In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:
>
>
>I've been meaning to upgrade from 7.3-2 to 8.3 for a while now anyway,
>but I need to accelerate the process for the following reason. I'm
>starting to generate a lot of backscatter spam from people sending me
>email to bogus addresses which are also invalid VMS usernames (and also
>not handled by logical names, SET FORWARD etc). (That is, I bounce them
>and the (faked) sender gets the spam, or they get bounced back to me.)
>
>Can I go straight from 7.3-2 to 8.3?

I have.



>What is the newest TCPIP for 8.3?

Comes with the distro: V5.6



>Will it fix my problem (i.e. Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE will
>silently drop all mail to addresses, whether they are valid VMS
>usernames or not)?

I don't use the TCPIP Services SMTP so I can't answer this.



>Any issues with 8.3?

I've had none. I did upgrade a client site recently and there are some
issues with Advanced Server 7.3B running on V8.3 but as for V8.3, I've
not had any issues.



>Any issues with the latest TCPIP for 8.3?

For what it is, it works.



>What about clustering with 7.3 VAX? Is it supported? Is it expected to
>work (i.e. there is no reason why it shouldn't, but it hasn't been
>officially certified)? Does it depend? Should I expect it NOT to work?

Supported? I don't think so. Does it work, YES!



>(Actually, I have enough ALPHAs now to run an all-ALPHA cluster, and it
>would make some things easier, but a) I don't want to see the VAXes go,
>b) the VAXes have more stable hardware and c) the VAXes have more stable
>software.)

I only use them (VAXs) to build VAX product and then they are powered down.
Yes, there are production sites still running on OpenVMS VAX.

--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

http://tmesis.com/drat.html

In article , VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
>>Can I go straight from 7.3-2 to 8.3?
>
>I have.

Ditto

>>What is the newest TCPIP for 8.3?
>
>Comes with the distro: V5.6

There is a V5.6ECO1 now instead.

ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/openvms_patches/alpha/V8.3/

You need to install it after V5.6, just like an ECO, but it is no
ECO but a full product (you can't install it before VMS V8.3 and you
can't force VMS V8.3 upgrade to install V5.6ECO1 instead of V5.6).

>>Will it fix my problem (i.e. Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE will
>>silently drop all mail to addresses, whether they are valid VMS
>>usernames or not)?
>
>I don't use the TCPIP Services SMTP so I can't answer this.

Ditto.

>>Any issues with 8.3?
>
>I've had none. I did upgrade a client site recently and there are some
>issues with Advanced Server 7.3B running on V8.3 but as for V8.3, I've
>not had any issues.

Ditto.

(Reinstallation of ASOVMS and ECP for the newer V8 images was all to do)

>>Any issues with the latest TCPIP for 8.3?
>
>For what it is, it works.

Same to me, but
I'm just switching back to TCPware V5.8 (now that BIND9 is there)

--
Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTOEGER
Network and OpenVMS system specialist
E-mail peter@langstoeger.at
A-1030 VIENNA AUSTRIA I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
> (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:

>>Can I go straight from 7.3-2 to 8.3?
>
> I have.
>
>>What about clustering with 7.3 VAX? Is it supported? Is it expected to
>>work (i.e. there is no reason why it shouldn't, but it hasn't been
>>officially certified)? Does it depend? Should I expect it NOT to work?
>
> Supported? I don't think so. Does it work, YES!

I'm pretty sure the latest version of OpenVMS Alpha will always be certified to
cluster with the latest version of OpenVMS VAX.

--

Rob Brooks MSL -- Nashua brooks!cuebid.zko.hp.com

Rob Brooks wrote:

>
> I'm pretty sure the latest version of OpenVMS Alpha will always be certified to
> cluster with the latest version of OpenVMS VAX.
>

Correct. Check the SPD. VAX and Alpha clusters are fully supported.
Alpha and Itanium clusters fully supported. It is adding VAX to an
Itanium (or Itanium & Alpha) cluster that only has 'transition' support.

--
John Reagan
OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company

In article , John Reagan writes:
>
>
>Rob Brooks wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm pretty sure the latest version of OpenVMS Alpha will always be certified to
>> cluster with the latest version of OpenVMS VAX.
>>
>
>Correct. Check the SPD. VAX and Alpha clusters are fully supported.
>Alpha and Itanium clusters fully supported. It is adding VAX to an
>Itanium (or Itanium & Alpha) cluster that only has 'transition' support.

I had this latter mixed-cluster in mind when I responded. A VAX will
cluster in with IA64 and Alpha but it's not supported. Alpha and VAX
most definitely are supported.

--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

http://tmesis.com/drat.html

Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
wrote:
> Will it fix my problem (i.e. Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE
> will silently drop all mail to addresses, whether they are valid VMS
> usernames or not)?

This was why I upgraded. Some ******** was sending out spam that claimed to
be coming from my domain. An emergency upgrade to OpenVMS V8.3 and TCPIP
V5.6 solved the problem with all the bounces I was the target of.

Though the problem I had was that "Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE"
wouldn't drop email to addresses over the legal lenght, but instead tried to
deliver them.

Zane

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Reagan, John
> Sent: August 21, 2007 3:28 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
>
> Rob Brooks wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm pretty sure the latest version of OpenVMS Alpha will always be
> certified to
> > cluster with the latest version of OpenVMS VAX.
> >
>
> Correct. Check the SPD. VAX and Alpha clusters are fully supported.
> Alpha and Itanium clusters fully supported. It is adding VAX to an
> Itanium (or Itanium & Alpha) cluster that only has 'transition'
> support.
>
> --
> John Reagan
> OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader
> Hewlett-Packard Company

Btw - it is a huge tribute to OpenVMS Engineering (past and present) when the current VMS
cluster environment will work fine with:

- 3 different HW architectures (VAX 32bit CISC, 64bit Alpha, 64bit EPIC)
- common file system compatibility (RMS)
- common batch and print queues
- common user authentication

What are the chances of clustering Solaris or any other OS platform on X86,SPARC and soon,
Power, in the same cluster and have Them all access the same file system concurrently?

Yes, VAX is not formally supported, but as pointed out in a number of threads here, works
fine with Alpha and Integrity servers in the same cluster.

:-)

Regards


Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

I am very curious - how in the world did this solve your problem, since the
******** was sending from some remote system and (assumedly) just forging
your return address?

-Paul


> -----Original Message-----
> From: healyzh@aracnet.com [mailto:healyzh@aracnet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 6:15 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
>
> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
>
> wrote:
> > Will it fix my problem (i.e. Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE
> > will silently drop all mail to addresses, whether they are valid VMS
> > usernames or not)?
>
> This was why I upgraded. Some ******** was sending out spam that
> claimed to
> be coming from my domain. An emergency upgrade to OpenVMS V8.3 and
> TCPIP
> V5.6 solved the problem with all the bounces I was the target of.
>
> Though the problem I had was that "Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability:
> FALSE"
> wouldn't drop email to addresses over the legal lenght, but instead
> tried to
> deliver them.
>
> Zane

> What are the chances of clustering Solaris or any other OS platform on
> X86, SPARC and soon,
> Power, in the same cluster and have Them all access the same file
> system concurrently?

Depending upon what exactly you mean by clustering, pretty darn good.
I can, today, have AIX systems share the same hardware devices just as
happy as a duck in water. Even IPL devices, though of course, swap
filesystems
have to be different. (By share I mean not over the SAN, not over the
network.)

Been able to do that for quite a while...

Windows, on the other hand, is not good about sharing hardware *at all*.

-Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Raulerson [mailtoaul@raulersons.com]
> Sent: August 21, 2007 9:39 PM
> To: Main, Kerry; Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
>
> > What are the chances of clustering Solaris or any other OS platform
> on
> > X86, SPARC and soon,
> > Power, in the same cluster and have Them all access the same file
> > system concurrently?
>
> Depending upon what exactly you mean by clustering, pretty darn good.
>
> I can, today, have AIX systems share the same hardware devices just as
> happy as a duck in water. Even IPL devices, though of course, swap
> filesystems
> have to be different. (By share I mean not over the SAN, not over the
> network.)
>
> Been able to do that for quite a while...
>

With different server HW architectures and the same OS?

I know AIX is active-passive clustering, but what different HW architectures and AIX can
you cluster together?

> Windows, on the other hand, is not good about sharing hardware *at
> all*.
>
> -Paul

Yeah, well that goes without saying ..

:-)



Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Main, Kerry [mailto:Kerry.Main@hp.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 8:59 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul Raulerson [mailtoaul@raulersons.com]
> > Sent: August 21, 2007 9:39 PM
> > To: Main, Kerry; Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
> >
> > > What are the chances of clustering Solaris or any other OS platform
> > on
> > > X86, SPARC and soon,
> > > Power, in the same cluster and have Them all access the same file
> > > system concurrently?
> >
> > Depending upon what exactly you mean by clustering, pretty darn good.
> >
> > I can, today, have AIX systems share the same hardware devices just
> as
> > happy as a duck in water. Even IPL devices, though of course, swap
> > filesystems
> > have to be different. (By share I mean not over the SAN, not over the
> > network.)
> >
> > Been able to do that for quite a while...
> >
>
> With different server HW architectures and the same OS?
>
> I know AIX is active-passive clustering, but what different HW
> architectures and AIX can
> you cluster together?
>

Just the different versions of POWER I am afraid, but still...

> > Windows, on the other hand, is not good about sharing hardware *at
> > all*.
> >
> > -Paul
>
> Yeah, well that goes without saying ..
>
> :-)
>
>
>
> Kerry Main
> Senior Consultant
> HP Services Canada
> Voice: 613-592-4660
> Fax: 613-591-4477
> kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
> (remove the DOT's and AT)
>
> OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.
>
>

For the original questions:


Yes, with TCPIP 5.6, the SMTP receiver will check against the SYSUAF,
distribution lists and I think logical names for valid usernames and if
not found rejects the message before it is accepted (therefore no need
to issue postmaster messages). This makes a HUGE difference since most
of the postmaster messages end up being sent to non-exiatant users
generating another postmaster message back at you. Going to 5.6
eliminated 99.9% of those.





John Reagan wrote:
> Correct. Check the SPD. VAX and Alpha clusters are fully supported.

SPD may state that VAX 7,3 and Alpha 8.3 are fully supported, but HP
doesn't actually implememt this support. For instance MONITOR CLUSTER is
still broken more than a year after 8.3 came out.

But the rest appears to work. VAX 7.3 can mount some ODS5 disks (with
limitatiosn on usage, which is understandable).

I would have prefered HP to fully support VAX 7.2 since that was the
last fully featured VAX release. They could have issued patches to give
it the ability to interoperate with Alpha 8.3 and to access (within
reasonable limits) OSD5 disks.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Raulerson [mailtoaul@raulersons.com]
> Sent: August 21, 2007 10:28 PM
> To: Main, Kerry; Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Main, Kerry [mailto:Kerry.Main@hp.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 8:59 PM
> > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Paul Raulerson [mailtoaul@raulersons.com]
> > > Sent: August 21, 2007 9:39 PM
> > > To: Main, Kerry; Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > > Subject: RE: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
> > >
> > > > What are the chances of clustering Solaris or any other OS
> platform
> > > on
> > > > X86, SPARC and soon,
> > > > Power, in the same cluster and have Them all access the same file
> > > > system concurrently?
> > >
> > > Depending upon what exactly you mean by clustering, pretty darn
> good.
> > >
> > > I can, today, have AIX systems share the same hardware devices just
> > as
> > > happy as a duck in water. Even IPL devices, though of course, swap
> > > filesystems
> > > have to be different. (By share I mean not over the SAN, not over
> the
> > > network.)
> > >
> > > Been able to do that for quite a while...
> > >
> >
> > With different server HW architectures and the same OS?
> >
> > I know AIX is active-passive clustering, but what different HW
> > architectures and AIX can
> > you cluster together?
> >
>
> Just the different versions of POWER I am afraid, but still...
>

Ahhhh .. you mean like clustering different versions of Alpha ..EV4, EV5, EV6/7 etc

For me, being able to cluster three totally different hw architectures withdifferent
versions of the same OS is a bit more of a challenge. Imho, it really is a tribute to the
overall design of the OS in terms of its flexibility and adaptability.

:-)

Regards


Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

"JF Mezei" wrote in message
news:b03d7$46cba010$cef8887a$23963@TEKSAVVY.COM...
>
>
> For the original questions:
>
....snip...
>
> SPD may state that VAX 7,3 and Alpha 8.3 are fully supported, but HP
> doesn't actually implememt this support. For instance MONITOR CLUSTER is
> still broken more than a year after 8.3 came out.

I upgraded to Alpha V8.2 last fall and ran into compatibility issues with
MONITOR CLUSTER and VAX V7.3. I opened a call and received new VAX MONITOR
images to fix MONITOR CLUSTER within a couple of months. Looking at the
backup saveset I received, there are MONITOR/VPM fixes for VAX V7.3, Alpha
V7.3-2/V8.3 and Itanium V8.3.

I haven't seen these images available in a downloadable patch, but you
should be able to get them from the Support Center.

-Jeff

Paul Raulerson wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: healyzh@aracnet.com [mailto:healyzh@aracnet.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 6:15 PM
> > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> > Subject: Re: VMS 8.3 and TCPIP X.Y: the killer application
> >
> > This was why I upgraded. Some ******** was sending out spam that
> > claimed to be coming from my domain. An emergency upgrade to OpenVMS
> > V8.3 and TCPIP V5.6 solved the problem with all the bounces I was the
> > target of.
> >
> > Though the problem I had was that "Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability:
> > FALSE" wouldn't drop email to addresses over the legal lenght, but
> > instead tried to deliver them.

> I am very curious - how in the world did this solve your problem, since the
> ******** was sending from some remote system and (assumedly) just forging
> your return address?

The fake FROM: addresses weren't valid for my server (thankfully). Ones
that were short enough were dropped thanks to the
"Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE". However, an attempt to deliver any
that were to long would fail, resulting in a bounce, and then I'd get a
bounce back on most of those. It was ugly to say the least.

Upgrading to OpenVMS V8.3 and TCPIP V5.6 with
"Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE" set meant all non-valid addresses
were dropped, and peace and quite reigned. :^) It also meant that my server
weathered the remainder of the mess in a much more friendly fashion.
Thankfully I'd already started working towards the upgrade, so I was able to
"quickly" take my system off the net and upgrade.

Getting spam is bad, being the target of all the bounces from a forged FROM:
address is a LOT worse.

Zane

In article , healyzh@aracnet.com writes:

> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
> wrote:
> > Will it fix my problem (i.e. Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE
> > will silently drop all mail to addresses, whether they are valid VMS
> > usernames or not)?
>
> This was why I upgraded. Some ******** was sending out spam that claimed to
> be coming from my domain. An emergency upgrade to OpenVMS V8.3 and TCPIP
> V5.6 solved the problem with all the bounces I was the target of.
>
> Though the problem I had was that "Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE"
> wouldn't drop email to addresses over the legal lenght, but instead tried to
> deliver them.

Same problem here: "Symbiont-Checks-Deliverability: FALSE" will drop
them UNLESS it is a SYNTACTICALLY invalid VMS username, e.g. too long,
illegal characters etc.