[Info-vax] Phase IV over IP

[Neil Rieck]

On Friday, June 23, 2023 at 1:38:55 AM UTC-4, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 6/22/2023 10:03 PM, Andy Green wrote: 
> > Holy cow, I'm so happy to see such an active community here after all these years :) 
> > 
> > So I have a question for the experts; I have two VMS 5.5-2 systems that I'd like to have talk to each other. The problem is they're in different locations, but they are connected over the Internet. They are both Phase IV end nodes and they're both running UCX. 
> > 
> > Is there some way I can get the two of them to talk DECnet Phase IV to each other over the Internet? I have the option of putting OpenVMS 7.3 full routing nodes (running Phase IV, preferably) in between them to act as "translators", if that would work? 
> > 
> > Andy 
> >
> My understanding is that somewhere along the path you're going to run into a 
> device that does not handle DECnet. Perhaps every device you run into. You'd 
> need IP addresses to even reach remote systems. 
> 
> Perhaps an IP tunnel would work. Not familiar with that. 
> 
> Multinet is reputed to route DECnet using IP packets, I've been told. Never 
> used it myself. 
> 
> While I don't recommend phase V, I'm told it will route using IP. 
> 
> I guess it depends upon your intentions, however, using TCP/IP you should be 
> able to talk between the systems. But not phase IV DECnet. 
> 
> Me, I'd much prefer V7.3 over earlier versions. V7.2 I believe enhanced 
> directory operations. 
> 
> -- 
> David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450 
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da... at tsoft-inc.com 
> DFE Ultralights, Inc. 
> 170 Grimplin Road 
> Vanderbilt, PA 15486

You are correct. Back in 2012 my employer was told that Cisco would no longer be supporting DECnet packets in their routers so we had better prepare for that change. At the time we had a lot of VAX/VMS (some emulated) and Alpha/OpenVMS machines that were copying message files via DECnet so I was invited to be part of the team that would keep those systems running. At that time most machines were running TCPware but some had only licensed the basic stack along with a few apps like telnet and ftp. Anyway, all these systems were upgraded to full licenses so we could implement DECnet tunneling and it worked like a charm.

A few years later my employer began getting serious with IPv6. Not sure if things have changed at PSC (Process Software Corp) but they informed me that TCPware would never support IPv6 while their other product called MultiNet already did. So in 2015 when we migrated one of our systems from Alpha to Itanium, we also migrated from TCPware  to MultiNet. That product employs a different configuration paradigm but it has never given me any problems.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net
http://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html