INFO-VAX Tue, 26 Jun 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 345 Contents: Re: AlphaServer power use Re: Application transparent file encryption (supported)? Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Re: OpenVMS 7.3-1 & Python 2.5 Re: SSH newbie question Re: SSH newbie question Re: Upgrading Firmware on Itanium FC cards. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:12:24 -0700 From: rtk Subject: Re: AlphaServer power use Message-ID: <1182827544.267768.218010@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Jun 25, 10:54 am, Rich Jordan wrote: > Just a suggestion. There are small plug-in power meters available for > $30 and under that are wonderful for finding out this kind of stuff. This is a good suggestion. Thanks! Ron ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 2007 15:37:01 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Application transparent file encryption (supported)? Message-ID: In article <1182789318.095460.176780@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Rich Jordan writes: > > Maybe a locked room with disks in locked cabinets, with each disk > having its own locked carrier. The concern is apparently a disk > walking offsite, even with service due to a replacement, or a crooked > employee, etc. Portable media: disks in laptops, USB drives, even floppies, are a greater concern. Even well meaning honest employees loose them, or have them stolen. Hard drives walking out of a locked computer room reduces the exposure from all employees to just disgruntled employees with access to the comuter room (a very real threat). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 12:59:32 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: <07062512593276_202003EE@antinode.org> From: Kel Boyer > An interview with Ann Livermore. I find the last sentence of this clip > rather telling. > [...] > No matter where your resources are, at times you'll have an employee > who, for some reason, may not meet the quality or performance > standard. What we try to do is take the feedback and address it. We > actually followed up on the feedback from those partners to see if we > had a training issue specifically with some individuals, or if we had > a turnover issue, or what the nature was. [...] Fairly frequently, I look through my Web server logs to see who's following which links to get to my stuff. This may have some practical value, if I notice that some searches are misdirected, or things like that. From time to time, I see evidence of people in the asiapac.hp.net neighborhood looking for things related to VMS, and I'm struck by the apparent lack of talent at the other end. Partially decoded examples for 2007 (so far) follow. All were referred by www.google.com or www.google.co.in. q=command+to+list+all+the+disks+which+are+mounted+in+openvms q=set+file+attributes,VMS,+program q=MMS+++openvms q=what+is+the+use+of+#include+ q=+IPC+--+VMS+mailboxes+++examples+++sys$crembx q=lib$signal+++openvms+++ctrl+c+++examples q=vms+gettimeofday q=vms+getenv+sys$login q=sys$parse q=HP+C+compiler+flags+for+OpenVMS q=vms+error+code:+0x186D4 q=default+block+size+in+VMS q=vms+backup+/save q=DEFINE/USER+SYS$ERROR+NL:" q=%SYSTEM-F-OPCCUS q=%SYSTEM-F-OPCCUS,+opcode+reserved+to+customer+fault q=sys$parse q=How+to+preserve+case+of+parameters+in+OpenVMS q="SYS$QIOW"+++expects+5+arguments,+but+12+are+supplied q=exit+(SS$_NORMAL) q=item+codes+of+sys$getdvi+ Some of these seem reasonable, even to me, and, having done some pretty lame searches myself from time to time, perhaps I'm being hypercritical, but how many of these inquiries would have been better directed toward HELP or the normal VMS documentation set? And is the Google search engine a lot smarter than I thought, or does it still do keyword-based searches, in which case (unquoted) "are", "in", "the", and so on are pretty much just noise? I'm not paying for support, but I was not favorably impressed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 2007 15:02:55 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: In article <07062512593276_202003EE@antinode.org>, sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) writes: > Fairly frequently, I look through my Web server logs to see who's > following which links to get to my stuff. This may have some practical > value, if I notice that some searches are misdirected, or things like > that. From time to time, I see evidence of people in the asiapac.hp.net > neighborhood looking for things related to VMS, and I'm struck by the > apparent lack of talent at the other end. Partially decoded examples > for 2007 (so far) follow. All were referred by www.google.com or > www.google.co.in. www.LJK.com gets those sorts of searches too, from both HP and non-HP sites. Given the nature of our web pages, the search strings will be somewhat different, and I think the champion is a repeater (non-HP) who does not understand the use of quoting for Google and hits our pages because they include all three words. bypass security alarm In that case their unfamiliarity with quoting may be because they are not in the computer business and have no interest in computers. But they come back many days with the same search. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 2007 15:45:09 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: In article <1182784602.844924.235300@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, Kel Boyer writes: > > A: My view is that customer satisfaction and loyalty are at the heart > of everything that HP does and stands for, and that the long-term > success of almost any services business, and more broadly [of] almost > any corporation, has to do with how well they satisfy customers. My experience with HP in the days when DEC was still a gowing concern included the abandonment of 68K support for thier UNIX (pitty the fellow who thought he was buying from Apollo). More recently I recall HP dropping MPE, telling the remaining MPE customers essentially "use something else". We have an older HP logic analyser with a known security hole in its FTP server. HP didn't care to provide an update even before they spun it off. That's not a firm foundation to stand on. Compare it to DEC, who fixed a 17 year old tape drive that actually needed to be fixed, sold PDP-11 to a small firm that could make a profit at it, and issued MUPs for VMS 4.6 and 4.7 years after they went off what was later known as "prior version support". They also provided an update to TOPS-10 years after it went to mature product status. I know the PDP-10 folks weren't happy with DEC, but HP does not compare well with what VMS users are used to in terms of long term support. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 2007 15:47:23 -0500 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: <34D8tpDV1AMx@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <07062512593276_202003EE@antinode.org>, sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) writes: > > Fairly frequently, I look through my Web server logs to see who's > following which links to get to my stuff. This may have some practical > value, if I notice that some searches are misdirected, or things like > that. From time to time, I see evidence of people in the asiapac.hp.net > neighborhood looking for things related to VMS, and I'm struck by the > apparent lack of talent at the other end. Partially decoded examples > for 2007 (so far) follow. All were referred by www.google.com or > www.google.co.in. > Maybe you should block them for a while and see what happens to those who are paying for "support". ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:58:18 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: <07062515581824_202003EE@antinode.org> From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) > > [...] From time to time, I see evidence of people in the asiapac.hp.net > > neighborhood looking for things related to VMS, and I'm struck by the > > apparent lack of talent at the other end. [...] > Maybe you should block them for a while and see what happens to those > who are paying for "support". 1. The concept of "cutting of one's nose to spite one's face" leaps to mind here. 2. Despite my belief in the enormous value (cough) of my Web server's VMS content, I'm not deluded enough to believe that I have a monopoly on, say, How+to+preserve+case+of+parameters+in+OpenVMS. It is a bit disturbing to think that someone might be stealing my code to incorporate it into VMS. (Unless it were going into, say, TCPIP, where there's a limit to how much damage even my code could do, and it might mean that I wouldn't need to quote "-V" in 'ssh "-V"', for example.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:19:07 -0000 From: Kel Boyer Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: <1182809947.912059.243760@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Jun 25, 9:16 am, "johnhreinha...@yahoo.com" wrote: > On Jun 25, 11:16 am, Kel Boyer wrote: > > > > > An interview with Ann Livermore. I find the last sentence of this clip > > rather telling. > > >http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&t... > > > Q: Expertise and quality are a big issue. Last fall, I spoke with two > > high-profile HP partners who are OpenVMS consultants. They said the > > support technicians in places like China and India don't have the > > required expertise and aren't getting the training they need. What's > > your response? > > > A: My view is that customer satisfaction and loyalty are at the heart > > of everything that HP does and stands for, and that the long-term > > success of almost any services business, and more broadly [of] almost > > any corporation, has to do with how well they satisfy customers. > > > No matter where your resources are, at times you'll have an employee > > who, for some reason, may not meet the quality or performance > > standard. What we try to do is take the feedback and address it. We > > actually followed up on the feedback from those partners to see if we > > had a training issue specifically with some individuals, or if we had > > a turnover issue, or what the nature was. In particular for our > > OpenVMS customers, we are very focused on our installed base. We want > > our installed base to be happy, and if or when they ever want to > > migrate, we want them to migrate to another HP platform. > > This is old news, Kel. > > See the long and meandering thread from June 19th -->http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms/browse_frm/thread/6b549c01... Ah, so it is! I see my own feelings were mirrored here. I guess I should have expected no less. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:52:57 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: HP "Support" for OpenVMS Message-ID: Kel Boyer wrote: > An interview with Ann Livermore. I find the last sentence of this clip > rather telling. To the HP apologists, you should note that this means that more than one person noticed this text and finds it of enough significance to post it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:12:47 -0700 From: rtk Subject: Re: OpenVMS 7.3-1 & Python 2.5 Message-ID: <1182823967.967617.110500@a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com> On Jun 24, 11:22 pm, Jean-Fran=E7ois Pi=E9ronne wrote: > You have to install the latest ACRTL patch for 7.3-1 which is probably > V0400, you can download it from ftp.itrc.hp.com This appears to have worked. The installer is still running but it is compiling the library files which means Python is running. Thanks! Ron ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:27:34 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: SSH newbie question Message-ID: Hi, > Telnet is barely beyond punched cards and paper tape. ssh is the > the swiss army knife of machine to machine command line > connections. Does anyone know if MacOSX supports IPSec out-of-the-box? Cheers Richard Maher "Bob Harris" wrote in message news:nospam.News.Bob-A9C7BB.20520824062007@news.verizon.net... > In article <3753d$467f029d$cef8887a$24631@TEKSAVVY.COM>, > JF Mezei wrote: > > > TCPIP Services 5.6, Alpha 8.3 > > > > I had to enable SSH on one alpha in order to be able to "telnet" to my > > mac. (Macs for some reason don't enable/allow telnet connections.) > > > > Now, I didn't have to configure the mac on the VMS host and vice versa. > > Somehow, they exchanged keys and voila. > > > > But low and behold, I started to see ssh login attempts from the > > internet. OK, so I blocked port 22 on my router. > > > > However, this lead me to a big question: Why is SSH considered any more > > secure than Telnet if anyone/everyone can connect to the host anyways ? > > > > Or is it expected that one edits some configuration file to limit host > > access by IP or limit it to specifically exchanged keys ? > > > > At least intrusion detection did work for SSH intrusion attempt. (it > > doesn't work for many other TCPIP services). > > Telnet is not secured in anyway. The passwords and all the > information you type and all the data displayed is sent in clear > text. Anyone capturing your data will be able to see all. > > ssh encrypts everything. The passwords as well as what you type > and what is sent back to you. > > This is why telnet is disabled on a Mac (and not a gui option to > enable. It is very insecure. if you really really want telnet on > MacOSX, you can play Unix admin and enable it - try searching a > if you want something so insecure. > > If you want to be even more secure, you can configure ssh to > disallow password access, and only allow previously created and > exchanged keys. In this mode you have a 1024 (DES) or 2048 (RSA) > bit key, which is going to be a bit difficult for someone to > guess. Some google searches will find lots of instructions for > doing this stuff "ssh disable passwords" > and "ssh no password". > > In addition, ssh offers other services, such as tunneling X11 > sessions via -X and -Y command line options back to the > originating system. Of course becasue it is ssh, the X11 sessions > are encrypted over the network. I use this a lot at work from my > MacOSX workstation to Linux development systems. > > ssh can also tunnel just about any TCP port(s) you want. I > personally tunnel VNC over ssh (port 5900) between my Mom's iMac > (running Vine Server; aka OSXvnc), 300 miles away, and my MacBook > at home. Makes remote maintenance so much easier than getting in > the car, or trying to talk your 70+ Mom through mouse clicks over > the phone (been there, done that; thanks, I uses VNC any day). > > ssh has scp (secure copy) which I just love for moving files > between systems, and very scriptable. If you must, there is also > sftp for those that prefer an FTP type experience. All of which > uses encrypted ssh, and all of which can use exchanged keys so > that you do not need to keep entering passwords. > > Telnet is barely beyond punched cards and paper tape. ssh is the > the swiss army knife of machine to machine command line > connections. > > Bob Harris ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:15:20 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: SSH newbie question Message-ID: In article , "Richard Maher" wrote: > > Does anyone know if MacOSX supports IPSec out-of-the-box? > Yes, and it has done since 10.2 (current version 10.4.10). -- Paul Sture ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:32:54 -0700 From: BaxterD@tessco.com Subject: Re: Upgrading Firmware on Itanium FC cards. Message-ID: <1182796374.702690.53820@c77g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On Jun 25, 12:31 pm, Volker Halle wrote: > Dave, > > the FC2243 HBA does not seem to be supported by OpenVMS. It's a > Windows thing. > > http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12410_div/12410_div.html > > The supported FC HBAs for OpenVMS I64 are listed here: > > http://www.hp.com/products1/serverconnectivity/support_matrices.html#... > > Volker. Thanks for pointing this out. I hadn't really given it much though since the system was configured by HP, to run OpenVMS with EVA/XP storage, it even came with OpenVMS installed on an internal drive. Now, of course, I am having to go back to HP to find out if the Web Documentation is correct, or out of date. Also, I was informed about a possible way to do the HBA update using the EFI Shell on Itanium. The details are included in the "Emulex FirmWare Update Manual" http://www.emulex.com/support/hardware/fwupdate.pdf Dave ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.345 ************************