Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS

[Johnny Billquist]

I have received some bug reports, and it turns out there was some very 
serious bug in the release, which corrupted low memory, including 
interrupt vectors.

A new release have been cut. Please update immediately if you have 
updated since the announcement I made two days ago...

	Johnny

On 2015-08-26 15:44, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Close to two months since my last official release, so I figure it's
> time I do another one.
>
> So - there is a new release of BQTCP/IP. I strongly encourage anyone who
> uses this software to upgrade.
>
> A short list of changed:
> . TCP have been rewritten to not use any system pool at all.
>     Even the small amount previously used added up when a lot of
>     traffic was going on.
>     At the same time, IPPOOL usage for connections have also decreased,
>     as memory is only allocated when needed for transmissions. This
>     also lead to the ability to have larger transmit buffers.
> . A new HELP file have been included for some help in general.
>     If installed, you can see information through HELP/IP
> . FTP rate calculation was slightly wrong. Fixed now.
> . Various included tasks have now been built without the need for
>     language specific resident libraries so that they can be used
>     on any system.
> . TCP could disconnect sessions erroneously under some circumstances.
>     Fixed.
> . Telnet daemon can give more comprehensive welcome messages now.
> . WWW server CGI scripts could cause the web connection to close
>     even though the script was not finished. Fixed.
> . The SPOOF detection/prevention now will not block the DNS server.
> . Improved response times for TCP connection establishment.
> . If a daemon created a task, and the task never picked up the
>     connection that came in, the socket was left in a broken state.
>     Fixed.
>
> As usual, the distribution is available from:
> ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk
> ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap
> ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk
>
> The documentation is also available through ftp on Madame, or also at
> http://madame.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc
>
> Right now, I don't know what the next project will be. Some testing and
> improvements. But I probably need to take a step back and look at the
> bigger picture. Do anyone have any special wishes (and don't say SSH or
> IPv6 :-) ).
>
> Oh, and as a icing on the cake, http://magica.update.uu.se (or
> telnet://magica.update.uu.se) will lead you to a real, physical
> PDP-11/70 running this software. Magica have been on the internet in the
> past, but she has been down for quite some time. But I'm happy to
> announce that the machine is starting to live again.
>
> 	Johnny
>
> On 2015-06-30 13:46, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> I'm happy to announce a new release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS.
>>
>> Since I'm broadening the scope of the announcement slightly, a more
>> complete list of features is included, and not just what changed since
>> last. For anyone who is currently running TCP/IP for RSX, I strongly
>> encourage you to update to this latest version. Several improvements
>> have gone in in the last couple of weeks. Most important change is that
>> there now is telnet support, both client and server side.
>>
>> The TCP/IP for RSX that I've written is sometimes referred to as
>> BQTCP/IP, just to make clear that it is a different product than Process
>> Software's TCPWARE, or JSA's TCP/IP.
>>
>> BQTCP/IP is a rather feature rich TCP/IP implementation, which also
>> comes with libraries for various high level languages. The API is not
>> compatible, even at the source level, with Unix, but on the other hand,
>> if people write some code, they will see that it is a very easy API to
>> work with. The reasons for the incompatibilities are several, including
>> both resource concerns and differences between how RSX works and Unix
>> like operating systems.
>>
>> BQTCP/IP has tried to comply with all relevant RFCs, but I'm sure there
>> are corners where it does not do things right. It also does not demand
>> much resources. It do require RSX-11M-PLUS with split I/D space, and it
>> has only been tested properly on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6. It should work on
>> any version 4 release of RSX-11M-PLUS, but there might be a couple of
>> tweaks or fixes needed.
>>
>> BQTCP/IP is distributed in binary form, so very little compilation is
>> required to get it up and running. However, pretty much all utilities do
>> come with sources. The actual TCP/IP stack sources are not included. I
>> do not have a good setup for distributing them in a sane way, and it has
>> had a low priority on my list of things to do. But I do not mind
>> distributing the sources as a general principle.
>>
>> All that said, BQTCP/IP current supports the following protocols:
>>
>> o Ethernet and loopback interfaces.
>> o ARP. BQTCP/IP can use Ethernet in co-existance with DECnet, or
>>     standalone using the provided Unibus ethernet device driver.
>> o IP. The largest IP packets supported are approximately
>>     8KB.
>> o ICMP.
>> o UDP. The largest UDP packets supported are approximately
>>     8KB.
>> o TCP. The window is approximately 8KB in size, and TCP do
>>     manage out of order packets in an efficient way.
>>
>> BQTCP/IP supports the following applications:
>> o DHCP. DHCP can be used to configure interface addresses, network
>>     masks, default gateways, DNS servers and NTP servers dynamically.
>> o NTP. NTP can be used to set the local time.
>> o TELNET. The TELNET server hooks in to the standard TT: terminal
>>     driver, and the number of terminals to create is configurable.
>>     The TELNET client can be used to connect to other systems.
>> o FTP. The FTP server can serve all kind of files to other RSX
>>     systems, and can serve text and binary files to any system.
>>     The FTP client can retrieve RSX format files from RSX servers,
>>     and text, binary and block format files from any system.
>> o TFTP. The TFTP server and client can be used for simpler file
>>     transfer operations.
>> o RWHOD. RWHOD is a program that reports current users and uptime
>>     from RSX, for other systems to collect.
>> o IRC. IRC is a program to communicate with other users around
>>     the world.
>> o IRCBOT. IRCBOT is a small example robot program connecting to IRC
>>     and performing a service for IRC users.
>> o PCL. PCL is a protocol for printing, used by HP (and other) printers
>>     over a network. The PCL implementation in BQTCP/IP appears as a
>>     print symbiont, which you can create a printer queue for.
>> o WWW. WWW (or World Wide Web) is a service that can present hypertext
>>     information to clients. The WWW server in BQTCP/IP also supports CGI,
>>     which makes it possible to create dynamic content.
>> o DNS. BQTCP/IP have DNS implemented as an ACP, that anyone can query
>>     to get translations between IP addresses and domain names. It also
>>     supports different users using different name servers, or private
>>     translations.
>> o SINK. A standard TCP service.
>> o ECHO. A standard TCP service.
>> o DAYTIME. A standard TCP service.
>> o QUOTD. A standard TCP service.
>> o IDENTD. A standard TCP service.
>>
>> BQTCP/IP also have automatic IP spoof detection and prevention.
>>
>> Additional tools are IFCONFIG, PING, TRACEROUTE, NETSTAT as well as two
>> new pages for RMD.
>>
>> High level language libraries exists for BASIC+2, PDP-11 C and FORTRAN-77.
>>
>> I'm sure I have forgotten a thing or three, but that's a fairly
>> comprehensive list.
>>
>> The documentation is a weak point, but there is hopefully enough
>> documentation to get people running, and I am happy to answer any
>> questions, or give support if needed. BQTCP/IP is already running on the
>> internet, and have been for a while. People who are curious to check it
>> out can ether look at http://madame.update.uu.se/, or telnet to
>> telnet://madame.update.uu.se and login as user GUEST with password
>> GUEST, or use ftp against ftp://madame.update.uu.se. Anonymous ftp
>> account exist.
>>
>> As usual, the distribution is available from:
>> ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk
>> ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap
>> ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk
>>
>> The .tap file is an RSX virtual tape. It is only possible to download
>> and use if you are using FTP from anther RSX system and fetch the file.
>> The .dsk files are virtual RL02 images that are useful both from within
>> RSX as well as through emulators.
>>
>> The documentation is also available through ftp on Madame, or also at
>> http://madame.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc
>>
>>       Johnny
>
>