INFO-VAX Sun, 26 Aug 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 468 Contents: Re: (Persona services came out in VMS 6.2) Re: ACLS and WebServers... Re: 4MM DAT tapes read/write Re: 4MM DAT tapes read/write (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) RE: 4MM DAT tapes read/write (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) Re: ACLS and WebServers... Re: COBOL Transactions? RE: COBOL Transactions? RE: COBOL Transactions? Re: COBOL Transactions? Re: Dataoverun on tape Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) How's the serenity! (was Re: Processing Ideas Needed:) Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: RE: Processing Ideas Needed: RE: Processing Ideas Needed: SMB backup "solutions" (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) Re: Wisconsin professor says global warming a hoax! Re: Wisconsin professor says global warming a hoax! Re: [OpenVMS] Context lexical functions Re: [OpenVMS] Context lexical functions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:52:38 GMT From: "John E. Malmberg" Subject: Re: (Persona services came out in VMS 6.2) Re: ACLS and WebServers... Message-ID: Richard Maher wrote: > Hi John, > > >>When did you look? There is a DECC feature to enable that check. > > > Is it a "DEC"C specific and non-portable extension? In which case I'd like > to ask why you wouldn't choose instead to deploy sys$check_access et al? Is > "access() for "files" only and doesn't handle access checks to Queues, > Mailboxes and so on? access() should be for all objects. The use is in porting applications written from UNIX to VMS, as what Martin was writing about. On the UNIX systems that support ACLs, on only some of them does access actually report what the status really is. And sys$check_access() is not the same in some cases. With UNIX, the delete permission on a file is a suggestion that is optionally followed by the "rm" or other UNIX utilities. It is not enforced by the unlink()/delete()/erase()/rmdir() system calls. So programs that wish to obey the delete permission need to call access() to see if they should proceed with a delete. On UNIX, it is write permission to the directory that the file is in that enforces if the file actually can be deleted. > "John E. Malmberg" wrote in message > news:CD5Ai.76110$Fc.8267@attbi_s21... > >>Martin Vorlaender wrote: >> >>>In fact, when porting some *ix software, I noticed that the C RTL >>>routine access() only looks at the protection mask, and doesn't honor >>>ACLs. So I had to expand it (not going all the way through the flowchart >>>though). >> >>When did you look? There is a DECC feature to enable that check. I do >>not know what version it was added in. >> -John wb8tyw@qsl.network Personal Opinion Only ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:43:14 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: 4MM DAT tapes read/write Message-ID: <1188132194.402284.52090@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 7:33 pm, Glenn Everhart wrote: > Brad Hamilton wrote: > > In article <1188069083.626943.60...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, AEF wrote: > > [...] > >> The only problem I see with VMS not recognizing your 4mm-drive is that > >> it doesn't give the appropriate error message: > > >> %CONFIGURE-F-BLEAH, 4mm-tape drive? You've got to be kidding. > >> -SYSTEM-F-COUGHCOUGH, I'm not working with that! > > >> (Now THAT would be humorous!) > [...] > > Again, I will say that DLT is vastly superior, but Paul should not be > > discouraged from using DAT, if that is indeed the only (or most economical) > > choice for tape backup. > > [...] > > I have had no problems with DAT over the years (or for that matter with 8mm) > provided the heads were clean and the drive alignment not out. Using ztdriver > they work nicely even across DECnet. You do have to be aware of the several > flavors of these tapes, though, which are not interchangeable. I used the tapes that the drives' manuals say to use. I found that the DDS-2 tapes are highly unreliable in the TLZ07's and TLZ09's and having switched to DDS-1 has made life a lot better. > The oldest DAT tapes hold > as I recall about 1.2GB on 60' media. Next gen is 90' media, holds a couple gigs > each, the next is 120' and holds 3 or 4 GB and so on. That's *meters*: 60 meters, 90 m, and 120 m. > The older drives cannot > reliably work with new tapes. Older drives cannot work reliably with new tapes? Say what? You mean I can't buy tapes for my TLZ drives and expect them to work. Say what?! > This has nothing to do with the OS and everything > to do with the drives. I didn't blame the OS in all of this. I blamed the tape drives themselves. And I was saying that VMS was actually doing Paul a favor by rejecting his 4mm drive. > (Same happens with DLT by the way. Doubters can try writing > TK50 or TK70 tape in a modern DLT if they dare. Similar size and appearance is > NOT everything!! So you meant older tapes with newer drives? Please clarify. > There are in fact relatively few devices that fail with VMS. Yes, I believe this is one reason VAX become popular with physicists, IIRC. > There are ways to > write media VMS will not grok (tape with blocksize over 64K for example, unless that Will not grok? Say what? > has been fixed) and filestructures VMS does not know, but VMS has been historically > pretty darn good at handling data processing gadgets, at times needing third party > controllers. From very early days, VMS has had tape file structure processors to > handle file structured tape. It also has had utilities, as unix has had, but > it has been able to treat tape on a par with disk as a file structured device (with > limitations derived from the devices and from the shortcomings of the ANSI standards), > a feat many OSs never heard of. > > It is true though that DAT is very susceptible to tape damage and drives must be > handled with much care if you don't want your tape turned into magnetic confetti. Just to add to the list I started with my response to Brad's post: I've also had drives fail on the (BAKCUP/VERIFY) verification pass only to succeed with a subsequent BACKUP/COMPARE operation. Also, the drives often fail to fully rewind the tapes! On our Stratus DDS-1 drive I recently had trouble inserting the tape. It would spit the darn thing right back out. In fact, it was a cleaning tape and when it finally stayed in the drive rewound it!!! It rewound a cleaning tape. ... Nice. ;-) At least one TLZ drive (I think it was actually two or three) I had would also keep spitting the tape back out immediately after taking it in. > Glenn Everhart AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:26:41 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: 4MM DAT tapes read/write (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) Message-ID: <1188131201.108910.123740@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 6:06 pm, bradhamil...@comcast.net (Brad Hamilton) wrote: > In article <1188069083.626943.60...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, AEF wrote: > > [...] > > >The only problem I see with VMS not recognizing your 4mm-drive is that > >it doesn't give the appropriate error message: > > >%CONFIGURE-F-BLEAH, 4mm-tape drive? You've got to be kidding. > >-SYSTEM-F-COUGHCOUGH, I'm not working with that! > > >(Now THAT would be humorous!) > > >The 4mm-DAT format is a write-probably/read-maybe one. So if you care > >about your data, I'd get something better. Thank your lucky stars that > >VMS is warning you about this! > > My experience with 4mm tapes and drives differs (thank goodness!) > > Of course, I prefer DLT in term of speed and reliability, but in my last VMS > job, I was forced to use 4mm tape drives. We ran BACKUP/IMAGE on or disks > every night, and re-used the tapes regularly. I was able to restore > (many times over) individual files inadvertantly deleted by our customers, as > well as whole disks that had logged hundreds of errors over a short time, and > needed to be replaced. Were they TLZ07 or TLZ09 drives, or some other models? Did you have the luxury of reading the tapes back on the same drive they were written with? I had many tapes that were fully readable only on the drives they were written on. If the tape were read on a different drive, in many cases I'd get parity errors part-way through the tape. Now if it's an alignment problem, why doesn't it crap out at the beginning? If it's a cleaning problem, why did repeated attempts always do the same thing: read up to a certain point and croak? And sometimes one drive would get a little farther through the tape than another. Did you have a catcher's mitt set up in front of each drive to catch the tapes as they come flying out during ejection? [OK, this only happened with one of my drives a few years ago and I had the pleasure of demonstrating this to an HP person. HP replaced it under our maintenance contract and they've been very good about replacing drives that go bad.] I've also had quite a few simply get stuck in drive. I've also had tapes come out with the tape hanging out of the cartridge. And just to preempt the inevitable: Yes, I cleaned the drives regularly according to the manuals instructions. > Again, I will say that DLT is vastly superior, but Paul should not be > discouraged from using DAT, if that is indeed the only (or most economical) > choice for tape backup. > [...] It depends on how much you value your data! AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:49:52 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: 4MM DAT tapes read/write (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) Message-ID: <002c01c7e7f0$5c426190$14c724b0$@com> > -----Original Message----- > From: AEF [mailto:spamsink2001@yahoo.com] > Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 7:27 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: 4MM DAT tapes read/write (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) > > On Aug 25, 6:06 pm, bradhamil...@comcast.net (Brad Hamilton) wrote: > > In article <1188069083.626943.60...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, AEF > wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > >The only problem I see with VMS not recognizing your 4mm-drive is > that > > >it doesn't give the appropriate error message: > > > > >%CONFIGURE-F-BLEAH, 4mm-tape drive? You've got to be kidding. > > >-SYSTEM-F-COUGHCOUGH, I'm not working with that! > > > > >(Now THAT would be humorous!) > > > > >The 4mm-DAT format is a write-probably/read-maybe one. So if you > care > > >about your data, I'd get something better. Thank your lucky stars > that > > >VMS is warning you about this! > > > > My experience with 4mm tapes and drives differs (thank goodness!) > > > > Of course, I prefer DLT in term of speed and reliability, but in my > last VMS > > job, I was forced to use 4mm tape drives. We ran BACKUP/IMAGE on or > disks > > every night, and re-used the tapes regularly. I was able to restore > > (many times over) individual files inadvertantly deleted by our > customers, as > > well as whole disks that had logged hundreds of errors over a short > time, and > > needed to be replaced. > > Were they TLZ07 or TLZ09 drives, or some other models? > > Did you have the luxury of reading the tapes back on the same drive > they were written with? I had many tapes that were fully readable only > on the drives they were written on. If the tape were read on a > different drive, in many cases I'd get parity errors part-way through > the tape. Now if it's an alignment problem, why doesn't it crap out at > the beginning? If it's a cleaning problem, why did repeated attempts > always do the same thing: read up to a certain point and croak? And > sometimes one drive would get a little farther through the tape than > another. > > Did you have a catcher's mitt set up in front of each drive to catch > the tapes as they come flying out during ejection? [OK, this only > happened with one of my drives a few years ago and I had the pleasure > of demonstrating this to an HP person. HP replaced it under our > maintenance contract and they've been very good about replacing drives > that go bad.] > > I've also had quite a few simply get stuck in drive. I've also had > tapes come out with the tape hanging out of the cartridge. > > And just to preempt the inevitable: Yes, I cleaned the drives > regularly according to the manuals instructions. > > > Again, I will say that DLT is vastly superior, but Paul should not be > > discouraged from using DAT, if that is indeed the only (or most > economical) > > choice for tape backup. > > [...] > > It depends on how much you value your data! > > AEF Well, I will say the primary backup on an old P/390 machine is a 4mm tape drive, and it is now 12 years old and reads/writes perfectly well. I have had some issues with having to force a block size when reading tapes it writes back on another (identical) drive attached to a UNIX box. However, I also snap the data off that thing regularly as image backups using UNIX booted from a CD; and *that* goes to LTO. (All the UNIX, Windows, and Mac data tends to go to DLT though. ;) I also back up anything I consider really important to DVD, and as indicated, with multiple copies at least one of which is stored offsite. I am a little paranoid... -Paul ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:58:17 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: ACLS and WebServers... Message-ID: Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: > In article <001501c7e793$774f6850$65ee38f0$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" writes: >> Apache is up and running so ... to bring >> up and configure WASD means I either need to >> IPL from another volume, or figure out how to *uninstall* >> Apache... > > Actually, you don't need to do either of those. Just configure WASD to run on > some other port than you've got Apache running on. (On my home VMS box - which > is where I'm sitting as I type this, DECnetted into my work machine - I'm > running OSU, Apache, and WASD simultaneously.) The various logical names and > account names they require don't overlap. Just as i have three copies of OSU running on an system where port 80 is the the prod server, 81 is test and 82 is the dev web server. All running OSU but separate installs, could be (maybe are, don't remember) different versions... It's actualy setup so the logical names for the test and dev servers are search lists ending with the prod directories, so when testing something only the files needing changes are moved physicaly to the dev/test directories. The other files are using the copy in the prod envir. Works as a charm, as expected on VMS... Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:16:09 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: COBOL Transactions? Message-ID: <1188130569.184300.97280@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 11:31 pm, "Paul Raulerson" wrote: > > The only problem I see with VMS not recognizing your 4mm-drive is that > > it doesn't give the appropriate error message: > > > %CONFIGURE-F-BLEAH, 4mm-tape drive? You've got to be kidding. > > -SYSTEM-F-COUGHCOUGH, I'm not working with that! > > > I somehow would not put it past it to do just exactly that! :) > > > (Now THAT would be humorous!) > > > The 4mm-DAT format is a write-probably/read-maybe one. So if you care > > about your data, I'd get something better. Thank your lucky stars that > > VMS is warning you about this! > > > Tip: I've found that DDS-1 tapes work much better than DDS-2 tapes on > > TLZ07 and TLZ09 drives (which are 4mm-DAT drives). I have a DLT drive > > now (TZ88N-VA) and so far it works like a charm! > > > |-: OK, I don't know what the real problem is, but I'd get a better > > drive regardless. :-| > > I have the same DLT drive you do, and an IBM branded LTO drive. > I generally run backups to the DLT, mostly because I have more tapes > for it. Anything like essays or articles, or especially source code, gets > copied three places as well as to tape, and once a week to DVD. Then why, pray tell, are you f*****' around with a 4mm drive? In another post in this thread you wrote... "I'm excited about it, and know I need to move this to Itanium, but being cheap, I think I will do a porting event thing as soon as I have enough ported, working, and tested on the little Alpha here. The only issue with the Alpha is that the 4mm tape drive on it does not seem to be recognized. No big matter - source gets backed up to disk 3 times per day, and FTP'ed off to the UNIX machine which *does* know how to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ talk to tape. Tapes go into the library, the safe, and my lower left hand ^^^^^^^^^^^^ desk drawer at my "day" job! " [Pardon me if Google Groups screws up my ^'s. They dropped the preview function, for one thing.] It sure looks like you're saying that the Alpha doesn't know how to talk to tape (ANY tape) to me! > -Paul> AEF > > > [...] AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:45:09 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: COBOL Transactions? Message-ID: <002b01c7e7ef$b3bc98b0$1b35ca10$@com> > > > Then why, pray tell, are you f*****' around with a 4mm drive? > LOL! That was the whole point, I'm *not*. I may need to on an Itanium, but as of today, I haven't even figured out which Itanium to order, or if it makes more sense to attend one of those HP sessions where they *give* you one. ;) I do not know what the backup options for a low end Itanium are. > In another post in this thread you wrote... > > "I'm excited about it, and know I need to move this to Itanium, but > being > cheap, I think I will do a porting event thing as soon as I have > enough > ported, working, and tested on the little Alpha here. The only issue > with > the Alpha is that the 4mm tape drive on it does not seem to be > recognized. Yep.. "the" Alpha sitting in the equipment room upstairs sure doesn't know how to talk to the old 4mm that was installed in it. > It sure looks like you're saying that the Alpha doesn't know how to > talk to tape (ANY tape) to me! > "The" Alpha - meaning the one machine sitting >>> here <<< doesn't know how to talk to that one tape. There is a hardware issue with this *one* Alpha. I'm dead sure that Alpha machines running VMS have no trouble talking to tape drives. But to swing this around to a more productive subject, what backup options are available on low end Itanimum Integrity systems that would be suitable for daily use by non-technical users. Hardly any of the very small SMB shops will have the backup capability I have here, nor the skill to engineer a disaster recovery situation. I need to do that for them, on the cheap, and in such as way as it is not too ornerous for them to do every day. Stick a tape in and go away will probably be about the level I need to get to. Given that a very small SMB install might not have all that much data, a DVD backup might not be out of the question, but it is more expensive. Going along that line of thought, here is what I pretty much envision at least attempting to do, none of which will prove out until I put an Itanium machine here to test it on. (1) Recovery DVD that blows an IPL image onto a disk with both VMS and my software. Result should be a booting system with software up to date with the last recovery DVD version I put together. Preferably the DVD is bootable and will start the recovery procedure after asking the user to okay it. (2) Some kind of rewritable or daily storage that contains images of, or periodic full backups and incremental backups of the critical data and any software patches installed on the system. (3) Recovery/whatever program or DCL or ??? that manages the restore of the data. So in a worst case disaster recovery situation, the user will receive a new machine, stick in DVD#1, IPL, follow the prompts and 15 minutes later come out with a machine that boots into the base software. He then loads Tape, DVD#2, whatever it winds up being, and restores his application data and any patches that may have been put on the system since the DVD version. He re-ipls, and zap... he is back in business. I would like the entire process to take less than an hour, and also be the same or very similar to the process used for a new customer. Larger SMB shops will of course, be more complex as the system will have to be integrated into their existing backup/restore and DR situations. That will take consulting $$ most likely. See the idea though? Everything about the entire process needs to be simple, documented, and as standardized as possible, otherwise we will drown under a landslide of support requests. It is also why I am not overly concerned with the Alpha tape drive working or not. I simply lack the detailed knowledge of the Integrity platform necessary to make any rational descisions along those lines. Advice or suggestions always welcome, as with the recent WASD webserver thing. :) -Paul ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:55:58 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: COBOL Transactions? Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Raulerson [mailto:paul@raulersons.com] > Sent: August 26, 2007 10:45 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: RE: COBOL Transactions? > > > [snip] > But to swing this around to a more productive subject, what backup > options > are available on low end Itanimum Integrity systems that would be > suitable > for daily use by non-technical users. > Whenever the question comes up about "what is supported?", the very first p= lace to look Is the OpenVMS V8.3 SPD - "software product description". Reference: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/XAV12X/XAV12XPF.PDF (pg 38 for your question= ) Integrity rx2660 site: http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/cache/452201-0-0-225-121.html OpenVMS Storage: http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/osopenvms.html > Hardly any of the very small SMB shops will have the backup capability > I > have here, nor the skill to engineer a disaster recovery situation. I > need to do that for them, on the cheap, and in such as way as it is not > too ornerous for them to do every day. > > Stick a tape in and go away will probably be about the level I need to > get to. > I will assume That ideally there is a capability to remotely access the con= sole (even if system is at the console prompt) in a safe, secure manner to do remote supp= ort and troubleshooting as required. Something to consider is that it might be more appropriate to suggest a sol= ution that charges a small support fee, and a SMB Cust will not have to remember to ch= ange tapes, unload tapes etc. We all know that for SMB cust's without server operations= experience, this can be a real challenge. There are typically 2 primary issues that need to be addressed here. 1. Local daily backups that provide for quick restore (usually daily full b= ackups are much quicker to restore when local drive dies.) 2. Data Archiving in the event of server room fire/pick favourite disaster. Wrt to issue #1 - Backing up to a supplied additional "maint" disk for dail= y "full" backup save-sets which also has a pre-built version of OpenVMS on it as well. In t= he event of a major failure of any of the primary disks, once the failed disk was replace= d, you could simply boot the maint disk and restore what ever images are required, and t= hen reboot the default system disk. For greater HA, install local HW RAID or host based volume shadowing for al= l disks. This might be a higher charge option for SMB's that do not want to worry about t= apes, and want to minimize any dealing with any server issues etc Wrt to issue #2 (archiving), I would suggest a small additional support fee= that would provide the Cust with a service that transferred copies of their daily full= backup files in a safe, encrypted and secure manner to a second site (perhaps your= home site?). The files would then be archived off the second site per some agreement wit= h third party archive vendor. Course, security and sensitivity of data would have to be big priority. [snip] Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-592-4660 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:58:51 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: COBOL Transactions? Message-ID: <5767e$46d1a33d$cef8887a$31701@TEKSAVVY.COM> Ron Johnson wrote: > Autologin? Isn't that... insecure? Consider a captive account that starts some application. In a shop floor, there is a terminal, and anyone can press enter to get into the application. and have access to nothing else but that application. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:31:00 -0000 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Dataoverun on tape Message-ID: <1188138660.280290.98890@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On Aug 24, 12:16 pm, bri...@encompasserve.org wrote: > In article <1187968593.142717.302...@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, tadamsmar writes: > > > I taped off an image from an AS400. Took two tapes, used /VER > > > I tried to put it on a DS10 I just bought and got a DATAOVERUN during > > the 2nd tape. I am trying again. > > > Any idea what caused it? An hope it will work this time? > > It would be nice if you included the commands that you used both to > create and restore what I assume is a two volume BACKUP save set > along with the exact text of the resulting error message. > > It sounds to me like a hardware error. > > DATAOVERRUN tends to indicate that a block read from tape was too > large to fit in the buffer provided for it. Since BACKUP uses a > fixed block size and since your error occurred on the 2nd tape, > it isn't plausible that the buffer size is the wrong size. So it > must be the tape block that is the wrong size. Did not happen on the second try. A little troubling since this a refurnb DS10 that just came in the door. But I have a year's warranty so I will create lots of tapes in that period. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:16:40 +0200 From: Dirk Munk Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/25/07 15:48, Dirk Munk wrote: > [snip] >> The Western allieds knew all to well what was going on in Auschwitz, but >> they never tried to bomb the gas chambers etc. "It was to far away for >> the bombers" they explained after the war. > > I've never heard that excuse/reason. > >> That was a big lie, there are >> photographs of Liberator bombers over Auschwitz on their way to the > > Given the (*abysmal* lack of) accuracy of high-altitude bombing, any > attacks on Auschwitz were just as likely to hit the town, pastures, > or kill the prisoners. Keep in mind the way Auschwitz worked. A train came in, and the majority of the people on the train were murdered the same day. Even if bombing the railroad and the gaschambers would have killed prisoners etc. , it would have stopped the mass murder. Bombing the fuel plants also killed al lot of prisoners. And I doubt if Auschwitz was defended by FLAK, so the bombers could have made a low altitude attack. > >> Hermann Göring Werke where the Germans produced fuel (gasoline) out of >> coal. > > Which is more likely to shorten the war? Bombing a prison or > bombing a synfuel complex. > > You know my answer... Yes, the same reasoning was done by the Western allieds. Now suppose it would have been US and UK prisoners of war instead of Jews? And the workers for the fuel plants also came from those trains. The reasoning is wrong, its is not the gaschambers OR the fuel plant, but instead the gaschambers AND the fuel plant. What you are saying is that it wasn't worth the risk of losing a few bombers to save hundreds of thousands of Jews. By the way, the British made several very dangerous low altitude attacks with Mosquito bombers on prisons to free captured resistance fighters. > >> These factories belonged to the larger Auschwitz complex. The fact >> is the Western allieds didn't care very much for the Jews at that time, >> and certainly not enough to risk a few bombers. It was only after the >> war when it became very visible to the public what had happened that the >> general attitude to Jews changed. >> >> In Eastern Europe (Poland for instance) there were pogroms long after >> WWII ended. And I never felt more ashamed for my country as when I heard >> how returning Jews were treated in The Netherlands. > > I didn't know that... > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 04:11:42 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: <1188126702.359221.257440@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 1:03 pm, Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/25/07 07:14, Neil Rieck wrote: > [...snip...] > > > Talk to anyone who was an adult during World War 2 and you'll find > > that many common folk were anti-Semitic even though they called > > themselves Christians. (The people telling you these facts will always > > "The Jews killed Jesus." > Christians are taught that God sent his only son to die for humanity's sins. So if it is necessary to blame someone, blame God. NSR ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 06:12:04 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: <9edAi.16712$q_5.14440@newsfe24.lga> On 08/26/07 03:16, Dirk Munk wrote: > Ron Johnson wrote: >> On 08/25/07 15:48, Dirk Munk wrote: >> [snip] >>> The Western allieds knew all to well what was going on in Auschwitz, but >>> they never tried to bomb the gas chambers etc. "It was to far away for >>> the bombers" they explained after the war. >> >> I've never heard that excuse/reason. >> >>> That was a big lie, there are >>> photographs of Liberator bombers over Auschwitz on their way to the >> >> Given the (*abysmal* lack of) accuracy of high-altitude bombing, any >> attacks on Auschwitz were just as likely to hit the town, pastures, >> or kill the prisoners. > > Keep in mind the way Auschwitz worked. A train came in, and the majority > of the people on the train were murdered the same day. Even if bombing > the railroad and the gaschambers would have killed prisoners etc. , it > would have stopped the mass murder. Bombing the fuel plants also killed > al lot of prisoners. And I doubt if Auschwitz was defended by FLAK, so > the bombers could have made a low altitude attack. Massed bombers doing low-level attacks in southern Poland? You've *got* to be kidding. >>> Hermann Göring Werke where the Germans produced fuel (gasoline) out of >>> coal. >> >> Which is more likely to shorten the war? Bombing a prison or >> bombing a synfuel complex. >> >> You know my answer... > > Yes, the same reasoning was done by the Western allieds. Now suppose it > would have been US and UK prisoners of war instead of Jews? And the > workers for the fuel plants also came from those trains. The 8th Air Force might have, in revenge, switched from industrial targets to (like the Brits) urban targets. Or we (US & Canada, where the camps were) might have started killing German POWs tit-for-tat. And telling the Germans what we were doing. Anyway, telling the Allied home front what the Gerries were doing would only have fired us up to be even more vicious & brutal in finishing the war quicker. > The reasoning is wrong, its is not the gaschambers OR the fuel plant, > but instead the gaschambers AND the fuel plant. What you are saying is > that it wasn't worth the risk of losing a few bombers to save hundreds > of thousands of Jews. > > By the way, the British made several very dangerous low altitude attacks > with Mosquito bombers on prisons to free captured resistance fighters. Those are the key words: "several" and "very dangerous". Probably in France, and most probably to spring important resistance fighters who know of important parts of the network. >>> These factories belonged to the larger Auschwitz complex. The fact >>> is the Western allieds didn't care very much for the Jews at that time, >>> and certainly not enough to risk a few bombers. It was only after the >>> war when it became very visible to the public what had happened that the >>> general attitude to Jews changed. >>> >>> In Eastern Europe (Poland for instance) there were pogroms long after >>> WWII ended. And I never felt more ashamed for my country as when I heard >>> how returning Jews were treated in The Netherlands. >> >> I didn't know that... >> -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:07:09 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: <1188130029.760973.39130@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 4:48 pm, Dirk Munk wrote: > David J Dachtera wrote: > > Ron Johnson wrote: [...snip...] > > To be more accurate, they were persecuted and murdered trough out the > centuries. In fact things may have been better in the late 19th and > early 20th century (before the 1930's) than they ever were. In earlier > centuries Jews were not allowed to be member of a guild, which meant > that they were not allowed to exercise many professions. That is why > there are relatively many Jewish bankers, and why there are many Jews in > the diamond trade. There were no guilds for these professions. > > The Western allieds knew all to well what was going on in Auschwitz, > There is no way any modern civilized person would ever defend the German point of view surrounding the Holocaust. Having said that, I'm only bringing up the next fact to remind everyone how the western world, on average, was much more anti-Semitic than it is today. (And that we pompous Christians are mostly all-talk but no action) Before World War 2 broke out, Germans were putting pressure on Jewish people to leave Germany (this is one of the reasons that Einstein came to America in the early 1930's). By the late 1930s Germany was forcing Jewish people to become refugees then contacted western countries to receive them. When no countries acted, FDR convened the Evian conference to break the log jam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evian_Conference This basically accomplished nothing. And as sick as it sounds, Hitler placed "the lack of Western interest in receiving Jews" into NAZI propaganda which later led to Holocaust. This inaction to take Jewish refugees was one reason the Jewish people decided they needed their own home land. We should all be embarrassed by the lack of action by our various countries. NSR ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 07:12:27 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: On 08/26/07 06:11, Neil Rieck wrote: > On Aug 25, 1:03 pm, Ron Johnson wrote: >> On 08/25/07 07:14, Neil Rieck wrote: >> > [...snip...] >>> Talk to anyone who was an adult during World War 2 and you'll find >>> that many common folk were anti-Semitic even though they called >>> themselves Christians. (The people telling you these facts will always >> "The Jews killed Jesus." >> > Christians are taught that God sent his only son to die for humanity's > sins. So if it is necessary to blame someone, blame God. The *Romans* killed Jesus. Anyone who's read Matthew, and has two neurons to rub together, knows that. Anyway... I could say more about Catholic tradition and theology, but c.o.v is definitely not the place to start a huge OT flame war. But then, there are many atheists/agnostics and Protestants on the list who would probably agree with me. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:05:06 +0200 From: Dirk Munk Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/26/07 03:16, Dirk Munk wrote: >> Ron Johnson wrote: >>> On 08/25/07 15:48, Dirk Munk wrote: >>> [snip] >>>> The Western allieds knew all to well what was going on in Auschwitz, but >>>> they never tried to bomb the gas chambers etc. "It was to far away for >>>> the bombers" they explained after the war. >>> I've never heard that excuse/reason. >>> >>>> That was a big lie, there are >>>> photographs of Liberator bombers over Auschwitz on their way to the >>> Given the (*abysmal* lack of) accuracy of high-altitude bombing, any >>> attacks on Auschwitz were just as likely to hit the town, pastures, >>> or kill the prisoners. >> Keep in mind the way Auschwitz worked. A train came in, and the majority >> of the people on the train were murdered the same day. Even if bombing >> the railroad and the gaschambers would have killed prisoners etc. , it >> would have stopped the mass murder. Bombing the fuel plants also killed >> al lot of prisoners. And I doubt if Auschwitz was defended by FLAK, so >> the bombers could have made a low altitude attack. > > Massed bombers doing low-level attacks in southern Poland? > > You've *got* to be kidding. Well, they did at the heavily defended oil refineries at Ploesti.... Furthermore, I did not talk about mass bombing, a few dozen bombers might have been enough. > >>>> Hermann Göring Werke where the Germans produced fuel (gasoline) out of >>>> coal. >>> Which is more likely to shorten the war? Bombing a prison or >>> bombing a synfuel complex. >>> >>> You know my answer... >> Yes, the same reasoning was done by the Western allieds. Now suppose it >> would have been US and UK prisoners of war instead of Jews? And the >> workers for the fuel plants also came from those trains. > > The 8th Air Force might have, in revenge, switched from industrial > targets to (like the Brits) urban targets. > > Or we (US & Canada, where the camps were) might have started killing > German POWs tit-for-tat. And telling the Germans what we were doing. > > Anyway, telling the Allied home front what the Gerries were doing > would only have fired us up to be even more vicious & brutal in > finishing the war quicker. Really? So why didn't the same people tell the home front that millions of Jews were being murdered in Poland? Again, they just did not care. It were just Jews being murdered. > >> The reasoning is wrong, its is not the gaschambers OR the fuel plant, >> but instead the gaschambers AND the fuel plant. What you are saying is >> that it wasn't worth the risk of losing a few bombers to save hundreds >> of thousands of Jews. >> >> By the way, the British made several very dangerous low altitude attacks >> with Mosquito bombers on prisons to free captured resistance fighters. > > Those are the key words: "several" and "very dangerous". Probably > in France, and most probably to spring important resistance fighters > who know of important parts of the network. > No, for instance they made similar precision bombings on The Hague and Copenhagen to destroy the central registries of population. >>>> These factories belonged to the larger Auschwitz complex. The fact >>>> is the Western allieds didn't care very much for the Jews at that time, >>>> and certainly not enough to risk a few bombers. It was only after the >>>> war when it became very visible to the public what had happened that the >>>> general attitude to Jews changed. >>>> >>>> In Eastern Europe (Poland for instance) there were pogroms long after >>>> WWII ended. And I never felt more ashamed for my country as when I heard >>>> how returning Jews were treated in The Netherlands. >>> I didn't know that... >>> > > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:03:03 +0200 From: "Dr. Dweeb" Subject: Re: Here's one for Bob (hope it makes your head spin) Message-ID: <46d1959d$0$21924$157c6196@dreader1.cybercity.dk> Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/26/07 03:16, Dirk Munk wrote: >> Ron Johnson wrote: >>> On 08/25/07 15:48, Dirk Munk wrote: >>> [snip] >>>> The Western allieds knew all to well what was going on in >>>> Auschwitz, but they never tried to bomb the gas chambers etc. "It >>>> was to far away for the bombers" they explained after the war. >>> >>> I've never heard that excuse/reason. >>> >>>> That was a big lie, >>>> there are photographs of Liberator bombers over Auschwitz on their >>>> way to the >>> >>> Given the (*abysmal* lack of) accuracy of high-altitude bombing, any >>> attacks on Auschwitz were just as likely to hit the town, pastures, >>> or kill the prisoners. >> >> Keep in mind the way Auschwitz worked. A train came in, and the >> majority of the people on the train were murdered the same day. Even >> if bombing the railroad and the gaschambers would have killed >> prisoners etc. , it would have stopped the mass murder. Bombing the >> fuel plants also killed al lot of prisoners. And I doubt if >> Auschwitz was defended by FLAK, so the bombers could have made a low >> altitude attack. > > Massed bombers doing low-level attacks in southern Poland? > > You've *got* to be kidding. > >>>> Hermann Göring Werke where the Germans produced fuel (gasoline) >>>> out of coal. >>> >>> Which is more likely to shorten the war? Bombing a prison or >>> bombing a synfuel complex. >>> >>> You know my answer... >> >> Yes, the same reasoning was done by the Western allieds. Now suppose >> it would have been US and UK prisoners of war instead of Jews? And >> the workers for the fuel plants also came from those trains. > > The 8th Air Force might have, in revenge, switched from industrial > targets to (like the Brits) urban targets. > > Or we (US & Canada, where the camps were) might have started killing > German POWs tit-for-tat. And telling the Germans what we were doing. > > Anyway, telling the Allied home front what the Gerries were doing > would only have fired us up to be even more vicious & brutal in > finishing the war quicker. > >> The reasoning is wrong, its is not the gaschambers OR the fuel plant, >> but instead the gaschambers AND the fuel plant. What you are saying >> is that it wasn't worth the risk of losing a few bombers to save >> hundreds of thousands of Jews. >> >> By the way, the British made several very dangerous low altitude >> attacks with Mosquito bombers on prisons to free captured resistance >> fighters. > > Those are the key words: "several" and "very dangerous". Probably > in France, and most probably to spring important resistance fighters > who know of important parts of the network. > http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/1944.html OPERATION CARTHAGE (March 21, 1945) At the request of the Danish resistance movement, a force of RAF Mosquitos from 487, 464 and 21 Squadrons of 140 Wing, escorted by Mustangs of Fighter Command, attacked the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen. The Gestapo had taken over the five storey Shell House, the pre-war H/Q of the Shell Petroleum Company. On the day of the raid it housed a large number of Danish resistance fighters who had been arrested and were being interrogated as the first bombs fell. Some prisoners were killed but 30 escaped during the bombing. Some 151 Gestapo agents and their Danish collaborators were also killed. Although the raid was a success, a horrific tragedy occurred nearby. One of the Mosquitos, on its bombing run, struck a light mast in the railway goods yard, veered to the left and crashed in a ball of fire near the Jeanne d'Arc Catholic School. The fire and smoke from the crash was mistakenly targeted by the next wave of Mosquitos which dropped their bombs on and around the crash site. The resulting fires soon spread to other buildings and eventually engulfed the school which burned to the ground in less than two hours. Eighty-six children and ten teachers lost their lives in this tragedy and sixty-seven were injured. When rescuers reached the school cellers they found the bodies of forty-two children huddled together. They had all drowned in water from the firemen's hoses. Dweeb >>>> These factories belonged to the larger Auschwitz complex. The fact >>>> is the Western allieds didn't care very much for the Jews at that >>>> time, and certainly not enough to risk a few bombers. It was only >>>> after the war when it became very visible to the public what had >>>> happened that the general attitude to Jews changed. >>>> >>>> In Eastern Europe (Poland for instance) there were pogroms long >>>> after WWII ended. And I never felt more ashamed for my country as >>>> when I heard how returning Jews were treated in The Netherlands. >>> >>> I didn't know that... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:49:16 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: How's the serenity! (was Re: Processing Ideas Needed:) Message-ID: Hi Wilm, > My universe has been stateless since my days as an ACMS programmer. You mean that other context-rich, connection-oriented architecture? But I didn't see anyone suggest this to Chuck. (Still with the death of ACMSxp maybe they're all keeping their heads down at HP? Do they ever do anything else one might ask.) But please let me draw the distinction between your tasks being "stateless" and the ACMS transaction monitor maintaining a fully pre-authorized and statefull connection to the client. Please desist from attempting to draw an analogy between what ACMS (or Tier3) is doing and that document-serving, wam-bang-than-you-mam, pile of shit that is HTTP and all web-browsers who sail in her! You do see the difference don't you? Anyway, you've developed with ACMS, fantastic! Then *surely* you must agree that the bullshit ACMS workspace size restriction has always been a pain in the arse? What about result sets? All Employees with names starting with "SM"? All transactions for August? Why should you be forced into the same artificial "paging" paradigms that are ubiquitous today? What if you had a full-duplex conversational pipe as the only parameter to your ACMS task, and server affinity could be controlled at message granularity? For example, one request might generate a one row response, another might generate a 1000 row response, but if server and client were cooperating on a row-by-row basis, then the client could be enriching rows for presentation while the server was busy retrieving them. Or maybe, the server needs additional information from the client and the association between client and server needs to span more than one message exchange? Would such a flexible architecture not be desirable? Me? I like to send the *complete* result set down to the client and then let them page/scroll through it or sort it or whatever they like? But what about the privileges that you had to give ACMS servers? What about the DCL servers that were used to browse files with TPU that could easily be turned into startup-altering assasins? Also, you were told what Username you were performing work for, but you wern't given a t3$persona_assume service that could be called from an unprivileged account. How can you call Rdb's "Set Session Authorization" with only a Username? What about ADU, UDU, *CDD*, TDFs, SWLUP, ACMSATR, Debugging the server? (I'll skip the CP, and of course the "They tried to make me use the DECforms, and I said a No! No! No!") What about interrupting a server that's gone AWOL 'cos you gave it some dodgy selection criteria? Imagine empowering the end-user with a hot-abort button - Sound good? Doesn't XMLHttpRequest have an abort() method? Or does that filth just abort the client waiting for the request and leave the server to trundle away for hours? (And let the client kick-off another resource hungry trawl of the database) > I > did not have to learn anything new about transactional programming and > webservices when web services arrived. Excellent! Please show me one example of a Webservice on VMS updating RMS, Rdb, Oracle in a two-phase commit with and database on any other platform. (Could be doable with weblogic/tuxedo I suppose but I doubt it) > Some of my younger collegues > though were very surprised that records could change after they first > accessed them in their (SOAP, AJAX, PERL, ...) program. > The analogy that worked with a couple of programmers at an ACMS-using bank in the UK was that of the Hotel, and of leaving a pair of ones shoes in the closet after checking out. How you were more likely than not to get a different room next time, and even if it was the same room, it was highly unlikely that your shoes would still be there. I made it sound a lot more patronising than that :-) >Those who ignore > the past are forced to re-live it. So true! Bring it on :-) Certainly a refreshing change from those ignoring the present and wallowing in the mud. Cheers Richard Maher "Wilm Boerhout" wrote in message news:46d17bd5$0$25482$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl... > on 26-8-2007 14:25 Richard Maher wrote... > > [snip] > > >> I am a forgiving person(a). > > > > Give me time Wilm, give me time :-) > > > > Since this is a weekend at least on this end of the timezone chain, I'll > give you all the time 'til Monday. > > [snip, snip, snip, snap, snip snippety snip] > > > > >> In this our stateless universe, > > > > NO! "Your" stateless universe Wilm "YOUR"! Thus is the world as YOU have > > made it. (Or at least perceive it.) Take off your bullshit HTTP blinkers for > > a while and smell the coffee! And other mixed metaphors :-) > > > > My universe has been stateless since my days as an ACMS programmer. I > did not have to learn anything new about transactional programming and > webservices when web services arrived. Some of my younger collegues > though were very surprised that records could change after they first > accessed them in their (SOAP, AJAX, PERL, ...) program. Those who ignore > the past are forced to re-live it. > > /Wilm > > Now playing: Amy Winehouse - You sent me flying ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:00:47 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: Hi Wilm, > Bob G. has explained this: put an ACL on the executable file, and issue > the pertaining identifier only to that one user. You'll have to forgive me as I rarely pay much attention to anything Bob G has to say (especially stuff such as "Shareable image installed with the needed privilege.") but when it comes to the application of your/Bob's solution to Chuck's problem, can I ask you to clarify a couple of things for me: - 1) How does Chuck's Webserver assume the "only (1) particular user id", and the associated identifier, whilst handing over to the image activator in order to run the Executable installed with privs? 2) Does it create, and rundown, a new VMS process for each client request? 3) Does it use some dodgy inner-mode personae that manages to survive image rundown? 4) Does it keep the process lying around in case the (1) user id is needed again? 5) Where does the logfile go? 6) Has non-interactive logins for (1) user id been clicked over? 7) How does the success (Job entry number, perhaps pending status, or execution queue) or failure get returned to the user? 8) If (1) user id decides to submit the job again, does he have to enter his username/password again or is it held in some dogy cookie or session variable? 9) What sort of expiration time do you put on that crap? 10) What window of opportunity for Session Hijacking is good/small enough? Yep, welcome to VMS development! What have we had so far? FAL jobs with proxy usernames, Cookies, Session IDs, New processes (let alone image activation) for each request, and polling for file existance. (I'll throw in the inevitable "Use ODBC and an external function to the submit the batch job and put an ACL on the function") All of this brought to you via HTTP and a codepath that would tempt Alexander the Great to reach for his sword! Funnily enough, I suspect that all Chuck wanted was a RPC. Hey, there's a thought! Where are the SOA guys and the brave new world of WSIT? Gentlemen, this is your chance to shine! Get out here and show Chuck what you've got. All he wants to do is submit a simple bloody batch job; how much XML, WSDL, and Java can that take? HP is paying you a fortune to sit on your arses read manuals on Service Oriented Architecture, and to port a whole lot of crap to VMS that nobody wants; perhaps you might wish to show some fruits for all of the investment? Cheers Richard Maher "Wilm Boerhout" wrote in message news:46ce68f1$0$25476$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl... > on 24-8-2007 1:24 Richard Maher wrote... > > Hi Chuck, > > [snip] > > > Cheers Richard Maher > > > > PS. If you go the Installed image route then you may want to ask how you > > restrict Execute access to it to you "only 1" specific user. > > Bob G. has explained this: put an ACL on the executable file, and issue > the pertaining identifier only to that one user. > > /Wilm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:54:55 +0200 From: Wilm Boerhout Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: <46d13299$0$25476$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl> on 26-8-2007 9:00 Richard Maher wrote... > You'll have to forgive me as I rarely pay much attention to anything Bob G > has to say (especially stuff such as "Shareable image installed with the > needed privilege.") but when it comes to the application of your/Bob's > solution to Chuck's problem, can I ask you to clarify a couple of things for > me: - I am a forgiving person(a). > 1) How does Chuck's Webserver assume the "only (1) particular user id", and > the associated identifier, whilst handing over to the image activator in > order to run the Executable installed with privs? The webserver does not assume anything. It causes a process to be created for user JANEDOE, who is not privileged, but happens to be associated with a rights identifier RUNANIMAGE, so she's able to run an image that SUBMIT/USER's a job. > 2) Does it create, and rundown, a new VMS process for each client request? I hope so. > 3) Does it use some dodgy inner-mode personae that manages to survive image > rundown? No. > 4) Does it keep the process lying around in case the (1) user id is needed > again? No. > 5) Where does the logfile go? The webservers log file is where it always is, and records the run request. The /OUTPUT, /ERROR qualifiers of the RUN command determine where those log files go. The SUBMIT/USER command causes the log file of that job to go to the /USER=xxx login directory. > 6) Has non-interactive logins for (1) user id been clicked over? Not sure that it's relevant, but "No". The user JANEDOE exists for one purpose only, to SUBMIT jobs. Her VMS "account" should, maybe by being CAPTIVE or by other standard issue modifiers, restrict her to berform only that function. > 7) How does the success (Job entry number, perhaps pending status, or > execution queue) or failure get returned to the user? In this our stateless universe, I cannot think of a way to do this synchronously. So, write it into a file, and tell the user to check back on the status later. My favourite web shop does it that way, I can live with it. > 8) If (1) user id decides to submit the job again, does he have to enter his > username/password again or is it held in some dogy cookie or session > variable? Preferably not. > 9) What sort of expiration time do you put on that crap? See above, none. > 10) What window of opportunity for Session Hijacking is good/small enough? Also, N/A > Yep, welcome to VMS development! What have we had so far? FAL jobs with > proxy usernames, Cookies, Session IDs, New processes (let alone image > activation) for each request, and polling for file existance. (I'll throw in > the inevitable "Use ODBC and an external function to the submit the batch > job and put an ACL on the function") All of this brought to you via HTTP and > a codepath that would tempt Alexander the Great to reach for his sword! > Funnily enough, I suspect that all Chuck wanted was a RPC. Yeah, and from my point of view, this is what he gets. Unless he wants to submit a million jobs a day, process creation is not an issue. We'll walk that bridge when we come to it. /Wilm ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 2007 06:47:31 -0500 From: burley.not-this@encompasserve-or-this.org (Graham Burley) Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: <60STvgAF5Bed@eisner.encompasserve.org> An installed priv'd image seems a bit overkill for this. Wouldn't the following work? Create a batch queue for the purpose, set it /JOB=1 /RETAIN=ALL. Slap an ACL on the queue granting SOME_ID MANAGE access. Submit the job /HOLD under the required username. Holders of SOME_ID can now release the job when it needs to be run, when it completes it'll be retained on the queue, rinse & repeat. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:25:15 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: Hi Wilm, > I am a forgiving person(a). Give me time Wilm, give me time :-) > The webserver does not assume anything. It causes a process to be > created for user JANEDOE, who is not privileged, but happens to be > associated with a rights identifier RUNANIMAGE, so she's able to run an > image that SUBMIT/USER's a job. I'll give you London to a brick that the webserver calls $persona_assume "JANEDOE" before calling $creprc, in order to achieve the end result. If it isn't then it should! (Although back in 6.2 days there were "helpdesk celebrities" at Digital (becoming EDS at that time in Europe) whose arrogance led them to question whether or not this was supported. VMSNOTES conference is there for those with access.) > > 2) Does it create, and rundown, a new VMS process for each client request? > > I hope so. The crying shame here Wilm is I bet that you're not alone in this desire for self-flagellation :-( "Dear VMS Engineering, we the undersigned wish not only to endure the overhead of image activation/rundown for each web-client request but also to suffer the multitudenal indignities of a process activation." No wonder they don't give a Monkey's anymore; it's not just that WSIT is crap it's just that the client-base is technically incapable of understanding what "crap" is. (To be brutally honest, the VMS world seems to have plateaued with Perl/CGI or ODBC and seems unlikley to ever be confronted with the issues that have seen the rest of the industry searching for something like SOA, in the first place. An as far as AJAX and that predictive text stuff goes "Just leaves us banjo-plucking VMSers to ourselves! But you sure do have a purdy mouth. . .") > > 3) Does it use some dodgy inner-mode personae that manages to survive image > > rundown? > > No. For anyone following at home, I looked at the code a while back and recall that it's doable. Personae can survive image rundown. > > 5) Where does the logfile go? > > The webservers log file is where it always is, and records the run > request. The /OUTPUT, /ERROR qualifiers of the RUN command determine > where those log files go. The SUBMIT/USER command causes the log file of > that job to go to the /USER=xxx login directory. So the webserver "causes a process to be created for user JANEDOE" (and many other simultaneous users presumably) and channels *all* of the output from *all* of the processes to the one log file? To spell it out, I'm asking what you do with the sys$crappy_disk:bullshit_web_process_log.32767 files? > > 6) Has non-interactive logins for (1) user id been clicked over? > > Not sure that it's relevant, but "No". The user JANEDOE exists for one > purpose only, to SUBMIT jobs. Her VMS "account" should, maybe by being > CAPTIVE or by other standard issue modifiers, restrict her to berform > only that function. That's strange, but then I think that not updating the last login time for a detached job is also strange, so what do I know. Network logins "Yes" this "No" that "Maybe". > In this our stateless universe, NO! "Your" stateless universe Wilm "YOUR"! Thus is the world as YOU have made it. (Or at least perceive it.) Take off your bullshit HTTP blinkers for a while and smell the coffee! And other mixed metaphors :-) > I cannot think of a way to do this > synchronously. Well, as long as you've explored all avenues; that's the main thing! Wilm's stumped everybody so the rest of us might as well go home :-) I mean "RPC" what's it all about eh? Context-Rich? Connection-Oriented? Surely nothing but heretical clap-trap from an age before the I.T. killing-fields? I mean, imagine being able to control server-affinity or have your server processes assume the persona of the client they're performing work for, at any time without the need for any privileges. Imagine only having to supply a shareable image with six User Action Routines that produce the business logic for your application. Imagine all of this occuring in the context of a pool of worker processes that can be tuned for client demand with min/max servers and idle timeouts. I mean what the fuck's the point of that eh? But I'm sure I'm distracting you from that Perl manual that discusses the difference between "die" and "exit(1)" so I'll move on. . . > > 8) If (1) user id decides to submit the job again, does he have to enter his > > username/password again or is it held in some dogy cookie or session > > variable? > > Preferably not. And the other options are? > Yeah, and from my point of view, this is what he gets. Unless he wants > to submit a million jobs a day, process creation is not an issue. We'll > walk that bridge when we come to it. Yes, I'm sure you're right Wilm; it's all about Chuck submitting one batch job. There are certainly no architectural truths, credos, or dogmas that transcend individual application requirements that are to be found here. Move along, nothing more to see. (I'm sure SSH could've done it better anyway) Cheers Richard Maher "Wilm Boerhout" wrote in message news:46d13299$0$25476$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl... > on 26-8-2007 9:00 Richard Maher wrote... > > You'll have to forgive me as I rarely pay much attention to anything Bob G > > has to say (especially stuff such as "Shareable image installed with the > > needed privilege.") but when it comes to the application of your/Bob's > > solution to Chuck's problem, can I ask you to clarify a couple of things for > > me: - > > I am a forgiving person(a). > > > 1) How does Chuck's Webserver assume the "only (1) particular user id", and > > the associated identifier, whilst handing over to the image activator in > > order to run the Executable installed with privs? > > The webserver does not assume anything. It causes a process to be > created for user JANEDOE, who is not privileged, but happens to be > associated with a rights identifier RUNANIMAGE, so she's able to run an > image that SUBMIT/USER's a job. > > > 2) Does it create, and rundown, a new VMS process for each client request? > > I hope so. > > > 3) Does it use some dodgy inner-mode personae that manages to survive image > > rundown? > > No. > > > 4) Does it keep the process lying around in case the (1) user id is needed > > again? > > No. > > > 5) Where does the logfile go? > > The webservers log file is where it always is, and records the run > request. The /OUTPUT, /ERROR qualifiers of the RUN command determine > where those log files go. The SUBMIT/USER command causes the log file of > that job to go to the /USER=xxx login directory. > > > 6) Has non-interactive logins for (1) user id been clicked over? > > Not sure that it's relevant, but "No". The user JANEDOE exists for one > purpose only, to SUBMIT jobs. Her VMS "account" should, maybe by being > CAPTIVE or by other standard issue modifiers, restrict her to berform > only that function. > > > 7) How does the success (Job entry number, perhaps pending status, or > > execution queue) or failure get returned to the user? > > In this our stateless universe, I cannot think of a way to do this > synchronously. So, write it into a file, and tell the user to check back > on the status later. My favourite web shop does it that way, I can live > with it. > > > 8) If (1) user id decides to submit the job again, does he have to enter his > > username/password again or is it held in some dogy cookie or session > > variable? > > Preferably not. > > > 9) What sort of expiration time do you put on that crap? > > See above, none. > > > 10) What window of opportunity for Session Hijacking is good/small enough? > > Also, N/A > > > Yep, welcome to VMS development! What have we had so far? FAL jobs with > > proxy usernames, Cookies, Session IDs, New processes (let alone image > > activation) for each request, and polling for file existance. (I'll throw in > > the inevitable "Use ODBC and an external function to the submit the batch > > job and put an ACL on the function") All of this brought to you via HTTP and > > a codepath that would tempt Alexander the Great to reach for his sword! > > Funnily enough, I suspect that all Chuck wanted was a RPC. > > Yeah, and from my point of view, this is what he gets. Unless he wants > to submit a million jobs a day, process creation is not an issue. We'll > walk that bridge when we come to it. > > /Wilm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:07:21 +0200 From: Wilm Boerhout Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: <46d17bd5$0$25482$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl> on 26-8-2007 14:25 Richard Maher wrote... [snip] >> I am a forgiving person(a). > > Give me time Wilm, give me time :-) > Since this is a weekend at least on this end of the timezone chain, I'll give you all the time 'til Monday. [snip, snip, snip, snap, snip snippety snip] > >> In this our stateless universe, > > NO! "Your" stateless universe Wilm "YOUR"! Thus is the world as YOU have > made it. (Or at least perceive it.) Take off your bullshit HTTP blinkers for > a while and smell the coffee! And other mixed metaphors :-) > My universe has been stateless since my days as an ACMS programmer. I did not have to learn anything new about transactional programming and webservices when web services arrived. Some of my younger collegues though were very surprised that records could change after they first accessed them in their (SOAP, AJAX, PERL, ...) program. Those who ignore the past are forced to re-live it. /Wilm Now playing: Amy Winehouse - You sent me flying ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:15:33 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilm Boerhout [mailto:w5OLD.PAINTboerhout@planet.nl] > Sent: August 26, 2007 9:07 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Processing Ideas Needed: > > on 26-8-2007 14:25 Richard Maher wrote... > > [snip] > > >> I am a forgiving person(a). > > > > Give me time Wilm, give me time :-) > > > > Since this is a weekend at least on this end of the timezone chain, > I'll > give you all the time 'til Monday. > > [snip, snip, snip, snap, snip snippety snip] > > > > >> In this our stateless universe, > > > > NO! "Your" stateless universe Wilm "YOUR"! Thus is the world as YOU > have > > made it. (Or at least perceive it.) Take off your bullshit HTTP > blinkers for > > a while and smell the coffee! And other mixed metaphors :-) > > > > My universe has been stateless since my days as an ACMS programmer. I > did not have to learn anything new about transactional programming and > webservices when web services arrived. Some of my younger collegues > though were very surprised that records could change after they first > accessed them in their (SOAP, AJAX, PERL, ...) program. Those who > ignore > the past are forced to re-live it. > > /Wilm > > Now playing: Amy Winehouse - You sent me flying Yep, while SOA is the latest buzz word, one only has to re-examine why DCE = and common data dictionaries failed in order to really understand that SOA = has some major, major challenges ahead. And as a hint, the technical issues are minor compared to internal politics= and culture. Good article to consider: http://www.cio.com/article/print/21975 The Truth About SOA - Christopher Koch, CIO Btw, the other major buzz word which is interesting is "shared services" an= d "utility computing". For those still with hair on their head, SOA is a concept that used to be c= alled "timesharing" i.e. thin front ends (terminals) accessing centralized = services and supported with SLA's. As a fyi, I have a document on my shelf entitled "The Infrastructure Utilit= y Technical Description". It is dated May, 1994. :-) What's new is old and what's old is new. Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-592-4660 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:22:21 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: Processing Ideas Needed: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Main, Kerry > Sent: August 26, 2007 10:16 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: RE: Processing Ideas Needed: > [snip..] > Btw, the other major buzz word which is interesting is "shared > services" and "utility computing". > > For those still with hair on their head, SOA is a concept that used to > be called "timesharing" i.e. thin front ends (terminals) accessing > centralized services and supported with SLA's. > Oops, clarification alert - above lined should read: For those still with hair on their head, shared services and utility comput= ing are concepts that used to be called "timesharing" i.e. thin front ends (termina= ls) accessing centralized services and supported with SLA's. Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-592-4660 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:23:20 -0500 From: bradhamilton@comcast.net (Brad Hamilton) Subject: SMB backup "solutions" (was:Re: COBOL Transactions?) Message-ID: In article <002b01c7e7ef$b3bc98b0$1b35ca10$@com>, Paul Raulerson wrote: [...] >But to swing this around to a more productive subject, what backup options >are available on low end Itanimum Integrity systems that would be suitable >for daily use by non-technical users. > >Hardly any of the very small SMB shops will have the backup capability I >have here, nor the skill to engineer a disaster recovery situation. I >need to do that for them, on the cheap, and in such as way as it is not >too ornerous for them to do every day. > >Stick a tape in and go away will probably be about the level I need to >get to. [...] I can't speak to Itaniums, since I don't use them - however, the last VMS job I had needed this kind of "stick a tape in and change it every day" solution at the customer site(s). 4mm DAT was chosen for its (relative) cheapness, minimal footprint for drive and tapes, and relative ease of use (stick the tape in and walk away). Will 4mm DAT work on an Itanium? Don't know. Another option that my company explored involved the following scenario: Production data center was colo'd, and the 4mm tape stackers went with the production boxes. Development boxes remained on-site, without a tape drive. What to do?? Our "solution" was NAS, "served" to the VMS machines via NFS. A backup script was crafted to purge "old" backup save-sets, and backup/image development disks to NAS. Worked tolerably well, but the backup/restore requirements were much less stringent than would have been expected for production data. Still, a "bare-metal" install of VMS, followed by a restore of a system disk image to a different disk drive, followed by a reboot from the restored system disk would have been *possible*. Others can speak to some of the other possibilities raised in this thread. [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:34:17 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: Wisconsin professor says global warming a hoax! Message-ID: <1188131657.182837.112660@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 11:09 am, David J Dachtera wrote: > > I would opine that it may be possible to buffer the effects of a naturally > occuring phenomenon - "may": no guarantees - within the limits of our > technology. "Stopping" would be rather akin to adjusting the output of old Sol > out there, adjusting the orbit of Terra around it or Terra's rotation about its > axis, or otherwise attempting to modify the very nature of either the planet, > the solar system or the universe. > > I'll repeat my conviction here as well: humankind did not cause climate change, > humankind will not prevent it. > You are speaking "black and white" but the answer is really in the thousand shades of gray in between. But I do not accept your defeatist attitude. (sorry) Mars is much colder than it should be, and this is caused by the lack of an atmosphere. Venus is much hotter than it should be, and this is caused by a run-away greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. So it is obvious to me that tweaking the atmosphere is the primary key to solving this problem. There are other factors in global warming but I think we can get control of the atmosphere. But we just can't give up now after coming so far! > ...and if you think now is bad, do a little research into "the dust bowl days". > We can cause weather patterns to shift through mismanaging our soil and other > resources, but we cannot effect factors that operate on a cosmic scale. > I'm not sure if the dirty-thirties was a world-wide phenomenon or something local to North America. However, everyone in the field of agriculture (no pun) has been taught that the top soil just blew and that this was caused by poor agricultural practices (such as always plowing fields in a straight line; plowing too deeply; not rotating crops; not letting a field go fallow; not having a wind-break of trees; etc.). That is why the US Department of Agriculture uses county agents to eductate farmers. NSR ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 07:55:21 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Wisconsin professor says global warming a hoax! Message-ID: On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:34:17 -0700, Neil Rieck wrote: > On Aug 25, 11:09 am, David J Dachtera > wrote: >> >> I would opine that it may be possible to buffer the effects of a >> naturally >> occuring phenomenon - "may": no guarantees - within the limits of our >> technology. "Stopping" would be rather akin to adjusting the output of >> old Sol >> out there, adjusting the orbit of Terra around it or Terra's rotation >> about its >> axis, or otherwise attempting to modify the very nature of either the >> planet, >> the solar system or the universe. >> >> I'll repeat my conviction here as well: humankind did not cause climate >> change, >> humankind will not prevent it. >> > > You are speaking "black and white" but the answer is really in the > thousand shades of gray in between. But I do not accept your defeatist > attitude. (sorry) > > Mars is much colder than it should be, and this is caused by the lack > of an atmosphere. Venus is much hotter than it should be, and this is > caused by a run-away greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. So it is > obvious to me that tweaking the atmosphere is the primary key to > solving this problem. > > There are other factors in global warming but I think we can get > control of the atmosphere. But we just can't give up now after coming > so far! > >> ...and if you think now is bad, do a little research into "the dust >> bowl days". >> We can cause weather patterns to shift through mismanaging our soil and >> other >> resources, but we cannot effect factors that operate on a cosmic scale. >> > > I'm not sure if the dirty-thirties was a world-wide phenomenon or > something local to North America. However, everyone in the field of > agriculture (no pun) has been taught that the top soil just blew and > that this was caused by poor agricultural practices (such as always > plowing fields in a straight line; plowing too deeply; not rotating > crops; not letting a field go fallow; not having a wind-break of > trees; etc.). That is why the US Department of Agriculture uses county > agents to eductate farmers. > Read up on Sunspots. AGM is not a fait accompli. Increased CO2 could be a cause of increased global temperature, or it could be a coincidence, I don't think we have enough data to answer that question, afterall, we have had warmer periods in the past. I promise this is my last post on this Off Topic. > NSR > -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 2007 19:31:31 +0200 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: Re: [OpenVMS] Context lexical functions Message-ID: <46d1d513$1@news.langstoeger.at> In article <46cf570b$1@news.langstoeger.at>, peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) writes: >As you might know there are some lexical functions for getting information >of a particular entity (like F$GETDVI, F$GETJPI, F$FILE_ATTRIBUTE) and >a companion lexical function for wildcard searches of these entities >(like F$DEVICE, F$CONTEXT/F$PID, F$SEARCH). Yes, there is F$GETSYI and the companion F$CSID, too, but it doesn't matter here. Were talking about F$SEARCH and F$FILE now... -- Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER Network and OpenVMS system specialist E-mail peter@langstoeger.at A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 2007 19:49:49 +0200 From: peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER) Subject: Re: [OpenVMS] Context lexical functions Message-ID: <46d1d95d$1@news.langstoeger.at> In article , "John E. Malmberg" writes: >I solved the endless loop problem a different way: > >See ftp://ftp.encompasserve.org/gnv/ . In particular >gnv_com_2_1_patch_important_readme.txt . GNV is not the only sort of endless loops. But it is a common one now... eg. $ CREATE/DIR [.A] $ CREATE/DIR [.B] $ SET FILE/ENTER=[.A]B.DIR B.DIR $ SET FILE/ENTER=[.B]A.DIR A.DIR $ DIR [.A...] works (some kind of) on OpenVMS VAX (until the eight dir levels are used up) and on OpenVMS Alpha/I64 loops until RMS can no longer display the (ever increasing) directory levels (and then only the FIDs are displayed) but unfortunately the loop doesn't stop... Yes, GNV should be fixed if it has a problem (which I currently can't comment on) but I'm looking for a (lexical) way to influence F$SEARCH (to not follow subdirectories and/or aliases and/or symbolic links). I (perhaps !) can workaround with some nested F$SEARCH (with IFs and more), but F$CONTEXT led me to think, that there must/could be a much smarter way. TIA -- Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER Network and OpenVMS system specialist E-mail peter@langstoeger.at A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.468 ************************