From: MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX" 4-OCT-1992 18:48:03.04 To: info-vax@kl.sri.com CC: Subj: Monthly info posting: What is VMSnet? [Last changed: 1-OCT-1992 This is a monthly informational posting to be posted to vmsnet.announce.newusers, comp.os.vms, comp.org.decus, and comp.sys.dec. Please send changes, corrections, or comments to . [Changes since last posting: List of groups this message is posted to.] What is VMSnet? --------------- VMSnet is a set of newsgroups, similar to usenet but conceptually separate from it (i.e. the differences between VMSnet and usenet are political, not technical, we use the same software). A current list of the newsgroups in VMSnet may be found at the end of this article. The "mission statement" for VMSnet is: VMSnet consists of the set of newsgroups named vmsnet.*. These newsgroups are for the discussion of topics of interest to users of VMS systems. This includes VMS specific issues, as well as any other issues of interest to the VMS community that have no other acceptable forum. This includes discussion of topics or products that affect systems other than VMS for which no other newsgroup exists. Discussion of platforms other than VMS is very much welcome in groups that discuss topics or products that are not limited to VMS. What is a newsgroup? -------------------- A newsgroup is one discussion group within a "netnews" system. "netnews" is the generic name for a set of programs that implement a distributed conferencing system on thousands of systems world wide (A recent usenet readership report estimates that there are 25974 sites on "the net", with 5,440,000 users, 1,156,000 of whom read news). The VMS implementation of netnews is known as ANU News, and was written by Geoff Huston of the Australian National University. Netnews differs from mailing lists in that each node of the network forwards all traffic to the next node, who forwards it on, ad infinitum. This is known as a flood-fill algorithm. Contrast this to a mailing list, in which all messages are sent to a central site, which must then send them to all addresses on the list. While the flood-fill algorithm is slower than a mailing list on the internet, it is faster than one might think. The average delay for a message to reach most of the net is under 1 day, and it is much faster than that if the sender and receiver are close to an internet news site (which is quite common). The flood-fill algorithm does, however, demand fewer resources from any one site. Maintaining a large mailing list can put a significant load on the host that does it, as well as its nearby network connections. Netnews also only stores one copy of an article, no matter how many people read the newsgroup. The articles are maintained by the news system and accessed with a news reader program, rather than being delivered to individual mailboxes. Netnews is very similar to BBS systems, for those of you familiar with those. What newsgroups are available within netnews? --------------------------------------------- Within the mass of data flowing through the net under the generic umbrella of "netnews", there are "political" divisions. usenet is the largest part of this, and includes well over 500 different newsgroups (i.e. discussion topics). usenet is meant to be general, in that there is no limited set of topics it will discuss. usenet has a set of rules and procedures that have evolved over time, but there is no central authority in control of it. VMSnet is much smaller, having been created more recently, and being limited in scope to issues related to VMS. VMSnet is a project of the VMSnet working group of the VAX SIG of the US chapter of DECUS, the same group that distributes DECUS UUCP. There are other political divisions within netnews (altnet, pubnet, clarinet, etc.). Some of these cover specific topics (e.g. pubnet is for public access unix systems), some are commercial services (e.g. clarinet is a commercial online news-wire service), while some exist merely to avoid being part of usenet (e.g. altnet is simply a set of groups not subject to usenet rules). More information on all of these groups may be found in the periodic postings on usenet in the group news.announce.newusers. Newsgroup names are hierarchical, and the political divisions are reflected in the first (top) part of the group name. Thus usenet groups start with comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, or talk. Altnet groups start with alt, Clarinet groups start with clari, etc., and VMSnet groups start with vmsnet. Thus vmsnet.sources is a newsgroup within VMSnet. Who can receive netnews? ------------------------ Any system that can receive mail can receive news, because netnews systems can use mail to transport news articles from system to system. Much more efficient transfer mechanisms exist, however. Internet sites can use UUCP over TCP/IP, direct file transfer (i.e. some form of automated FTP), or NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol). ANU News implements NNTP for several popular TCP/IP packages. Sites that are not on the internet can use their existing mail facility, or can implement another way of transfering data, UUCP for instance. For example, BITNET sites could transfer news using BITNET mail, or by using BITNET file transfer. Any site with a modem could install UUCP and transfer news via dial-up phone lines. Since ANU News uses DCL command procedures to feed the news into the system, any scheme can be used. The only requirement is that the command procedure be able to find the files that contain the news, so that they may be input to the news software. Similarly, outgoing news is transferred by issuing a command within a DCL command procedure to transfer the news. It is not unreasonable to use any method of inter-machine data transfer that can be driven by DCL commands. UUCP has been provided for VMS by the VMSnet working group, chaired by Tom Allebrandi. It allows any VMS site with a modem to send and receive netnews and electronic mail via dialup phone lines (netnews traffic can be compressed to reduce transfer time and thus phone charges). One must simply find a nearby site to connect to (generally not difficult). DECUS UUCP is available from the DECUS program library or a nearby DECUS LUG (local user group) on the VAX/L&T SIG Tape for Spring 1990, or via FTP on the internet. UUCP is generally the most convenient way for a VMS site that is not on a wide-area network (like internet or BITNET) to transfer news and mail. How do I transfer news via mail? -------------------------------- This topic seems to generate the most questions, since everyone that gets this posting at least has mail already running. In this context, mail is treated as an underlying transport from news system to news system. The news articles are not delivered to a user mailbox, but rather to a mailbox read by the news software on the receiving system. Both systems must be running news. As mentioned above, the details of transfer are handled in DCL command procedures (typically running as batch jobs). To send news via mail, an appropriate command is issued to send the file containing news articles to an agreed upon user name at the receiving site. To receive news via mail, a batch job running as the user that receives the news simply extracts the articles into a file. ANU News understands the format of this data, and is able to ignore the mail headers and extract the news articles as they were mailed (assuming that the data was not damaged in transit, which is the major weakness of this scheme). This scheme is not dependent upon the other site running VMS, as unix news implementations can also ignore mail headers and extract news articles from incoming mail messages. Similar capabilities would not be difficult to arrange for other sites. Where do I get the vmsnet newsgroups? ------------------------------------- Once you have netnews running, getting the VMSnet newsgroups is generally not difficult. They are carried by most major usenet news sites, including uunet. Contact the system managers of news sites near you and see if any of them can help you. Most regions also have newsgroups that are only seen locally, and such a group would be a good place to ask if anyone in the area is carrying the VMSnet newsgroups. If you have tried these alternatives and still can not find a site in your local area that carries the VMSnet groups, you can send mail to Terry Poot , who will attempt to assist you in finding a feed for the groups. Alternatively, you can send mail to the VMSnet mailing list , which is also gatewayed to the vmsnet.uucp newsgroup and ask for help. In either case, be sure to state where you are geographically, and what your constraints are. For instance, if you can only place local phone calls, be sure to say just what areas are a local call for you. Be sure to also state if you are connected to any networks other than just having a uucp link. If you send your request to the mailing list (you don't have to join the list to do so), be sure to mention that you don't receive the mailing list so people will know to send you mail rather than responding to the list. If you do intend to run news, it is not usually neccessary to join the VMSnet mailing list, as it is gatewayed to the newsgroup vmsnet.uucp, which you will receive once you get the vmsnet newsgroups. The list itself is primarily to support those users using uucp who do not intend to run news. You can also join the list temporarily to learn more about VMSnet or uucp. To join the VMSnet mailing list, send a request to: vmsnet-request@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu Note that this is NOT a LISTSERV, it is read by a real human (Marc Shannon), so do not send it LISTSERV commands like subscribe or unsubscribe. Send a short note asking to be added/removed from the list, and give your address or use a signature file (the stuff in the mail headers isn't always reliable by the time your message reaches its destination). There are currently over 1950 sites (by one measure) worldwide that carry the VMSnet groups, and this number is growing. Traffic is currently light, but increasing slowly. By 2 other measures, the VMSnet groups are carried by 45-50% of all usenet sites. (Apparently nobody knows how to measure the size of usenet.) Here is a list of all the groups currently in VMSnet: vmsnet.admin Administration of the VMSnet newsgroups. vmsnet.announce General announcements of interest to all. (Moderated) vmsnet.announce.newusers Orientation info for new users. (Moderated) vmsnet.employment Jobs sought/offered, workplace and employment related issues. vmsnet.internals VMS internals, MACRO-32, Bliss, etc., gatewayed to MACRO32 list. vmsnet.mail.misc Other electronic mail software. vmsnet.mail.pmdf PMDF email system, gatewayed to ipmdf mailing list. vmsnet.mail.mx MX email system from RPI, gatewayed to MX mailing list. vmsnet.misc General VMS topics not covered elsewhere. vmsnet.networks.desktop.misc Other desktop integration software. vmsnet.networks.desktop.pathworks DEC Pathworks desktop integration software. vmsnet.networks.management.decmcc DECmcc and related software. vmsnet.networks.management.misc Other network management solutions. vmsnet.networks.misc General networking topics not covered elsewhere. vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.cmu-tek CMU-TEK TCP/IP package, gatewayed to cmu-tek-tcp+@andrew.cmu.edu. vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.misc Other TCP/IP solutions for VMS. vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.multinet TGV's Multinet TCP/IP, gatewayed to info-multinet. vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.ucx DEC's VMS/Ultrix Connection (or TCP/IP services for VMS) product. vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.wintcp The Wollongong Group's WIN-TCP TCP/IP software. vmsnet.pdp-11 PDP-11 hardware and software, gatewayed to info-pdp11. vmsnet.sources Source code postings ONLY. (Moderated) vmsnet.sources.d Discussion about or requests for sources. vmsnet.sources.games Recreational software postings. vmsnet.sysmgt VMS system management. vmsnet.test Test messages. vmsnet.tpu TPU language and applications, gatewayed to info-tpu. vmsnet.uucp DECUS uucp software, gatewayed to vmsnet mailing list. vmsnet.vms-posix Discussion about VMS POSIX. --- Terry Poot The McCall Pattern Company (uucp: ...!rutgers!ksuvax1!deimos!mccall!tp) 615 McCall Road (800)255-2762, in KS (913)776-4041 Manhattan, KS 66502, USA