INFO-VAX Fri, 08 Aug 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 431 Contents: Re: Apache 2.1-1 and PHP 1.3 - no "glob" function? Re: CD written on Alpha won't mount on Integrity DVD ROM Re: CD written on Alpha won't mount on Integrity DVD ROM Re: DEFCON 16 and Hacking OpenVMS Re: Example: VMS to Web Browser "push" technology Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: Expiration date on Files Re: VMSMail problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:41:36 -0400 From: none Subject: Re: Apache 2.1-1 and PHP 1.3 - no "glob" function? Message-ID: <9lfo94tpgs20ogb4slc80fsb4dkq1cdilm@4ax.com> On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:58:14 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote: > >A PHP 5 port for VMS is long overdue ! > Yeah, I'd guess so! I've never done any porting work.... doubt I could accomplish such a monumental task myself. When I look at the way that application builds are created in the UNIX world I cringe at the thought. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:37:49 +0100 From: baldrick Subject: Re: CD written on Alpha won't mount on Integrity DVD ROM Message-ID: etmsreec@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > On 5 Aug, 21:26, baldrick wrote: > > Thinking back to when I first tried cutting CDs for VMS, have you > considered the drive and the level of "reflectivity" on the disk? On > older Alphas I found that the CD-RW disks were useless as they > couldn't be read. Is a similar thing happening here do you think? I can MOUNT/FORE the CD no problem, and even start to DUMP it so it can be read... Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > > There are many people in the Unix world who seem to be having similar > problems, they can read factory made CDs without problems but the home > brew CDs just will not work! Some drives seem to work better than others. > > The conventional wisdom on the Unix side is, to burn using the slowest > possible speed. This CD was written at 8X on a 16x capable drive, I also tried a 4X written disk, and the media speed always faster than that quoted. But I can use the CD on Alpha and VAX, why is the Itanium rejecting it? What other media are people using (I am using RITEK (=TRAXDATA among other brands) Nic. PS. Didn't manage to try the virtual connect yet... -- nclews at csc dot com aka Mr. CP Charges "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place."- DNA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:41:55 +0100 From: baldrick Subject: Re: CD written on Alpha won't mount on Integrity DVD ROM Message-ID: Jose Baars wrote: > We had to do the same : write CD's on Alpha and read them > on Itanium ( rx2620 not sure about the exact DVD drive). > > If you are on 8.3 you can use copy/recordable_media lda1 dqa0: > > This has varying results as the Itanium DVD drives are apparently much > pickier than any others, resulting sometimes in read errors on > CD's that are perfectly readable on Alpha. If you use the wrong > brand or lot you always get errors. > > I used a CD -RW and this worked fine, maybe because of a different > kind > of on-disk tracks or whatever. > > My guess is you ran in to similar problems, I would try a few other > brands or types > of media. Ah now this is the sort of data I seek, what media are you using (brand) ? If you have a CDINFO tool on a Wintel drive what does it tell you about the media? I may try a different media (I have some TDK) and try using the COPY/RECORDABLE rather than my home grown. I'll see if I have a CDRW disc too... Nic. -- nclews at csc dot com aka Mr. CP Charges "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place."- DNA ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 2008 07:49:44 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: DEFCON 16 and Hacking OpenVMS Message-ID: In article <8660a3a10808071711y49326bci2d6514c28357e72d@mail.gmail.com>, "William Webb" writes: > > The last "black hat" stuff I read (and it was a while ago) was quite > outdated and went back to the days when SYSTEM, FIELD, etc had default > passwords set at installation time. > > That's no longer the case, and has been for some time. There's a fairly easy to find (or it was last time I bothered looking) guide to hacking VMS that I think you're talking about. It was written to a default installation and bad system management prior to VMS 5.0. It used the canned passwords to get access to a privileged account. It told of all kinds of little things a privileged account could do. Unless the DEFCON sessions reports ways to access a system without authorization, or elevate your privileges to a higher class without authorization, on a properly installed and managed system, it's just smoke up your virtual skirt. We wait to see. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 20:05:39 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: Example: VMS to Web Browser "push" technology Message-ID: Hi Jan-Erik, > Yes, I was thinking about that part. How the client > would "subscribe" to the information. The method I described is pretty standard, where the service-provider keeps a track of registered clients and distributes any incoming data to the list in a round-robin fashion. (Subscriptions usually have to be renewed every N mins) One alternative could be that, for every Tier3 client that logs-on, you keep a list of VMS Usernames and IP addresses(+/- ports) in a system-wide database that can be accessed by utilities such as $REPLY/USER or "You've got new mail" or "Your print job is finished" or "Fred wants to chat" or whatever. . . A totally different method of "subscribing" is (with, I believe, the restriction of only being available via subnets) to UDP "broadcast" messages to all clients that subscribe to a particular IP address. In this case the server, or service provider, has no knowledge of who the clients are (and quite frankly doesn't give a toss :-) Furthermore, and as alluded to in my previous post, "Multicasting" is the mutt's nut's for wide-area message dissemination, but there appear to be some real obstacles with public networks. > I'm seeing a "factory dashboard" application > showing "daily production" typ of info. Makes > upper management happy... :-) Look, polling is anathema to me but let's give the devil his due; if *every* movement in *every* instrument is to become a broadcastable event then you're not gonna be doing much else but servicing redundant, stale event data. I'm guessing that polling, at a user-configured interval, for a whole bag-full of statistics might suit your dashboard better - a la mode de RMU/SHOW STATS. Alarm-processing OTOH lends itself beautifully to the unsolicited and asynchronous capabilities of my example! Stall-Messages? Disk Statii? Cluster State transitions? All good stuff! > B.t.w, I'm not updated on the actual UDP vs. TCP > differences. Was there some special reason to use UDP ? > Whould it be harder (more complex) to use TCP instead ? At least you're honest! (And you're hardly going to be enlightened at a Bootcamp soiree for the under-utilized and overpaid. But then you did get your beloved gSOAP so I guess you're happy, even though the rest of us are dying for want of a XHR$ RTL :-( Argh. . .the bitterness consumes me!) Here's a few differentiators that might interest you (Hopefully others will chime in, and I'm sure there are oodles of white-papers from the IMM team et al, on what you should be doing with your IP network) 1) TCP/IP is a connection-oriented, reliable protocol for delivering streams of data 2) UDP is an unreliable connectionless protocol for delivering data packets in no guranteed sequence or without duplication/loss 3) SSL can be layered on TCP/IP but not UDP (Lovely IPsec covers it all!) 4) Because UDP is connectionless, any number of servers can supply data simultaneously 5) With UDP you often need to use sequence number checks, heartbeats, and timeouts to maintain pseudo-connections 6) TCP/IP is reliable, robust, let's you know when the peer dies and also has OOB data In a nutshell, a context-rich, connection-oriented protocol like TCP/IP (or DECnet for that matter) under the control of Tier3 Client/Server Middleware is the best fit for clients who want to simply "logon" and maintain a context-rich session with their chosen application(s). UDP is best suited to delivering asynchronous, and pehaps unsolicited, data into the equation. Alles klar? If OTOH you'd like to listen to every pointless knobhead in the industry, then you may well come to the conclusion that: - 1) There is no benefit in maintaining a persitent connection between client and server because who's to say that you'll want to visit that same server again anyway? Somewhere between show balance/make withdrawl? 2) Session Ids, Cookies, and waving a dead-chicken over your head, are more than adequate mechanisms for maintaining the barest minimum of state information 'cos anything else wouldn't be truly RESTful. 3) Session hijacking isn't important. 4) OTOH a persistent connection *is ideal* for asynchronous message broadcasts - Disbelief! 5) Much better than polling, long-polling, streaming, cometting, chunking, and plain-bullshitting! 6) HTTP "standard" says maximum of 2 connections per server but "vie have vays" of defeating such controls (Just like the cross-domain Ajax check!) 7) Just because, at the end of the day, we have a dedicated connection and a dedicated server process per each client doesn't mean that we should have just stuck with INETd 8) HTTP is just the most bestest, highest performing, and secure midlleware backbone for all your application needs 9) Anyway, we own port 80 and anything else means you have to modify your Firewalls. Nah nah nanah-nah! Anyway, the Olympics beckon. . . Cheers Richard Maher PS. mysql, interpretters, Perl, Python, PHP, Linux - It's all good; Just what has VMS got to do with all this? "Jan-Erik Söderholm" wrote in message news:z5Rmk.1563$U5.857@newsb.telia.net... > Richard Maher wrote: > > > ...and tell a detached VMS process to include your client's IP > > Address/port in its list of customers > > Yes, I was thinking about that part. How the client > would "subscribe" to the information. > > I'm seeing a "factory dashboard" application > showing "daily production" typ of info. Makes > upper management happy... :-) > > B.t.w, I'm not updated on the actual UDP vs. TCP > differences. Was there some special reason to use UDP ? > Whould it be harder (more complex) to use TCP instead ? > > Jan-Erik. > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:38:04 +0200 From: "Fred Zwarts" Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: wrote in message = news:OFFC96C976.67FD6D40-ON8525749E.0063EDE2-8525749E.00642300@metso.com.= .. > Does a file with an Expiration date get automagically deleted when = that=20 > date-time occurs? > If I want to restore an expired file from a backup, how can I keep = this=20 > from happening instantaneously? >=20 > Where is the discussion of the behavior of this field? No, VMS does not use the expiration date of a file. VMS keeps this information only to be used in your own way, by allowing to use it in the selection criteria for files. By default VMS does not even set the expiration date of a file = automatically, but that can be changed with SET VOLUME /RETENTION. This is the only command (as far as I know) where VMS uses the expiration date in a way that is has a relation with the name of this = field. If retention times are disabled, the expiration date can be used for = very=20 different purposes. (We have retention times enabled with small numbers, so that the expiration time can be used as an approximate last access = date.) If you see that expired files automagically get deleted, than there must = be something non-standard running on the system. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 2008 07:39:13 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: In article <3f1da8b3-a07a-44c4-b669-346adbe3b8c6@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com>, BHall writes: > > Restore the files once more. Then do a $set file/ > expiration_date=3D on the each of the restored > files. You could also do a $set file/noexpiration_date to completely > remove the date. In either case the expiration date may be adjusted > again the next time the file is opened depending on the volumes > retention settings. For volumes not using retention, setting the expiration date to the 0 value mimics part of the UNIX touch command, since this updates the modified date: $ touch == "set file/expiration_date=17-nov-1858 ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 2008 07:41:17 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: In article <0f17e39c-728e-40a8-ab8c-30c28c01aed6@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com>, BHall writes: > Bob, > > I'm referring to the ODS-5 access date. Enbled with a $SET VOLUME/ > VOLUME_CHARACTERISTICS=3DACCESS_DATES. In the past we set the volume > retention window to "emulate" the last access date and used the > expiration date as an approximation of the last access time. > > Bill None of my ODS-5 volumes seem to know anything about that. Nor does my DCL command table. What version of VMS was it introduced in (I may have it at home)? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 2008 07:43:18 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: In article <072d5ac6-4c73-4fee-9243-0844425fa810@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > > It was done on the VAX (later, a VAXcluster) I used when I was a > graduate student. The scratch disk had retention dates set to zero and > 1 or .01 seconds, which emulated a last-accessed date. For a 24 hour cleanup, that setting looks painfully excessive. Must have been banging on the spindle much harder than needed. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 06:54:04 -0700 (PDT) From: BHall Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: On Aug 8, 7:41=A0am, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote: > In article <0f17e39c-728e-40a8-ab8c-30c28c01a...@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.= com>, BHall writes: > > > Bob, > > > I'm referring to the ODS-5 access date. =A0Enbled with a $SET VOLUME/ > > VOLUME_CHARACTERISTICS=3D3DACCESS_DATES. =A0In the past we set the volu= me > > retention window to "emulate" the last access date and used the > > expiration date as an approximation of the last access time. > > > Bill > > =A0 =A0None of my ODS-5 volumes seem to know anything about that. =A0Nor = does > =A0 =A0my DCL command table. =A0What version of VMS was it introduced in = (I > =A0 =A0may have it at home)? Bob, I just noticed my "Google Groups" post got a little mangled. The syntax is /volume_characteristics=3Daccess_dates, don't know where the "3D" came from. I thought access_dates and hard_links were there at the initial ODS-5 release, v7.2??? Too many brain cells under the bridge ;-) Bill Bill ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:33:17 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: On Aug 8, 8:43 am, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote: > In article <072d5ac6-4c73-4fee-9243-0844425fa...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > > > > > It was done on the VAX (later, a VAXcluster) I used when I was a > > graduate student. The scratch disk had retention dates set to zero and > > 1 or .01 seconds, which emulated a last-accessed date. > > For a 24 hour cleanup, that setting looks painfully excessive. > Must have been banging on the spindle much harder than needed. Well, we were a small group: about 6-8 grad students and 6 professors. So, IIRC, we always had fewer than 10 users logged in at any given time. Most of the work was number crunching. It might also be that I remember incorrectly, but I don't think so. I actually brought this up with the quasi-system mangers (some of the physicists!) but they thought it didn't matter much. I tended to agree with them back then after thinking about it. In retrospect, I realize other things we did and didn't do that were much worse. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:35:33 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: Expiration date on Files Message-ID: <0ad4993c-146d-4518-b078-08b40ca6e78e@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> On Aug 8, 9:54 am, BHall wrote: > On Aug 8, 7:41 am, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob > > Koehler) wrote: > > In article <0f17e39c-728e-40a8-ab8c-30c28c01a...@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com>, BHall writes: > > > > Bob, > > > > I'm referring to the ODS-5 access date. Enbled with a $SET VOLUME/ > > > VOLUME_CHARACTERISTICS=3DACCESS_DATES. In the past we set the volume > > > retention window to "emulate" the last access date and used the > > > expiration date as an approximation of the last access time. > > > > Bill > > > None of my ODS-5 volumes seem to know anything about that. Nor does > > my DCL command table. What version of VMS was it introduced in (I > > may have it at home)? > > Bob, > > I just noticed my "Google Groups" post got a little mangled. The > syntax is /volume_characteristics=access_dates, don't know where the > "3D" came from. I thought access_dates and hard_links were there at > the initial ODS-5 release, v7.2??? Too many brain cells under the > bridge ;-) > > Bill > > Bill I think the 3D is the mistranslation you get from Mime to normal with equal signs. Maybe Goggle Groups hiccuped? AEF ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:21:29 -0700 (PDT) From: etmsreec@yahoo.co.uk Subject: Re: VMSMail problem Message-ID: <10f59d56-3770-4496-b05a-f1c92c0a217a@k37g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On 8 Aug, 00:21, "Tom Linden" wrote: > I stopped receiving mail middle of the night, at least so it appeared fro= m > my Outlook POP client, which talks to MX as the smtp server. =A0However, = when > I check mail directly from a session logged in to the cluster I am inform= ed > that the mail folder does not exist. > > GUNN> mail > > MAIL> dir > %MAIL-E-NOTEXIST, folder MAIL does not exist > > So I troddle off to my mail dir and > dir =A0DISK$COMMON:[USER.TOM.MAIL]/date=3Dmod/size > MAIL.MAI;1 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A06210 =A0 7-AUG-2008 16:14:49.23 > > which is pretty big and the date keeps changeing indicating that it is > likely receiving mail. > > How do I fix this? =A0Any idea why the folder is so big, I regularly dele= te > messages. > > Tom > > -- > PL/I for OpenVMSwww.kednos.com If it's anything like IMAP interaction between VMS and Outlook, it's almost terminally broken. I had no end of problems with a big mail "folder" on VMS and Outlook where Outlook would randomly delete all of the mail messages in my mail folders. Outlook Express, though functionally crippled, is much better. It has (yet) to delete all my mail on me. That said, it's using a different account on the VMS box with much less email in it. I fear if Outlook has done what it has done to me before, the answers are either restore the mail directory from a backup or find out what the lost messages are (if you can) and then forward them to yourself via DECnet mail. Outlook and your POP server should be able to ignore the DECnet mail headers and just go on the embedded SMTP headers. Steve ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.431 ************************