dcl control over external async terminal server

[owen clarke]

Hello all! I have written a dcl procedure to extract application information pertaining to a tcp/ip based async terminal server. One of the functions I would like to automate is to login to the terminal server and log out a port from the dcl procedure. I have tried doing this by redefining sys$input to sys$command - but as I suspected this does not work - once I connect to the terminal server, sys$command is no longer valid. I am running this from powerterm 525 - and have tried to create a script (would have to pass it variables) - but not sure if I could even execute a pwt525 script from a dcl procedure (net commands?) even if I could create a script that would work...just beyond my level of expertise....I would really appreciate if anyone has done something similar or has any ideas...maybe it simply cannot be automated? thanks. Owen.

[Andy Bustamante]

I haven't scripted with PowerTerm. Kermit and Procomm have excellent support for scripting. Kermit is available at http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/

Andy

[owen clarke]

Thanks Andy - unfortunately the procedure I am writing would typically be used after hours - we connect using nfuse over the internet and it would open a new can of worms to test and have these products installed as a published app. I would still be faced with the issue of how to execute the script automatically from within dcl....
the main issue is I need to hide the password used to login to the terminal server from some of the potential users of this procedure...if I am really stuck I may look into keaterm though...thanks again.
owen.

[Steven Schweda]

As an aid to automating the task, it might
help to see how you do it manually.

If you use Telnet to "connect to the terminal
server", you might look into (HELP) TELNET
/CREATE_SESSION. I seem dimly to recall
examples using this scheme for some vaguely
similar job, either in this forum or
comp.os.vms in relatively recent times.

And if you use Telnet, it may be pretty hard
to hide the user name and password from
everyone who can use the script.

[owen clarke]

Thanks for your reply Steven - last ight I was playing with the telent/create_session -
it creates the pseudo device (bg) and network device (tn) automatically - I am trying to write and read from the device - not sure if it will work, but I believe this may be the correct construct....
as for the password hiding - I agree - but I thought I might do something like a bit stream substitution using dcl and mix it up a bit, so unless the reader is pretty good at dcl or cares to look up hex values for many ascii characters..for the most part it would work for my application - thanks for your input. Owen.