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

[Dirk Munk]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Michael Moroney <moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com> wrote:
>> I am following this thread with interest because I put
>> a bunch of effort getting DECnet V/DECnet Plus to build
>> at VSI, what we got from HP was a bit of a mess.  Since
>> then I wondered, how many customers actually use DECnet V
>> (or DECnet IV), and for what.
>
> It's all gone here, and at all of our customers.
>
>> Of course the VMS builtin where you could access any
>> file on your DECnet with almost any software just by
>> using the file spec node::dev:[dir.sub]file.ext is
>> really great, and is missed on TCP/IP.
>
> Absolutely.   VMS clearly needs some way of doing that
> transparently and with file format information preserved.
> It doesn't need DECNET underneath to do it though.
> --scott
>

If you set up DECnet over IP, you can do it.

copy HPE.com::$1$DKA100:[Scott]textfile.txt VSI.com::$1$DKA400:[Dorsey]

it's already there, how difficult is it to understand that.

Why do you want to reinvent something that is already there.

Not only that it is already there, it has far more functionality then 
just a simple file transfer.

Perhaps we should give DECnet over IP a new name, ICFV. IP Connector For 
VMS, it would make a lot of people very happy, a new IP utility for VMS.

Some mentioned that Multinet has it too. That is incorrect, Multinet has 
to translate DECnet phase IV names & addresses into IP DNS names. You 
have to set up such a translation table.

I have no idea what happens if the remote node has a different DECnet 
address the you have in your translation table.

Suppose you set up a translation entry for DECnet node ABC with DECnet 
address 5.1 and DNS name remote.away.com.

However remote.away.com has DECnet address 10.1, will the communication 
fail? I expect it will.

So Multinet uses tunneling, whereas DECnet Phase V does not.