Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ptsfa!well!rshuford From: rshuford@well.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.org.decus Subject: VMS Users Network Message-ID: <3856@well.UUCP> Date: Sun, 30-Aug-87 01:26:09 EDT Article-I.D.: well.3856 Posted: Sun Aug 30 01:26:09 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Aug-87 20:01:36 EDT Lines: 154 Keywords: VMS, PMDF, Usenet, news, mail, DECUS, network Xref: utgpu comp.os.vms:2320 comp.org.decus:164 VMS Users Network Information Some readers of this medium may be interested to know that a group of users of the DEC VMS operating system met during the DECUS U.S. Chapter Spring Symposium (Nashville, 27 April through 1 May A.D. 1987) with the intention of forming a low-cost store-and-forward network in which computers running VMS could participate. The organizer of the VAX SIG Birds-of-a-Feather session at the symposium was Jamie Hanrahan (of Simpact Associates in San Diego). Todd Aven of DSS and Kevin Carosso of Hughes Aircraft contributed technical insight. VMS systems, of course, have for years had the ability to communicate through DECnet mail systems and file transfer, but DECnet mail cannot easily work in a store-and-forward fashion and in any case DECnet costs money, as a "layered product" from DEC. The intent of the DECUS working group was to develop free or very low-cost software that would give functionality similar to the "uucp", "sendmail", and various news programs available for most versions of AT&T's Unix operating system. Connecting this new VMS Users' Network (variously called "VUnet" or "VMSnet") to the existing UUCP, BITNET, and Internet networks would be considered desirable by many participants. But because of technical and administrative considerations, VUnet might develop its own set of backbone sites, relying on gateways for interchange of information with the rest of the world. Possibly, some organizations that operate long-distance DECnet links will allow VUnet to piggyback its traffic during slack periods. Jamie Hanrahan says that the path of least resistance for establishing VUnet in the domain world would be to register each participating organization under the UUCP Zone (this seems to cost $150 per year), barring unforeseen help in establishing an independent domain. The original plan was to write some mail/news human-interface software and use C-Kermit (with scripting and autodial) as the transport mechanism. (It was considered too difficult in the short term to reproduce the "uuicio" protocol of "uucp".) But the BOF decided that the best means of quickly getting the network on the air is to use an inexpensive piece of software called PMDF. PMDF implements the identical transport protocol used by MMDF ("Multichannel Memo Distribution Facility" for 4.3 BSD Unix--PMDF is the "Pascal Memo Distribution Facility"). PMDF was written by Ira Winston (at Penn State? with CS-Net support) and is now supported for VMS by Ned Freed of Harvey Mudd College. PMDF supports script files, and it is said that the program can be adapted in 30 minutes to support most new types of modem. (Source code in Pascal, .OBJ files, and an .EXE file are provided.) Documentation is supplied on the distribution medium (usually a 9-track BACKUP magtape); when printed, it amounts to about 100 pages. PMDF uses VMS mail as its user interface; Ned has no plans to implement any other. (It uses a little-known hook in VMS Mail: if an address contains a string of the form "XN%something", Mail looks for a sharable image named after "XN".) In addition to dial-up modem links, PMDF supports other kinds of communication channels, including Mail-11 (which the Interlink gateway software running under VM/CMS on a IBM System/370 can do), DECnet, Jnet, and several styles of TCP/IP. Ned says that PMDF supports all major features of the RFC-822 mail specification (except for domain literals). Version 2.4, released in July, contains a mechanism for specifying explicit routes for addressing replies back to originating sites which are not well known, or which employ unusual gateways. PMDF will attempt delivery over a 12-day period before giving up. The CS-Net admininstrators want Harvey Mudd College to be the sole distribution point for VMS PMDF, so each site must order separately from there. But PMDF does come with what amounts to a site license. Ned maintains a mailing-list distribution for a continuing electronically published circular called Info-PMDF. This emanates from ipmdf@ymir.bitnet or seismo!ymir.bitnet!ipmdf One other piece of software that is now being investigated (I haven't talked with anybody who has yet tried to use it) is from the DECUS Program Library, item VAX-214: NEWS. The program was submitted by Geoff Huston of the Australian National University in Canberra City, and from the catalog description it could be a port of one of the Unix-based news programs, but this is not explicitly stated. VAX-214 could be ordered through regular DECUS mechanisms; the program is also available from DECUS on the VAX-LIB-6 collection tape. Otherwise, Jamie is working on a VMS-specific "news" implementation, consisting of a database server, import and export programs, and a user interface. One goal is to permit users on different VAXes but on the same local network to access a common news database residing on a single machine. The components will communicate using a modified version of Brian Kantor and Phil Lapsley's NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol). Jamie Hanrahan would like to be contacted by as many interested VMS sites as possible (and 4.3 BSD sites that would like to help, if any). He would like to know such things as - contact information (telephone, e-mail, physical address) - likelihood of your site paying for some long-distance phone calls for outgoing traffic or being polled by somebody else - does your site have a connection to any part of Internet? - are you willing to pioneer the use of the software? - does your organization operate any leased phone lines that have periods of daily disuse (especially DECnet links)? Several of the Nashville working group have in the past months obtained PMDF from Harvey Mudd College and have been experimenting with its telephone dial-up links. They hope to have several VUnet sites in full operation by December 1987, the time of the DECUS Symposium in Anaheim. See also the August 1987 \Pageswapper/, pages VAX-19 thru VAX-31, in which Jamie wrote his own account of these proceedings. (This is the VAX SIG newsletter published as part of the joint DECUS SIG Newsletters.) Follow-up \Pageswapper/ articles are planned. Contact information for the people involved: Jamie Hanrahan: sdcsvax!crash!pnet01!jeh or jeh@pnet01.cts.com Simpact Associates, 9210 Sky Park Court, San Diego, CA 92123 619/565-1865 Ned Freed: ned@ymir.bitnet or seismo!ymir.bitnet!ned 714/621-8006 Todd Aven: todd@umcincom.bitnet or todd@cincom.umd.edu Kevin Carosso: kvc@eng.hac.com VMS users in North America may order the PMDF magtape by sending $50 (U.S.) per site to: Ned Freed The PMDF Project Computing Services Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA 91711 (Make checks payable to "The PMDF Project, Harvey Mudd College".) My role in this is just to promote VUnet among the DECUS Local Users Groups in North and South Carolina, but I thought some people might be interested to hear about it here. .....Richard S. Shuford Siecor Corporation RD&E, Hickory, NC 28603-0489 BIX: richard UUCP: ...hplabs!well!rshuford