Is there a way to see active Decnet (IV) proxies?

[Art Wiens]

I'm sure this a question since the beginning of time, but I have never seen (or don't recall) an answer.

I know you define proxies in AUTHORIZE and enable them in NCP, but is there a way to actually see what is in use? i.e. the seemingly appropriate MCR NCP SHOW KNOWN PROXIES command doesn't exist.

Cheers,
Art

[RBrown_1]

It's been a long time but I recall being able to tell that a network login failure (possibly to RSX, but maybe to VMS) was by a user specifying username and password rather than using proxy access.

Don't remember how, though.

WRT your question, I think some other show command might give a clue (waving my hands here, I don't have a working phase IV system at the moment). Perhaps SHOW LINK. Is there a SHOW PROCESS?

Good luck.

[John Gillings]

Art,
I'm not sure what you mean by "in use"?

Are you looking for processes that have logged in using a proxy, or are you looking for proxies that are defined, but haven't been used, and are maybe should be deleted?

[Art Wiens]

Say for example someone goes in to AUTHORIZE and defines a bunch of proxies, but goes home for the day before executing the NCP SET. How can I tell that they were or weren't activated?

Art

[RBrown_1]

I thought that you just had to enable proxy access to the system, not on a user-by-user basis.

In that case you just need to NCP SHOW EXEC CHAR to see whether or not it is enabled.

[John Gillings]

Art,

I don't have a phase IV system to look at, but it appears you've found (yet another) hole in NCP. Sarcastic answer to any NCP query is - they fixed that about 15 years ago when NCL was released!

You may be able to infer your scenario indirectly by enabling the appropriate audits and event logging then comparing UAF audits with NCP events. Look for proxy changes in the audit journal and SET KNOWN PROXIES commands from NCP.

Alternative would be to look at defined proxies from UAF SHOW/PROX or, you can

$ DUMP/RECORD NETPROXY

(or, if the logical name is not defined)

$ DUMP/RECORD SYS$STARTUP:NETPROXY.DAT

If they're all legitimate

$ MCR NCP SET KNOWN PROXIES ALL

You now know the set of active proxies.

[Volker Halle]

Art,

the NCP SET KNOWN PROXIES ALL is typically NOT needed on a DECnet Phase IV system. You just define the PROXY with AUTHORIZE and it starts working immediately. Just verified it on an OpenVMS I64 V8.2 DECnet-IV system...

I remember to have have read somewhere, that this command was only required on 'some implementations of DECnet-IV', but I can't find this reference anymore.

Volker.

[Kelly Stewart_1]

Art,

Just as a note to Volker's reply, IIRC if you add a proxy just after a failed FAL access attempt, that proxy is not effective until the FAL server process times out and runs down. This changed with DECnet Plus, where proxies seem to be effective immediately even if a server process is still out there.

Kelly

[Zeni B. Schleter]

$ Mcr Authorize
UAF> Show/Proxy *::*

Use the List/PRoxy command to output to a file, Netproxy.lis.

[Art Wiens]

"the NCP SET KNOWN PROXIES ALL is typically NOT needed ..."

I know in the past we had some sort of issue that caused us to start using the NCP SET command to get proxies "active".

When a proxy access is requested, is the proxy file accessed/read, or are they kept in memory?

Cheers,
Art