May 2005

May 2005

3000 FTP gets better, but has limits

Even while HP points to one of its broader offerings to improve the 3000’s operating systems, customers still hope to enjoy more scope for the work. FTP services under MPE/iX will be getting new command support. The FTPHDE4 patch for release 7.5, HP’s last rollout of MPE/iX, includes new FTP/iX support for

- logon security, /etc/ftpusers
- file access security, /etc/ftpaccess
- log all file transfers & commands functions
- /etc/ftpaccess logon banner
- FTPSRVR site chmod & site chown

But HP is sticking to a policy that might keep the FTP improvements off of most HP 3000 systems. HP’s patches have to clear a beta-test period where customers try out the enhancements on their 3000s in the field. James Hofmeister, the HP engineer managing the FTP improvements, said that so few customers were willing to load such enhancements onto 3000s running 7.0 and 6.5 MPE/iX that it’s become hard to justify HP’s engineering time.

Some customers are running systems with the 6.0 release, still widely installed on smaller 3000s. Hofmeister reminded customers that FTP/iX needs large files support, a feature of the operating system only available going back to the 6.5 MPE/iX release. Older releases like MPE/iX 6.0 “are off support for several years. No further changes will be implemented with FTP/iX 6.0.”

The FTP enhancements on MPE/iX 6.5 and 7.0 “[are] in the plan, but we find very few customers are willing to install these patches as alpha test (going on now) or beta test,” Hofmeister reported to the HP 3000 newsgroup. “The SIB 2003 enhancements on MPE/iX 6.5 and 7.0 were not available as General Release for more than a year due to lack of interest (no one would install them as Beta Test patches). It is hard to justify working on patches for 6.5 and 7.0 in these conditions.”

HP has brought up the too-few-testers issue since last summer while describing its plans for patch development. Customers who want to alpha-test the new FTP features on 6.5, 7.0 or 7.5 releases can contact Hofmeister at james.hofmeister@hp.com.

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