[HECnet] DECnet/Python

Thomas DeBellis tommytimesharing at gmail.com
Thu Oct 28 14:56:59 PDT 2021


After I read your letter, I said to myself, "Gee, I don't ever remember 
setting anything..."  So I went and looked through the command files and 
the reason for that lapse of memory is ... I don't have a /single/ 
command in any command or configuration file for LAT.  Not a one!

The monitor enables LAT, NVT, NRT and CTERM terminal  services when you 
do a ^E SET LOGINS ANY. You can also enable them one at a time.

Back when I had a Pathworks CD-ROM and a working Windows 2000 box, 
Windows 2000 Kermit could make a connection just fine, so I never 
bothered thinking anything further about that part of it, assuming that 
the monitor was supplying itself with reasonable defaults.  If I take a 
look at the characteristics of the local LAT host, I see the following:

    LCP>shoW chARACTERISTICS
    LCP>
    17:28:53 [LCP]        -- Host Characteristics --

    LAT Access State: ON
    Host Name: TOMMYT
    Host id: TOMMYT, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor 7.1(21740)-5
    Host number: 520
    Retransmit Limit: 60
    Retransmit Timer: 1000
    Multicast Timer: 30
    Groups: 0

                          Current   Maximum
                          -------   -------
    Allocated circuits       0        32
    Active circuits          0        20
    Sessions                 0         5

         Service Name       Rating        Identification
    --------------------   ------ ------------------------
    TOMMYT                   1      TOMMYT, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor
    7.1(21740)-5
    LCP>

I don't see anything in there about service groups.  Let me go see if I 
have an Tops-20 specific documentation for LAT configuration and see 
about groups.  Otherwise, I'll put that aside for the moment as I am 
just coming out of a very deep rabbit hole.

What kind of a bunny hole?  Well...

In order to debug something in ALGOTS, I needed symbols and set up a 
Program Data Vector (PDV) so DDT could grab them.  That was easy enough 
because LINK did the work for me.  However, the problem in ALGOTS 
indicated that something had gone amiss in PA1050 (Tops-20's TOPS-10 UUO 
emulator). However, I couldn't have LINK do the job for me there because 
PA1050 BLT's itself around in the virtual address space in a postlude.  
The code appears to predate .PSECT's. So what LINK would put in would be 
wrong.  Therefore I crafted a PDV for PA1050 by hand in the postlude 
which promptly hung DDT solid...

I'm just about done fixing DDT so I can figure out what it is that 
PA1050 is doing that ALGOTS doesn't like, fix that and then get back to 
fixing ALGOTS.

So it goes...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 10/28/21 4:25 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> First of all, check what service groups you have enabled on the '20, 
> since that normally will limit what is shown.
>
> Service groups is a LAT specific thingy, so you might need to go and 
> dig deep into LAT specific things here...
>
> Second, I've had plenty of issues using llogin from Linux to RSX hosts 
> as well. There are some things that the Linux implementation 
> definitely do wrong. I tried to look at it once, but decided that the 
> code was so ugly that I didn't want to figure it out, and should 
> rewrite it instead. But I have too many other projects to ever have 
> gotten around to it.
>
>   Johnny
>
> On 2021-10-28 02:08, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>> I had 'a bit' of DECnet 'partly' running on an Ubuntu machine some 
>> time ago...  Well, not exactly: I only put LAT up because I wanted to 
>> test something and LAT isn't actually DECnet.  The Ubuntu host knows 
>> about everybody:
>>
>>     slogin at neptune:~$ sudo latcp -d -l -v
>>
>>     Service Name:    NEPTUNE
>>     Service Status:  Available
>>     Service Ident:   Linux 5.4.0-42-generic
>>
>>     Node Name        Status      Rating   Identification
>>     NEPTUNE          Reachable       10   Linux 5.4.0-42-generic
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>     Service Name:    TOMMYT
>>     Service Status:  Available
>>     Service Ident:   TOMMYT, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor 7.1(21740)-5
>>
>>     Node Name        Status      Rating   Identification
>>     TOMMYT           Reachable        1   TOMMYT, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor
>>     7.1(21740)-5
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>     Service Name:    VENTI2
>>     Service Status:  Available
>>     Service Ident:   VENTI2, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor 7.1(21742)-5
>>
>>     Node Name        Status      Rating   Identification
>>     VENTI2           Reachable        1   VENTI2, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor
>>     7.1(21742)-5
>>     ----------------------------------
>>
>> The 20's only seem to know about the Ubuntu host:
>>
>>     LCP>shoW serVER /alL
>>     LCP>
>>
>>     19:43:26 [LCP]        -- Summary of All Servers --
>>
>>     Server Name(Number): NEPTUNE(0) Address: 6C-4B-90-3A-42-73
>>     LCP>
>>
>>     LCP>shoW servER NEPTUNE
>>     LCP>
>>     19:41:10 [LCP]        -- Information About Server NEPTUNE --
>>
>>     Server Number: 0
>>     Server Location: LATD for Linux
>>     Server Type: VAX/VMS
>>     Ethernet Address: 6C-4B-90-3A-42-73
>>     Server Status: Disconnected
>>     Max Slots: 254
>>     Data Link Size: 1500
>>     Circuit Timer(ms): 80
>>     Keep-alive Timer(s): 20
>>
>>     LCP>shoW couNTERS /serVER:NEPTUNE
>>     LCP>
>>     19:40:36 [LCP]        -- Counters for Server NEPTUNE --
>>
>>     Messages received: 2
>>     Messages transmitted: 1
>>     Messages retransmitted: 0
>>     Sequence errors received: 0
>>     Illegal messages received: 0
>>     Illegal slots received: 0
>>     Resource failures: 0
>>     LCP>
>>
>> At some point, I'm fairly certain I remember them being able to 'see' 
>> each other.  I had a Pathworks CD-ROM for Windows 2000, but I can't 
>> find that and the Windows 2000 laptop I was using has caught a very 
>> bad cold (I.E., it won't boot)
>>
>> llogin operation has been erratic.  At one point it worked mostly to 
>> the 20's, but was not stable.  Now it fails in one of two ways:  1) 
>> To a 20, it fails silently with no error message at all.  2) To an 
>> Ubuntu host, it succeeds in connecting, and then starts spewing, viz
>>
>>     slogin at neptune:~$ llogin neptune
>>     Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
>>     neptune login: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
>>     neptune login:
>>
>>     neptune login:
>> sllllooooggggiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
>>
>> I've never complained about it because I wanted to investigate 
>> further and maybe either fix what I was doing wrong (undoubtedly the 
>> real problem) or at least fix it to give better error diagnostics.
>>
>> I haven't looked at the 20's because I've been occupied fixing bugs 
>> of more direct concern to me.
>>
>> If the 20 had a LAT client, I might look further, but I don't what 
>> the scale of that work would be.  Right now, I'm trying to stay away 
>> from big projects and just finish the ones that I have in flight.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> On 10/26/21 3:11 PM, John Forecast wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Oct 26, 2021, at 7:57 AM, fsword007 at gmail.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Folks,
>>>> I successfully installed DECnet/Python on Ubuntu 21.10 system and 
>>>> was successfully connected to HECnet.
>>>> I have a few questions about DECnet/Python.  I choose that because 
>>>> it support virtual circuits like Multinet over TCP,  etc..
>>>> I can’t find any apps (programs) to support DECnet/Python like 
>>>> login, set host, dir, etc.  Only DECnet for Linux has programs.
>>>> Does DECnet for Raspberry Pi work with Ubuntu 21.10 (Linux 5.13 for 
>>>> x86)?
>>>
>>> I’ve never tried Ubuntu but I have built DECnet for Raspberry Pi on 
>>> an older version of Debian x86 without any problems. My suggestion 
>>> would be to try it. Due to family medical issues I will be unable to 
>>> check it out until December at the earliest.
>>>
>>>   John.
>>>> Tim
>>>
>
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