Play with a Cray

Want access to a Cray supercomputer? Ask Cyber-Cray for access.



Visit http://www.cray-cyber.org and request access to their machines.

$ uname -a
sn5176 sn5176 9.0.2.2 sin.0 CRAY Y-MP

GNU Screen for the win! - Solaris, AIX, HP-UX

I really love the hardstatus line in .screenrc :P. Just upgraded this machine to 8.3 too, so don't mind the title. (C-a A - OpenVMS-8.3) xD

Credits for the .screenrc hardstatus line go to Han:

log off
hardstatus alwayslastline "%{-b ck} %?%-w%?%{+b}%n%f %t%{-b} %?%+w%? %= %l %D %d/%m/%Y %0c "
hardstatus on
escape ^Tt

Wallpaper is some image off flickr + GIMP + my favorite palindrome:

In girum imus nocte, ecce et consumimur igni.

We enter the circle by night and we are consumed by the fire.
(Drawn like moths to a flame).



By popular demand:



GNU Screen works just fine with that hardstatus line even on HP-UX systems. One thing I did though, was use:

env TERM=xterm-color screen

To start screen after ssh-ing in. After screen starts, you'll probably want:

TERM=vt100; export TERM

Also. You can put them in your profile. Using TERM=screen doesn't always work well.

Of course, you can just use TERM=dtterm, or even use dtterm, as done here via ssh -X to my AIX server :-).



As you can see, the AIX and HP-UX versions need a bit more work (or a fixed sized terminal in case of AIX):

Runnig Symantec Veritas Cluster Server on Windows Vista 64bit

Getting Veritas Cluster Server Simulator (VCS Simulator) to install and run can be a bit of a pain. Here's the deal:

Start a command prompt as Administrator, and install it using:

msiexec /i vcs_simulator.msi

Once the software is installed, download MSVCR70.DLL and put it in the VCS directory (C:\Program Files (x86)\VERITAS\Cluster Manager\bin\).

Then run "Veritas VCS Simulator - Java Console" and "Veritas Cluster Manager - Java Console" as Administrator (Right Click - Run as Administrator) and unblock the Windows Firewall ports (allow exception).



Enjoy playing with Veritas clusters :-).

OpenVMS Tips and Tricks - Clear Screen, ls -lha

Want to clear the screen? "TYPE/PAGE NLA0:" will do the trick. Just alias it to your dos like cls or to a UNIX like clear command :-).

$ CLEAR == "TYPE/PAGE NLA0:"
$ CLEAR
$

Might as well alias LS to a DIR/SIZE/DATE/PROTECTION:

$ LS == "DIRECTORY/SIZE/DATE/PROTECTION"
$ LS *.JAVA

Directory SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSMGR]

HELLO.JAVA;1 1 4-MAR-2008 21:40:06.79 (RWED,RWED,RE,)
HW.JAVA;2 1 4-MAR-2008 22:14:36.28 (RWED,RWED,RE,)

Total of 2 files, 2 blocks.

More OpenVMS Easter-Eggs

Another "easter egg", this time, simply an uninspired name for an application when upgrading from 7.3 to 8.3 :-).

$ SHOW SYSTEM
OpenVMS V8.3 on node VMS 4-MAR-2008 23:56:17.19 Uptime 0 00:15:41



And of course, the classics (All Your Base Are Belong to Us!).

$ EXIT %xb70
%SYSTEM-W-FISH, my hovercraft is full of eels
$ EXIT 134002
%DEBUG-E-FISH, my hovercraft is full of eels
$ EXIT %x3f30074
%KATIE-F-DEVNOTMBX, device is not a mailbox
$ EXIT %x34b4
%SYSTEM-F-GAMEOVER, all your base are belong to us

All your OpenVMS Easter Eggs are belong to us :-).

Java Development on OpenVMS

Got an OpenVMS box and you need to run some Java stuff?

$ SHOW SYSTEM
OpenVMS V7.3 on node VMS 4-MAR-2008 22:26:36.67 Uptime 0 01:16:05

$ JAVA -version
vms$dka0:[sys0.syscommon.][sysexe]java$java.exe;1 version "1.1.8-5"

Well, if you happen to have an older version of OpenVMS and Java (you can download a newer JDK - 1.5 here) you're going to have to set it up properly first. Set the CLASSPATH too.

$ @SYS$MANAGER:JAVA$SETUP.COM
Setting up symbols for foreign command line usage...
%DCL-I-SUPERSEDE, previous value of JAVA_COMPILER has been superseded
%DCL-I-SUPERSEDE, previous value of JAVA$FILENAME_CONTROLS has been superseded
JAVA$FILENAME_CONTROLS now set to: -1

$ DEF JAVA$CLASSPATH "/sys$common/java/lib/JDK118_CLASSES.ZIP:."
%DCL-I-SUPERSEDE, previous value of JAVA$CLASSPATH has been superseded

Great, now that we've setup our JAVA environment, we can start developing applications :P.

$ ED HW.JAVA
class hw
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
System.out.println("Hello, OpenVMS!");
}
}

^Z (Type Control Z to save and exit)

$ TYPE HW.JAVA
class hw
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
System.out.println("Hello, OpenVMS!");
}
}

$ JAVAC HW.JAVA

$ JAVA HW
Hello, OpenVMS!

Enjoy your ancient version of Java...

PS: Once you've had your fun, just download JDK 1.5 :-).

My hovercraft is full of eels

Hooray for Monty Python:
%SYSTEM-E-FISH error on OpenVMS 7.3. It's an Easter Egg btw. There's more (make love -> not war, etc) in other versions :-).

VPNC - Open Source client for Cisco VPN Contentrator

Got an ASA, a PIX or some other VPN Concentrator (or even Juniper NetScreen)? Well, you'll run into some troubles sooner or later. The Cisco VPN Client doesn't support 64 bit Windows clients, x86 Solaris clients and is just a pain to use on Linux.

VPNC doesn't require any kernel modules. Just put the IPSec gateway IP, IPSec ID, IPSec secret and XAuth username into /etc/vpnc/default.conf and start vpnc. It should work instantly :-). No fuss, no mess.

It will work just fine on Solaris, Linux, MacOS X or BSD machines. You can even get it running on your Windows box (Cygwin libs).

TrueCrypt now does pre-boot authentification

TrueCrypt is an open source on the fly (transparent) whole disk encryption software for Windows, Linux and MacOS that now supports pre-boot authentication on Windows. This means you can use this to replace PGPDisk or BitLocker.

It supports AES-256, Serpent and Twofish encryption, hidden volumes with two levels of plausible deniability and hidden volumes.

Tunneling over ICMP, DNS, HTTP and HTTPS proxies

Stuck beyond a firewall, captive portal or proxy and need your ssh (or any other service)? Here's a few ways to tunnel out:

• PTunnel - Tunnel TCP using ICMP echo request and reply packets (PING), includes authentication, allows for multiple connections.
• Iodine - tunnel IPv4 data through a DNS server, allows for authentification.
• NSTX - Tunneling network packets over DNS.
  
• Corkscrew - tunneling SSH through HTTP proxies.
• httptunnel - bidirectional virtual data connection tunnelled in HTTP requests.
• gotthard - ssh through https proxy tunnel

I've already mentioned Shared Shell and such too :-).