ARM Club 3/TheARMClub_PDCD3.iso/hensa/internet/deltanet_1/LatestNews

Text File | 1996-03-09 | 9.8 KB | 226 lines

This file shows all the features you're missing by not having a
registered version!  Registration is only 7 pounds for a single user
version so why not get that cheque sent off today!

Registration details are in the licence file.  Please email me if you
want any more information.

You can get the latest information on DeltaNet from my Web site:

    http://triton.chu.cam.ac.uk/software/

... available most days during term time.

Chris Poole, [e-mail], [e-mail], 9/3/96

--

1.39    ~username now works even if no trailing / is included in the URL.

1.38    Ident non-block bug fixed (at last).  This will stop the server
    hanging the machine while connecting to the remote ident server.
    This affects all incoming connections if 'Ident connections' is
    turned on.  The only other possibility for machine hanging is in
    name resolving.

1.37    Restored the missing relocate body - a bug fix ;-)  Telnet
    page up/down fixed.

1.36    Implemented FTP SYST command, having finally decided what type
    to return.  It returns 'UNIX emulation under RISC OS'.  Since
    only the first word is used by clients to determine what the
    directory listings will look like, this seems reasonable.

    Debugging message removed from socket close routine.

1.35    User name is passed as a parameter to the telnet shell, for all
    shells other than 'cli'.  This is to allow shells to be written
    which customise the environment for individual users.

    Hopefully, a bug which could HTTP documents to be truncated has
    been fixed.

    FTP listing pipe filename changed so as to be unique.

1.34    Size of FTP and HTTP transfer buffers increased - should result
    in a speed improvement in sending data (will affect FTP 'GET',
    as well as HTTP fetches).

1.33    CGI programs generating their own headers should now work from
    C, BASIC and obey files, not just BASIC.

    WimpSlot increased to fix problem causing some CGI programs to
    stop working in later (larger) versions of the main program.

1.32    Fixed a very embarassing bug which for most people appeared to
    have broken the finger server.  The problem was that the server
    enable icons in the configuation window for NTalk, Finger, and
    Ident were mixed up - must have been Monday morning!  The config
    window will be displayed at startup for you to check and/or
    correct the settings.

    Entering Ctrl-D at the telnet login prompt will abort the login
    and close the connection.

    Updated Help file to include information on the treatment of
    image filing system files by the HTTP server.

1.31    HTTP basic authentication implemented.  You can now set up a
    number of private areas on your web site, protected by user names
    and passwords.  Each area can have an unlimited number of
    separate users.  More details are in the Help file.

1.30    New configuration options to disable user identification for
    incoming connections and to disable name lookups for the log
    window/file.  The latter will be useful for people with slow
    internet connections and/or slow nameservers which can cause the
    machine to hang for extended periods while name lookups are done.

    The configuration window will open automatically on startup for
    you to set the new options.

1.29    Bug in logging fixed - hopefully there will be no more oflaolfa
    messages appearing in the log file.

1.28    Users' FTP home directories have now become more general home
    directories and are used by the finger and HTTP servers as follows:
    HTTP requests for ~username are translated to requests for files in
    <userhome>.PublicHTML.  If the user is unknown or there is no
    PublicHTML directory, a not found error will be returned.  Finger
    looks for project and plan files, under the name "/project" and
    "/plan" in the user's home directory and returns them with the
    finger user@host output if they exist, as under UNIX.

1.27    Imagemap interpreter now supports 'poly' and 'point' methods.      It
    will no longer crash when reading data files with blank lines.

    Example imagemap document upgraded to test the new features.

1.26    Telnet server now ignores LF characters which some telnet clients
    insert after CR characters.  You shouldn't get double entry of
    return characters with the ANT and FreeTerm 0.12b clients.

    Imagemap support added.  The NCSA map file format is used but only
    the default, rect and circle methods are currently supported.      Map
    files are identified by a filetype of Data (FFD).  For more
    information see the help file and the example supplied.

    Telnet server now implements VDU31 so PRINT TAB should work in
    programs run from a telnet session.

    New options on main menu to open the FTP and HTTP server root
    directories.  The configuration option for the web server path has
    changed to be a directory (ie. the trailing dot should now not be
    included).  When you first load the new version, it will convert
    the configuration and pop up the config box for you to save it.  It
    was only a path before because it used to be in an Obey file and it
    was easier that way.

    Default CLI for telnet now runs the alias DeltaNetCLI which now
    allocates a small amount of memory.

1.25    Very nasty bug fixed which would make the program spontaneously
    quit.  It has taken about 10 hours work to sort that out so I hope
    you all appreciate it.  Three cheers for Mnemosyne, otherwise it
    might have been 20!

    NB.  The configuration host name field wants the FULL host name
    with the domain (otherwise HTTP relocates won't work).

1.24    Removed two small internal memory leaks in logging.

    The server now requests a user name for each connection as it used
    to do before I broke it.

1.23    Telnet server debugged.  I wasn't able to test it with anything
    except FreeTerm and UNIX telnet clients behaved differently.
    It now handles echo properly.

1.22    BASIC support library for CGI programs included, along with many
    examples explaining its use.  Functions and procedures are
    provided to ease error handling and implement forms, and there
    are other procedures to provide an abstract interface to the
    special features of DeltaNet CGI programs.

    Please read the Problems section of the manual - I have become
    aware of a couple of problems associated with loading new
    versions of ROM modules after the computer is started up.

    FTP server should work properly with the ANT FTP client for users
    other than anonymous.  The client was getting a bit upset that it
    could see where in the directory tree it was, but couldn't get up
    to the root directory.  Now, normal users behave as anonymous
    users did - ie. the home directory appears to be the root
    directory.  I considered many ways of sorting the problem, and
    this seemed the only viable solution.  The only things this
    affects are the CD and PWD commands of the FTP server.

1.21    Telnet server added ... and it still only uses 120k!!

    User information includes a 'shell' option which, if set, allows
    the user to log in by telnet, if they also have a password defined.
    A shell of 'cli' specifies that the standard command line interface
    should be used.

    Anyone connecting to the telnet port will be presented with a login
    prompt.  After three failed logins, the connection will be closed.
    If the user successfully logs in, the appropriate shell will be
    started as a separate task and its output will be sent to the user.

    The telnet server translates many VDU codes to the vt100 terminal
    escape sequence equivalents, as well as mapping vt100 key codes for
    the arrow keys back to the RISC OS codes.

    The standard shell, like that provided by task windows, cannot be
    quit by any command, so I have written a utility, which is run by
    the command 'logout' (an alias in the !Run file) which will kill
    it.  Naturally, closing the connection also kills the shell.

    Obviously, running a telnet server can be a security risk and you
    should read the !Help file thoroughly before enabling the new
    server.  In particular be aware that any user with a 'shell' field
    and a password in the user data can potentially do absolutely
    anything to your machine.  I advise that you don't allow more than
    one user to use the telnet server and to make that user you.

    HTTP logging quirk fixed.

1.20    The !Configure file is gone and a configuration dialogue box is
    available.  The first time you run DeltaNet you will need to set
    up the configuration, but should not need to re-do everything when
    you upgrade to later versions.  The configuration window is shown
    automatically if the config file is not present or is out of date.

    The file or directory fields of the configuration window can be
    filled in by dragging objects to them.

    There is now a quit prompt, showing the number of active
    connections, and if you _do_ quit while there are connections still
    active, the connections are now closed.

    As you will have noticed, I have inverted this file so that the new
    information is at the top.

1.19    Major changes to logging - hopefully the server won't now spend the
    majority of its time writing the log files and reverse-resolving
    names.

    All log messages are now recorded in memory and only written to
    disc every five minutes.  A log window can be displayed which is
    automatically updated.  New log messages are saved to disc every
    five minutes, and messages are discarded from memory after an hour.

    Host names are looked up only when the log window is displayed or
    the messages are written to disc.  Hopefully, the lookups can be
    multi-tasking one day, but for the moment, if it hangs, ESCAPE will
    interrupt the lookup and the numeric form of the address will be
    used.  You may need to press ESCAPE many times if you have more
    than one name server configured (this is a problem with the InetDB
    module, not with DeltaNet).

    !Run file now actually checks for a TCP/IP stack!  If you get some
    Can't assign requested address errors, you probably have a TCP/IP
    stack but have not configured it (which is probably because you
    have the Acorn module in ROM, but didn't double-click !Internet).
    I guess this is all very obvious, but you never know.