NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/vmsnet/networks/tcpip/ucx/62

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-12 | 18.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!spcvxb.spc.edu!terry
From: [e-mail] (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Newsgroups: vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.ucx
Subject: vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.ucx Monthly FAQ posting
Summary: UCX FAQ
Keywords: FAQ
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:31:53 GMT
Expires: 11 Sep 92 12:32:30 EDT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Lines: 435

Archive-name: ucx-faq/part1
Last-Modified: 08-Aug-1992 14:41
Version: 1.0

*******************************************************
*                               *
*   Answers to Frequently asked questions about UCX   *
*                              *
*******************************************************

This post contains Part 1 (currently the only part) of the UCX FAQ. It will
be posted to vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.ucx and news.answers monthly, once the
content stabilizes a bit.

Changes to this FAQ will be marked with vertical bars (or whatever passes for
a vertical bar on your display) thusly:

| This is a sample changed section.

This document contains "Frequently Asked Questions" (or FAQ for short) about
UCX. Answers (hopefully correct ones, even) are also included. There is a
table of contents, followed by the actual questions and answers.

Many common questions about UCX are answered in this document, it would be a
good idea to read it to see if your question has already been answered before
posting to the UCX newsgroup. I monitor the related newsgroups for UCX-related
questions and answers, and add them to this document when appropriate. Updates
will be posted monthly.

If you have additional information or corrections to any of the items in this
FAQ, feel free to send them to me for inclusion in the next version. See the
end of this file for my address. Please indicate that you are submitting an
item for the UCX FAQ in your message.

This file is also available via FTP from ftp.spc.edu (192.107.46.27) in the
[.ucx] directory as ucx-faq.txt

CONTENTS

    I. General information
    1.1) What is UCX?
    1.2) What is the current version?
    1.3) What patches are available and what are they for?
    1.4) When is version 2 coming out?
    1.5) What new features will be in V2?

    II. Included utilities
    2.1) Why isn't <favorite utility> included?
    2.2) Why doesn't UCX FTP support STRU VMS?
    2.3) Why doesn't UCX FTP work with "new" Unix FTP servers?
    2.4) Why doesn't UCX Telnet have a 3270 mode?
    2.5) Why isn't a BIND server included?

    III. Other utilities
    3.1) What add-on utilities are available?
    3.2) PING
     3.3) SMTP mail
    3.4) NSLOOKUP
    3.5) RLOGIN
    3.6) TALK
    3.7) LPR
    3.8) POP server
    3.9) Archie client
    3.10) IRC client
    3.11) Empire client
    3.12) NNTP clients and servers
    3.13) WHOIS
    3.14) Finger
    3.15) TRACEROUTE

    IV. Programming
    4.1) Where is the programming documentation?
    4.2) Why don't routines like getprotobyname() work?

    V. Common problems and solutions
    5.1) Why can't non-privileged users do <X>?
    5.2) What is the UCX security patch for?
    5.3) How can I disable incoming Telnet access

    VI. NFS (Network File System)

1.1) What is UCX?

  UCX (VMS/Ultrix Connection, also known as TCP/IP services for VMS) is a
package from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which provides connectivity
between VAX systems running VMS and other systems running the TCP/IP proto-
cols. Although the name implies that it is for connecting Ultrix systems to
VMS systems, it works with other TCP/IP implementations. Because it is a DEC
product available under the Campuswide Software License Grant (CSLG) program
to qualifying schools, it enjoys a large popularity.

1.2) What is the current version?

  The current distributed version (on both traditional media and CD-based
distributions) is V1.3A or V1.3B. The difference is the presence of a cover
letter describing a security patch (see section 5.2).

1.3) What patches are available and what are they for?

|   The Colorado Springs Customer Support Center (CSC) has issued several patch
| kits for UCX. The general part number is CSCPAT_0903xxx, where xxx is a vers-
| ion number which changes. The latest version is 018, meaning release 1.8 of
| the patch kit.

  If you have telephone support, you are probably entitled to these patches.
If you have an "access number" for the CSC, you can contact them to order the
patch kit.

  There are a number of bugs in the base kit, some of which will allow non-
privileged users to crash your system. I would strongly urge you to acquire
and install a patch kit if you haven't already.

1.4) When is version 2 coming out?

  Version 2 was announced some time ago. At this time it is not yet shipping.
Rumors of various Field Test versions have surfaced, but I don't know of any-
one who has seen it yet.

|   Reports from the Spring 1992 DECUS Symposium say either "June/July 1992"
| or "July 10th, 1992", so it seems that July would be a good guess.

1.5) What new features will be in V2?

|   A copy of the UCX V2.0 SPD (Software Product Description) is available
| via anonymous FTP from ftp.spc.edu in [.ucx]ucx-20-spd.txt. This SPD should
| also be available from DEC's Electronic Connection, from DSIN/DSNlink, and
| the Digital Reference service. Your sales representative may also be able
| to get you a copy. You should refer to "SPD 25.A4.04". As this document is
| 20 pages long, it can't be included here. However, the following is the text
| of the "New Features" section:
|
| The following new features and enhancements have been added to DEC TCP/IP
| Services for OpenVMS:
|
| o  Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
|
| o  Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Agent
|
| o  Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) Support
|
| o  DEC TCP/IP Auxiliary server (inetd)
|
| o  Berkeley R commands (rsh, rexec, rlogin )
|
| o  File conversion "on the fly" (NFS)
|
| o  Enhanced DEC TCP/IP management
|
| o  Enhanced security and network access control
|
| o  Remote printing

II. Included utilities

2.1) Why isn't <favorite utility> included?

  Good question. DEC seems to have implemented only the features necessary
to interact with Ultrix systems. Perhaps some of the missing features will
be added in V2 of UCX.

2.2) Why doesn't UCX FTP support STRU VMS?

  First, STRU VMS is an extension to the FTP protocol which was developed by
TGV, Inc. (makers of another TCP/IP package for VMS called Multinet). It al-
lows two systems that support the STRU VMS extension to transfer arbitrary
VMS file types. Normal FTP only has two modes, text and binary, which means
that "complex" VMS file types such as .OBJ and RMS indexed files cannot be
transfered. You can always insert these files into BACKUP savesets, which
can then be transfered in binary mode.

|   Note that such files will be received with a record size of 512, which
| VMS BACKUP won't like. You can use any of the record attribute changers,
| such as Joe Meadows' excellent FILE utility, to reset the record size.

2.3) Why doesn't UCX FTP work with "new" Unix FTP servers?

  A new version of the Unix FTP server has been showing up at popular archive
hosts. It generally identifies itself as version 6.something. By default, it
generates long multi-line responses which confuse the UCX FTP client. At most
sites, when you give the anonymous username and are prompted for a password,
entering a dash "-" in front of your network address will instruct the server
to use the older mode. You may miss some important messages when doing this,
however.

  The decwrl.dec.com host uses the new style server. The archive maintainers
on that system have sent an internal mail message to the UCX development group,
so this problem should (hopefully) be fixed in V2 of UCX.

2.4) Why doesn't UCX Telnet have a 3270 mode?

  Probably because a) it wasn't necessary to talk to an Ultrix host, and b)
they are generally very difficult to write and maintain. In fact, I know of
only two base implementations - the one that comes with Berkeley Unix and one
developed somewhere in Europe. [If anyone has either ported to UCX, please let
me know so I can add that information here.]

2.5) Why isn't a BIND server included?

  Probably due to the same reason as 2.4.a. This isn't as big of a problem as
it seems for some sites, as a Unix box can be configured to provide name ser-
vice to the UCX systems. Also, if you are connected to the Internet, it is
likely that your regional service provider can supply name service for you.

III. Other utilities

3.1) What add-on utilities are available?

  Due to the missing pieces in UCX, many sites have ported parts of the Berk-
eley Unix tools to UCX or written replacements from scratch. Here is a list
of the known tools. If you have additional info on any of these, please write
so I can add it to the list.

3.2) PING

  PING is used to test if a TCP/IP host is alive, by sending echo request
packets to it.

  PING is a relatively easy port from BSD to UCX. One such port was done by
William P. Bame, <[e-mail]>. This port is available from the FTP
server at FTP.SPC.EDU in file [.ucx]ping.bck.

 3.3) SMTP mail

  UCX does not include any native facilities for handling the transport of
mail over TCP/IP links. There are at least two packages that implement mail
with UCX. The first is a commercial package from Innosoft, called PMDF. For
more information, contact them at:

    Innosoft International, Inc.
    250 West First Street, Suite 240
     Claremont, CA 91711
    [phone]
    [phone] (FAX)
    [e-mail]

  The second package is non-commercial, and was written by Matt Madison of RPI.
It is called MX (or Message eXchange) and is available via anonymous FTP from
| ftp.spc.edu. It is also available on various DECUS Program Library tapes.

  Both of these packages support various additional transports and provide
extra utilities such as mailing list management and file distribution.

3.4) NSLOOKUP

  NSQUERY is a package similar in function to the nslookup tool provided on
BSD Unix systems. It takes a host name or Internet address and returns infor-
mation from a nameserver about that host or address. It was written by Matt
| Madison and is available via anonymous FTP from ftp.spc.edu.

3.5) RLOGIN

  RLOGIN (remote login) is one of the Unix r-series commands (others are rcp,
rsh, and rdist). UCX provides an RLOGIN server which prompts the user for a
username and password (thus acting just like TELNET). UCX does not provide an
RLOGIN client.

  I have modified an RLOGIN someone on the net gave me. It works with UCX, but
the code is really awkward. As it will only work for privileged users, I don't
feel it's worth distributing, especially since UCX V2 is rumored to include a
supported version. If you absolutely *must* have it, send me mail and we can
discuss it.

3.6) TALK

  TALK is the TCP/IP equivalent of the VMS PHONE utility. I have ported the
BSD Network-2 version of TALK to VMS. It is available from ftp.spc.edu in the
[.ucx] directory as ntalk.bck, ntalkd.bck, and talk.readme. Note that you had
better have at least V1.2 of the CSCPAT_0903 patch kit (see section 1.3) or
someone _will_ crash your system with this.

3.7) LPR

  LPR is the remote printing support package used by Unix systems. The closest
thing to it under VMS/DECnet would be DQS (Distributed Queueing Services). I
don't know of any stand-alone ports of LPR to UCX. I am told that both a client
and server will be available in UCX V2.0.

|   Keith Moore <[e-mail]> says that he has a version of LPR that works
| with UCX as well as other TCP/IP packages. It also includes DECnet support.
| You can FTP it from cs.utk.edu as readonly/port-lpr-1-3.vms.

3.8) POP server

  The IUPOP3 server is a VMS implementation of the Post Office Protocol Vers-
ion 3, based on RFC 1225 (which supersedes RFC 1081).

IUPOP3 was developed and tested on VMS 5.3 and 5.4 systems, using the VMS
callable mail (MAIL$) interface.  The current release is believed to be com-
patible with current versions of these TCP/IP network implementations: Wol-
longong's WIN/TCP for VMS, DEC's UCX, and TGV's Multinet.

The current version is 1.7, and is available from logos.ucs.indiana.edu in
directory /pub/iupop3.  Email questions and/or comments can be directed to
[e-mail].

3.9) Archie client

  Archie is a client/server system which assists users in locating packages
that are available for anonymous FTP on the Internet. Normally a user would
give the name of a program and Archie would return the names of sites that
program could be retrieved from. At the moment, the Archi servers don't seem
to have a lot of information about VMS packages, but that will probably change
soon.

  A version of the Archie client was posted to the vmsnet.sources newsgroup
and can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from cerritos.edu in the [.vmsnet] dir-
ectory as archie_client.bck_z.

3.10) IRC client

  IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a real-time chat system. It is a very popular
system among students. A client for VMS is available via anonymous FTP from
| freebie.engin.umich.edu as /pub/irc/clients/vms/IRC172.COM. Note that this
| host is a Unix system - case matters. There is another variant available
| from coombs.anu.edu.au as /pub/irc/vms/irc173.com.


3.11) Empire client

  Empire is a multi-player war game. It's the other popular thing students
do. A version of the client for UCX is available via anonymous FTP from
ucbvax.berkeley.edu as /pub/games/empire/bsd/vms-emp1.1client-2.5. Again, this
is a Unix system so case matters. Also, you'll have to call it something else
on your system as this name isn't valid on VMS.

3.12) NNTP clients and servers

  NNTP is the protocol used to transfer Usenet news over TCP/IP links. The
most common package seems to be ANU News, which is available as part of the
DECUS UUCP distribution. It has a UCX client but no server. A multithreaded
ANU NNTP server for UCX was posted to news.software.anu-news by Steve Bour,
[e-mail]. It can be obtained via anonymous FTP from ualret.ualr.edu
in the /pub/anu-news directory.

  Another news reader is the aptly named NEWSRDR package by Matt Madison. It
| is available via anonymous FTP from ftp.spc.edu.

  Joel Snyder's VNEWS package also supports UCX (and also other TCP packages
such as MultiNet, Wollongong, Process Software, CMU/Tek as well as DECnet) as
a news transport. A Fortran compiler is required. VNEWS is available via anony-
mous ftp from arizona.edu in the directories [.software.vms.vnews...]. It is
being maintained by Joel Snyder ([e-mail]), so questions and bug reports
should go to him.

|   DXRN/MXRN (X Windows readers for DECwindows and DECwindows/Motif) support
| UCX as well. Both programs are built from the same source files. It is
| available via anonymous FTP from decuac.dec.com as file /pub/DEC/dxrn.share.
| This is a VMS-SHARE format file.

|   Another news reader named VMS NEWS is available from ftpvms.ira.uka.de in
| directory [.news]news122.com.

3.13) WHOIS

  WHOIS is an interface into the user/host/network registry provided by the
DDN Network Information Center, nic.ddn.mil. The Unix version ports easily
to UCX and is available from ftp.spc.edu in directory [.ucx] as whois.bck.

3.14) Finger

  Finger is a user locater and information tool. Many versions exist. One
which is known to work with UCX was written by Matt Madison and is available
| via anonymous FTP from ftp.spc.edu.

  Another version, called "DECUS Finger" is available via anonymous FTP from
ftp.spc.edu in directory [.finger]. Its UCX support is presently incomplete.
A major rewrite is in progress.

|   Jacob Levanon writes: "You can get a finger daemon that works with UCX/
| WINS/TGV from logos.ucs.indiana.edu via anonymous ftp. (/pub/iufingerd)."

|   Bernd Onasch has written a finger client and server, along with a number
| of other servers for "standard" Unix features like chargen, echo, etc. You
| can obtain these from fileserv@@irav17.ira.uka.de by using the command GET
| UCXTOOLS. These are also available via anonymous FTP from ftp.spc.edu in
| the [.ucx] directory.

3.15) TRACEROUTE

  TRACEROUTE is a tool for determining what path your packets take to get from
your host to another host. It is very useful for troubleshooting network prob-
lems. I attempted to port this to UCX, but it requires an option which is not
present in the UCX driver (the ability to transmit a raw UDP packet without en-
capsulation). If anyone wants to patch the driver/ACP to support this option,
| contact me for the sources for TRACEROUTE.

IV. Programming

4.1) Where is the programming documentation?

  The documentation is split between the UCX Programmer's Reference (part of
the UCX documentation) and the VAX C RTL User's Guide (part of the VAX C doc-
umentation). The Unix-style routines are in the back of the C manual and the
$QIO routines are in the UCX manual. Note that the Unix-style routines are in-
complete (see section 4.2) and are not listed in any known order in the manual.

4.2) Why don't routines like getprotobyname() work?

  DEC seems to have added entry points for all of the Unix networking functions
to the UCX sharable image. This way, functions could be implemented in the fu-
ture without reqiring relinking of existing programs. Unfortunately, the unim-
plemented funtions return NULL, rather than a null pointer, so most programs
ported from Unix will ACCVIO rather than returning an error. Oh well. The best
answer is if the function isn't listed in the documentation, it doesn't work,
whether or not it's undefined at link time.

V. Common problems and solutions

5.1) Why can't non-privileged users do <X>?

  An early bug in UCX V1.3 caused the file UCX$ACCESS_SHR to not be installed
properly. A copy needs to be in SYS$SPECIFIC:[SYSLIB], protected with G:RE and
W:RE.

5.2) What is the UCX security patch for?

  On December 18th, 1990 DEC issued a warning bulletin to UCX customers warning
of a potential security problem. That letter is also found on the CD-ROM dis-
tribution of UCX. If you don't have a copy, you should contact your support
person and get a copy of the letter.

5.3) How can I disable incoming Telnet access?

  Edit the file SYS$MANAGER:UCX$REMOTE_TTY_STARTUP.COM and comment out the
line: UCX START SERV TELNET. You may also want to comment out the line: UCX
START SERV RLOGIN.

    VI. NFS (Network File System)

[As we don't use the NFS portion of UCX I don't have any material for this
section. Please let me know what should be covered here].

    Terry Kennedy        Operations Manager, Academic Computing
    [e-mail]    St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
    [e-mail]    [phone]