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DECnet for Linux
What does it do?
What you get is DECnet phase IV end-node and routing capabilities on your Linux box.
As it stands you can "set host" to an OpenVMS system, copy files to and from OpenVMS systems, run remote tasks and test the connections. You can also mount VMS directories as Linux Filesystems. VMS users can start terminal sessions on Linux or access to Linux files or foreign mounted filesystems as NFS or CIFS via the FAL daemon.
You can use X-Windows from OpenVMS to Linux if you build your X-Server with DECnet support or download one. This makes Linux into an excellent (and cheap!) X-terminal for VMS as well as Unix. It is also possible to display Linux X programs on a VMS workstation using DECnet.
LAT is available as a client and server. This is completely independent of DECnet and does not require a DECnet-enabled kernel. I mention it here partly because I maintain both packages and partly because LAT and DECnet are generally of interest to the same group of people.
Download
You don't need to download the kernel code, as DECnet has been a standard part of the Linux kernel since 2.4, however, you will need some tools for communicating with other DECnet nodes if you are to make use of it.
All the sources are available (under the GPL and LGPL). Debian includes them as part of the standard archives so if you are running "woody" or later you can apt-get it.
Mailing List
We encourage all users to join our mailing list, that way we can share experiences and make sure that people who can help will see the messages from users who need help, rather than randomly mailing individual developers.
To join the mailing list go to http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-decnet-user and follow the instructions there. Please note that you must join the list to post to it, this to try to avoid spam.
Please read the FAQ before sending questions to the list - it will likely save you and others a lot of time.
The list is archived at http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=linux-decnet-user
IRC
If you fancy a chat about things DECnet related you can usually find me (Christine) on irc.freenode.net channel #decnet during UK working hours and some other times too. My nick is chrissie and I'm happy to try to help out if possible, but do remember I'm trying to work at the same time!
Documentation
Man pages for all the programs and most library interfaces are available in the source and binary packages as well as some (rather cursory) set up documentation.
If you want to write DECnet programs there are plenty of examples in the dnprogs package as well as man pages for the libraries.
There is a fairly comprehensive FAQ, but please feel free to add to it.
There is also A page on using LAT on Linux.
Related Links
- DECnet Phase IV specification documents (hosted here with permission from HP)
- Other software that is Linux and OpenVMS or VAX related
Contributors
These are the major contributors to the project, many other people have submitted patches and ideas to the project for which we are very grateful.
- emserrat AT geocities.com: Eduardo Marcelo Serrat: The original kernel patch and base utilities
- stevew AT acm.org: Steve Whitehouse: The kernel code
- christine.caulfield AT gmail.com: Christine 'Chrissie' Caulfield: The dnprogs & LAT packages
We welcome any help, if you want to get involved please contact us via the mailing list.
OpenVMS is a trademark of HP, and DECnet probably is too.
Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Tux the penguin is copyright Larry Ewing and used with implicit permission.
