INFO-VAX Wed, 10 Jan 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 19 Contents: Re: 1,000,000 License PAK's Served! Accelgraphics AG500/AccelProc 2500TX Re: Cluster connection lost when one link fails? DS10 617Mhz Special Re: MicroVAX IIs/BA123s in Demand? Re: new daylight savings time question... On-shoring of VMS support?? Re: On-shoring of VMS support?? Re: Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Re: Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Stuck TCPIP connections Re: US Military bans HTML in emails Re: US Military bans HTML in emails VT100 LED and BEEP frequencies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:31:32 -0500 From: "Neil Rieck" Subject: Re: 1,000,000 License PAK's Served! Message-ID: <45a4164c$0$28064$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com> wrote in message news:1168287279.585177.136080@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > The OpenVMS Hobbyist Program has served it's one millionth License PAK! > > http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/blog/index.php > Very cool. Congrats. (I always thought it woud be nice to display the current count on your web page) Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/cool_openvms.html http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/openvms_demos.html ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2007 12:47:22 -0800 From: "urbancamo" Subject: Accelgraphics AG500/AccelProc 2500TX Message-ID: <1168375641.971551.34720@i39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> Hi, Can anyone tell me if either of these graphics cards are suitable for a DS10L? I have read previous posts about other cards such as the ATI 7500, but couldn't find any reference as to whether these will work. I am running OpenVMS 7.3-1. Many thanks, Mark. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:12:42 -0800 From: "Malcolm Dunnett" Subject: Re: Cluster connection lost when one link fails? Message-ID: <45a420a8$1@flight> "Malcolm Dunnett" wrote in message news:KAylh.106636$rv4.80875@edtnps90... > VMS 7.3-2. Although since the problem is in the DE500 driver I wouldn't be > surprised if the same problem occurs in later versions as well ( I suspect > there's not been much work done on the DE500 driver in a while ) > HP has confirmed that the fix for this problem will be included in the VMS732_LAN-V0500 patch kit (not yet released). They say a comparable patch will be required for VMS 8.3, to be included in a future patch kit. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:23:04 -0500 From: "Island Computers, D B Turner" Subject: DS10 617Mhz Special Message-ID: <12q81umdf8nlvb5@news.supernews.com> We have 8 in finished goods Completely refurbished, stripped down to bare metal and rebuilt NEW Power supplies, and updated Motherboards We have configured these with NEW HP OpenVMS and EIP Licenses Configuration special Alphaserver DS10 617Mhz 1GB Memory (2 x 512) BA10B-AA Dual Drive Hot Plug external bays U160 SCSI Controller Dual Port (requires VMS 7.3>) Slimline CDROM Dual Serial Port Dual Ethernet 10.100 Dual 146GB 10KRPM Disks OpenVMS Base and EIP Licenses 1 Year warranty Price each $5195 This is a special offer and is subject to availability -- Island Computers US Corp 2700 Gregory St Savannah GA 31404 Tel: 912 447 6622 x201 Mail: dturner-atnospam-islandco-com (You know what to do with the dashes) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:49:23 -0800 From: John Dundas Subject: Re: MicroVAX IIs/BA123s in Demand? Message-ID: Jeff, Sorry to spam Usenet, but there was no way to respond to that email address directly. I'm in Pasadena and definitely interested. Please contact me at dundas @ caltech . edu. Thanks, John ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2007 15:34:56 -0800 From: magalettac@hotmail.com Subject: Re: new daylight savings time question... Message-ID: <1168385696.104091.175340@i56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> Thanks the param was the problem, I have one other question I have 2 alpha's that are running 7.3 that will not be upgraded before March, what approach should I take with these servers, if I leave auto_dlight_sav to 0 will I have to change them by hand or is there something else I can do, using utc$time_setup.... Again many thanks for the help.... mckinn...@saic.com wrote: > Joe Bloggs wrote: > > On 8 Jan 2007 14:07:21 -0800, magalettac@hotmail.com wrote: > > > > > I installed the following 3 patches on my test Alpha to take care of > > >the new time > > > change edict that the energy policy act of 2005 enacts. The patches > > >were installed cleanly as noted I then disabled dtss and set the time > > >to 11-mar-2007:1:59:00 to test the rollover (nothing happened ? I tried > > >a couple of different steps with enabling and disabling dtss and still > > >nothing > > >happened, should the new timezone file have kicked in and made the > > >clock go forward by an hour ? > > > > > >Any information is apprieciated.... > > > > Things to try (some of what follows may be specific to Alpha 7.3-2, > > and/or later VMS versions ...) > > > > Check that AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV is set to 1 > > (no longer a dynamic sysgen param, unfortunately) > > > > $ mcr sysgen HELP SYS_PAR AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV > > Sys_Parameters > > AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV > > AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV is set to either 1 or 0. The default is 0. > > > > If AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV is set to 1, OpenVMS automatically makes the > > change to and from daylight saving time. > > > > > > After changing the time to March '2007, try: > > > > $ @sys$manager:utc$time_setup "" RULE > > > > then take a look at > > > > $ show logical SYS$TIME* > > > > in particular, look at SYS$TIMEZONE_RULE, > > > > iirc, the 'old' (pre-2007) timezone rule > > looks approximately like so, > > > > ,M4.1.0/02,M10.4.0/02 > > > > and the new one > > ,M3.2.0/02,M11.1.0/02 > > > > > > [...] > > The JOB_CONTROL process reads the timezone rule and schedules the time > change event when it starts up. In order to inform it that the rule has > changed and that the time change event need occur at a different time > you can 'STOP/ID' the running JOB_CONTROL and then restart it using > '@SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP JOBCTL' (perhaps from your SYSTEM account). > > Of course, this would all occur during any reboot as well. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2007 12:02:37 -0800 From: twnews@kittles.com Subject: On-shoring of VMS support?? Message-ID: <1168372957.271435.74980@i56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> I have not seen this brought up yet in COV (much to my surprise), but last Friday when I made a call to HP's VMS support for a TCPIP Services question, I was surprised to be speaking with a familiar American voice as soon as I got through a reasonable number of phone prompts. When I mentioned that I was surprised to be speaking to an native English speaker so quickly, the support person indicated that the change was just made back on that Monday. If what he said was correct, HP heard us and actually changed things back. I realize that this does not bring back any support people that were already let go, but it is a very good sign to me. My call last week went very smooth and it seemed to me that this was the type and level of service that I had grown to expect from VMS support (the gold standard of phone support IMHO). Has anyone else heard about this or had a positive experience in the last week? Sorry if this was discussed elsewhere and I missed it. Thomas Wirt IS Director Kittle's Home Furnishings Indianapolis, IN ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:24:44 -0500 From: "Island Computers, D B Turner" Subject: Re: On-shoring of VMS support?? Message-ID: <12q821scn2lm4dc@news.supernews.com> Either that or those Indians were trained well in the art of "yankee-speek" :0) dt -- Island Computers US Corp 2700 Gregory St Savannah GA 31404 Tel: 912 447 6622 x201 Mail: dturner-atnospam-islandco-com (You know what to do with the dashes) wrote in message news:1168372957.271435.74980@i56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > I have not seen this brought up yet in COV (much to my surprise), but > last Friday when I made a call to HP's VMS support for a TCPIP Services > question, I was surprised to be speaking with a familiar American voice > as soon as I got through a reasonable number of phone prompts. When I > mentioned that I was surprised to be speaking to an native English > speaker so quickly, the support person indicated that the change was > just made back on that Monday. If what he said was correct, HP heard > us and actually changed things back. > > I realize that this does not bring back any support people that were > already let go, but it is a very good sign to me. My call last week > went very smooth and it seemed to me that this was the type and level > of service that I had grown to expect from VMS support (the gold > standard of phone support IMHO). > > Has anyone else heard about this or had a positive experience in the > last week? Sorry if this was discussed elsewhere and I missed it. > > Thomas Wirt > IS Director > Kittle's Home Furnishings > Indianapolis, IN > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:49:53 -0500 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Message-ID: <8ZOdnfHk3Pl-bD7YnZ2dnUVZ_segnZ2d@comcast.com> Andrew Butchart wrote: > We're continuing to have weird problems with our overnight processes. > As was suggested by the Group, we installed the patch to queue manager. > This didn't seem to have any benefit, but at least didn't break > anything. I also added an anal/disk/repair to the jobs just before the > daily backups. > > After some re-coding to not use the SYNC statement in the batch jobs, > the new problem is that a job will get stuck running LOGINOUT. We have > also had this problem intermittantly with user processes but that may > or may not be related. > > I have noticed that when running ana/disk that the pagefile is always > reported (see below). Is that normal? > > %ANALDISK-I-BADHIGHWATER, file (4098,255,1) PAGEFILE.SYS;1 > inconsistent highwater mark and EFBLK > > Additionally, with page files, I see that I have one on each disk. Is > that necessary, or can I move them around? Is there anyway to rebuild > a damaged one, if that may be my problem? > If you have a heavy paging load, splitting that load across two or more spindles can give a big performance boost (though not as big a boost as more memory would). > We also believe that our drives are quite fragmented. Are there any > utilities, perhaps on the old DECUS CDs that could reliable do a > de-fragment? I'm familiar with the old "copy everything off and then > back on" method, but that's pretty slow and requires us to shut > everything down. We have all of Sundays that we could lock the system > down if necessary. What is the experience of others in the wild? Do > you find that a defragement is necessary on a fairly busy system? If you have a spare disk of adequate capacity, you can do a disk-to-disk image backup to defragment. There are also various software packages that will defragment a disk. You can do a lot to prevent fragmentation by pre-allocating space for files. If you know that a file will be 10,000 blocks, you can allocate 10,000 blocks with "contiguous best try" which will cause less fragmentation than letting it grow 200 blocks at a time. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2007 13:39:24 -0800 From: "Andrew Butchart" Subject: Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Message-ID: <1168378764.823410.104860@p59g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> We're continuing to have weird problems with our overnight processes. As was suggested by the Group, we installed the patch to queue manager. This didn't seem to have any benefit, but at least didn't break anything. I also added an anal/disk/repair to the jobs just before the daily backups. After some re-coding to not use the SYNC statement in the batch jobs, the new problem is that a job will get stuck running LOGINOUT. We have also had this problem intermittantly with user processes but that may or may not be related. I have noticed that when running ana/disk that the pagefile is always reported (see below). Is that normal? %ANALDISK-I-BADHIGHWATER, file (4098,255,1) PAGEFILE.SYS;1 inconsistent highwater mark and EFBLK Additionally, with page files, I see that I have one on each disk. Is that necessary, or can I move them around? Is there anyway to rebuild a damaged one, if that may be my problem? We also believe that our drives are quite fragmented. Are there any utilities, perhaps on the old DECUS CDs that could reliable do a de-fragment? I'm familiar with the old "copy everything off and then back on" method, but that's pretty slow and requires us to shut everything down. We have all of Sundays that we could lock the system down if necessary. What is the experience of others in the wild? Do you find that a defragement is necessary on a fairly busy system? Thanks again AndrewB andrew@floatingbear.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:48:17 GMT From: "Duncan Macdonald" Subject: Re: Open VMS 7.1 - System Maintenance Message-ID: The DFU utility can be quite good at defragmenting - available on the DECUS CD (or at http://h71000.www7.hp.com/freeware/freeware70/dfu/) Use it once to get a list of all files with multiple fragments - edit the list to remove files that you do not want DFU to process then use it as an input to DFU to tell it which files to defragment. DFU is best used on an otherwise idle disk when defragmenting. Any reboot will make the previous contents of the pagefile unimportant as VMS makes no use (*)of any previous contents. (* If there is a crash dump stored in the system disk pagefile then part of the pagefile will be unavailable until the crash dump info has been extracted.) "Andrew Butchart" wrote in message news:1168367640.950860.266440@k58g2000hse.googlegroups.com... > We're continuing to have weird problems with our overnight processes. > As was suggested by the Group, we installed the patch to queue manager. > This didn't seem to have any benefit, but at least didn't break > anything. I also added an anal/disk/repair to the jobs just before the > daily backups. > > After some re-coding to not use the SYNC statement in the batch jobs, > the new problem is that a job will get stuck running LOGINOUT. We have > also had this problem intermittantly with user processes but that may > or may not be related. > > I have noticed that when running ana/disk that the pagefile is always > reported (see below). Is that normal? > > %ANALDISK-I-BADHIGHWATER, file (4098,255,1) PAGEFILE.SYS;1 > inconsistent highwater mark and EFBLK > > Additionally, with page files, I see that I have one on each disk. Is > that necessary, or can I move them around? Is there anyway to rebuild > a damaged one, if that may be my problem? > > We also believe that our drives are quite fragmented. Are there any > utilities, perhaps on the old DECUS CDs that could reliable do a > de-fragment? I'm familiar with the old "copy everything off and then > back on" method, but that's pretty slow and requires us to shut > everything down. We have all of Sundays that we could lock the system > down if necessary. What is the experience of others in the wild? Do > you find that a defragement is necessary on a fairly busy system? > > Thanks again > > AndrewB > andrew@floatingbear.ca > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:30:35 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Stuck TCPIP connections Message-ID: Had problems with a news server yesterday. They must have changed something at their end because I did not have it before. Basically, connections don't get properly shutdown and eventually the news server complains I have more than 3 concurrent sessions going. I could then go to TCPIP DELETE DEVICE BGxxxx to zap the stray connections and service would be restored for a few minutes untiol t happened again. Dowloading a binary item with a few images in it would result in something like: > tcp 102 0 bike.52844 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 102 0 bike.52845 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52846 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52847 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52848 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52849 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52850 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52851 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52852 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52853 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52854 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52855 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT > tcp 56 0 bike.52856 ispnews.usenetserver.com.119 CLOSE_WAIT The thing is that the above connections were created more than 8 hours ago. They also show up in TCPIP SHOW DEV From the usenetserver's point of view, those do not exist anymore because it let me in now. Question: shouldn't TCPIP connections eventually time out on their own and go away ? I can understand some protocol or application errors resulting in a link not being closed properly and remaining in CLOSE WAIT state. But shouldn't that eventually time out and the connection be fully zapped ? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:14:44 -0600 From: CJT Subject: Re: US Military bans HTML in emails Message-ID: <45A3F7B4.5000201@prodigy.net> Dr. Dweeb wrote: > CJT wrote: > >>Arne Vajhøj wrote: >> >> >>>David J Dachtera wrote: >>> >>> >>>>More grist for the chatter mill... >>>> >>>>http://weblog.infoworld.com/tcdaily/archives/2007/01/nyt_warns_again.html >>> >>> >>>You can find a lot of those. >>> >>>But it is probably more relevant to look at MS quarterly >>>revenue numbers. >>> >>>People keep buying their stuff. >>> >>>Arne >> >>Somebody once said something about a category of person being born >>every minute. > > > For the history buffs. I wanted a link for that "somebody" and discovered > "to my chagrin and dismay that a painfully comprehensive"* coverage here > http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html reveals that it is not the > "somebody" I had hitherto believed. > > Dr. Dweeb > > * Slade & Reynolds > > Isn't the Internet wonderful? I was awakened to that same fact several months ago in a similar somewhat off-topic discussion. -- The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 2007 18:56:29 -0800 From: "AEF" Subject: Re: US Military bans HTML in emails Message-ID: <1168397789.339908.321210@i39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> Arne Vajh=F8j wrote: > AEF wrote: > > Arne Vajh=F8j wrote: > >> AEF wrote: > >>> Arne Vajh=F8j wrote: > >>>> Now the MIS departments has tightened security. > >>> You mean like requiring 6-character passwords to now be "complex"? > >>> Yeah, that'll stop 'em!!! ;-) > >>> > >>> OK, maybe they're actually doing some more useful things. > >> More as in: > >> min 8 characters > >> min 1 uppercase > >> min 1 lowercase > >> min 1 digit > >> min 1 punctuation > >> > >> Or as in email scanners that removes all EXE, BAT etc. from attached > >> ZIP files in inbound email. > > > > It turns out that you get a lot more bang for the buck by requiring > > longer passwords. Complex passwords are not that much harder to crack. > > Since you have already demonstrated that you do not have a clue about > what is happening security wise, then there are no need for you to > try and explain about anything security related. > > Arne Well, it would be helpful if you could be a little more specific. And did you check the Info World article I posted a link to? Anyway, here are the numbers I promised earlier. Consider a password with a choice of X different characters for each position and a length of L. The total number of possible passwords is then X**L. If anyone wants, I'll be happy to derive this formula. Now, assume X=3D26 and L=3D6. I'd guess that this is the set most users choose from when confronted with a 6-char-minimum password. Then, 26**6 =3D 308,915,776 ~=3D 309e+06 ! where e+nn is the usual 10**nn factor Let's say we make it complex by doubling the number of characters to 52. That's adding 26 characters to X: 52**6 =3D 19,770,609,664 ~=3D 19.8e+9 Pretty good! That's 2**6 =3D 64 times as many paswords. Now what happens if we add 26 characters to L instead? 26**(6+26) =3D 26**32 ~=3D 1.90e+45 This number is fantastically larger than the number of atoms, or even subatomic particles (electrons, protons, and neutrons) in the computer itself. Good luck cracking this one! OK, what if we extend the length only to 12: 26**12 ~=3D 95.4e+15 This is still a very much larger number than 52**6. Let's try 10: 26**10 =3D 141e+12 Since 52**6 =3D 19770609664 ~=3D 19.8e+09, the complex password still comes up short. What about L =3D 8? 26**8 =3D 208,827,064,576 ~=3D 209e+09 which is STILL about 10 times more than the complex case of 52**6. What if we add numbers to the mix for the complex password, making X =3D 62? 62**6 ~=3D 56.8e+09 Now we're still short. But even this assumes that the complex passwords will be drawn randomly from the character set, which is highly unlikely. The uppercase letter will most likely be in position 1 whilst the numeral will likely be in position 6. This actually gives fewer possible passwords than a non-complex password of the same size!!! (26**5*10<26**6) Add punctuation? Most will use only hyphens, commas, and periods I would guess, and use only one of them for only one position within the character string. Not much help. Let's add all 32 puncutation characters: 94**6 ~=3D 690e+09 Finally we've outdone 26**L, but only by a factor of about 3, and we had to nearly quarduple the allowed number of characters to do it! It takes using (a RANDOM MIX of) all upper- and lowercase letters, all numerals, and all puncutation marks in a 6-char password to finally beat a simple 8-char password with X equal to only 26. And this is assuming each character in the complex password is drawn randomly from the entire set, and as I've already mentioned, that's highly unlikely. And the criterion of a minimum of one char from each of the four character sets certainly doesn't guarantee much of a move toward using characters chosen randomly from the full set. How many people are going to put in a reasonably well mixed combination of braces, backquotes, tildes, and such; numerals; and uppercase letters? Very few I'd bet. A nine-character simple password: 26**9 =3D 5.43e12 easily beating the 94**6 number by adding only one position. I can see only two advantages of complex passwords: 1) If you are using an O/S or app whose passwords are limited to 8 characters in length, and 2) elimination of passwords like dddddd, 123123, and such. But for reasonably chosen passwords, going from L=3D6 to L=3D8 beats even the most randomly chosen complex passwords drawn from upper- and lowercase letters and numbers. I think it would be best to use longer passwords and to check for stupid things like ddddddddddd and 123123123123, and such (and password history and dictionaries). If you're running your business on a Web site, and a customer has a choice between 8-character simple passwords and 6-character complex passwords, I bet the customer would go with the former. Also, the trick of using 0's for O's and 3's for E's is probably checked for in password crackers and would be with little extra toil, at least relative to longer, well-chosen simple passwords. A possible disadvantage of complex passwords, at least according to an old post I dug up a few months back, is that they stand out in sniffer data whereas simple passwords are virtually indistinguishable from the rest. I don't know how important or even valid this claim is, though, as I'm reporting it second hand. If you want to increase the number of possible passwords, increasing L gives you a lot more bang for the buck than increasing X.=20 AEF ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 19:44:37 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: VT100 LED and BEEP frequencies Message-ID: Hi, Is there some way to control/vary the ^G frequency on my VT100 while, at the same time, synchronizing my LED displays? The reason I'm asking is that I've got a huge Christmas planned for next year and I reckon "VT100 Jingle Bells" would set the scene nicely, and be a great tool for kicking off the celebrations! Does anyone still have that file of Christmas Tree graphics/escape sequences from years gone by? If I could tie that in with the LED/BEEP extravaganza it's sure to be a real hoot! Regards Richard Maher ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.019 ************************