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<p>Yes, clearly one couldn't hope to cross compile the MACRO-11 to a
PDP-10 processor. Those are indeed vastly different duchies...</p>
<p>It was the BLISS NICE code that I was thinking about. DEC was
really pushing to have all development done in that high level
systems programming language (they had picked up about C) in the
1980's. There was some amount of interchange between the
platforms--corporate was really on about it. However, there was
significant engineering push back, if for no other reason that
nobody in their right mind who was halfway decide at MACRO-10
would be caught dead using BLISS. It was just too easy to
outperform.</p>
<p>That's too bad about sources; DEC used to be quite open about
them, under the mistaken belief that they were a hardware
company. So DECsystem-10's came with Tops-10 source and were much
modified. Ditto TSS-8 and OS-8 for the 8/I and 8/E. For Tops-20,
the sources cost $20,000, which might be something like $60,000
today. So not as many sites had them. We did as did WPI, MIT,
Standford, CMU, CWR and many others.<br>
</p>
<p>At one point, I do remember seeing certain VMS sources, but I
don't recall the context. It might have been when I was still
with DEC. I guess you can't even threaten to pay them to get any,
huh? Bummer...<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:40077831-865d-bc92-5dd8-e89e4f986f47@softjar.se">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 7/4/2019 2:48 PM, Johnny Billquist
wrote:<br>
<br>
The one annoying detail of the account system in TOPS-20 is that
user disk quotas are on a per directory basis. So you have to
manually move your disk quota around for your subdirectories.<br>
<br>
I doubt you could lift any of the RSX or VMS DECnet code over to
TOPS-20. The RSX code is mostly MACRO-11, and the VMS DECnet code
is rather closely integrated into VMS in general, I seem to have
observed.<br>
<br>
Also, no, VMS hobbyist license do not get you any sources.<br>
<br>
Johnny <br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 2019-07-04 04:01, Thomas DeBellis
wrote: <br>
<br>
Tops-20 is vastly different from Unix (and I believe also VMS)
as to how it manages user ids and accounts. Parts of the
authentication paradigm are very tightly woven into the the file
system. Briefly,
<br>
<ul>
<li>A user id is a login-able directory (I.E., one that
doesn't have apassword and is not set FILES-ONLY). In
addition to basic OS restrictions which prevent you from
viewing file system meta-data unless you have appropriate
authorization, an access control job (ACJ) is layered on top
of this which can even restrict privileged users. </li>
<li>Accounts are either validated out of a binary accounting
file in monitor space (which is compiled from ASCII source)
or via the ACJ. Accounts can have multiple users or
systems processes (such as spoolers) creating billing
records. Users can switch between accounts on a per-job,
per-fork and intra-program basis (a program can decide to
bill certain portions of its activity to different
accounts). </li>
<li>The obvious benefit is that there is no password file to
attack or steal and you can't even tell that there is an
accounting file; probing passwords is monitored and a
certain amount of intervention is done. It is /extremely/
fast. No /etc/passwd to grovel. </li>
</ul>
However, a deleterious side-effect is that once an id is
created, it can be used for _anything_, including online
interactive login.
<br>
<br>
On a PANDA monitor, is possible to specify a user id as
FTP-ONLY, but neither the supplied 5 series ACJ nor the EXEC do
anything with it. Historically, the Tops-20 FTP server
implemented ANONYMOUS usage by parsing for the login user atom
ANONYMOUS and then swallowing anything for the password (what
was typically supplied was an email addresses). This was then
hardwired into a local id.
<br>
<br>
Artifacts of this still exist in certain browers. Guess who
supplies IEUSER@ as the email address password for ANONYOUS
usage?
<br>
<br>
I recall that this is the approach that we had to use with
Tops-20 FAL. The Extended Mode FTP server that I wrote is
configurable via a file to specify the underlying id and
password. More productization would probably including having
the ACJ enforce FTP-ONLY on LOGIN% or CRJOB% and having the EXEC
parse for and display FTP-ONLY. Probably about two weeks' part
time work as I recall. Might have to consider Batch policy.
<br>
<br>
One approach here could be to lift the ANONYMOUS code out of
EFTPSR and drop it into FAL and then do the changes to the ACJ
and EXEC. I'm just surprised none of the HECnet Tops-10 or
Tops-20 nerds have done it (there is some commonality in some of
the sources).
<br>
<br>
Since Tops-20 has a BLISS compiler which implements BLISS COMMON
(my first training at DEC as an employee was to write code that
would cross compile under VMS, RSX, Tops-10 and Tops-20). I
think it might be useful to review some of the VMS DECnet
source, if any of that is available. It might be possible to
lift some functionality, which could be fun.
<br>
<br>
Does the VMS hobbiest license get you source code?
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 7/3/2019 7:21 PM, Johnny
Billquist wrote:
<br>
<br>
VMS, as someone else mentioned, have a default account for
FAL.
<br>
<br>
RSX does not have that. However, you can use proxy access in
RSX to achieve something similar. Enable incoming and
outgoing proxy, and define a default account that incoming
requests should be using that way.
<br>
<br>
If TOPS-20 can do this I don't know. But it's a suggestion
for something else/more to check.
<br>
<br>
Johnny
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 2019-07-03 14:15, Thomas
DeBellis wrote:
<br>
<br>
I have some software that I'd like to post, but don't recall
how to configure FAL to allow for an anonymous connection;
to download from a restricted directory.
<br>
<br>
I know how to do it for the FTP server (seeing as I wrote
it), but ... different code base.
<br>
<br>
I can only vaguely remember what we did for CCnet at
Columbia University in the 1980's, but I think it was kind
of a hack.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/4/2019 2:48 PM, Johnny Billquist
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:40077831-865d-bc92-5dd8-e89e4f986f47@softjar.se">The one
annoying detail of the account system in TOPS-20 is that user disk
quotas are on a per directory basis. So you have to manually move
your disk quota around for your subdirectories.
<br>
<br>
I doubt you could lift any of the RSX or VMS DECnet code over to
TOPS-20. The RSX code is mostly MACRO-11, and the VMS DECnet code
is rather closely integrated into VMS in general, I seem to have
observed.
<br>
<br>
Also, no, VMS hobbyist license do not get you any sources.
<br>
<br>
Johnny
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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