[Info-vax] openvms licensing

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Wednesday, 17 February 2016 21:43:02 UTC, Bill Cunningham  wrote:
> "Steven Schweda" <sms.antinode at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:44adf8c0-9194-4868-92e3-7a50720e6312 at googlegroups.com...
> >> [...] I've tried numerous techniques [...]  There's nothing
> >> but problems.
> >
> >   That tells me exactly nothing about what you've done or
> > what happened when you did it.  As usual, showing actual
> > commands with their actual output can be more helpful than
> > vague descriptions or interpretations.
> >
> >>     Anyway I guess I'm going to make a last call [...]
> >
> >   It's been a long time since I've had to start a system
> > from scratch, but, as I recall, the usual procedure is to
> > register the basic VMS PAK(s) and enough networking stuff
> > (DECnet (DVNET*) or TCPIP (UCX)) to enable transfer of the
> > full hobbyist PAK DCL script.
> 
> Ok I should load what PAKs by vmslicense.com at minimum. People have told me 
> to copy the license with two X windows. I've tried that. I am using linux.
> 
>  With my weak psychic powers, I
> > can't guess what you've done, but, if you haven't tried it
> > yet, you might consider:
> >
> >      @ sys$update:vmslicense.com
> 
>     Yeah as to now I haven't been very helpful. I'm not quite sure what to 
> say. But vmslicense.com I have tried oh yes. Thre's always a checksum error. 
> And you are right as you say below, It's pretty confusing the difference in 
> the authorization program and the things the PAKs actually call for.
> 
> > and answer the questions based on the data in the hobbyist
> > PAK DCL script.  Some of the terminology differs between the
> > LICENSE command and VMSLICENSE.COM, so some confusion is
> > possible, but if you provide any useful info, then you might
> > be able to get some help with it (or with the LICENSE
> > command, for that matter).
> >
> >   When reporting these things, feel free to obscure the
> > checksums, but not anything else for no good reason.

Lots of people have made this work. Some of them have taken
the trouble to document what worked for them, including SIMH
on Linux.

Have you looked at references such as Philip Wherry's page
http://www.wherry.com/gadgets/retrocomputing/vax-simh.html (2004, but
still largely valid)
or
https://vanalboom.org/node/18 (2012)
(others probably available too)
Both the above include examples of registering PAKs. Neither of
these two include exact instructions on how to get *your* PAKs
into *your* VAX from *your* Linux (e.g. by using copy+paste) -
that's *your* challenge to solve.

Since copy+paste seems to be part of your problem, try using
VMSLICENCE.COM to type in *just* the base VMS PAK you received, by
hand, without copy+paste, following the process shown in the two
examples above.

If that doesn't work, you could try it again and record *exactly*
what you did, and *exactly* what the results were, and post here.

The VMS end of this stuff is tried tested and proven and documented.
What isn't working here is something that is specific to your setup,
and so far you're offering people almost no useful information on that.

Once that works, then do the same with *just* the networking
licence. Then you could stop typing by hand, configure the VMS
network (as per the two examples above) and then you could get
the rest of the PAKs into the VAX by your preferred method, and
register them if you wish (you don't actually need most of them).

This stuff works, at least at the VMS end, and many others have
made it work under various Linuxes (including Raspbian...).

Or you could take dan up on his generous offer.

But first, maybe do some reading from people who have made this
work already.