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From: LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: RE: SHOW NETWORK... and who knows what else...
Message-ID: <8704210329.AA09696@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 20-Apr-87 22:30:34 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8704210329.AA09696
Posted: Mon Apr 20 22:30:34 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Apr-87 00:04:03 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: <LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA>
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 58


	...

    1) I recently switched several of the machines that I "run" from Phase IV 
       Routers to Non-Routers.  This was at the request of our network manage-
       ment. As a result, we have lost some of the niceties of being a router
       on those nodes.  SHOW NETWORK doesn't function, and that is the only
       tool our general users could use.  Anyone have an idea how to have a
       SHOW NETWORK like function on a non-router ???

	...

Non-routers simply do not have this information - they have to ask a router
for help in obtaining any dynamic network information, as is needed for SHOW
NET.  There are two things you can do:

Let users do NCP SHOW KNOWN NODES.  NCP isn't a protect program and there is
no problem in letting anyone run it - they can't change anything or read any
secret information that way.  The big drawback here is that it will only give
"static" information - you can't find out if a node is up this way.

Write a remote "SHOW NET" server.  This is really quite easy to do, but many
people are unaware of how to do it.  Here's a file that will do the trick:

$!
$!	Remote SHOW NET server.
$!
$ on error then goto cleanup
$ open/write LINK SYS$NET			!LINK is the network link
$ assign/user LINK SYS$OUTPUT			!Send all output there
$ assign/user LINK SYS$ERROR			!I mean ALL
$ show net					!Any output-only command here
$cleanup:
$ close/error:noerror LINK			!Avoid hangs at remote system
$noerror:

Place this file in the default DECnet account as, say REMSHONET.COM.  To use
it, type a command of the following form:

	$ type NODE::"TASK=REMSHONET"

where NODE is the router.  Of course, you can set this up in a symbol - be
sure to preserve the quotes!  For example:

	$ NETS*TAT == "NODE::""TASK=REMSHONET"""

If some of your users have proxies on NODE, they will need to specify null
access to get to the DECNET account (by placing "" just after NODE.)  So
perhaps a better definition is:

	$ NETS*TAT == "NODE""""::""TASK=REMSHONET"""

Some systems are run with the TASK object disabled.  It's still possible to
define specific remote services, like REMSHONET, using NCP.  Check the
documentation for details - I don't remember them off-hand, and this note
is getting too long anyway.
							-- Jerry
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