What's Up, DOCumentation? Robelle Consulting Ltd. Unit 201, 15399-102A Ave. Surrey, B.C. Canada V3R 7K1 Phone: (604) 582-1700 Fax: (604) 582-1799 E-mail: support@robelle.com Date: July 22, 1994 From: Robert M. Green, CEO David J. Greer, President Paul Gobes, Editor To: Users of Robelle Software Re: News of the HP 3000 and HP-UX, 1994 #4 What You Will Find in This News Memo: News Tidbits Suprtool 3.6 Release Announcement Prepare for Wider and Longer Files in Qedit World Wide Web Technical Tips Robelle's Denver Roundup Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions News Tidbits One Man's Bug is Another Man's Feature. A few months after the Casino de MontrĊal opened, a computer nerd won two $200,000 Kino jackpots within a few days of each other. The Kino game was promptly shut down and he was investigated. It seems that he had nothing to do with "fixing" the game - he just noticed that the same numbers kept coming up, and took advantage of it. The electronic machine that selected the winning numbers had been shipped without the random seed generator, so it always started each day with the same "random" number. Trojan Horse Warning. A destructive virus has been reported on the Internet that is disguised as CD-ROM shareware by Chinon. The file is named "CD-IT.Zip" and is supposed to convert an ordinary CD-ROM drive into a CD-recordable device, which is physically impossible. Apparently the computer locks up, then the virus corrupts critical system files on the hard disk. [Wright Patterson Air Force Base] Optic Fiber Fragment Kills Telecom Worker. Not too long ago a Telecom worker in Western Australia was reportedly killed when a fragment of fiber optic glass accidentally got into his blood stream. Remembering this, I was horrified to see at a recent trade show some very casual handling of raw fiber by visitors and sales reps at a stand...The risk is apparent; in the frenetic effort to demythologize technology for the general public, we (industry professionals) unknowingly jeopardize their safety. [ACM SIGSOFT Engineering Notes, vol. 19-1, Jan 94] Robelle Goes Behind the Old Iron Curtain. We now have agents for our products in the Czech and Slovak republics. SoftPro was started in June of 1992 by 11 project managers and programmers primarily to support HP's Materials Management software on the 3000. They have grown since then to 32 employees and now provide complete hardware and software solutions for their customers as well as CAD/CAM systems that they developed themselves. We'd like to welcome Jiri Nemec and the others at SoftPro. We're sure that they will take good care of the HP sites in that part of eastern Europe. Setting Up Network Firewalls. For anyone interested in setting up a firewall, the definitive work on the subject is the hot-off-the-press Firewalls and Internet Security, subtitled Repelling the Wily Hacker, ISBN 0-201-63357-4 ($26.95) from Addison-Wesley. This is in their Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series. Highly recommended. [Gavin Scott - Quest Software] Sys Admin by Internet. HP Supportline offers an e-mail service that warns of security issues on HP-UX. It lets system managers know of both the problems and the available patches. HP also offers easy ways to download these patches via FTP, Kermit, UUCP or WWW. I tried the WWW method and found it easy to use. One hint though, is to retrieve the description first and determine how big the patch file is. This is found on the "Path Name: " line. I downloaded one patch that took over three hours. Later I found out that it was five megabytes. [Paul Gobes] For information on the e-mail service send the message "help subscribe" in the text portion of the message to support@support.mayfield.hp.com. Their WWW address is http://support.mayfield.hp.com Another Security Warning. One of our customers, Dirk Punzelt of Rockwell, let us know of a security hole in MPE/iX 4.0. It is possible using just the SPOOLF command to gain temporary SM capability. The patch needed is MPEFXM0A, so check your Hpswinfo.Pub.Sys file to see if you've already installed this patch. Best Way to Break into an HP 3000? Recently on the HP3000-L discussion group someone was fishing for ways to beat security on the HP 3000. There were lots of posts to this thread; wisely none of them gave this possible hacker any help. The best response came from Jim Wowchuk in Australia : From: Jim Wowchuk Subject: Re: Best way to break into HP ? >I would like to know the best way to break security >on a hp3000? Dress up in a chicken costume then play O Sole Mio in reverse on an accordion while reciting _any_ Robbie Burns poem (in dialect), type :HELLO ME on the keyboard using your toes and BINGO...You're in!!! Well it works for me! We haven't checked this for technical accuracy yet, but it seems plausible. ;-) Suprtool 3.6 Release Announcement Suprtool Supports MPE/iX 5.0 Robelle Consulting has again enhanced Suprtool, its powerful utility for extracting data on the HP 3000. This 1994 release, version 3.6, adds some powerful commands and works with new MPE/iX 5.0 features. If you are upgrading to MPE/iX 5.0, we recommend that you use this latest version of Suprtool. New Features * You can update non-critical IMAGE fields using the new Update command. * You can produce subtotals using the new Count and Total options of the Duplicate command. With these options, you can count records and total fields for records with duplicate keys. * You can convert from EBCDIC to ASCII and vice versa. * You can List a Suprtool report to another device or to your attached printer. * Using Dbedit, you can delete a master dataset entry and all its related detail entries. MPE/iX 5.0 Enhancements * Suprtool is compatible with detail dataset expansion and highwater DBPUT features. In addition, the Form command shows dynamic capacity information and the highwater mark. * The Input command supports all KSAM/XL files, including those built with the OPTMBLK option. * Suprtool supports POSIX filenames. A complete description of all new features is in the change notice which accompanies update tapes. All Suprtool users who have service coverage receive an update tape automatically. The update tape also contains the latest user manual which can be printed out or viewed as on-line help. For a free demo or more information, please contact Robelle Consulting. Prepare for Wider and Longer Files in Qedit by Bob Green Qedit version 4.3, to be released this fall, will be able to edit much larger and wider files: up to 99,999,999 lines of 1000 characters each. This change is now in beta-testing, but we are certain enough of it to notify you in advance. This enhancement required drastic changes to the format of the Qedit workfile. The new format is NOT compatible with the old format, meaning that old code which reads Qedit files will not read these new files. That includes old versions of Qedit! To reduce compatibility problems we have designed the new format so that it will look like an empty Qedit workfile to most tools, and we are only creating the new format when you edit a file with more than 65,535 lines or with records wider than 256 bytes. This means that most files will still be in the old format, especially most source files. If you are responsible for any software tools that read Qedit files, please contact us to obtain an updated copy of our Qeditaccess routine. This is the software that allows tools to read Qedit files as if they were regular flat files. We would like to get as many tool suppliers upgraded as quickly as possible. World Wide Web by David Greer The World Wide Web is today's fastest growing method for accessing the Internet. The WWW is based on hypertext (like MS Windows help). The flexibility of hypertext was first used to help the physicists at CERN, in Switzerland, find technical data. The WWW provides a single interface to many Internet resources (e.g., FTP, Telnet, Gopher, and WAIS). Users no longer have to remember the arcane commands to invoke individual services like FTP. The WWW also supports graphics, video, and sound, plus it provides a method of completing electronic forms. You need a "browser" to access the WWW. Two common ones are the graphical interface Mosaic (available for PCs, Macs, and X-Windows) and the character-based Lynx. If you want to provide a WWW service, you must obtain a hypertext daemon (we use the one from CERN). With a running daemon, you can start writing your own hypertext files. The WWW browsers locate information using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL has the form: scheme:protocol Common schemes are HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol), Gopher, and FTP. You access the Robelle WWW welcome page with this URL: http://www.robelle.com If you want to access our FTP service directly (you can also access it via our welcome page), you use this URL: ftp://ftp.robelle.com The Robelle WWW welcome page looks like this: Robelle WWW Home Page (p1 of 1) ROBELLE CONSULTING LTD. Welcome to our World Wide Web service. For 17 years, Robelle Consulting has been developing and supporting software tools for Hewlett-Packard minicomputers and workstations. Robelle programs are well-known in the HP world: currently our products are installed on over 6000 HP systems throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and beyond. Here is how you can contact Robelle. HP 3000 Related Information There are a number of Internet resources dedicated to HP 3000 information. You might want to select from one of the following: * Robelle FTP archive * Hewlett-Packard Support * Unison FTP Archive * Quest Software WWW Server * Interex WWW Server Local Info Sources * Wimsey Information Services * View UBC Service Comments and suggestions about our World Wide Web service are welcome. Please address them to webmaster@robelle.com. Each entry that is underlined is a "link" to some other Internet resource. Our welcome page includes links to the following: * Robelle's address, phone and fax numbers, and a list of our international distributors. * An FTP link so you can download issues of What's Up, DOCumentation and Robelle papers. * A WWW link to HP's Supportline site in Mayfield, California. * An FTP link to Unison Software. * A WWW link to Quest Software (the Netbase people). * A WWW link to Interex (the CSL people). * Links to a local university (UBC) and a local Internet provider. From these sites you can make connections to many other sites. This is how the "web" concept grows. You get the benefit of finding out about resources that others have found interesting, from "tours of the Louvre" to exhibits of "the Grotesque in art", and from getting patches for HP bugs to getting cheat sheets for Doom. So find an Internet connection and start trolling. Technical Tips MPE/iX 5.0 Compatibility. MPE/iX 5.0 is currently a requestable "pull" release, but by the end of the year it will become a "push" release and will be sent to all MPE/iX sites. The following versions of our software have been tested and verified as problem-free on MPE/iX 5.0: Qedit 4.2 Suprtool 3.6 Xpress 3.1 Everything you could do with our products on MPE/iX 4.0 continues to work correctly on MPE/iX 5.0. The new Posix filenames are supported in both Qedit and Suprtool but you will need the current pre-release of Qedit if the filenames are greater than 35 characters. To make use of the new features in MPE/iX 5.0 such as dynamic dataset expansion, highwater DBPUTs, and the OPTMBLK feature of KSAM/XL, you definitely need Suprtool 3.6. Earlier versions of Suprtool will abort if some of these features are enabled. UNIX Tips. If you're like us (and I know I am), you've probably found UNIX just a little cryptic. Here are a couple of tips when getting started. They both assume that you are using the Korn Shell (ksh). Listredo/Do: In HP-UX these commands are "history" and "r". r 15 {same as DO 15} r more {repeats the last more command} Customized Prompts: To keep track of which directory you are in and to display the current history command number, add the following line into your .profile file in your home directory. PS1 = '$PWD [!] >' This will generate a prompt like this: /users/paul/ [16] $ Training at Users Group. NEORUG, the Cleveland HP 3000 users group, is planning to provide training on Qedit and Suprtool at one of their meetings this fall. The exact date hasn't been set yet, but it looks like it will be in late October. The plan is to set aside a half day for Suprtool training, and a half day for Qedit. Anybody can sign up. We are also considering setting aside a couple of days for in-depth Suprtool or Qedit training, if there is enough interest. Please contact Jim Weiss at Vista Data Systems, (216) 234-8881, for details and sign-up info. You may also contact Rosemary Van Poelgeest at Robelle. Robelle's Denver Roundup This year's North American Interex conference is being held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, September 18th to 22nd. Robelle is rounding up a great selection of talks and tutorials for you at the North American Interex. Featured speakers include Robelle's number one wrangler, Bob Green and his trusty cowpunchers David Greer, Mike Shumko, and Neil Armstrong. Monday Speaker Topic 2 p.m. David Greer Porting Qedit from MPE to HP-UX 3 p.m. Bob Green Suprtool Cookbook for Novices Tuesday Speaker Topic 10 a.m. Bob Green Link Multiple Files/Datasets with Suprtool 11 a.m. David Greer Planning the Future of Suprtool 2 p.m. Mike Shumko Introduction to Qedit for MPE and HP-UX 3 p.m. Bob Green Case Studies Using Qedit Command Files Wednesday Speaker Topic 10 a.m. Neil Armstrong Telnet, WinSocks, TCP/IP and Qedit 11 a.m. Bob Green Planning the Future of Qedit All sessions are 50 minutes long. Four Chances to Win! Visit the Robelle booth (number 509) and enter to win a prize from one of our "daily grand prize" draws. One entry gives you four chances to win. The draws will take place at 4:45 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, and at 1:45 p.m. on Thursday. Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions All Products Installing Robelle Updates. [Reprinted from 1992] At a user group meeting, Bob Green asked a class of Qedit fans whether they installed Robelle tapes by simply restoring @.@.@. Quite a lot of hands went up. Of course, there is nothing wrong with restoring the files from the tape: it's a necessary step. But it doesn't stop there. The new versions of the programs on the tape are not stored in their "normal" names. For example, there is no file called Qedit.Pub.Robelle on the tape. Rather, there are two programs, only one of which will be the correct version, depending on whether the install is being done on MPE V or MPE/iX. Both versions are provided to all customers, to facilitate our generous no-fee upgrade policy. The installation job stream (e.g., Install.Qeditjob.Robelle) decides which version to put into production, saving the old program in the PubOld group of Robelle, in case you ever need to go back to it. Other installation jobs may be required to install new versions of the Bonus and contributed programs, also. We strongly recommend that you read and follow the instructions in the change notice that accompanies each tape. Suprtool Version 3.6 New Subtotal Feature. In the latest version of Suprtool, it is possible to get both subtotals and counts of the records you are reading. These features have been added to the Duplicate command. To get a quick list of total sales per customer: >base sales,5,reader >get d-invoices >sort customer-no >duplicate none keys total invoice-amount >ext customer-no >list standard >xeq These new subtotal fields are appended to the end of each record, so they can be used in further processing tasks. Up to 15 fields can be subtotaled. Qedit Version 4.2 Running Qedit from Inside MPEX. One of our customers, Mark Ranft of General Mills, had problems running his Qedit UDC from inside MPEX. It would always conflict with MPEX's Qedit command and produce the following error: %qedit Processing FILESET REQUIRED UDC PARAMETER IS MISSING. (CIERR 1948) % Mark modified the first line and added four new lines to the command file that MPEX uses: Qedit.Cmd22.Vesoft. The first five lines now look like this: 1 PARM !CS$FILESET="",!REST$CMD="" 2 :if (CMDPARM("FILESET")="") and (CMDPARM("CMD")="") then 3 : QEDIT 4 : RETURN 5 :endif Mark also suggests saving a copy of the original command file and comparing it each time a new version of MPEX is installed to ensure that the changes will still work. Xpress Version 3.1 21st Century Dates. The year 2000 really isn't that far off. In the newest version of Xpress we're using a new date format that fits in X6, but includes provisions for the next century. Because we wanted to avoid having to rebuild the Xpress database to expand the X6 date to X8 (these are critical fields in many datasets), we are using a non-standard format for 21st century dates. The year becomes alphabetic after the year 1999. For example, A0-A9 2000-2009 B0-B9 2010-2020 There are two advantages to this format: no extra space is needed and dates after 1999 collate correctly. This date format was suggested to us by James Overman of HP's Roseville division. By the way, the 21st century really starts on Jan 1, 2001. And yes, 2000 is a leap year.