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000280_fdc@panix.com_Mon Feb 1 17:08:28 2010.msg
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Path: reader1.panix.com!panix!not-for-mail
From: Frank da Cruz <fdc@panix.com>
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kermit.misc,comp.os.vms
Subject: Announce: C-Kermit 9.0 Alpha.02
Followup-To: comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:03:32 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC
Lines: 97
Message-ID: <slrnhmejtk.5hv.fdc@panix2.panix.com>
Reply-To: fdc@columbia.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com
X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1265061812 24753 166.84.1.2 (1 Feb 2010 22:03:32 GMT)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:03:32 +0000 (UTC)
Summary: Second Alpha test of C-Kermit 9.0 communications software
User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (NetBSD)
Xref: panix comp.protocols.kermit.misc:15883 comp.os.vms:517061
For those who didn't see the first announcement in November, a new release
of C-Kermit communication software:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/ckermit.html
is nearing release, version 9.0, described here:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/ck90.html
The second Alpha-test version, Alpha.02, is now ready for testing:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/ckdaily.html
The major new features of C-Kermit 9.0 are 64-bitness (where possible) and
adaptation to all (or most of) the current Unix and VMS platforms, notably
current Linux and Mac OS X releases. Other new features are listed in
web pages cited above.
I've been able to build and test it on various versions of Linux, Mac OS X,
AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, MirBSD, MINIX, IRIX, Solaris, OSF/1,
and VMS, on many types of hardware. I have *not* been able to test it on
anything not just mentioned, for example SCO or QNX.
If anyone has a platform where C-Kermit 9.0 is not yet listed as having
been built successfully:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/ck90.html#platforms
please give it spin and let me know how it goes, or contact me so we
can arrange something.
The mainstream Unix versions (Linux, Mac OS X, etc) seem pretty solid so
far, and the build procedures are much simplified. For example, "make
linux" should work on any Linux version or distribution automatically.
"make macosx" should work on any Mac OS X version back to 10.3.9, maybe
earlier.
Those of you who believe that Kermit software is a relic of the past might
be surprised. True, it's no longer a mass-market tool familiar to every end
user as it was in the 80s and part of the 90s; now it is used more by
systems integrators, sysadmins, and network managers for its combined
communication and automation capabilites; for an overview see:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit.html
Some notable advantages of C-Kermit are that it is self contained and has a
small footprint by today's standards. Self contained means it doesn't need
all kinds of plug-ins (like Perl does) that can shift and change out from
under it, thus breaking scripts. The scripting language is extremely (if
not perfectly) stable, and also portable between many platforms including
all Unixes, VMS, and Windows (plus many more mostly vanished), and also
portable among different communication methods: serial, telnet, ssh...
To illustrate, here's an example of how C-Kermit is used here at Columbia U
for configuring racks full of HP Blade servers through their iLO interface:
http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/net/ilosetup.html
_SECURE VERSIONS_
Secure C-Kermit versions (that is, versions that are capable of performing
secure authentication and strong encryption over the Internet) are built
with special makefile targets, such as "make linux+ssl", "make linux+krb5",
"make linux+krb5+ssl", and require that you have the relevant security
package package (such as OpenSSL) already installed: header files and
libraries.
_THE VMS VERSION_
C-Kermit 9.0 for VMS can (for the first time) be built with the C-Kermit
FTP client:
http://kermit.columbia.edu/ftpclient.html
enabled, for both clear-text (insecure) and SSL (secure) FTP connections,
a feature which has been available in the Unix version for some years.
At present these features are not configured by default since they have
some rough edges, you have to build it like this:
@ckver.com if "" "CK_SSL"
The FTP client itself is pretty much stuck to the C library and thus
can only handle stream binary fines and Stream_LF files, but none of
the RMS types. Of course FTP protocol itself does not allow for these
types, but I'm aware that other VMS ftp clients did something special with
them. Any VMS C programmers who might like to have a scriptable, and
optionally secure, FTP client are welcome to pitch in (contact me).
C-Kermit 9.0 has the same license as versions 7.0 and 8.0, but this might
change before the final release.
Frank da Cruz
The Kermit Project
Columbia University
New York City
http://kermit.columbia.edu/
fdc@columbia.edu