit = 30, source analysis terminated at line number 203 in file ALP$DKA0:[SMS]HELLOMOTIF.PAS;2 %PASCAL-E-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 31 diagnostics alp $ pasc HELLOMOTIF /err = 2 [...] -PASCAL-F-ERRORLIMIT, Error Limit = 2, source analysis terminated at line number 74 in file ALP$DKA0:[SMS]HELLOMOTIF.PAS;2 %PASCAL-E-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 3 diagnostics ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:47:20 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: Steven M. Schweda wrote: > From: John Santos > >>It seems to work in C, FORTRAN and PASCAL (syntacticly, i.e. it is >>accepted on the DCL command line.) However, it does not seem to work >>in Pascal; passing a junk file to the Pascal compiler causes it to >>generate one error for each line, no matter what value I put on the >>/error_limit qualifier. (It is possible /ERRO is a >>valid Pascal qualifier, and the behavior I'm seeing is perfectly >>correct, since I don't have HELP PASCAL to check against...) > > > PASCAL > > /ERROR_LIMIT[=n] D=/ERROR_LIMIT=30 > > /NOERROR_LIMIT > > Terminates compilation after the occurrence of a specified > number of errors, excluding warnings and informational messages. > > If you specify /NOERROR_LIMIT, the compilation continues until > 500 errors are detected. > > By default, /ERROR_LIMIT=30 is enabled. > > alp $ pascal /version > Compaq Pascal V5.8-88 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 > > Stealing (and mutilating) a bit of code (not that it worked right > _before_ I mutilated it): > > alp $ pasc HELLOMOTIF > [...] > -PASCAL-F-ERRORLIMIT, Error Limit = 30, source analysis terminated > at line number 203 in file ALP$DKA0:[SMS]HELLOMOTIF.PAS;2 > %PASCAL-E-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 31 diagnostics > > alp $ pasc HELLOMOTIF /err = 2 > [...] > -PASCAL-F-ERRORLIMIT, Error Limit = 2, source analysis terminated > at line number 74 in file ALP$DKA0:[SMS]HELLOMOTIF.PAS;2 > %PASCAL-E-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 3 diagnostics > I was trying a four-line junk text file (actually a one-line Fortran program consisting of "end" with several lines of random text added in front of it) and it was consistently displaying 3 errors, no matter what I set /error_limit to. However, passing PASCAL a real BASIC program of 129 lines, /error_limit=n seems to stop after n errors, so I guess it is just some minimal edge condition that doesn't count right. $ type foo.for more junk. and even more junk; Some garbage end $ pascal/error_limit=1 foo.for more junk. ........^ %PASCAL-E-SYNPROMOD, Syntax: PROGRAM or MODULE expected at line number 1 in file $6$DKA100:[JOHN]FOO.FOR;3 Some garbage ........^ %PASCAL-E-SYNBEGDECL, Syntax: BEGIN or declaration expected at line number 3 in file $6$DKA100:[JOHN]FOO.FOR;3 end ...........^ %PASCAL-E-SYNPERIOD, Syntax: "." expected at line number 4 in file $6$DKA100:[JOHN]FOO.FOR;3 %PASCAL-E-ENDDIAGS, PASCAL completed with 3 diagnostics $ Definitely a case of garbage in, garbage out! Must be the particular smell of this garbage, maybe the absence of a "PROGRAM" statement... The problem with making something fool-proof is we fools are so ingenious! ;-) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org > 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 > Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:03:58 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: Hi John, > You're welcome. Wasn't it Al Gore who invented VAX COBOL :-) While people are asking for COBOL error things, I cote for smarter "processing resumes at this point" like it used to be on VAX. Cheers Richard Maher "John Reagan" wrote in message news:f9fp8g$d3s$1@usenet01.boi.hp.com... > Paul Raulerson wrote: > > > (2) Langauges: I;m a COBOL bigot, and I >>like<< the COBOL compiler. It has a few warts (Y'all look into cutting down the number of error > > messages generated because of a single typo please! :) but the language support is superb. It is easily used for even odd things (to COBOL) > > like CGI processing. > > > > To a lesser degree, I like the Pascal and Fotran compilers as well. The Pascal compiler actually makes Pascal a useful langauage! > > The Fortran compiler seems tight too. Better than Fortran on an > ancient Perkin/Elmer! :) > > > > You're welcome. > > > -- > John Reagan > OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader > Hewlett-Packard Company ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:42:57 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: <46BBB491.1060008@comcast.net> John Santos wrote: > > LOL!!! > > Steven M. Schweda wrote: > >> From: John Santos >> >>> John, you're probably the right person to suggest this to :-) ... >>> >>> How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors >>> generated >>> before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= >> >> >> >> You mean like: >> >> CC >> >> /ERROR_LIMIT >> >> /ERROR_LIMIT[=number] >> /NOERROR_LIMIT >> >> Limits the number of Error-level diagnostic messages that are >> acceptable during program compilation. Compilation terminates when >> the limit (number) is exceeded. /NOERROR_LIMIT specifies that >> there is no limit on error messages. >> >> The default is /ERROR_LIMIT=30, which specifies that compilation >> terminates after 31 error messages. >> >> ??? >> > > I looked at HELP BASIC before posting just to make sure I wasn't > missing something that had been implemented years ago, but didn't > bother to look at C! > > Since my proposed syntax was exactly the same as what C actually > does, it was probably lurking in the back of my brain somewhere. > I'm sure I must have read the help at some point. :-) :-) :-) > I think it's probably just familiarity with VMS/DCL "style". If you know VMS and want your compiler to be able to give up after a certain number of errors, /ERROR_LIMIT=N is the obvious way to do it. This is one of VMS's strong points; if you are looking for some capability, it's not too hard to guess what they called it! Contrast it with Unix; if you want what awk does, you'll never guess what they called it and if you find the awk executable, you'll never guess what it does! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:46:51 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: <%zOui.112$AR7.102@newsfe12.lga> In article , "Richard Maher" writes: > > >Hi John, > >> You're welcome. > >Wasn't it Al Gore who invented VAX COBOL :-) Having seen COBOL, I could believe that! >While people are asking for COBOL error things, I cote for smarter >"processing resumes at this point" like it used to be on VAX. Move your V key a bit to the left. ;) Cote is for the birds. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:20:41 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: <46BBBD69.B5D67642@spam.comcast.net> Paul Raulerson wrote: > > In a recent conversation, I keep feeling like I am forced to denigrate VMS, which really isn't what I meant at all. I'm just rather "cold blooded" when I am evaluating products or software for one fit or another. I tend to use what I judge to be *best* for any particular need. That judgement can get complex sometimes. :) > [snip] Uh-oh, Paul! Looks like your news agent caught Kerry's long-line virus! (line breaks inserted to show how it displayed in Netscape's editing window - note the quote marks) -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:57:06 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: In article , "Richard Maher" wrote: > Hi John, > > > You're welcome. > > Wasn't it Al Gore who invented VAX COBOL :-) > > While people are asking for COBOL error things, I cote for smarter > "processing resumes at this point" like it used to be on VAX. > Useful indeed. The one that used to get me with early VAX COBOL was "Missing period is assumed". It might have been assumed for the line of code currently being parsed, but it wasn't for the rest of the program, and you'd get a gazillion errors. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:20:37 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: What VMS does RIGHT! Message-ID: In article , John Santos wrote: > Tom Linden wrote: > > On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:29:05 -0700, John Santos wrote: > > > >> How about a compiler qualifier that limits the number of errors generated > >> before it aborts? E.G. /ERROR_LIMIT= > >> > > We have had that in PL/I for 30 years. The default is 100 but can be > > changed > > by the user > > Decided to check... I've got C, BASIC, FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL, and Macro32 > installed on my Itanium (V8.3), that I know of. However, there is no > HELP for FORTRAN, COBOL or PASCAL. These were all installed by HP on > it (porting workshop system). I later upgraded it from V8.2-1 to V8.3; > perhaps the language help got zapped at that time. > > HELP CC says it supports /ERROR_LIMIT. HELP BASIC and HELP MACRO don't > mention it. > > It seems to work in C, FORTRAN and PASCAL (syntacticly, i.e. it is > accepted on the DCL command line.) However, it does not seem to work > in Pascal; passing a junk file to the Pascal compiler causes it to > generate one error for each line, no matter what value I put on the > /error_limit qualifier. (It is possible /ERRO is a > valid Pascal qualifier, and the behavior I'm seeing is perfectly > correct, since I don't have HELP PASCAL to check against...) > > /ERROR_LIMIT causes %DCL-W-IVQUAL, unrecognized qualifier - check validity, > spelling, and placement" for BASIC, MACRO and COBOL. Oh, and JAVAC and > PERL both barf on it as well. :-) From the help for "HP Pascal Alpha V5.9-95 on OpenVMS Alpha V8.3": PASCAL /ERROR_LIMIT[=n] D=/ERROR_LIMIT=30 /NOERROR_LIMIT Terminates compilation after the occurrence of a specified number of errors, excluding warnings and informational messages. If you specify /NOERROR_LIMIT, the compilation continues until 500 errors are detected. By default, /ERROR_LIMIT=30 is enabled. Similar help text is there for C, CXX, FORTRAN (all with a default of 30). I have just fed Pascal with a COBOL source, and it did stop processing after 30 errors. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:20:16 +0000 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: ----=_vm_0011_W8576932348_10382_1186687216 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: >> You think that VMS has high security? Well, it does, but = in =3D >> part, that is security through obscurity. > >Do you mean that since the source listings are only on CDROM these days,= >VMS security is obscured from those who have only a microfiche reader >and no CDROM-capable computer ? You know exactly what I meant; VMS is "mysterious" to most of the scripki= ddies and PC based hackers out there. But by your standards, OS's that have no publically available source *are* more secure. Seen the= source code to AIX hanging about lately? > Does it have kernel based firewall capabilities? >Your use of the term "kernel based" implies that you are "not from >around here". Absolutely the VMS kernel firewalls all communication >protocols implemented in the the VMS kernel. That would be SCS, right ? >Can you think of any others ? Oh brother - DOS/BATCH on a PDP-11 had a "kernel" - as I am sure VMS does= as well. Regardless of how it is structured. So where are these firewall protocols available in the VMS kernel? I have= not found any that are not part of the TCP/IP package. >> What about third party monitoring tools that meet SOX requirements? > >If you had been paying attention on DECUServe, you would have read the >testimony that SOX compliance means "whatever this year's SOX auditor >thinks it means." If you were less concerned with being snide and more concerned with reali= ty, you might notice that there are a LOT of packages out there that cert= ify they will pass *any* SOX audit on the system(s) they support. And not, a SOX audit does NOT mean "whatever this year's SOC auditor thin= ks it means", though I can see where someone with *only* and IT exposure = to SOX would see that. > How about little things like really erasing the data on a DASD unit? >What constitutes _really_ erasing is up to your own DAA, which is >why VMS lets you provide your own erase pattern. Of course that >capability has only been around for the past 20 years or so, and >if you are still running VMS V3.0 on your VAX 11-780, you do not >have it. Well, that's something I did not know - how many passes and is it certifi= ed by anyone, including the vendor to be really unreadable? Our current prac= tice involve a lot of heat and a bulldozer... > Or how about published ways on VMS to handle packet spoofing, > tcp sequencing, etc? >That depends on which TCP/IP stack you have installed on your machine. >If you have complaints about the documentation of that stack, speak >to your TCP/IP vendor. TCP/IP comes with VMS - most people are not going to replace the distirbu= ted version of TCP/IP with a third party package. It isn't bad either, bu= t it doesn't handle that kind of stuff. That does not make VMS suitable f= or embedded work in devices like firewalls. Does that say anything bad about VMS? No, it doesn't. >> None of them approaches the security level of say, z/OS secured with R= ACF=3D > >(Note to readers who do not follow IBM operating systems - RACF is an >add-on product. The security is added on to the operating system.) Note to person sending note: RACF is not an add on product, it is just se= parately licensed - there is quite some little difference there. >> That's built in security that goes down to the level of THIS user can = see=3D >> THIS field ONLY when logged into THIS terminal and authenticated THIS = wa=3D >> y, with full reporting and so forth. And it carries through the entire= sy=3D >> stem. > >Don't those "fields" come from an add-on product as well ? Depends- if they are VSAM (which is the the same as RDB on VMS)or on a 32= 70 BSM screen from CICS, then the answer is they are from "built in" prod= ucts. If it is a field on a web browser or Java applet, or in a database,= then they are from "add on products." Pretty cool that the system base= d security can extend itself to control "add on products" huh? >I gather you have not looked at Rdb security on VMS. Perhaps not. I looked at Rdb mainly in relation to how it acts as an inde= xed file system, not as a database. ----=_vm_0011_W8576932348_10382_1186687216-- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:26:48 +0000 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: ----=_vm_0011_W872902425_23944_1186687608 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >Certainly not. Rdb is a database management system, not a file system. Eh? When I create an indexed file in COBOL, is it using Rdb? If so, it qu= acks a lot like a filesystem to me. > BTW: DB2 has had federated databases for more than a decade, well befor= e =3D > Oracle. >Your term "federated database" is not clear, but when you say "well >before Oracle" you must be talking about "Classic" Oracle, which >nobody here has proposed as an example of database security. We were not talking database security there - your clip did not make that= clear. We were talking about distributed database systems. A federated database is a "cluster" of two or more geographically remote = databases where the data has been segregated geographically or otherwise = to facilitate access. For example, you might have a VENDOR_MASTER_TABLE that is federated over = 50 machines, all of which have seamless access to the entire data set, bu= t users in Germany retrieve German users from a local server, etc. > RDB is file based, I'm not sure how it can do that, especially over > slower global WAN connections. >Rdb is a relational database that had the security features we are >discussing well before it was purchased from Digital by Oracle, and >that was quite a bit more than 10 years ago. Then I simply don't know what Rdb is. Guess that makes us even, since you= don't know what Federated databases are. :) -Paul ----=_vm_0011_W872902425_23944_1186687608-- ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 14:55:23 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: > ----=_vm_0011_W8576932348_10382_1186687216 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Stop doing that. > In article , "Paul Raulerson" @raulersons.com> writes: > > >>> You think that VMS has high security? Well, it does, but = > in =3D >>> part, that is security through obscurity. >> >>Do you mean that since the source listings are only on CDROM these days,= > >>VMS security is obscured from those who have only a microfiche reader >>and no CDROM-capable computer ? > > You know exactly what I meant; No, I do not. Admittedly the example I provided was not logical, but there was no logical explanation I could ascribe to your comment. > VMS is "mysterious" to most of the scripki= > ddies and PC based hackers out there. But certainly it is not mysterious to foreign intelligence services. Serious adversaries have no problem understanding how it works. The question is whether with that degree of transparency there are apparent weaknesses. > But by your standards, > OS's that have no publically available source *are* more secure. I was not the one trying to link the cost of the source listings with the security of the operating systems. > Seen the source code to AIX hanging about lately? I don't use AIX, so I would not know. Last month I used the VMS source listings daily. Some months I do not use them at all. > So where are these firewall protocols available in the VMS kernel? I have= > not found any that are not part of the TCP/IP package. 1. Nothing TCP/IP is part of the VMS Kernel. Why would firewalls be ? 2. As I said before, SCS is the only protocol I can think of implemented by the VMS kernel. Can you think of others. >>> What about third party monitoring tools that meet SOX requirements? >> >>If you had been paying attention on DECUServe, you would have read the >>testimony that SOX compliance means "whatever this year's SOX auditor >>thinks it means." > > If you were less concerned with being snide and more concerned with reali= > ty, you might notice that there are a LOT of packages out there that cert= > ify they will pass *any* SOX audit on the system(s) they support. I certainly take "third party monitoring tools that meet SOX requirements" to mean some requirements that SOX has for monitoring. That would be analogous to something that meets NIST 800-53 requirements CA-7, RA-5 and SI-7. If you merely mean a third party tool that does other things but merely does not mess up the security certifications, that should be trivial since access to object is controlled by the VMS security model. >> How about little things like really erasing the data on a DASD unit? > >>What constitutes _really_ erasing is up to your own DAA, which is >>why VMS lets you provide your own erase pattern. Of course that >>capability has only been around for the past 20 years or so, and >>if you are still running VMS V3.0 on your VAX 11-780, you do not >>have it. > > Well, that's something I did not know - how many passes The specifics are controlled by the user site, particularly the pattern. > and is it certified > by anyone, including the vendor to be really unreadable? What constitutes "unreadable" is up to your own DAA, in conjunction with the rules that govern them - always jurisdiction dependent. > Our current practice involve a lot of heat and a bulldozer... If your DAA requires that, then that is what you will do. >> Or how about published ways on VMS to handle packet spoofing, >> tcp sequencing, etc? > >>That depends on which TCP/IP stack you have installed on your machine. >>If you have complaints about the documentation of that stack, speak >>to your TCP/IP vendor. > > TCP/IP comes with VMS - most people are not going to replace the distirbu= > ted version of TCP/IP with a third party package. It isn't bad either, bu= > t it doesn't handle that kind of stuff. That does not make VMS suitable f= > or embedded work in devices like firewalls. If you automatically choose the HP implementation, that is your choice. Plenty of other people, including those with security concerns over the years, have made other choices. >>> None of them approaches the security level of say, z/OS secured with R= > ACF=3D >> >>(Note to readers who do not follow IBM operating systems - RACF is an >>add-on product. The security is added on to the operating system.) > > Note to person sending note: RACF is not an add on product, it is just se= > parately licensed - there is quite some little difference there. The competitors are ACF2 and Top Secret. The customer can choose any of the three, much like TCP/IP implementations on VMS. It cannot be the equivalent of a VMS System Integrated Product, because the callouts used by RACF are used by one of the other products when they are used. >>> That's built in security that goes down to the level of THIS user can = > see=3D >>> THIS field ONLY when logged into THIS terminal and authenticated THIS = > wa=3D >>> y, with full reporting and so forth. And it carries through the entire= > sy=3D >>> stem. >> >>Don't those "fields" come from an add-on product as well ? > > Depends- if they are VSAM (which is the the same as RDB on VMS)or on a 32= > 70 BSM screen from CICS, then the answer is they are from "built in" prod= > ucts. If it is a field on a web browser or Java applet, or in a database,= > then they are from "add on products." Pretty cool that the system base= > d security can extend itself to control "add on products" huh? Any add-on product can implement internal ACLs and rely on VMS to do the parsing. Rdb is the most prominent worked example. >>I gather you have not looked at Rdb security on VMS. > > Perhaps not. I looked at Rdb mainly in relation to how it acts as an inde= > xed file system, not as a database. Rdb is not an indexed file system - it is a relational database. The indexed file system on VMS is called RMS. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 14:59:51 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: > ----=_vm_0011_W872902425_23944_1186687608 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Stop doing that. In particular, stop using "quoted printable". Learn where the carriage return is on your keyboard. Use it every 72 characters or so. >>Certainly not. Rdb is a database management system, not a file system. > > Eh? When I create an indexed file in COBOL, is it using Rdb? No it is not. It is using RMS. They both start with R, but so does ROI. >> BTW: DB2 has had federated databases for more than a decade, well befor= > e =3D >> Oracle. > >>Your term "federated database" is not clear, but when you say "well >>before Oracle" you must be talking about "Classic" Oracle, which >>nobody here has proposed as an example of database security. > > We were not talking database security there - your clip did not make that= > clear. We were talking about distributed database systems. > > A federated database is a "cluster" of two or more geographically remote = > databases where the data has been segregated geographically or otherwise = > to facilitate access. In Rdb/VMS terminology, that would be using Two Phase Commit, which also came in before DEC sold Rdb to Oracle. >> RDB is file based, I'm not sure how it can do that, especially over >> slower global WAN connections. > >>Rdb is a relational database that had the security features we are >>discussing well before it was purchased from Digital by Oracle, and >>that was quite a bit more than 10 years ago. > > Then I simply don't know what Rdb is. Guess that makes us even, since you= > don't know what Federated databases are. :) The difference is that I did not pretend I knew what Federated databases meant (although it turns out from your explanation, the concept is one that is familiar to me in VMS terms). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:12:03 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > > >In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: >> ----=_vm_0011_W872902425_23944_1186687608 >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > >Stop doing that. In particular, stop using "quoted printable". >Learn where the carriage return is on your keyboard. Use it every >72 characters or so. > >>>Certainly not. Rdb is a database management system, not a file system. >> >> Eh? When I create an indexed file in COBOL, is it using Rdb? > >No it is not. It is using RMS. > >They both start with R, but so does ROI. Troll has an "R" in it! Trolls are like the creatures in the movie "gremlins"; Troll get nasty too when you feed them. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 15:42:29 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: > > Eh? When I create an indexed file in COBOL, is it using Rdb? If so, it qu= > acks a lot like a filesystem to me. You can certainly use RDB from Cobol, but indexed files are built into thefile system and do not need RDB. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:31:50 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On 08/09/07 11:32, Paul Raulerson wrote: [snip] > > BTW: DB2 has had federated databases for more than a decade, well > before Oracle. RDB is file based, I'm not sure how it can do > that, especially over slower global WAN connections. As Larry has mentioned, you are probably confusing Rdb (the rdbms that DEC sold to Oracle back in 1994) with RMS. I doubt you've purchased an Rdb license from Oracle... Clustering is deeply embedded into Rdb, but the latencies probably mean that WAN connections are too slow. ACMS (the VMS equivalent of CICS) can probably successfully tie disparate Rdb databases together. COBOL+ACMS+DECforms+Rdb would make look pretty familiar to a mainframer. -- 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: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:29:04 +0000 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: ----=_vm_0011_W8767730305_25192_1186687744 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >DEC/Compaq/HP have *not* kept up the pace of improvement like MSFT >and the popular Unices have. That's it exactly Ron, the one really worrisome point about porting anything new to VMS. I'm not really sure how true that statement is though. -Paul ----=_vm_0011_W8767730305_25192_1186687744-- ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 15:39:28 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: > > You think that VMS has high security? Well, it does, but in = > part, that is security through obscurity. The only obscurity VMS depnds on is your password. > > Does it have kernel based firewall capabilities? What about third party m= > onitoring tools that meet SOX requirements? How about little things like = > > really erasing the data on a DASD unit? Or how about published ways on VM= > S > to handle packet spoofing, tcp sequencing, etc? As far as kernel IP security, that depends on what your IP vendor puts in the kernel. Since there is no IP in the standard VMS kernel yet, it's not a relavent question for VMS. As far as erasing all the data on a disk, VMS has had a DoD approved data security erase pattern for a couple decades now. Of course, DoD does not approve any erasure measure for some of its needs. > > The two systems are roughly equivalent; speaking of a hardended UNIX site= > and a hardened VMS site. Each system does some things better than the ot= > her. Each system does some things better. VMS' security implementation is more robuslty designed. VMS' security record is vastly superior in much part because the poor design of UNIX' security makes it too easy to get wrong. > > Now if you want to see something that is really a joke- look at "Windows = > Security." If nothing else, most places leave physcial access open to th= > e users. True. I was just giving a Microsoft spokesman a hard time for having to issue security patches to what they claimed was "the most secure OS" ever. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:22:29 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:31:50 -0700, Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/09/07 11:32, Paul Raulerson wrote: > [snip] >> >> BTW: DB2 has had federated databases for more than a decade, well >> before Oracle. RDB is file based, I'm not sure how it can do >> that, especially over slower global WAN connections. > > As Larry has mentioned, you are probably confusing Rdb (the rdbms > that DEC sold to Oracle back in 1994) with RMS. I doubt you've > purchased an Rdb license from Oracle... > > Clustering is deeply embedded into Rdb, but the latencies probably > mean that WAN connections are too slow. > > ACMS (the VMS equivalent of CICS) can probably successfully tie > disparate Rdb databases together. > > COBOL+ACMS+DECforms+Rdb would make look pretty familiar to a mainframer. > Well for main frame, you need to add PL/I to that lot -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:34:36 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <009001c7db10$23d108d0$6b731a70$@com> > -----Original Message----- > From: Bob Koehler [mailto:koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org] > Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 3:39 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion > > In article , "Paul Raulerson" > writes: > > > > You think that VMS has high security? Well, it does, but > in = > > part, that is security through obscurity. > > The only obscurity VMS depnds on is your password. Riiiight... that's why the bookstore shelves are loaded with books on VMS, there are 7 or 8 magazines out there dedicated to OpenVMS and there are several million installations of it... Okay, that's a little harsh, but the idea is still valid. -Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:44:57 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article <1uMui.6798$vK2.5366@trnddc03>, John Santos writes: > > >Global note: please use a news client that wraps properly. Mozilla can >display your posts okay, but the extremely long lines make replying a >pain in the neck. I had to manually insert line breaks just so I could >read your stuff. I hate to think what they look like on a text-based >news client. VERY UGLY! Not as bad as reading a quoted-printable message from M$ Outhouse but still ugly. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:53:04 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <1uMui.6798$vK2.5366@trnddc03>, John Santos writes: > >> >>Global note: please use a news client that wraps properly. Mozilla can >>display your posts okay, but the extremely long lines make replying a >>pain in the neck. I had to manually insert line breaks just so I could >>read your stuff. I hate to think what they look like on a text-based >>news client. > > > VERY UGLY! > > Not as bad as reading a quoted-printable message from M$ Outhouse but > still ugly. > I did notice in one of my followups in the same thread, I pasted a VMS error message that looked fine in the Mozilla composition window, but when I read it back, it was one long line. "How do you do, Mr Kettle? Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Mr. Pot." -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:42:41 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Message-ID: <009501c7db11$45057120$cf105360$@com> Urk- apologies to all, and I learned something. I have been talking about "RMS" not Rdb. =20 I was wrong folks! :)=20 -Paul > -----Original Message----- > From: Jan-Erik S=F6derholm [mailto:jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com] > Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 5:51 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion champion champion >=20 > >> Depends- if they are VSAM (which is the the same as RDB on VMS) >=20 > No no no... >=20 > VSAM =3D (part of, the indexed file support part) RMS > (the deafult VMS file system), more or less. >=20 > VSAM *might* be an add-on the MVS, not sure, but > RMS is *not* an add-on to VMS. >=20 > >> I looked at Rdb mainly in relation to how it acts as an > >> indexed file system, not as a database. >=20 > Rdb =3D DB2, it's *NOT* a file system, it's a DBMS just as DB2... >=20 > Regards, > Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:23:57 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Message-ID: <1uMui.6798$vK2.5366@trnddc03> Global note: please use a news client that wraps properly. Mozilla can display your posts okay, but the extremely long lines make replying a pain in the neck. I had to manually insert line breaks just so I could read your stuff. I hate to think what they look like on a text-based news client. Paul Raulerson wrote: > In article , "Paul Raulerson" writes: > > > >>> You think that VMS has high security? Well, it does, but in = >>>part, that is security through obscurity. >> >>Do you mean that since the source listings are only on CDROM these days, >>VMS security is obscured from those who have only a microfiche reader >>and no CDROM-capable computer ? > > > You know exactly what I meant; VMS is "mysterious" to most of the scripkiddies and PC based hackers out there. But by your standards, > OS's that have no publically available source *are* more secure. Seen the source code to AIX hanging about lately? VMS is secure. VMS is obscure. Therefore VMS is obscure because it is obscure. Sorry, you fail elementary logic. Actually, the truth is VMS is obscure because it is secure. :-) (I actually can make a better argument for this case. VMS is obscure (to crackers) because they don't bother targeting it. They don't bother targeting it because it is too hard to crack. Therefore it is obscure because it is secure. :-) (Actually, "everyone knows" VMS is obscure because of poor DEC/Compaq/HP marketing and because of the black helicopter plots against it. On the other hand, VMS is secure because it was designed and implemented with security as a goal and not as an afterthought.) > > >>Does it have kernel based firewall capabilities? > > >>Your use of the term "kernel based" implies that you are "not from >>around here". Absolutely the VMS kernel firewalls all communication >>protocols implemented in the the VMS kernel. That would be SCS, right ? >>Can you think of any others ? > > > Oh brother - DOS/BATCH on a PDP-11 had a "kernel" - as I am sure VMS does as well. Regardless of how it is structured. :-) :-) :-) I was just thinking of DOS/BATCH as an example of a secure OS while reading a previous post in this thread. DOS/BATCH is secure because 1) It doesn't support any networking and 2) no one at all is running it (that I've heard of in the last 20 years.) (I last used it in about 1982, and it was horribly obsolete then.) "Kernel" has a very specific meaning in VMS and the only network code implemented in the kernel may very well be SCS. You probably meant "privileged code" or "inner mode code" or "drivers" or something more specific. Which begs the question "what are 'kernel based firewall capabilities'?" Are you referring to inner-mode IP packet filtering? If so, this is inapplicable to VMS since the kernel never sees an IP packet. Any and all such filtering would be done in a driver or other privileged code running in user context. (The reason for putting this stuff in the kernel would either be poor OS design or for performance. If for performance, see the security implications of the NT graphics design for a horrible example of why this is a really, really bad idea.) > > So where are these firewall protocols available in the VMS kernel? I have not found any that are not part of the TCP/IP package. > So you are talking about TCP/IP? So you mean something like ipchains or whatever? These don't protect the system they are implemented on (except incidentally), they protect *other* systems by being implement in a router. There absence from any given VMS IP stack doesn't mean VMS is insecure, it just means it *may* be unsuitable for implementing a TCP/IP firewall. (Or you could write your own code to do the filtering, in user mode, on a secure VMS box. I believe DEC did exactly that, many years ago. Didn't sell many though, people tend to buy special-purpose hardware firewalls for that.) > > >>>What about third party monitoring tools that meet SOX requirements? >> >>If you had been paying attention on DECUServe, you would have read the >>testimony that SOX compliance means "whatever this year's SOX auditor >>thinks it means." > > > If you were less concerned with being snide and more concerned with reality, you might notice that there are a LOT of packages out there that certify they will pass *any* SOX audit on the system(s) they support. > > And not, a SOX audit does NOT mean "whatever this year's SOC auditor thinks it means", though I can see where someone with *only* and IT exposure to SOX would see that. > > You seem to be talking about a 3rd party layered application, which has nothing to do with whether or not the OS is secure. > >>How about little things like really erasing the data on a DASD unit? > > >>What constitutes _really_ erasing is up to your own DAA, which is >>why VMS lets you provide your own erase pattern. Of course that >>capability has only been around for the past 20 years or so, and >>if you are still running VMS V3.0 on your VAX 11-780, you do not >>have it. > > > Well, that's something I did not know - how many passes and is it certified > by anyone, including the vendor to be really unreadable? The US DOD. > Our current practice involve a lot of heat and a bulldozer... This method works fine on VMS too. > > > >>Or how about published ways on VMS to handle packet spoofing, >>tcp sequencing, etc? > > >>That depends on which TCP/IP stack you have installed on your machine. >>If you have complaints about the documentation of that stack, speak >>to your TCP/IP vendor. > > > TCP/IP comes with VMS - most people are not going to replace the distirbuted version of TCP/IP with a third party package. It isn't bad either, but it doesn't handle that kind of stuff. That does not make VMS suitable for embedded work in devices like firewalls. > > Does that say anything bad about VMS? No, it doesn't. > > > >>>None of them approaches the security level of say, z/OS secured with RACF= >> >>(Note to readers who do not follow IBM operating systems - RACF is an >>add-on product. The security is added on to the operating system.) > > > Note to person sending note: RACF is not an add on product, it is just separately licensed - there is quite some little difference there. > > >>>That's built in security that goes down to the level of THIS user can see= >>>THIS field ONLY when logged into THIS terminal and authenticated THIS wa= >>>y, with full reporting and so forth. And it carries through the entire sy= >>>stem. >> >>Don't those "fields" come from an add-on product as well ? > > > Depends- if they are VSAM (which is the the same as RDB on VMS)or on a 3270 BSM screen from CICS, then the answer is they are from "built in" products. If it is a field on a web browser or Java applet, or in a database, then they are from "add on products." Pretty cool that the system based security can extend itself to control "add on products" huh? I'm not a mainframer, but I thought VSAM was indexed files, like RMS, nothing at all like RDB. As far as extending system-based security to add-on to add-on products, ever hear of application ACEs? You can use ACLs for anything you want, not just files and devices. > > > >>I gather you have not looked at Rdb security on VMS. > > > Perhaps not. I looked at Rdb mainly in relation to how it acts as an indexed file system, not as a database. Still confusing RMS with RDB? -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:50:46 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champi Message-ID: >> Depends- if they are VSAM (which is the the same as RDB on VMS) No no no... VSAM = (part of, the indexed file support part) RMS (the deafult VMS file system), more or less. VSAM *might* be an add-on the MVS, not sure, but RMS is *not* an add-on to VMS. >> I looked at Rdb mainly in relation to how it acts as an >> indexed file system, not as a database. Rdb = DB2, it's *NOT* a file system, it's a DBMS just as DB2... Regards, Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:22:19 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On 08/09/07 11:05, Bill Gunshannon wrote: [snip] > > Probably hasn't been a need up to this point, but once some Unix > vendor (IBM?) decideds it is needed they will write it. Unlike > some other OSes we know, Unix is not stagnating. It continues to > move forward. (Look at the release docs for the next step in FreeBSD.) In other words, 1. Make it *run*, faster. 2. Make it run *faster*. Solaris/SunOS, FreeBSD & Linux all started out small, weak and fragile. (Don't know enough about AIX to comment.) Now, thru years of continual improvement, they are are big, (varying degrees of) strong, and (varying degrees of) strong. Microsoft also has kept (incompetenty) improving Windows OS. DEC/Compaq/HP have *not* kept up the pace of improvement like MSFT and the popular Unices have. -- 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: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:43:36 +0200 From: "Dr. Dweeb" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46bb6052$0$7605$157c6196@dreader2.cybercity.dk> clip ... > Said it before, go sell some systems; support will "magically" > materialize. > > -Paul ROFL clip ... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:13:26 -0600 From: Keith Parris Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > Meanwhile, your legacy OS is slowly dying > while Unix (who's death was announced more than a decade ago right > right there on the cover of Byte Magazine) continues to grow market > share. I've started to see the term "Legacy UNIX" and even "Proprietary UNIX" applied to AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX -- all the traditional UNIX flavors. UNIX actually continues to LOSE market share in the face of Windows and Linux. (I know, you can get around that if you count Linux as UNIX.) > vendor (IBM?) decideds it is needed they will write it. Unlike > some other OSes we know, Unix is not stagnating. It continues to > move forward. (Look at the release docs for the next step in FreeBSD.) >> No version of Un*x actually clusters. > > Probably depends on your definition of cluster. But let's assume > the VMS definition. UNIX and Linux have scalability clusters (Beowulf, Amoeba) and a few flavors of failover clusters (inclusing MC/Serviceguard). High-availability, homogeneous all-nodes-active (on the same data at the same time) clusters are pretty rare in the *nix world. (openMosix was an interesting project; too bad it's shutting down.) > Why would Unix bother > implementing something that has little if any need? When a Beowulf > style cluster became needed, it was written (and actually, that's not > the only kind available on Unix.) And then we also had Amoeba Clusters, > which, if nothing else, showed how little interest there really was > in clustering beyond looking at it from an academic standpoint. Judging by the various projects and some products (e.g. OpenSSI, Red Hat Cluster Suite, Oracle RAC, and TruClusters) in the *nix world, the need for high-availability clusters is certainly out there. Another factor affecting product availability, in addition to the need or demand, is the relative difficulty of implementation. Scalability clusters are relatively easy to create. High-availability, single-system-image clusters, with shared simultaneous read/write access to file systems from different nodes, shared root disk, etc. aren't so simple to create. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 15:41:21 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , Ron Johnson writes: > > Solaris/SunOS, FreeBSD & Linux all started out small, weak and > fragile. (Don't know enough about AIX to comment.) While there have been vast improvements in the implementations no one has replaced the faulty design. To do so would be to create something almost all of us would agree is not UNIX. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:41:45 -0600 From: Keith Parris Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: Ron Johnson wrote: > Solaris/SunOS, FreeBSD & Linux all started out small, weak and > fragile. (Don't know enough about AIX to comment.) > > Now, thru years of continual improvement, they are are big, (varying > degrees of) strong, and (varying degrees of) strong. > > Microsoft also has kept (incompetenty) improving Windows OS. > > DEC/Compaq/HP have *not* kept up the pace of improvement like MSFT > and the popular Unices have. I have a lot of respect for usability improvements that Microsoft has shipped, including drag-and-drop and cut and paste between applications (which was based on DEC's OLE work). And I've watched *nixes improve dramatically over the years, too. Many of the complaints in the UNIX-Haters Handbook have even been addressed. It's a common misconception of people who worked with VMS long ago, but aren't in touch with what's been going on in the VMS world lately, to assume that VMS is in maintenance mode. Those who work with VMS every day know about the constant stream of innovations and improvements, many of which *nix systems aren't advanced enough to know yet that they'll eventually need. I'm thinking of things like: - Shadowing Mini-Copies and Mini-Merges - VMS is now completely immune to stack-smashing attacks (on Integrity) - Support for clusters over IP networks is in the works UNIX/Linux portability work has provided increasing support for open software and allows many open source software packages to simply drop in and compile-and-go on VMS under GNV. Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python etc. all run on VMS, and an environment built with those on top of OpenVMS Clusters and Host-Based Volume Shadowing can provide superior high availability, and the best disaster tolerance in the world, if you need that. Just in the latest 8.3 release I find exciting features that apply to my areas of specialty (clustering and disaster tolerance): - Support for blades (and clusters of blades) - Solution for long-standing lock-remastership thrashing problems, with a new LOCKRMWT paramter - PEDRIVER data compression for better wide-area clustering over low-bandwidth links, and improvements to scale well with 10-gigabit Ethernet and high-latency inter-site links - Automatic mini-copy bitmap creation upon site connectivity loss in disaster-tolerant clusters ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:33:49 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186695229.519198.141930@x40g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 9, 12:30 pm, Keith Parris wrote: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: > > Forgetting Hobbyist systems where they cluster for the sake of > > clustering, what percentage of real, production VMS systems are > > clusters as opposed to stand alone systems? > > The last time I saw figures for this, many years ago, about 50% of VMS > systems were clustered. > Really? I would expect maybe 50% measured by $, but not by number of systems. Even years ago. Another problem with this type of statistic is that many systems drop off the chart as they age and/or move into the resale market. I can think of quite a few "oldies" (where maintenance has moved in-house) that are happily running along doing their work. Most are places where a newer system has taken over the really important stuff, and I'll bet HP no longer counts those oldies. I doubt they still count the long-ago full-licensed self-maintained VAXen living in the dark of my basement on a wireless bridge to the upstairs network, either. If you haven't looked at the cost of (legally) adding a clustering license to existing non-hobby VAX or Alpha systems lately, you might want to do so (but sit down first.) I don't remember what the Integrity MCOE license costs, but ISTR it wasn't cheap and it's per- processor. > Now that you can form a cluster over any flavor of Ethernet, and don't > have to buy proprietary CI or DSSI hardware, the percentage may be even > higher today. If clustering came as part of every OpenVMS base license, I'd just bet more people would buy more than one computer at a time and run a cluster. Gee, Hp might sell more servers!! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:14:10 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:33:49 -0700, Doug Phillips wrote: > > If clustering came as part of every OpenVMS base license, I'd just bet > more people would buy more than one computer at a time and run a > cluster. Gee, Hp might sell more servers!! That may be true, but IBM, for example, makes more money off SW than HW. If VMS were a software company might be really successful -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 18:42:47 -0400 From: "John Smith" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <19072$46bb9860$cef8a1e5$25907@TEKSAVVY.COM-Free> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article , Ron Johnson > writes: >> >> >> On 08/07/07 12:23, Larry Kilgallen wrote: >>> In article , "John >>> Smith" writes: >>>> http://tinyurl.com/39ptaq >>>> >>>> and >>>> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/2r2w7x >>>> >>>> and >>>> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/2nekbx >>>> >>>> >>>> Too bad VMS doesn't have one @ HP. >>> >>> Too bad some people enter content free posts in the mistaken belief >>> that we will rush to follow their explicitly blinded URLs rather >>> than >>> simply killfiling their future posts. >> >> Man, that's unnecessarily hostile. We all know the purpose of >> tinyurl. > > I think Larry would rather you put up the > http://preview.tinyURL.com/blah > links which take on to the tinyURL.com site and show the longer URL > before > following the link. > > I have posted a few tinyURL.com links here lately and I too should > have > used the http://preview.tinyURL.com link. Larry is just concerned as > he > is "blind" to where that link is taking him. I know some > organizations > frown on their employees downloading porn. Somebody could put some > porn > site into tinyURL.com and send you a link. The next thing you know, > you > are downloading porn against company policy. > > As for Larry's other sentiments, I will let him speak for himself. Thanks for the pointer to the preview - I wasn't aware of that before. To Larry - the sole purpose of my original post was to draw attention the the splash that a technology can make in the marketplace - and yes, the press too - when there are sponsors sufficiently high up in an organization who have the cojones to make it happen. VMS has no such champion in HP and that is regrettable. -- OpenVMS - The never-advertised operating system with the dwindling ISV base. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:34:50 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186702490.639975.103010@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 9, 5:14 pm, "Tom Linden" wrote: > On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:33:49 -0700, Doug Phillips > wrote: > > > > > If clustering came as part of every OpenVMS base license, I'd just bet > > more people would buy more than one computer at a time and run a > > cluster. Gee, Hp might sell more servers!! > > That may be true, but IBM, for example, makes more money off SW than HW. Yes, the net is higher; the gross in lower. They're showing a margin on software of nearly 85%. Their Q2-07 statement shows an interesting breakdown (quoted here): ##### "Revenues from the Software segment were $4.8 billion, an increase of 13 percent (9 percent, adjusting for currency) compared with the second quarter of 2006. Revenues from IBM's middleware products, which primarily include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational products, were $3.7 billion, up 16 percent versus the second quarter of 2006. Operating systems revenues of $568 million increased 2 percent compared with the prior-year quarter. For the WebSphere family of software products, which facilitate customers' ability to manage a wide variety of business processes using open standards to interconnect applications, data and operating systems, revenues increased 28 percent. Revenues for Information Management software, which enables clients to leverage information on demand, increased 21 percent. Revenues from Tivoli software, infrastructure software that enables clients to centrally manage networks including security and storage capability, increased 33 percent, and revenues for Lotus software, which allows collaborating and messaging by clients in real-time communication and knowledge management, increased 12 percent year over year. Revenues from Rational software, integrated tools to improve the processes of software development, increased 11 percent compared with the year-ago quarter." ##### So, Operating Systems represent just under 12% of software revenue and only show a 2% increase in revenue over last year. Compare that to the increases shown by non-O/S software. Hmmm. > If VMS > were a software company might be really successful > Looks like it would take a rather large (and patient) backing and some creative middle-ware acquisitions for that company to ever see black ink. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:15:29 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:34:50 -0700, Doug Phillips = wrote: > So, Operating Systems represent just under 12% of software revenue and= > only show a 2% increase in revenue over last year. Compare that to the= > increases shown by non-O/S software. Hmmm. > >> If VMS >> were a software company might be really successful >> > Looks like it would take a rather large (and patient) backing and some= > creative middle-ware acquisitions for that company to ever see black > ink. If you mean Digital ( =3D VMS portion of HP) they are solidly in the bl= ack -- = PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:03:58 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46BBB97E.7FCE5FF4@spam.comcast.net> Paul Raulerson wrote: > > > > > If VMS ran on industry standard x86-64 or on Power then just maybe > > IBM might be > > > > interested for the right price. But running on Itanic ? > > > > > > This concept has come up before but never really been asnwered. Why > > > would IBM want to see anything other than the final death of VMS? > > > > To open those doors which remain tightly locked by UN*X's inherent lack > > of > > security? > > To answer just this little snippet, UNIX security is not bad, and is roughly > on par with VMS. > You probably do not like to hear that, but it is. Most Unix break ins occur > on Linux running > on PC's operated by hobbyists. We're not talking about overflow type attacks, etc. since those simply result in an accvio on VMS and then a deleted process - no exposure. We're talking about internal security and break-in detection/evasion. > Not of data center machines. And to make that > more specific, most > Linux security breaches are centered around web services or disgruntled > employees, not around > virus issues and what not. However, the same vulnerabilities exist, regardless of scale. VMS retains its security at all scales. If, however, an application or a SIP introduces a security issue, that is not VMS's fault. > In regard to the IBM question: IBM would not be interested in VMS because, > to be brutally honest, > VMS does not have anything IBM already does not have. And IBM has a lot that > VMS does not have. A > powerful lot indeed. If it ran on zSeries hardware they would snap it up > though, because that is > one more powerful mainframe operating system they could run. Hence, the statement: David J Dachtera wrote: > > Now - to flip that coin over: > > What could IBM bring to VMS that it currently lacks? > > - A return to virtualization (LPARS) > - A return to marketing > - A return to profitability > - A return to a respectable market share > > Seems a marriage made in heaven! I'm trying to improve my communication; so, if you can show me where I left the ambiguity, it would help me avoid that mistake in the future. > VMS can, and should, be a powerful competitor to IBM, Well, no, not really, but mostly because "IBM" covers a lot more ground than "VMS". Rather like equating HP with UX - HP does a lot more than UX, they just don't know that themselves. > and leaving all the > rhetoric of Alpha vs. Itanium > aside, HP is doing a really good job supporting it. If you don't believe > that, you don't. What can I say - the evidence speaks for itself. > For whatever > reason, looking at Facts, like how much money HP spends on VMS or how much > they have invested in it, > or how they dumped HP3000 MPX/E but *kept* VMS, ...until they went out to the ISVs and pushed UX instead of VMS, thus effectively destroying VMS's alreday tenuous foothold in the healthcare sector, and apparently also in the financial sector, as was "published" here in a recent thread. > well... > > Said it before, go sell some systems; support will "magically" materialize. Be my guest! VMS is no longer in my future, we're going to AIX. Of course, if you have a prospect list, please set up a web site for the purpose of sharing it with the remaining VMS "bottom-feeders" and post the URL here. If any sales result, we'll see if that motivates HP to advertise, bring support back on shore (so support customers get what they pay for), hire back the early retirees, ... -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:14:56 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46BBBC10.91EB9BD0@spam.comcast.net> Michael Kraemer wrote: > > David J Dachtera schrieb: > > > Entry into those markets currently closed by VMS's foothold? > > Such as ? Cerner ? If you mean healthcare, yes - they will take over many of the VMS sites that have been orphaned by the ISVs thanx to HP. If you mean defense, manufacturing, high finance, etc., then again, yes. > > Now - to flip that coin over: > > > > What could IBM bring to VMS that it currently lacks? > > > > - A return to virtualization (LPARS) > > - A return to marketing > > - A return to profitability > > - A return to a respectable market share > > They already have all that with e.g. AIX. Now, read it again - s-l-o-w-l-y this time... > David J Dachtera schrieb: > > > Now - to flip that coin over: > > > > What could IBM bring to VMS that it currently lacks? -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:16:23 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46BBBC67.5B6EDB31@spam.comcast.net> Keith Parris wrote: > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > What could IBM bring to VMS that it currently lacks? > ... > > - A return to profitability > > Profitability has never been a problem for OpenVMS. So IBM couldn't > achieve "a return to profitability" for OpenVMS. If so, why the cutbacks / early retirements / off-shoring / lack of marketing / etc.? Doesn't seem justifiable. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:49:41 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186710581.117657.123580@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 9, 7:15 pm, "Tom Linden" wrote: > On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:34:50 -0700, Doug Phillips > wrote: > > > So, Operating Systems represent just under 12% of software revenue and > > only show a 2% increase in revenue over last year. Compare that to the > > increases shown by non-O/S software. Hmmm. > > >> If VMS > >> were a software company might be really successful > > > Looks like it would take a rather large (and patient) backing and some > > creative middle-ware acquisitions for that company to ever see black > > ink. > > If you mean Digital ( = VMS portion of HP) they are solidly in the black > Digital was more than just VMS. Much more. Buy VMS from HP and put it on it's own? Well, that'll cost some big money. Add R&D (lots more!), marketing (lots more!), advertising (lots more!), support, G&A and everything else that you need to build a company. Now you're talking about a *lot* of up-front and carry money. I also think it would be a very risky investment and I don't see that new company improving its market-share without first eating a lot of red ink. Unless you had a lower goal in mind and are thinking of just living off the installed base and letting inertia, selective advertising and word-of-mouth carry you; then I suppose it could make it for a while but how would that be better than it is now? Anyway, I don't know of anyone with deep enough pockets showing any interest. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:47:02 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On 08/09/07 15:41, Keith Parris wrote: [snip] > UNIX/Linux portability work has provided increasing support for open > software and allows many open source software packages to simply drop in > and compile-and-go on VMS under GNV. Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python etc. But I don't *want* bash 2.x on VMS. I want that DCL had been improved over the years just like bash 3.1.17 is light-years more powerful than c.1982 bourne sh. And I want that Python could be installed on ODS-2 volumes, or ODS-5 have a (gag, I can't believe I'm saying this) Microsoft-like "it looks case-sensitive, but really isn't" option, so that 30 years of DCL that relies on case-insensitivity will work along side newer code. If MSFT can figure out how to do it, so can HP. > all run on VMS, and an environment built with those on top of OpenVMS > Clusters and Host-Based Volume Shadowing can provide superior high > availability, and the best disaster tolerance in the world, if you need > that. > > Just in the latest 8.3 release I find exciting features that apply to my > areas of specialty (clustering and disaster tolerance): > - Support for blades (and clusters of blades) > - Solution for long-standing lock-remastership thrashing problems, with > a new LOCKRMWT paramter > - PEDRIVER data compression for better wide-area clustering over > low-bandwidth links, and improvements to scale well with 10-gigabit > Ethernet and high-latency inter-site links > - Automatic mini-copy bitmap creation upon site connectivity loss in > disaster-tolerant clusters All are great for big servers, but don't help me trying to write complex scripts in a FORTRAN-IV language. Heck, even FORTRAN-77 had DO-WHILE loops. -- 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: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:49:21 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <6fRui.65498$g86.5529@newsfe14.lga> On 08/09/07 15:13, Keith Parris wrote: [snip] > > Another factor affecting product availability, in addition to the need > or demand, is the relative difficulty of implementation. Scalability > clusters are relatively easy to create. High-availability, > single-system-image clusters, with shared simultaneous read/write access > to file systems from different nodes, shared root disk, etc. aren't so > simple to create. But you'd think that *somebody* else would have done it in the past 30 years! Or did DEC have all the important concepts bound up in patents? -- 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: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:12:34 GMT From: "John E. Malmberg" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: Ron Johnson wrote: > > And I want that Python could be installed on ODS-2 volumes, or ODS-5 > have a (gag, I can't believe I'm saying this) Microsoft-like "it > looks case-sensitive, but really isn't" option, so that 30 years of > DCL that relies on case-insensitivity will work along side newer code. Python has always been user supplied / user supported. ODS-5 is by default case insensitive, but case preserving. DCL needs to have parse style set to extended for it to take create files in exact case. The CRTL needs to have some feature settings for it to treat ODS-5 different than ODS-2. And you can set the process to be case sensitive in handling ODS-5 file names. -John wb8tyw@qsl.network Personal Opinion Only ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:51:35 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <009601c7db12$8338cae0$89aa60a0$@com> Comments below > -----Original Message----- > From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@spam.comcast.net] > Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 8:04 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion > > Paul Raulerson wrote: > > > > > > > If VMS ran on industry standard x86-64 or on Power then just > maybe > > > IBM might be > > > > > interested for the right price. But running on Itanic ? > > > > > > > > This concept has come up before but never really been asnwered. > Why > > > > would IBM want to see anything other than the final death of VMS? > > > > > > To open those doors which remain tightly locked by UN*X's inherent > lack > > > of > > > security? > > > > To answer just this little snippet, UNIX security is not bad, and is > roughly > > on par with VMS. > > You probably do not like to hear that, but it is. Most Unix break ins > occur > > on Linux running > > on PC's operated by hobbyists. > > We're not talking about overflow type attacks, etc. since those simply > result in > an accvio on VMS and then a deleted process - no exposure. > > We're talking about internal security and break-in detection/evasion. > Yep- we are. I am also talking about software defect that allow buffer overflows, and other methods. And about logical security, such as protecting access to priv'ed accounts. > > Not of data center machines. And to make that > > more specific, most > > Linux security breaches are centered around web services or > disgruntled > > employees, not around > > virus issues and what not. > > However, the same vulnerabilities exist, regardless of scale. VMS > retains its > security at all scales. If, however, an application or a SIP introduces > a > security issue, that is not VMS's fault. > We disagree. An OS is responsible for security, and for managing any applications it allows to run. Also, scale makes a huge difference; a vulnerability that may engender little or no risk on a 50 user machine, can be magnified easily into a critical problem on a machine with 60,000 active users. > > In regard to the IBM question: IBM would not be interested in VMS > because, > > to be brutally honest, > > VMS does not have anything IBM already does not have. And IBM has a > lot that > > VMS does not have. A > > powerful lot indeed. If it ran on zSeries hardware they would snap it > up > > though, because that is > > one more powerful mainframe operating system they could run. > > Hence, the statement: > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > > > Now - to flip that coin over: > > > > What could IBM bring to VMS that it currently lacks? > > > > - A return to virtualization (LPARS) > > - A return to marketing > > - A return to profitability > > - A return to a respectable market share > > > > Seems a marriage made in heaven! > > I'm trying to improve my communication; so, if you can show me where I > left the > ambiguity, it would help me avoid that mistake in the future. > You just missed what I said; IBM has all that already, and they own it lock, stock, and middleware. It would be of vast benefit to VMS, but not much, if any benefit to IBM. HP is a much better home for VMS, in my opinion. > > VMS can, and should, be a powerful competitor to IBM, > > Well, no, not really, but mostly because "IBM" covers a lot more ground > than > "VMS". Rather like equating HP with UX - HP does a lot more than UX, > they just > don't know that themselves. > What does VMS do that IBM doesn't? Penetrate small markets with reasonably priced gear and a high quality OS. HP does penetrate well with this combination because they insist on "partnering" with other parties to do the middleware and third party work. I sense a reluctance to do in the VMS world, and I very much approve of that same reluctance. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:28:10 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion championch Message-ID: <46BBBF2A.E4A0C9CA@spam.comcast.net> Paul Raulerson wrote: > > OS's that have no publically available source *are* more secure. Seen the source code to AIX hanging about lately? Seen the source code to AT&T System-V laying about? AIX is that, some generations much IBM development later. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:26:46 -0700 From: Lord Derigan Subject: X Window Servers Message-ID: <1186684006.675098.274930@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com> Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any other suggestions? -- Brian Tillman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:41:35 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article <1186684006.675098.274930@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Lord Derigan writes: > > >Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create >windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has >been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase >additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our >VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any >other suggestions? >-- >Brian Tillman Buy a Mac? -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:54:38 -0500 From: Dave Harrold Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: <5i19nuF3ldpjoU1@mid.individual.net> Lord Derigan wrote: > Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create > windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has > been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase > additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our > VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any > other suggestions? > -- > Brian Tillman > I use XMing on my home PC. http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming Hope that helps. Dave Harrold ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 2007 15:51:10 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article <1186684006.675098.274930@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Lord Derigan writes: > Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create > windows on VMS and display them on a PC? 1) load cygwin (I think you already did), after all UNIX is better than Windows 2) start a cygwin shell (typically bash) 3) execute /usr/bin/X11/startx 4) ssh to VMS with X tunneling on (PuTTY does fine) 5) mcr vue$master (or your other favorite starting point) I'm having trouble with cygwin's man command right now, it's a known bug that refuses to get fixed by downloading the fix. But the only trouble I've had with X11 is that startx puts files in /tmp and doesn't fix the access. This is fine if you only start X from one account. I made a modified startx script to fix this that did something like "chmod 777" on the files at the end of the script. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 17:14:09 -0400 From: "Brian Tillman" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: wrote in message news:zdJui.54$AR7.9@newsfe12.lga... > Buy a Mac? How is that free? -- Brian Tillman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 17:16:03 -0400 From: "Brian Tillman" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: "Bob Koehler" wrote in message news:rm2FYQdGSZCR@eisner.encompasserve.org... > 1) load cygwin (I think you already did), after all UNIX is better > than Windows > 2) start a cygwin shell (typically bash) > 3) execute /usr/bin/X11/startx > 4) ssh to VMS with X tunneling on (PuTTY does fine) Don't have SSH on the VMS system. > 5) mcr vue$master (or your other favorite starting point) SET DISPLAY/CREATE followed by CREATE/TERMINAL produced "no such display". -- Brian Tillman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 17:16:26 -0400 From: "Brian Tillman" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: "Dave Harrold" wrote in message news:5i19nuF3ldpjoU1@mid.individual.net... > I use XMing on my home PC. > > http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming I'll look into it. Thanks. -- Brian Tillman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:45:26 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <1186684006.675098.274930@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Lord Derigan writes: > >> >>Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create >>windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has >>been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase >>additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our >>VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any >>other suggestions? >>-- >>Brian Tillman > > > Buy a Mac? I installed Cygwin on my PC (800MHz P3, ~750MB, Win2K) a couple of months ago, and had no real problems setting it up. As I recall, I had to select some none-default options in its configuration selector to get the X server working, but don't remember the details. It worked fine displaying DECterms and other minimal testing from my VAX 4000-300, but was very slow. It seemed to put a hefty CPU load on the system even when running *other* applications. (E.G. Opera and Quicken on the PC were noticeably slower.) I think it was because the X server was intercepting every keystroke and mouse event and looking around for something to do with them. It was slow even when I shut down *all* the client applications. Of course, an 800MHz P3 is pretty slow by modern standards, it might be fine on a 2GHz 64-bit dual-core PC :-) On my Mac Powerbook 867 G4 with OS X 10.4, the X server worked fine out of the box. No noticeable slowness. I did install the optional X-windows components. Back to the PC (this applies to any server, though the details differ), I did have to do some xauth magic to allow the VAX to display on the PC. Maybe this was your problem? I don't use the X server much on either the Mac or PC, so my testing was pretty minimal, but there's a huge difference between "doesn't work" and "has this set of specific problems", so if it's really the latter, please post details. I'm sure someone can help or at least reproduce it and, if necessary, submit a problem report to HP. HTH. -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:26:54 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article , "Brian Tillman" writes: > > >"Bob Koehler" wrote in message >news:rm2FYQdGSZCR@eisner.encompasserve.org... > >> 1) load cygwin (I think you already did), after all UNIX is better >> than Windows >> 2) start a cygwin shell (typically bash) >> 3) execute /usr/bin/X11/startx >> 4) ssh to VMS with X tunneling on (PuTTY does fine) > >Don't have SSH on the VMS system. > >> 5) mcr vue$master (or your other favorite starting point) > >SET DISPLAY/CREATE followed by CREATE/TERMINAL produced "no such display". If the X server is running, you should be able to issue: $ SET DISPLAY/CREATE/NODE=ip-of-pc/TRANSPORT=TCPIP Perhaps, you haven't enabled access to the X server from the machine. What is the equivelant of xhost on Weendoze? -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:48:15 GMT From: "John E. Malmberg" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: <3JNui.55873$Fc.11363@attbi_s21> Lord Derigan wrote: > Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create > windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has > been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase > additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our > VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any > other suggestions? I had the same problem on an older install of cyqwin, but not on a more current version. I have temporarily misplaced the rituals that I used to start it up, as I have not used it in a few months. Microsoft Services For Unix, a free download now includes an X-11 server. I have not located the documentation on how to start it up. -John wb8tyw@qsl.network Personal Opinion Only ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:11:22 GMT From: Rob Brown Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Lord Derigan wrote: > Are there any free PC-based X servers Not free, but cheap: http://www.microimages.com/mix/ This is two-year old news, and I haven't checked it lately, nor do I use the program myself because it could not pierce our company firewall without additional software. As I recall, it is a free trial and then $25 to continue using it. -- Rob Brown b r o w n a t g m c l d o t c o m G. Michaels Consulting Ltd. (780)438-9343 (voice) Edmonton (780)437-3367 (FAX) http://gmcl.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:24:37 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: <46BBBE55.79C902C6@spam.comcast.net> Lord Derigan wrote: > > Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create > windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has > been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase > additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our > VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any > other suggestions? Does the Pathworks-32 CD still ship with either the VMS binaries or the SPL? If not, got an older distro. laying around? eXcursion works, though it could be better. Bit of a PITA, really, but even Reflection/X ($$$!) has its foibles. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:04:21 GMT From: "John E. Malmberg" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: <9tRui.38761$Xa3.10634@attbi_s22> David J Dachtera wrote: > Lord Derigan wrote: > >>Are there any free PC-based X servers that can can be used to create >>windows on VMS and display them on a PC? The company I work for has >>been using Himmingbird eXceed for a long time but will not purchase >>additional licenses. I have someone who needs windowed access to our >>VMS systems. I tried Cygwin, but I couldn't get it working. Any >>other suggestions? > > > Does the Pathworks-32 CD still ship with either the VMS binaries or the SPL? If > not, got an older distro. laying around? A few Alpha server systems were bundled with licenses for Pathworks-32, but it was never a free product. > eXcursion works, though it could be better. It only supports up to 256 colors, not true-color. -John wb8tyw@qsl.network Personal Opinion Only ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.435 ************************