[HECnet] Announcing TCP/IP V2.9 for RSX-11M-PLUS

[Johnny Billquist]

Time for a new release announcement of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS.

This is version 2.9 of BQTCP/IP.


It's been three weeks since the last official update, which is rather 
short. But there are two significant things that been solved since the 
last release, which is motivation for a release so shortly after the 
previous one.



Highlights:

. Bugfix in name resolved that could cause system crashes under some 
conditions.
. Improvements to DECnet performance.



Detailed information on things that have been done since the last release:


TCP:
. Improved the handling when both sides sends FIN at the same time.


DNS:
. Bugfix in resolver. Under the wrong conditions, the system could 
crash. It was a combination of failing DNS, short timeouts on the query 
itself, and a race condition in the code in this case. So the chances of 
hitting it were extremely low, but it can happen.


MAIL:
. Improve handling of hosts with no reverse dns, or giving fake 
information or trying to do weird commands. Such hosts are not blocked 
anymore, but are tracked, and only mails to postmaster from such hosts 
are accepted (this is more in accordance with the relevant RFCs).
. Added postmaster sending a warning mail when mail delivery isn't 
immediately successful, to make people aware that there might be problems.
. Improved mail queue processing, making the mail queue not be locked 
for longer periods.


TELNETD:
. Improved connection tracking.


FTPD:
. Add logging of whether transfers completed successfully or not in logs.


IPC library:
. Bugfix. The _notify() function didn't work right.


RSX:
. Added patched ECL module for DECnet to improve performance.



Some additional notes:

As usual, I would recommend people to update as soon as possible.
The changes are not critical, but will lead to a much better experience, 
and might avoid system crashes in rare circumstances.

The patches to the TT: driver cannot be applied automatically, but 
requires users to apply the patches themselves, and then run SYSGEN to 
generate a new system.
Once added, the TNC2 task can be run at login, and will define logical 
names for the user telling where he is connected from, if using telnet.
The TT: driver patches also allows the updated MCR to give more 
information with the DEV command (SHOW TERMINAL in DCL).

The other patches to RSX can be applied automatically by IPGEN, either 
if used interactively when answering YES to the question about applying
RSX patches, or by running IPGEN explicitly to do the patches, with the
command:

@IPGEN PATCH

Specific information about the patches:
LAT: Fixes a memory leak, and adds the ability to read where a terminal 
connection comes from when using LAT, using SF.GMC.
RMSDAP: Fixes a bug in getting the file protection, so the XAB gets 
filled in correctly for remote files.
RMSDSP: Fixes that some numbers were displayed in signed octal, which 
should have been displayed in decimal or unsigned octal, depending on 
number.
DCL: Added terminal attributes for COLOR.
MCR: Too many fixes to be listed here...
ECL: If the receiving machine is very slow, and the sending machine is 
very fast, and the receiver announce several large buffers available, 
ECL cannot keep up, but drops packets. This is sortof a problem with the 
DECnet flow control, as it is used in RSX. The simple solution is to 
allow more outstanding buffers when receiving. A more complex solution 
would be to change how RSX DECnet do flow control, but that would 
require rewriting a fair chunk of the ECL module.

As usual, the distribution is available from:
ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk
ftp://mim.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap

!!! BQTCP is also available through RPM !!!


(As an additional note, if there are any problems communicating with Mim 
using port 21, the ftp service is also available at port 10021)

The documentation is also available through ftp on Mim, or also at 
http://mim.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc

I hope people find this update useful.


On a final note, Mim have moved. Mim.Update.UU.SE still points to the 
machine, but the actual name is now Mim.Stupi.NET, and in case 
Update.UU.SE cease to work at some point, Stupi.NET should still be fine.


	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