A Hobbyist DECnet Network

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: A Hobbyist DECnet Network
>   From: Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu>
>   Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:03:52 -0500
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
> > I'm interested in setting up a network of hobbyist DEC machines linked
> > together in a DECnet phase IV network.  Why?  I suppose there's no
> > really good reason, but it seems like it would be fun to be able to
> > do "SHOW NET" or "NCP SHOW ACTIVE NODES" and see a whole long list
> > of machines that aren't mine :-) Besides, it would be a good way to
> > share access to real, non-simulated, VMS/RSX/RSTS and even, maybe,
> > TOPS-10 or 20, machines.
>
>That actually sounds interesting.  Among other things, it would
>give folks like me who are newish to decnet a way to test against
>known-working systems.
>
>How would you protect these older systems against abuse from the random
>crackers?  VMS is probably tolerably safe in current versions, if
>properly managed, but I'm betting there are problems with other OSes.
>You could do vpns, I suppose.

VMS if not put up sloppy is fairly tight.  The was a minor bug in 5.x
that was fixed by 5.4.  It's put 5.4 or later up against anything current.


Allison