[Info-vax] What would you miss if DECnet got the chop? Was: "bad select 38" (OpenSSL on VMS)

[Paul Sture]

On 2016-09-17, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> 
>> I'd be seriously tempted to announce the deprecation and eventual 
>> removal of DECnet, for that matter.
>
> Booo!  Hisssss!
>
> Ok, we know it's not secure.  Run at your own risk.
>
> I'm guessing that DECnet users use it only in house, for FAL and such, so if the 
> in house environment is secure, then security isn't an issue for DECnet.
>
> If it's not going to take up time and effort, then why kill it off?
>
> I personally find it can be useful.
>
> It sure is handy when you need to shutdown and re-start TCP/IP on a remote (but 
> in house) system.

I'd certainly miss one or two things that DECnet does:

o - the ability to do a SET HOST 0 /LOG= to get a log / audit trail of software
    installations and configuration sessions.   Yes, many terminal emulators can
    do logging, but those logs aren't on the target system.

o - using DECnet as a means of placing BACKUP savesets on another node, and
    restoring them from other nodes (where 'other' can be either local or
    remote).
    
o - DECnet tasks.  Useful but I haven't seen many customers use these.

o - FAL

-- 
It was untidy, so got unplugged.
It was unplugged, so got thrown away.