[HECnet] Anonymous FAL (Tops-20)

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2019-07-04 21:39, Robert Armstrong wrote:
>> Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> NETACP in RSX (and I suspect VMS) is just the process/program that
>> implements a lot of the DECnet protocols. It is actually pretty much not
> <related to anything here.
> 
>    When somebody tries to connect to, say, FAL, it's NETACP that receives the incoming connection request.  NETACP creates a process and runs FAL in that process to handle the rest of the job, BUT since NETACP creates the process it's also the one that decides what username to use and logs in the process (if necessary).  It's the one that handles the default account; FAL doesn't have to worry about that.

Sortof a bit more complex in RSX, but you are right. It's in the domain 
of NETACP in RSX and VMS. That is the instance that gets the request and 
starts the process. But the concept of the default account don't really 
exists in RSX. There is a default user for each object, but that is only 
used if no authentication is needed. If authentication is needed (as is 
the case for FAL), then there is no default under RSX. Which is why I 
use proxy access for this purpose.

(In RSX, the figuring out of which user to start something under, as 
well as the authentication needed is actually done in a separate 
process, but that gets involved by a request from NETACP.)

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol