[Info-vax] VMS - Virtual Terminals - A security risk way back yonder OR was that an Old Wives Tale ?

[osuvman50 at gmail.com]

On Thursday, February 11, 2016 at 11:12:57 AM UTC-5, Michael Moroney wrote:
> Virtual terminals are still around.  They were great with flaky dialup 
> lines,  However, virtual terminals don't work with SSH, DECnet (SET HOST),
> DECterms and maybe not telnet (unsure).  So they see little use now.
> 

The SSHv1 server I wrote for VMS in the 90s supported virtual terminals (someone paid me to put it in).  You had to configure the server to start the interactive process without credentials so loginout would handle authentication (requiring the client to use password authentication).  I still use it on my home network.

I'm dealing now with flaky SSH sessions across the atlantic.  I jury-rigged a way to create processes with disconnectable PTYs, but the problem is the TCPIP services SSH isn't good at detecting broken connections (no keepalive apparently).  I can lose connection in the client, but the session on the server side is still open so the terminal I want to connect back usually isn't in a disconnected state.