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

[David Froble]

BlackCat wrote:
> On 19.09.2016 17:28, Michael Moroney 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.
> 
> Michael,
> if you are taking requests?
> 
> One of the most basic things that should have been done yonks(= a long time) ago was 'oping', yes ping at the Network Layer (ISO8473).
> ISO8473 and ISO9542 are the protocols that a DECnet Phase V End System would use when communicating with other DECnet PhaseV systems.
> This ping Echo function  'oping'  was already present in the first versions of DECnet/OSI  for OSF/1 (1993?) .
> Basically as in TCP/IP, it is a Echo Request/Response function implemented at the network layer.
> Now DECnet+ and its OpenVMS predecessors only ever implemented the response function, ie. you can ping an OpenVMS DECnet+ from a
> system that had implemented the Client function such as a Tru64 system with DECnet+, but you can never initate an 'oping' on an
> OpenVMS DECnet+ system. :-((
> It was always a mystery to me of how many variances existed between the implentations of DECnet+ on Tru64 and DECnet+ on OpenVMS.?*!
> References: ISO/IEC 8473-1 1998(E)  RFC1575 (1994)
> Hopefully HP will let you have access to the Tru64 'oping' Client code.
> 
> 

Now, that is some real wishful thinking.

As Michael has mentioned, above, the VMS stuff received from HP was "a bit of a 
mess".  What do you think the T64 stuff, something long ago discontinued, will 
be like, if it even still exists?

I do agree, PING is rather useful.