Best Terminal Emulation for HP-UX?

[rightbrain]

We use Exceed currently with RLogin and I can't get the scroll bar to show. Ideally, I would like to script some items like that to be available on each login.

1) Scrollbar
2) I'd like to see the commands I type get output to a file by date that I could reference later.

Anything else that might be useful at each login might be nice as well.

[Tim Nelson]

PuTTY has all you are looking for except the timestamped, every command log file. ( goo luck finding that one ).

AND, it is FREE.

[rightbrain]

Putty does not appear to allow me to script my login all the way. What I generally do is:
Login under my username and su to root. Exceed does this for me and puts me there with a single click. It also wraps the text for me so that things on the screen are readable (Xwindows feature) but without the scroll bar. Will Putty do this too? If so how?

[Tim Nelson]

>>Putty does not appear to allow me to script my login all the way. What I generally do is:
Login under my username and su to root. Exceed does this for me and puts me there with a single click. It also wraps the text for me so that things on the screen are readable (Xwindows feature) but without the scroll bar. Will Putty do this too? If so how?


Sounds like Exceed is what you want. Stick with it ...why ask the question then ?

[rightbrain]

exceed isn't giving me the scrollbar and then of'course, I'd like to have some sort of session logging.

[Andres_13]

Try xshell (http://www.netsarang.com/products/xsh_detail.html) which of course isn't free. I think it will be enough for you.

Also consider to assign points (you have assigned points to 0 of 5 responses to your questions).

Regards!

[Aaron Johnson_3]

Well if you're using exceed I assume you're executing an xterm. In that case you want to add "-sb" to the command line for xterm. i.e. "xterm -sb -sl 400" should do the trick (-sl 400 is 400 lines of scrollback)

I don't believe you'll get any other session logging other than your .sh_history with xterm.

I prefer putty which will let you name your log file with a time stamp and log your entire session. You can use ssh keys to automatically log you in as yourself or root if you really want.

[rightbrain]

I like the Putty tool as well if I can get it to do what I want. I need some hand-holding with it though. Can you outline how I can do the following?

1) auto-login as self with su to root
2) add scrollbar
3) save session with time date stamp

the options only appear to take care of number three which I am having trouble with. It creates the log but won't ask me for the name despite the selection. I thought I had the latest version too. Is there an enhanced putty out there. I want a single click icon for each server that takes care of it all. Thanks for responding.

[Bill Hassell]

If you are only using a terminal interface (no real need for Xwindows) then 'real terminal emulators are a much better choice. Xwindows places a real strain on your local PC just to emulate Xwindows and your terminal windows are 'stolen' from the server. In other words, you are running an xterm (dtterm or hpterm) program on the HP-UX box and sending all the font and colors and labels across the network to be interpreted and then displayed by your PC. Exceed is providing a small assist in the form of rlogin, but as you may have read elsewhere, rlogin (rcp, rexec or remote shell) are very big security risks.

A real terminal emulator runs on the PC and uses ssh (or telnet). No Xwindows, no network load, no issues with font compatibilities, difficult color selections, cut-n-paste problems, etc. By far, WRQ's Reflection for HP is the best terminal emulator for HP-UX. But it is pricey. Note that there are 4 model of Reflection: HP, Unix, Web and Xwindows. The HP version gives you all the features of HP smart terminals (ideal for menu tools such as swinstall, sam and glance) and a very powerful macro language for auto-logins, automated command scripting, bascially a complete replacement for expect as a way to run many tasks with decision points. And unlike Xwindows, the font is instantly scalable so you can magnify the window very quickly. And the character space (columns and lines) have no practical limits (I run 80, 132, 154, 176 and 240 columns) depending on what I'm looking at. And plenty of color schemes -- I have more than 20 window colors, each for a different server. The scroll bar covers several thousand lines (also configurable).

The best HP emulator for free is QCTerm which now supports ssh as well as telnet. Since auto-login and a scroll bar are standard, it is the ideal choice for a budget. It handles HP menus as well as Reflection. Personally, I would disable rlogin/rcp/rexec/remsh and telnet completely due to the security risks and use ssh instead. The advantage is that auto-login is quite simple using a public key.

Another priced product is SecureCRT which offers a lot of features but limited to dumb terminal VT emulation (just like xterm and dtterm).

Note that logging is standard with all the listed emulators (except xterm, etc).

[rightbrain]

Thanks for the suggestion of QTerm.

1) Notice that the text does not wrap like it should. I'm using HP3440s and HP-UX v11.11. I've chosen SSH2.

2) While this looks more promising and has a scrollbar, I still need to automate a regular login with SU to root so that I can quickly click the icon for a particular machine and get in quickly. Is there any way to automate that for a single click operation?

[Ron Irving]

My 'thing' these days is Attachmate Reflections. It has most of the bells and whistles for my tired old brain.

[OldSchool]

a) dtterm is the standard terminal client used w/ CDE on HP. It does have a scrollbar and it does work. You X terminal emulation package has nothing to do with you having a scroll bar on your terminal or not.

b) detailed log file of all commands? By day? Good luck.....

c) Auto Rlogin & auto su to root? the security auditors are going to love this one... If you tried that here, you would be pounding the pavement in search of other employment

d) "wrapping properly"....that's not "a feature of X-Windows" nor any terminal emulation software I'm aware of. If the environment (TERM, LINES and COLUMNS) is set properly, then the text should wrap properly....

e) I've used Century TinyTerm (Wyse60/vt220 emulation), Reflection-X and Exceed without any of the "issues" you noted (except for logging and login/su). I've also used PuTTY both as a terminal and tunnelling X-Windows w/o problems.

[Bill Hassell]

> 1) Notice that the text does not wrap like it should. I'm using HP3440s and HP-UX v11.11. I've chosen SSH2.

That's easy. Somewhere in your profiles (/etc/profile, $HOME/.profile, possibly .kshrc or .bash-stuff) you have hard coded TERM, LINES and COLUMNS. QCTerm is not compatible with TERM=vt100 or any other dumb terminal incantations. Unlike a vt100, QCTerm can change the character space (ie, lines and columns) and HP-UX will be notified automatically using a telnet subcode. Override all this automated stuff and nothing will look right on the screenm especially SAM and swinstall.

HP-UX has the ability to properly set all these items correctly based on your current screen. It is called ttytype and you can see it working with:

ttytype -s

To get it to setup all your user terminals correctly, rip out any code in /etc/profile that looks like this:



-------------------------
# set term if it's not set

if [ "$TERM" = "" -o "$TERM" = "unknown" -o "$TERM" = "dialup" \
-o "$TERM" = "network" ]
then
eval `ttytype -s -a`
fi

export TERM

# set erase to ^H, if ERASE is not set
if [ "$ERASE" = "" ]
then
ERASE="^H"
export ERASE
fi
stty erase $ERASE

----------------

and replace it with this:

eval $(ttytype -sa)

That's all there is to it. The archaic code in the default profile assumes that all incoming logins are from HP-UX systems or from PCs running software that properly identifies the terminal characteristics. This is seldom the case so always run ttytype at login. Also remove anything in your profiles where TERM=something is coded.

> 2) While this looks more promising and has a scrollbar, I still need to automate a regular login with SU to root so that I can quickly click the icon for a particular machine and get in quickly. Is there any way to automate that for a single click operation?

AS mentioned, this is an auditor's greatest dream -- a massive security risk where a user can login to any account (including root) without authentication. There's no reason to keep the root password secret -- just walk over to your desk at 2am in the morning and click the icons.

Now that said, assuming that your PC is locked down and properly secured (a laptop is a much bigger problem) then you can setup ssh2 connections with QCTerm. Create a public key with QCTerm, then add that key to your $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Now you can login automatically. I would also discourage the use of su for root -- period. You WILL make a mistake and not know what happened. Download sudo from the HP software.hp.com site and use sudo to limit (and document) the damage).

[Bill Hassell]

Oh, I forgot, the QCTerm manual tells you how to login automatically:

http://www.aics-research.com/qcterm/manual.html#Autolaunch

And logging can be enabled both from the keyboard as well as via escape sequences from a script:

Look for "log" in the escape sequence pages:

http://www.aics-research.com/qcterm/escape.html

[Bob E Campbell]

I understand the desire to have a true logging terminal emulator, but I think the best solution might come in two parts.

Others could tell you if any of the console loggers would work in this case. If your needs are less stringent I would use a combination of Putty and history files:

export HISTFILE=${HISTDIR}/$(date +"hist_%Y%m%d")

This has all the limitations of history files, but is pretty cheap. You can run with this to have TTY-specific, instance-specific....

[rightbrain]

Bill,
Thanks for the response. I changed the lines in QCTerm to 120 and that seems to have resolved it somewhat, though now the screen is a little wider than I like it. That's unimportant though at this stage as I have run into another snag with it.

When I do a swinstall to bring up a graphicalUI, it wants to give me the text version which is unacceptable. Any ideas?

Can you supply some examples of the following:

PROTOCAL: I guess ssh, ssh2, telnet, rlogin are protocals (yes?)

CONNECTION TYPE: Synonymous with Protocal ?

XWINDOWS: Would that be the same as XtermR6? I am very new to terminal sessions?

[Bill Hassell]

> Thanks for the response. I changed the lines in QCTerm to 120 and that seems to have resolved it somewhat, though now the screen is a little wider than I like it. That's unimportant though at this stage as I have run into another snag with it.

The width of the3 screen is a function of the font you are using. Just press CTRL+f1 or CTRL+f2 to change the font (and therefore, screen size. The menu across the top is a wealth of features.

> When I do a swinstall to bring up a graphicalUI, it wants to give me the text version which is unacceptable. Any ideas?

Most sysadmins find the character version much easier to use but I prefer the command line -- I seldom browse thins with swinstall. But a terminal emulator is emulating a terminal. You see these in museums sometimes -- they look like a portable TV with a keyboard and no mouse.

swinstall runs in 3 different modes: command line, terminal user interface (TUI) and (gulp) graphical user interface (GUI). If you want colors and mouse buttons, you have to run a different program, specifically Exceed or similar Xwindow emulator. Xwindows is specifically designed for colors and objects and pictures and similar features. swinstall is a character-based program so the GUI just look like the TUI. Check out the command line mechanism -- 10x-20x faster than TUI or GUI.

> Can you supply some examples of the following:
>
>PROTOCAL: I guess ssh, ssh2, telnet, rlogin are protocals (yes?)

protocols are communication standards. telnet is the classic Unix communication method but not favored because of security (all keystrokes can be seen and copied from the network). rlogin and it's relatives, rexec, rcp and remsh (rsh in other Unix flavors) are also communication protocols but much worse in the area of security. Secure Shell (ssh, scp, sftp) is the protocol of choice for today's computers.

> CONNECTION TYPE: Synonymous with Protocal ?

Connection can mean many things. A "real" terminal would use a serial cable, also known as the RS-232c communication standard. Another connection might be defined as a modem, also a serial connection method. The more common connections are made with local area networks (LAN) today.

> XWINDOWS: Would that be the same as XtermR6? I am very new to terminal sessions?

Xwindows is the oldest graphical interface and is variously called X11, Xwindows, X, etc. XtermR6 is a made-up term that abbreviates Xterminal and the X11 revision (6).

Here's the grandfather of all terminals, the vt100:

www.vt100.net

[rightbrain]

Excellent... OK so to get the full GUI of swinstall then I would need to to use an Xwindows interface. Anything Xwindows (free) that will be geared for HP and give me some auto-logging capabilities?

[Bill Hassell]

> Excellent... OK so to get the full GUI of swinstall then I would need to to use an Xwindows interface.

Correct. Once you have the X11 emulator running correctly, you sign on to the HP-UX box, export the DISPLAY variable and now SAM and swinstall will switch to a GUI interface.

> Anything Xwindows (free) that will be geared for HP and give me some auto-logging capabilities?

Auto-logging is not an Xwindow feature, it is a character (terminal) user interface. If you run swinstall or SAM, you'll see that because of all the buttons and multiple windows, logging like a TUI simply isn't practical. That's one of the reasons that swinstall and SAM both have their own extensive logging built-in.

[rightbrain]

I think at this stage I may be suffering from too much and/or conflicting information. I understand there are security risks with auto-login so we will not be doing that. I am looking for the following then:

I want the best graphics possible. Our paid version 7 of Exceed does the trick. I am concerned about security as the only "start methods" they have available are REXEC, RSH, RLOGIN, TELNET, PCX, and hPRS. I know nothing about them. I want security so I probably need to use something from my desktop that does that whether it be SSH or whatever. I don't want to loose the graphics. Could someone supply a recommendation with a link that will work for that purpose?

Sorry to keep going around on this.

[OldSchool]

Exceed version 7 is fairly old...

I believe the latest version supports SSH connections directly. Mine doesn't (Exceed 10). What I wound up doing was going into the Exceed configuration, Network and Communication and changing the mode to "Passive". Save the change.

Then start PuTTY and log in to the server. Once connected, you should be able to run "Xsession &" in the PuTTY window which will cause CDE to start in the Exceed window.

For this to work, ssh must be configured to allow X11 forwarding. In addition, you *can* set up keys so that ssh connects without a password.

I've not tried it with your version, but I suspect that it will work.

[rightbrain]

I'd rather have one product that will do the XWindows stuff as well as ssh or ssh2. Any such animal for free out there?

[OldSchool]

The only "free" version I've seen is Cygwin/X. Never used it, and I don't see ssh as a protocol that it supports (but that doesn't mean it's not there).

Or you *could* upgrade your Exceed installation, but that's probably going to cost you some bucks.

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

I think, SW based on the free NX can do this job - perhaps something like
http://www.2x.com/terminalserver

mfG Peter

[OldSchool]

oh yeah...one other one is:
http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/