gSOAP on OpenVMS

[John McL]

We're looking to use gSOAP built with SSL on an OpenVMS system. Does anyone know where I can download the installation kit or better yet, a version with SSL support compiled for Alpha? TIA.

[Robert Gezelter]

I believe that you will find some information on this subject at:

http://johndapps.blogspot.com/

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Ramondo]

And if you look here, http://www.johndapps.com/gSOAP-kit-notes-AXP-02.pdf, (note there's separate Alpha and Itanium kits and documents) in section 7:

"SSL is not currently supported; however such support can probably be incorporated with relatively little effort."

I believe this is specific to the OpenVMS port of gSOAP. It would probably be best to contact the authors directly.

[John McL]

Thanks Bob and Ramondo but we've already found that information. I was hoping that someone had already built gSOAP with SSL for VMS. The docs from John Apps say that it will probably be easy but I'm worried, if it was so easy then why didn't he spend the implied small amount of time on trying it? I have emailed the 3 HP guys that wrote the note on John Apps's blog. maybe they can tell us more about it.

I'm still hopeful of a packaged solution or someone who can tell us how to do it.

[Hoff]

I'd try it. If the docs are wrong here with what is implied (or what was inferred?), then there is some fodder (and some error messages) that we can look at, and fodder for some mail messages.

Go try the build. Build a package or an installer, and go build some experience for yourself. With the way things are, having some experience with digging around in or porting gSOAP et al is probably a good thing.

Don't over-think this open-source stuff. :-)

With what is going on at HP and at other many places, there's enough work that the SSL stuff may well have been a "yeah, that's nice, but..." case. There's more than enough stuff that folks are seeking to have ported.

Or (if you really need it and don't want to deal with the port) retain somebody to port and package it for you.

This is how open source works, after all...

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] if it was so easy [...]

Easier if you know how, but everything's
complicated. I'd expect some fiddling with
a "config.h" (or equivalent) somewhere, to
persuade the code that SSL is available at
compile time, and then some changes to the
LINK command(s) to get the SSL stuff into the
executable(s).

If you're desperate for some examples, wget
(optionally) uses SSL. Details differ for
HP's SSL with its shared images, and OpenSSL
with its object libraries.

http://antinode.info/dec/sw/wget.html

[Ramondo]

John,

In case you haven't seen it, this is the "generic" gSOAP user guide I was looking for earlier. It has SSL information on sections 18.19 to 18.24
http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soapdoc2.html

I'm still at an evaluation stage with the OpenVMS version of gSOAP and haven't had the requirement for SSL (yet).

[John McL]

Hoff, we've taken a look at trying to build it ourselves without any help but the downloaded zip file of sources (from http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soap.html) expanded into over 1100 files, many (like 30 or more) with filenames that were incompatibale with OpenVMS.

In essence we'd be trying to build Linux sources on VMS but we'd have to somehow convert the Linux makefile because it's not currently compatible with VMS.

It's not looking good at the moment.

[John McL]

Ramondo, thanks but that's what we've already found and are getting frustrated with.

[Robert Gezelter]

John,

A question: Was the gSOAP kit restored to an ODS-2 or ODS-5 volume?

Since John did not include the source tree in the gSOAP kit, I suspect (but have not confirmed with him) that the source tree naming was likely unaffected.

One of the "pleasures" of Open Source is that most proponents will advocate that one should have to compile things on their own [an opinion that I do not share, but one sometimes has to accept the limitations of the medium].

As Hoff already noted, retaining someone to package the components into a kit form is an option (Disclosure: We provide such services, as do Hoff and others).

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com