ted@nieland.DAYTON.OH.US (Ted Nieland) (05/25/90)
Fall 1989 VAX/L&T SIG Tape Reviews Earle Ake Science Apllications International Corporation Todd Aven COmputer Associates International E. Loren Buhle, Jr. Univeristy of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Geoffrey Brunkhorst Mayo Foundation Tom Comeau Space Telescope Science Institute David Hittner Pioneer Standard Electronics Ray Kaplan Ted Nieland Control Data Corporation Mark Shannon Carnigie-Mellon University Ric Steinburger SRI International This is part of the review of the Fall 1989 VAX/L&T SIG Tape. Due to the large amount of overlap between the L&T and VAX SIG tapes, the Tape editors decided to combine the tapes into one large tape with no overlap. This SIGs tape contains many useful items for people with VAX Computers and people interested in Languages and Tools. The reviewers have scoured through most of the tape and have jotted down the following notes on the material that is on the tape. Not everything on the tape is reviewed due to the shear volume of material, but it is hoped that this review will help people in deciding what on the tape might be useful to them. The SIG tapes are a project started by the SIGs a while back as a method of distributing free software that might be helpful to others. Not all of the material on the tapes are "finished" products. This review is sponsered by the VAX and L&T SIGs and is coordinated by the L&T Public Domain Working Group. Anyone wishing to help with future reviews can contact the the Public Domain Working Group Chair, Ted Nieland. He can be contacted on DCS at NIELAND or at TED@NIELAND.DAYTON.OH.US on the Internet. This is the fourth SIG tape to be reviewed. The VAX and L&T SIGs are interested in your comments on the reviews and what can be done to improve them. Comments can be sent to DECUS_REVIEWS@NIELAND.DAYTON.OH.US or to NIELAND on DCS. Or contact any VAX or L&T SIG Steering committee member. The material reviewed here is included on the VAX portion of the tape. The encapsulated reviews are rated on a 1-5 scale with 5 being excellent. [.MEADOWS] - Joe Meadows Jr. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Ease of installation: 4 Documentation: 5 Intended audience: System programmers Ease of use: 4 Usefulness: 5 Sources included: Yes BASIC, C, FORTRAN, MACRO-32 Objects supplied: Yes Included in the [.MEADOWS] submission are many useful utilities for programmers as well as information and examples of many other VMS callable utilities. Some of the more popular utilities included are LPUNCH (for Listserv-Punch format file conversion), FILE (for changing file characteristics), FIND (to search for files on the disk using multiple criteria), MAKE, MENU (a "free flow menu program"), STATUS (a SHOW USERS type of program that works cluster/network-wide), UAF (does for the authorization file what FIND does for disk files), VERB (an un-SET COMMAND utility), and much more. Many of these utilities are priceless for working on a VMS system. They all come with MAKEFILEs (useable with the included MAKE utility) for easy (re)building. They also include complete source and a comprehensive help file for inclusion in your system help library. The programming examples, for example on using NML of DECnet to retrieve DECnet information, combined with UNSDL (for making include files from system definitions in STARLETSD) can make life easier for programmers in many tasks. Submission Subdirectory: [.PAVLIN] Ease of Installation: 3 Documentation: 3 Intended Audience: Programmer, Network Manager Ease Of Use: 4 Usefulness: 5 Sources Included: Yes; Fortran, Macro Objects Supplied: Yes This submission contains two parts, DISM32 and ETHERMON. DISM32 is a VAX executable disassembler. For those who have not experienced one, a disassembler converts an executable into assembler source code. It will NOT convert the code back to a higher-level language source such as fortran, basic, pascal, etc. DISM32 is an excellent tool for programmers who want to find out how to modify a program that they do not have source for, or as an emergency recoverer to cover an accidental loss of source. Documentation is adequate, and it is important that you CAREFULLY read the documentation in order to extract the maximum amount of benefit from this program. The first disassembly will crack the executable into 'raw' macro. There are no meaningful symbolic names available; you need to edit a symbol table file and change the raw symbolic names to something understandable. Rerunning the disassembler after editing the symbol tables will insert your symbols as appropriate. ETHERMON is a program which allows the network manager to watch the activity of the ethernet from a VAX. Similar to PC implementations, ETHERMON allows raw data to be stored for later analysis, and also has a MONITOR-like display for showing current(changing) network statistics. Good for finding a chattering etherport, and finding out where the high-traffic areas are. Submission Subdirectory: [vax89b.potter] Ease of installation: 5 Documentation: 5 Intended Audience: System Managers Ease of Use: 5 Usefulness: 5 Sources included: Yes, DCL, FORTRAN, MACRO, PASCAL, C Objects Supplied: Yes 1) DCL_PIPE A simple unix like pipe facility (resubmission). 2) DECNET_COPY A preprocessor for COPY allowing secure passwords. 3) LAT_HOST_HELP This is an example of what you can do with lat ports. 4) NET_WHAT Newest version of NETWHAT. A system status facility. 5) RENAME_BY_FID A simple utility to rename a file by its file id. 6) SETUSER The ever present SET Username facility. Works on V5.2. 7) TAIL A Fast tail utility for VMS. 8) VMS_COMPRESS VMS file compression facility based on unix "compress". 9) WHERE_AM_I Report of the machine you are on, were on, and loads. 10) ACL_SCRUB Handy utility to scrub a disk of any invalid acl entries. This submission has ten good utilities. Most are for system management, but a few are for general users. Tail provides a FAST look at the 'tail' end of the file. Net_what is a finger-like utility. Another version of the infamous setuser utility. Rename_by_fid is handy for taking care of those 'lost' files on a disk without hanging the disk by doing an analyze/disk/repair and waiting a LONG time. Decnet_copy provides a way to let users do a DECnet-copy without leaving their passwords out in plain-text. Vms_compress is a port from the unix 'compress' utility that allows for compression of many types of VMS files. [.RANKIN] - Pat Rankin Calif. State Legislature Ease of installation: 3 Documentation: 3 Intended audience: System managers Ease of use: 4 Usefulness: 4 Sources included: for all except UNO C, FORTRAN, MACRO-32 Objects supplied: for ETHERNET and SXLPS only Included in this submission: EXTRACT - utility program to select records, or pieces of, from parts of a file with several options for character translation and line editing; XSHOW - "extended show" program to implement some missing SHOW options; ETHERNET - program to monitor packets on an Ethernet network; SXLPS - filter program to convert sixel graphics into Postscript; RC - counts and displays the number of records in a file; SMG_SUPPORT - short program to create a logical name "look up" table for supported terminals; UNO - simulation of the card game "Uno". These are some pretty good general purpose utilities. EXTRACT and XSHOW come with their sources in VMS text libraries. (You may wish to use the LIBRARY_EXTRACT procedure from the [.SIT] directory to extract the sources.) ETHERNET is an enhanced version of the one shipped out over Info-VAX several months ago and provides easier reading for the summary reports. The programs do not come with utilities for rebuilding them from source, although EXTRACT does include a .MAK file (which doesn't seem to be compatible with either version of MAKE or with DEC/MMS). Submission Subdirectory: [VAX89B.RUCKER] Installation: 5 - simple Documentation: 4 - good Intended Audience: Systems Managers Ease of Use: 4 - good Usefulness: 4 - something for every system manager Sources Included: 3 - in most cases Source Languages: DCL, FORTRAN Objects Supplied: yes This collection of utilities was supplied by Medtronics. It is targetted for system manager types and usually requires fairly trivial name changes within the code to conform with your naming sequence. Alternately, you could define logicals to point to Medtronics defined devices. I was unable to review MAINT (a user-friendly interface for system management tasks), BACKUP/RESTORE (user-friendly interface for BACKUP), Q (simple queue listing program), and FTNLIB (a Fortran library of miscellaneous code). DECnet Monitor [.DNMON] The purpose of these programs (DCL) is to gather statistics (circuit counters) about the DECnet environment and summarize them into historical files for later manipulation by a capacity planning. A FORTRAN source is provided to digest the output of DECnet accounting. A sample output is provided. This output could be useful for planning purposes. The program appears to work for synchronous DECnet, asynchronous DECnet, or Ethernet. Some trivial customization is necessary. Batch Production Environment [.BPROD] This is a set of command files whereby an operator, unrelated to the job inself, can submit batch jobs from other accounts following a particular a schedule and certain order, with appropriate chargeback the specified accounts. DCL and executables are provided. No source. Performance Monitor [.PMON] These programs run MONITOR ALL, periodically saving the output to a file. Most of the DCL files for setting up the periodic jobs appear to be present. This file the rewritten to tape for a Sperry specific accounting package. The FORTRAN source and executable for generating such a tape is provided. While the output of this program is of dubious value, it certainly makes reading the MONITOR files quite useful. OPLOGEXTRACT [.OPLOG] This program provides a summary of all events in the SYS$MANAGER:OPERATOR.LOG files, with usually 1 line per event to save space. This is potentially useful for quickly surveying potential problems. The ability to generate a summary is present. Versions of the DCL and FORTRAN source appear to support VMS V4.7 and V5.1 in both a clustered and non-clustered environment. Operator Documentation [.OPERDOC] These files are all of the documentation used in Medtronics. It includes information about normal system operations as well as documentation of the utilities, all of which are included in this saveset. The documentation is in Digital Standard Runoff format. They seem to read quite well. Miscellaneous [.MISC] This area includes programs that involve interchange of data between VAX <-> IBM (S/38 and AS/400) <-> Sperry 1100 systems. Printers are also sharable between the system, as well as an interface to a Xerox 8700 laser printer. [.SIT] Ease of installation: 3 Documentation: 4 Intended audience: System managers, Programmers Ease of use: 4 Usefulness: 4 Sources included: Yes (Executables not included) C Objects supplied: No Many useful utilities can be found here ranging from a complete VMS library extraction procedure, a program to warn people upon login about system status (as well as their own expiration), a example for using PSM routines. Also included are some general VAX C modules for creating "an easy and convenient interface to tasks that are often required, but difficult to accomplish." A Queued Mail System for Jnet, DECnet (SMTP and Mail-11), and CMU TCP/IP is in this submittion as well. While executables aren't included, DEC/MMS description files are included for the two C based programs. (A quick note - the description files assume that you have the VAX C Run-Time Library included in your LNK$LIBRARY list.) The cluster utilities included are especially useful for heterogeneous clusters in providing SYSTARTUP_V5 simplicity and user/node permission checks. The NET_COPY procedure can help users who do not feel comfortable with the access strings required to access remote files. Submission Subdirectory: [.SJBROWN] Ease of Installation: 4 Documentation: 4 Intended Audience: General, System Manager Ease Of Use: 5 Usefulness: 5 Sources Included: Yes; C Objects Supplied: No This submission contains two parts, QUEUE and SWING. QUEUE is a vt100 screen-based program that allows the system manager to control the system queues. Online help is available, and the program windowing makes getting help and changing things easy. SWING is a general-purpose file control system. The program will show a disk structure graphically, allow the user to enter a directory and do maintenance of various types (edit, delete,rename,create,purge, etc). Online help is also available here. Easy to use with a very nice graphic/windowing interface. Submission Subdirectory: [vax89b.snap] Ease of installation: 5 Documentation: 5 Intended Audience: System Managers Ease of Use: 5 Usefulness: 5 Sources included: Yes, MACRO, FORTRAN Objects Supplied: Yes SNAP is a very fancy SHOW USERS. it gives a useful screen of information about each user process on the system. (Optionally, it also gives the same stuff about system processes.) You can get a bunch of statistics on the process, you can view what is going on on a terminal or write to that terminal's buffer, you can delete a process, force an image exit on a process, change priority, suspend or resume a process. SNAP and WATCH are two useful programs for system management. You can get a very good overall picture of who is running what on your system. It is also handy for helping a remote user with problems. The VIEW portion of SNAP allows you to view everything going on at another terminal. You can also 'attach' your keyboard to their's to aid in debugging. I have found this to be very handy and use it daily. Submission subdirectory: [89BVLT.SWAN] Installation: 4. Documentation: 4. Good text files. No .hlp files. Intended audience: General programmers who use DATATRIEVE. Ease of use: 4. Usefulness: 4. With the exception of the BANNER utility, this is for DATATRIEVE users/programmers only. Sources Included: Yes. Fortran, CLD script. Executables present too. This package includes DFI, DMI, BANNER, and MAGIC. DFI is an FMS-like interface for DATATRIEVE, primarily for sites without an FMS license. Supports screen-based forms, field editing, and print-to-form with user- definable forms. DMI is a menu driver for DATATRIEVE. Each menu item brings up another menu or translates to a DATATRIEVE command. Banner is a tool to produce textual banners, primarily for inclusion in other source codes. Anyone could use this. MAGIC is the text for two magic session submissions (DTR/4GL and VMS). Fortran sources, documentation, and build procedures are included DATATRIEVE is not licensed at our site, so I didn't get much chance to use the entire package. The banner program runs well and the code demonstrates good techniques of using full CLI parsing (avoiding the overhead of SET COMMAND invocation). DMI and DFI are well documented and seem like they would be valuable tools for DATATRIEVE programmers/users, especially for sites without DEC's FMS. Submission Subdirectory: [.SXES_SOURCE] Ease of Installation: 3 Documentation: 1 Intended Audience: General Ease Of Use: 3 Usefulness: 4 Sources Included: Yes; Fortran Objects Supplied: Yes This directory contains an update to the previous submission, DTC. DTC is an electronic desktop calendar program, much like the decwindows desktop calendar that dec provides. The difference here is that DTC uses a VT100-type terminal to display on. Functions allow setting of appointments in half-hour increments, seaching for the next available time slot, printing of appointments, week/month/year at-a-glance, and setting of an alarm to remind the user of appointments. Documentation is sparse, and the cli is rather terse with syntax errors, but a very useable program once over the learning hump. Submission Subdirectory: [vax89b.tedder] Ease of installation: 5 Documentation: 4 Intended Audience: System Managers Ease of Use: 5 Usefulness: 5 Sources included: Yes, COBOL Objects Supplied: Yes These programs are used as a handy way to find either the holders of a specific Identifier, or to find the Identifiers held by a certain user. They are written in COBOL, and make use of calls to $FIND_HELD and $FIND_HOLDER. The two programs are called FIND_HOLDER and FIND_HELD. How many times have you wanted to know what usernames hold what rights identifiers? How about what identifiers does a specific username hold? If so, then these two utilities are for you. By defining a foreign command or running from DCL, it will list all rights identifiers held by a specified username or all the usernames that hold a specific identifier. FIND_HOLDER tends to be a little more useful than FIND_HELD. Submission Subdirectory: [VAX89B.XMODEM] Installation: not performed Documentation: (4) present in large quantities Intended Audience: users of XMODEM Ease of Use: not performed Usefulness: (3) communication using X modem protocol Sources Included: stored in ZOO format Source Languages: FORTRAN Objects Supplied: yes, along with EXEs This is the distribution XMODEM V5.70 which is capable of running on VMS V3.X or higher. Much of the code has been transfered to FORTRAN, though C sources are mentioned. A file called SOURCES.ZOO is present on the distribution, but I do not have ZOO to unpack this file and further investigate. This directory seems to be a compendium of recent XMODEM updates. The code was not tested by this reviewer. Submission Subdirectory: [VAX89B.YMODEM] Installation: looks very simple and compilable, not tested Documentation: whatever is in the code, no .DOC or .TXT files Intended Audience: users of YMODEM Ease of Use: not tested Usefulness: Sources Included: yes Source Languages: DCL and C Objects Supplied: yes A file in the distribution states: "This is a modified version of the YMODEM program that has appeared on past tapes. This version uses a command procedure to parse out the commands and decide whether to send or receive and then start the proper program. It looks more like the old XMODEM.EXE program. " [Earle Ake, SAIC] I take his word for it!