[Info-vax] Tangent about DECnet versions.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-05-20 06:37:11 +0000, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply said:

> In article <pdqfff$g6c$1 at dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
> <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
> 
>> There is not much of a reason to run DECnet on production systems.  If 
>> you're going to communicate with trading aprtners, your options are  
>> TCP/IP and not much else.
>> 
>> Now on development environments, DECnet can be helpful.
>> 
>> One thing I find very helpful is BACKUP over the network.  For me, the 
>> capabilities are much better than TCP/IP.

There's also that BACKUP and other parts of OpenVMS haven't yet adopted 
and integrated IP networking, sure.   Hopefully IP integration gets 
looked at sooner rather than later.

There's also that OpenVMS doesn't offer nor commonly use remote file 
shares via IP, outside of NFS.  No SMB, no WebDAV, etc.  Another area 
that'll eventually get looked at.

On Unix, this'd be a pipe through ssh or otherwise.   
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/unix-utilities-pipe-viewer/   Or depending 
on the app, the database server offers network access.  Different 
approaches to similar requirements.

On OpenVMS, I'm routinely generating BACKUP savesets or zip archives 
locally and then pushing the resulting zip archives remote.

> Right.  Yes, it is insecure, but offers more possibilities than TCP/IP,

Different.  Not more.  FAL is about the only case I've met that isn't 
directly available on other platforms, and there are both ways around 
that and alternatives to that.

Remote FAL is fun to find in a pen-test, too; cleartext authentication 
or wide-open remote unencrypted and using spoof-able network access.

> whether the secure version or not.

> I see no reason not to use it within  a private network

Other than it's increasingly risky to assume the private network is 
private now or that it will stay private, sure.

> (and it would be difficult to use it in a really  public network).

Unfortunately, usage of insecure transports tends persist and variously 
to multiply.  As this thread shows.


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