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<p>Hi Mark,</p>
<p>Your email strikes a chord; I was exactly in this position a
couple of years ago.</p>
<p>My experience with OpenVMS was mostly doing SYS$QIOs, ASTs and
Event Flags controlling factory shop-floor equipment with not much
of DECnet in the mid 90's; and I bailed to Unix/Linux/IP shortly
before Robert Palmer completed the demise of Digital Equipment
Corporation.</p>
<p>I have been playing around (got blocked from HECnet twice for
inadvertently flooding the entire network with ethernet loopbacks
while experimenting) and wanted to share my experience so far.<br>
</p>
<p><u>File Sharing</u><br>
</p>
<p>Anonymous file sharing is achieved using the File Access Listener
service (FAL) that comes with DECnet implementations. Anonymity is
achieved by proxy - this basically means you configure DECnet to
map anonymous users to a FAL user, and all files in this proxied
FAL user's directory are then available publicly. You can do a
"DIR <NODENAME>::" to almost any HECnet node and see the
files their owners have made publicly available.</p>
<p>Installing FAL server on OpenVMS is a no brainer; the DECnet
installation script will ask questions and set it up. Other
operating systems are tricky to various degrees, but by all means
go for it, it is exciting!<br>
</p>
<p>I have been experimenting on DECnet stacks on various operating
systems, and so far have got FAL to work accessing files from
other nodes on HECnet:<br>
</p>
<p>OpenVMS VAX 7.3:</p>
<p> DIR QCOCAL::<br>
DIR CLOUDY::<br>
DIR IMPVAX::<br>
</p>
<p>OpenVMS Alpha 8.3:</p>
<p> DIR RAPTOR::<br>
</p>
<p>RSX-11M-PLUS / PDP-11/24</p>
<p> DIR JUICHI::<br>
</p>
Linux Ubuntu 14:<br>
<br>
DIR FEDACH::<br>
DIR FOMFOR::<br>
<br>
DEC Ultrix:<br>
<br>
DIR OSTARA::<br>
<br>
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 - <u>This actually returns the entire
content of C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32, I do not know how to peg FAL server
to a specific directory on Windows NT</u>:<br>
<br>
DIR ENTEE4::<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Microsoft Windows XP - Again, this
returns the entire content of C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32!<br>
<br>
DIR ENTEE4::<br>
<br>
<br>
<u>Forum/BBS/Conference</u><u><br>
</u><br>
DEC NOTES was, as mostly the case, pioneering and years ahead - I
could get technical answers from across the world over the global
EASYNET before the internet became popular. However I think there
needs to be some NOTES servers somewhere on HECnet for the rest of
us to launch NOTES and chat. Maybe there is one, I do not know,
Johnny may.<br>
<br>
<u>MUDS etc</u><br>
<br>
The OpenVMS freeware archives contain a few networked games - they
are easy to install - I will gladly play with others as others
will if you put them up!<br>
<br>
<u>Web Server</u><br>
<br>
Not really DECnet, but if you have DEC TCP/IP for OpenVMS
installed, both WASD and OSU HTTPD work fine. My examples -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sanyalnet-openvms-vax.freeddns.org:82/">http://sanyalnet-openvms-vax.freeddns.org:82/</a> is served by WASD
for OpenVMS/VAX 7.3 and <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sanyal.duckdns.org/">http://sanyal.duckdns.org/</a> is served by
OSU HTTPD on OpenVMS/Alpha 8.3.<br>
<br>
Have a glorious 2018 playing with DECnet,<br>
<br>
Supratim<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/30/2017 02:27, Mark J. Blair
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7ED5A84E-B0E4-47B9-8D50-43405E8BBE2B@nf6x.net">
<pre wrap="">I come from a mostly-UNIX, mostly-TCP/IP background. I don't understand DECnet well yet, but I want to learn more! Much of my interest in joining HECnet and playing around is because I largely skipped over DECnet in its original airing, and now it seems like a weird foreign land that I feel an irrational need to grok in fullness.
What are/were the conventions for providing public services over DECnet Phase IV networks, to remote users without their own local user accounts? I.e., let's say that I had a node on a large DECnet-only network back in the before time, and I wanted to share a file repository in a manner comparable to anonymous FTP on a TCP/IP network. How would I have done that? Were there conventions for doing that sort of thing back then, or was that a foreign concept on large DECnet networks at the time?
Were there any examples of BBS-like servers living on DECnet networks? Online multi-player games such as MUDs? Early DECnet-based examples of "log into the coffee pot to see if the brew is fresh"? DECnet-based analogs to Archie for discovering stuff? DECnet-based USENET-like communities?
I don't know if any of these concepts even made sense in the DECnet world at the time. In addition to only understanding the networks of the 80s from a UNIX-centric, TCP/IP-centric worldview, I'm also having a hard time un-thinking the newer concepts I'm used to after so many years of steeping in a broth of HTTP and social media. I have somewhat conflicting urges to both learn how to think like a 1980s DECnet user, and to retcon modern concepts into an alternate reality where TCP/IP never took off.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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