I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.

When I installed E9.2-1 it asked me if I wanted to enable hard links,
with a warning to read the docs, but I wasn't much wiser afterwards.

I get he impression that it is much cleaner with them enables, but what
are the downside risks?

I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to a
directory, which you cannot do with hard links

Any thoughts?

--
Chris

On 2023-07-12 15:34, Chris Townley wrote:
> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.
>
> When I installed E9.2-1 it asked me if I wanted to enable hard links,
> with a warning to read the docs, but I wasn't much wiser afterwards.
>
> I get he impression that it is much cleaner with them enables, but what
> are the downside risks?
>
> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to a
> directory, which you cannot do with hard links
>
> Any thoughts?

I always have a bit of a hard time understanding the topic. One person I
talked to was of the opinion that ODS "hard links" were not hard links
because they didn't include reference counting.

But essentially, if we talk about hard links under Unix, it's just
additional directory entries pointing to the same inode.
The equivalent of the inode number under Unix is in ODS the file id. And
you can have multiple directory entries giving the same file id, which
is exactly the same as the thing in Unix.

The one difference being that in Unix, a file is removed when the link
count goes to zero. And there is no way for a program to reference a
file through the inode number itself.

While in ODS, the file id, and file, is more unaware of what directory
entries might exist that refers to it, and a file can be deleted without
the directory entry being deleted. And also, programs can open files by
ID, completely bypassing the directory lookup. Which is also why ODS
fild ids have a generation number, so that stale file ids don't give you
some other file you didn't expect.

But I would still already call this hard links. I wonder if "enabling
hardlinks" in ODS5 is then adding the reference counting, and not
deleting files until there are no references to them. Or is there
something else/more hidden in here?

Johnny

On 12/07/2023 18:00, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-07-12 15:34, Chris Townley wrote:
>> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.
>>
>> When I installed E9.2-1 it asked me if I wanted to enable hard links,
>> with a warning to read the docs, but I wasn't much wiser afterwards.
>>
>> I get he impression that it is much cleaner with them enables, but
>> what are the downside risks?
>>
>> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to
>> a directory, which you cannot do with hard links
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>
> I always have a bit of a hard time understanding the topic. One person I
> talked to was of the opinion that ODS "hard links" were not hard links
> because they didn't include reference counting.
>
> But essentially, if we talk about hard links under Unix, it's just
> additional directory entries pointing to the same inode.
> The equivalent of the inode number under Unix is in ODS the file id. And
> you can have multiple directory entries giving the same file id, which
> is exactly the same as the thing in Unix.
>
> The one difference being that in Unix, a file is removed when the link
> count goes to zero. And there is no way for a program to reference a
> file through the inode number itself.
>
> While in ODS, the file id, and file, is more unaware of what directory
> entries might exist that refers to it, and a file can be deleted without
> the directory entry being deleted. And also, programs can open files by
> ID, completely bypassing the directory lookup. Which is also why ODS
> fild ids have a generation number, so that stale file ids don't give you
> some other file you didn't expect.
>
> But I would still already call this hard links. I wonder if "enabling
> hardlinks" in ODS5 is then adding the reference counting, and not
> deleting files until there are no references to them. Or is there
> something else/more hidden in here?
>
>   Johnny
>

That is my understanding from recent doc reading.

--
Chris

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 6:34:40 AM UTC-7, Chris Townley wrote:
> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.

(snip)

> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to a
> directory, which you cannot do with hard links

Symbolic links are often used for files on modern Unix-like systems.
The cases that I know that are still hard links are programs that have
different names. For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
same file, but do different things based on argv[0].

Reminds me, though, on early VMS, maybe 1.x, you could rename a
directory into itself.

ren x.dir [-.x]x.dir

(I think that is how I did it.)

In which case the directory is gone, but the space still counts for your quota.
That was in 1979, so maybe v 1.5 or 1.6.

> [...] For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
> same file, but do different things based on argv[0].

Common in the past, but the GNU folks decided against that scheme
some time ago. (At least a dozen years?) For example:

proa$ pwd
/usr/local/gnu/gzip/gzip-1.12

proa$ ls -li gzip gunzip zcat
133419312 -r-xr-xr-x 1 sms wheel 2346 Jul 12 17:21 gunzip
133419311 -rwxr-xr-x 1 sms wheel 140108 Jul 12 17:21 gzip
133419314 -r-xr-xr-x 1 sms wheel 1984 Jul 12 17:21 zcat

"gunzip" and "zcat" are now shell scripts. Excerpt from gzip.c:

[...]
#ifndef GNU_STANDARD
# define GNU_STANDARD 1
#endif
#if !GNU_STANDARD
/* For compatibility with old compress, use program name as an option.
* Unless you compile with -DGNU_STANDARD=0, this program will behave as
* gzip even if it is invoked under the name gunzip or zcat.
*
* Systems which do not support links can still use -d or -dc.
* Ignore an .exe extension for MSDOS and OS/2.
*/
if (strncmp (program_name, "un", 2) == 0 /* ungzip, uncompress */
|| strncmp (program_name, "gun", 3) == 0) /* gunzip */
decompress = 1;
else if (strequ (program_name + 1, "cat") /* zcat, pcat, gcat */
|| strequ (program_name, "gzcat")) /* gzcat */
decompress = to_stdout = 1;
#endif
[...]

On 7/12/2023 9:34 AM, Chris Townley wrote:
> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.
>
> When I installed E9.2-1 it asked me if I wanted to enable hard links,
> with a warning to read the docs, but I wasn't much wiser afterwards.
>
> I get he impression that it is much cleaner with them enables, but what
> are the downside risks?
>
> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to a
> directory, which you cannot do with hard links
>
> Any thoughts?

At the risk of sounding very old fashioned then I have a strategy
for soft and hard links on VMS:
* I don't use them
* if VMS itself use them then I assume VSI and previous maintainers
knows how to use them properly

I answered yes to the question.

Arne

> * I don't use them

I use them mostly for testing programs which should be able to handle
them (Info-ZIP Zip and UnZip, VMSTAR, and so on). (Symlinks need more
special handling than hard links. Hard links seem pretty harmless.)

As I recall, some version(s) of OpenSSL kits ("0.9.8%", et al.?) used
symlinks for a bunch of header files, making those kits hard to use if
they were unpacked using a program and/or onto a file system which did
not support symlinks. There may have been other cases, too.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 3:46:45 PM UTC-7, Steven Schweda wrote:
> > [...] For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
> > same file, but do different things based on argv[0].
> Common in the past, but the GNU folks decided against that scheme
> some time ago. (At least a dozen years?)

Looking on computers near me.

A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
but with exactly the same contents.

ls -li compress uncompress
421074 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 compress
421907 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 uncompress
and cmp -l shows that they are the same.

FreeBSD does use the hard links, and also Linux.
The Linux system is 13 years old, so doesn't disagree with your dozen years..

On 2023-07-12 22:32, gah4 wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 6:34:40 AM UTC-7, Chris Townley wrote:
>> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.
>
> (snip)
>
>> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to a
>> directory, which you cannot do with hard links
>
> Symbolic links are often used for files on modern Unix-like systems.
> The cases that I know that are still hard links are programs that have
> different names. For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
> same file, but do different things based on argv[0].

Works the same if you use soft links.

Soft links are slightly costlier, but can do some things hard links cannot.

In Unix, you are not allowed to create arbitrary hard links to directories.
And hard links cannot cross between file systems.

In ODS, hard links to directories are not the same kind of problem as in
Unix, and hard links works fine. Actually, might *maybe* be an issue in
ODS-2 and newer, but with ODS-1 there is nothing problematic with hard
links to directories.

However, the same limitation about crossing between file systems are
also true on ODS.

Johnny

On Wed, 2023-07-12 at 15:46 -0700, Steven Schweda wrote:
>    Common in the past, but the GNU folks decided against that scheme
> some time ago.  (At least a dozen years?)  For example:
>
> proa$ pwd
> /usr/local/gnu/gzip/gzip-1.12
>
> proa$ ls -li gzip gunzip zcat
> 133419312 -r-xr-xr-x  1 sms  wheel    2346 Jul 12 17:21 gunzip
> 133419311 -rwxr-xr-x  1 sms  wheel  140108 Jul 12 17:21 gzip
> 133419314 -r-xr-xr-x  1 sms  wheel    1984 Jul 12 17:21 zcat

my system still uses:

ls -li `which gzip` `which gunzip` `which zcat`
11537290 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Dec 27 2022 /bin/gunzip -> gunzip-
reference
11537275 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Dec 27 2022 /bin/gzip -> gzip-
reference
11537294 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Dec 27 2022 /bin/zcat -> zcat-
reference

--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 7/13/2023 1:50 AM, gah4 wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 3:46:45 PM UTC-7, Steven Schweda wrote:
>>> [...] For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
>>> same file, but do different things based on argv[0].
>> Common in the past, but the GNU folks decided against that scheme
>> some time ago. (At least a dozen years?)
>
> Looking on computers near me.
>
> A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
> but with exactly the same contents.
>
> ls -li compress uncompress
> 421074 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 compress
> 421907 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 uncompress
> and cmp -l shows that they are the same.
>
> FreeBSD does use the hard links, and also Linux.
> The Linux system is 13 years old, so doesn't disagree with your dozen years.

Which is yet another example of "throw more hardware at the problem".
A link would save the space, but who cares.

bill

> my system still uses:

Thanks for the detailed description of "my system", and for including
the "gzip -V" report.

On Thu, 2023-07-13 at 07:20 -0700, Steven Schweda wrote:
> > my system still uses:
>
>    Thanks for the detailed description of "my system", and for
> including the "gzip -V" report.

Never mind, it seems they are separate executables. Sorry.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 2023-07-12 13:34:35 +0000, Chris Townley said:

> I am just about to install V9.2-1 and intrigued about hard links.
>
> When I installed E9.2-1 it asked me if I wanted to enable hard links,
> with a warning to read the docs, but I wasn't much wiser afterwards.
>
> I get he impression that it is much cleaner with them enables, but what
> are the downside risks?
>
> I have used soft links on *nix for many years, but only for linking to
> a directory, which you cannot do with hard links
>
> Any thoughts?

Enable hardlinks, run ANALYZE /DISK /REPAIR, and continue with whatever
you were doing.

That prompt is... ill-considered. That change should have been packaged
and presented as a bug fix.

That change fixes a longstanding bug in the existing file system design.

Background, from most of a decade ago: "Maybe that gets better
documented? The official documentation in the HPE
V8.4-to-V8.2-inclusive System Manager's Manual /10.12 Understanding
Hard Links/ appears correct but also a little conflated, and that
material is old enough that it doesn't even mention softlinks."

That cited doc is now here:
https://docs.vmssoftware.com/docs/vsi-openvms-system-manager-s-manual-volume-1-essentials.pdf
page 402.

Quoth the docs: "If you have hard links enabled, a file is actually
deleted when there are no more links to file. If you do not have hard
links enabled, and you have not created an alias for a file,
essentially only one link to that file exists: the primary link. If you
create an alias for that file, and you delete the alias, the file still
exists because the primary link to that file has not been deleted. The
alias is just another name in a directory for this link. Deleting the
primary link deletes the file, leaving the alias entries."
That section of the doc could be worded more clearly, and it is also
stale as there are four sorts of links with current OpenVMS: primary
links, aliases, hardlinks, and softlinks.

Yes, apps that rummage the file system directly might need to know. I'd
expect a number of apps that do try to look at links probably get it
wrong, too.

Old grumping, from most of a decade ago: "Usual solution for
compatibility? Add knobs and APIs and run-time checks, and throw it all
over the wall and let somebody else figure it out when — when, not if —
it breaks. Design abdication."

--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

On 7/13/2023 9:25 AM, bill wrote:
> On 7/13/2023 1:50 AM, gah4 wrote:
>> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 3:46:45 PM UTC-7, Steven Schweda wrote:
>>>> [...] For example, gzip, gunzip, zcat, and gzcat, are all the
>>>> same file, but do different things based on argv[0].
>>> Common in the past, but the GNU folks decided against that scheme
>>> some time ago. (At least a dozen years?)

>> A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
>> but with exactly the same contents.
>>
>> ls -li compress uncompress
>> 421074 -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  27680 Jul 14  2017 compress
>> 421907 -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  27680 Jul 14  2017 uncompress
>> and cmp -l shows that they are the same.
>>
>> FreeBSD does use the hard links, and also Linux.
>> The Linux system is 13 years old, so doesn't disagree with your dozen
>> years.
>
> Which is yet another example of "throw more hardware at the problem".
> A link would save the space, but who cares.

We can discuss the optimal choice between:
* paying more dollars to get bigger disk
* the complexity of programs with multiple behavior depending on name

But I don't think that is the case here. I think the case is that
the cheapest disk you can buy for new systems are so big that there
is enough space, so no money is saved by adding the complexity of
multiple behaviors.

Arne

On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 5:55:14 AM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/13/2023 9:25 AM, bill wrote:

(snip)
> >> A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
> >> but with exactly the same contents.
> >> ls -li compress uncompress
> >> 421074 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 compress
> >> 421907 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 uncompress
> >> and cmp -l shows that they are the same.

(snip)

> We can discuss the optimal choice between:
> * paying more dollars to get bigger disk
> * the complexity of programs with multiple behavior depending on name

But it is still multiple behaviors depending on the name,
and still wasting (not very much) disk space.

And then there is busybox, which puts all of the usual Unix-like program
in one file:

[, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat,
catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst, chroot,
chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser, depmod,
devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd, dnsdomainname,
dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, eject,
env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false, fbset,
fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs, flash_lock,
flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsync,
ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip, gzip, hd,
hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush, hwclock, id,
ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init, inotifyd,
insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs, iplink,
iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall, killall5, klogd,
last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd, lpq, lpr,
ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man, md5sum,
mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix, mkfs.vfat,
mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount, mountpoint,
mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup, od,
openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6, pipe_progress,
pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan, pwd,
raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm,
rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx, script,
scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole, setfont,
setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum,
sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac,
tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test, tftp, tftpd,
time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand, uniq,
unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode, uuencode,
vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget, which, who,
whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip

On 14/07/2023 17:58, gah4 wrote:
> On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 5:55:14 AM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 7/13/2023 9:25 AM, bill wrote:
>
> (snip)
>>>> A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
>>>> but with exactly the same contents.
>
>>>> ls -li compress uncompress
>>>> 421074 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 compress
>>>> 421907 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 uncompress
>>>> and cmp -l shows that they are the same.
>
> (snip)
>
>> We can discuss the optimal choice between:
>> * paying more dollars to get bigger disk
>> * the complexity of programs with multiple behavior depending on name
>
> But it is still multiple behaviors depending on the name,
> and still wasting (not very much) disk space.
>
> And then there is busybox, which puts all of the usual Unix-like program
> in one file:
>
> [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
> awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat,
> catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst, chroot,
> chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
> cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser, depmod,
> devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd, dnsdomainname,
> dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, eject,
> env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false, fbset,
> fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs, flash_lock,
> flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsync,
> ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip, gzip, hd,
> hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush, hwclock, id,
> ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init, inotifyd,
> insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs, iplink,
> iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall, killall5, klogd,
> last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
> loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd, lpq, lpr,
> ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man, md5sum,
> mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix, mkfs.vfat,
> mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount, mountpoint,
> mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup, od,
> openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6, pipe_progress,
> pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan, pwd,
> raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
> reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm,
> rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx, script,
> scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole, setfont,
> setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum,
> sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
> start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
> svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac,
> tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test, tftp, tftpd,
> time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
> udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand, uniq,
> unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode, uuencode,
> vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget, which, who,
> whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip

But does it run under OpenVMS?

--
Chris

On 7/14/2023 3:44 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 14/07/2023 17:58, gah4 wrote:
>> On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 5:55:14 AM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 7/13/2023 9:25 AM, bill wrote:
>>
>> (snip)
>>>>> A MacBook Air with OS 10.12.6 has two different files, not linked,
>>>>> but with exactly the same contents.
>>
>>>>> ls -li compress uncompress
>>>>> 421074 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 compress
>>>>> 421907 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 27680 Jul 14 2017 uncompress
>>>>> and cmp -l shows that they are the same.
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>>> We can discuss the optimal choice between:
>>> * paying more dollars to get bigger disk
>>> * the complexity of programs with multiple behavior depending on name
>>
>> But it is still multiple behaviors depending on the name,
>> and still wasting (not very much) disk space.
>>
>> And then there is busybox, which puts all of the usual Unix-like program
>> in one file:
>>
>> [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
>> awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2, cal, cat,
>> catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst, chroot,
>> chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
>> cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser, depmod,
>> devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd, dnsdomainname,
>> dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep, eject,
>> env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false, fbset,
>> fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs, flash_lock,
>> flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsync,
>> ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip, gzip, hd,
>> hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush, hwclock, id,
>> ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init, inotifyd,
>> insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs, iplink,
>> iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall, killall5, klogd,
>> last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
>> loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd, lpq, lpr,
>> ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man, md5sum,
>> mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix, mkfs.vfat,
>> mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount, mountpoint,
>> mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup, od,
>> openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6, pipe_progress,
>> pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan, pwd,
>> raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
>> reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm,
>> rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx, script,
>> scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole, setfont,
>> setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum, sha256sum,
>> sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
>> start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
>> svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd, tac,
>> tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test, tftp, tftpd,
>> time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
>> udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand, uniq,
>> unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode, uuencode,
>> vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget, which, who,
>> whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip
>
> But does it run under OpenVMS?
>

Oh, I hope not ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 7/14/2023 4:51 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 7/14/2023 3:44 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>> On 14/07/2023 17:58, gah4 wrote:
>>> [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
>>>          awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2,
>>> cal, cat,
>>>          catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst,
>>> chroot,
>>>          chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
>>>          cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser,
>>> depmod,
>>>          devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd,
>>> dnsdomainname,
>>>          dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep,
>>> eject,
>>>          env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false, fbset,
>>>          fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs,
>>> flash_lock,
>>>          flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix, fsync,
>>>          ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip,
>>> gzip, hd,
>>>          hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush,
>>> hwclock, id,
>>>          ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init,
>>> inotifyd,
>>>          insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs,
>>> iplink,
>>>          iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall,
>>> killall5, klogd,
>>>          last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
>>>          loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd,
>>> lpq, lpr,
>>>          ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man,
>>> md5sum,
>>>          mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix,
>>> mkfs.vfat,
>>>          mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount,
>>> mountpoint,
>>>          mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup, od,
>>>          openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6,
>>> pipe_progress,
>>>          pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan,
>>> pwd,
>>>          raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
>>>          reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rpm,
>>>          rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir, rx,
>>> script,
>>>          scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole, setfont,
>>>          setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum,
>>> sha256sum,
>>>          sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
>>>          start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
>>>          svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl, syslogd,
>>> tac,
>>>          tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test,
>>> tftp, tftpd,
>>>          time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
>>>          udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress, unexpand,
>>> uniq,
>>>          unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode,
>>> uuencode,
>>>          vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget,
>>> which, who,
>>>          whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip
>>
>> But does it run under OpenVMS?
>
> Oh, I hope not ...

Some of them are available for VMS.

A lot of them are probably available on VMS using GNV.

(separate executables should run under DCL, but I believe
some of these are shell internal commands)

Arne

On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 12:44:48 PM UTC-7, Chris Townley wrote:

(snip regarding busybox)

> But does it run under OpenVMS?
It is supposed to be able to port to any system running gcc.

I don't see on the list that anyone has tried OpenVMS.

There are some applets (that is what they call them) that are OS specific,
and so won't work.

Reminds me of, years ago, porting gnu-utils to OS/2 and finding that
tail -f works. I don't know if tail -f is supposed to work on VMS, though.

The main target is embedded Linux, especially where the whole system
is in flash memory.

On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 2:07:18 PM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

(snip regarding busybox)

> Some of them are available for VMS.
> A lot of them are probably available on VMS using GNV.
> (separate executables should run under DCL, but I believe
> some of these are shell internal commands)
One of the applets is sh.

It seems to be a compile time option, for some of the internal
commands to be recognized directly. Or maybe it is that the
built-in sh will, optionally, recognize all of them as built-in.

On 7/14/23 4:07 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/14/2023 4:51 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 7/14/2023 3:44 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>> On 14/07/2023 17:58, gah4 wrote:
>>>> [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
>>>>          awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2,
>>>> cal, cat,
>>>>          catv, chat, chattr, chgrp, chmod, chown, chpasswd, chpst,
>>>> chroot,
>>>>          chrt, chvt, cksum, clear, cmp, comm, cp, cpio, crond, crontab,
>>>>          cryptpw, cut, date, dc, dd, deallocvt, delgroup, deluser,
>>>> depmod,
>>>>          devmem, df, dhcprelay, diff, dirname, dmesg, dnsd,
>>>> dnsdomainname,
>>>>          dos2unix, dpkg, du, dumpkmap, dumpleases, echo, ed, egrep,
>>>> eject,
>>>>          env, envdir, envuidgid, expand, expr, fakeidentd, false,
>>>> fbset,
>>>>          fbsplash, fdflush, fdformat, fdisk, fgrep, find, findfs,
>>>> flash_lock,
>>>>          flash_unlock, fold, free, freeramdisk, fsck, fsck.minix,
>>>> fsync,
>>>>          ftpd, ftpget, ftpput, fuser, getopt, getty, grep, gunzip,
>>>> gzip, hd,
>>>>          hdparm, head, hexdump, hostid, hostname, httpd, hush,
>>>> hwclock, id,
>>>>          ifconfig, ifdown, ifenslave, ifplugd, ifup, inetd, init,
>>>> inotifyd,
>>>>          insmod, install, ionice, ip, ipaddr, ipcalc, ipcrm, ipcs,
>>>> iplink,
>>>>          iproute, iprule, iptunnel, kbd_mode, kill, killall,
>>>> killall5, klogd,
>>>>          last, length, less, linux32, linux64, linuxrc, ln, loadfont,
>>>>          loadkmap, logger, login, logname, logread, losetup, lpd,
>>>> lpq, lpr,
>>>>          ls, lsattr, lsmod, lzmacat, lzop, lzopcat, makemime, man,
>>>> md5sum,
>>>>          mdev, mesg, microcom, mkdir, mkdosfs, mkfifo, mkfs.minix,
>>>> mkfs.vfat,
>>>>          mknod, mkpasswd, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount,
>>>> mountpoint,
>>>>          mt, mv, nameif, nc, netstat, nice, nmeter, nohup, nslookup,
>>>> od,
>>>>          openvt, passwd, patch, pgrep, pidof, ping, ping6,
>>>> pipe_progress,
>>>>          pivot_root, pkill, popmaildir, printenv, printf, ps, pscan,
>>>> pwd,
>>>>          raidautorun, rdate, rdev, readlink, readprofile, realpath,
>>>>          reformime, renice, reset, resize, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route,
>>>> rpm,
>>>>          rpm2cpio, rtcwake, run-parts, runlevel, runsv, runsvdir,
>>>> rx, script,
>>>>          scriptreplay, sed, sendmail, seq, setarch, setconsole,
>>>> setfont,
>>>>          setkeycodes, setlogcons, setsid, setuidgid, sh, sha1sum,
>>>> sha256sum,
>>>>          sha512sum, showkey, slattach, sleep, softlimit, sort, split,
>>>>          start-stop-daemon, stat, strings, stty, su, sulogin, sum, sv,
>>>>          svlogd, swapoff, swapon, switch_root, sync, sysctl,
>>>> syslogd, tac,
>>>>          tail, tar, taskset, tcpsvd, tee, telnet, telnetd, test,
>>>> tftp, tftpd,
>>>>          time, timeout, top, touch, tr, traceroute, true, tty, ttysize,
>>>>          udhcpc, udhcpd, udpsvd, umount, uname, uncompress,
>>>> unexpand, uniq,
>>>>          unix2dos, unlzma, unlzop, unzip, uptime, usleep, uudecode,
>>>> uuencode,
>>>>          vconfig, vi, vlock, volname, watch, watchdog, wc, wget,
>>>> which, who,
>>>>          whoami, xargs, yes, zcat, zcip
>>>
>>> But does it run under OpenVMS?
>>
>> Oh, I hope not ...
>
> Some of them are available for VMS.
>
> A lot of them are probably available on VMS using GNV.
>
> (separate executables should run under DCL, but I believe
> some of these are shell internal commands)

bash has some builtins but other things as separate executables. It
sounds like busybox just has everything as a builtin.

On 7/14/2023 6:14 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 7/14/23 4:07 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 7/14/2023 4:51 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 7/14/2023 3:44 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>> On 14/07/2023 17:58, gah4 wrote:
>>>>> [, [[, acpid, addgroup, adduser, adjtimex, ar, arp, arping, ash,
>>>>>          awk, basename, beep, blkid, brctl, bunzip2, bzcat, bzip2,
....
>>>> But does it run under OpenVMS?
>>>
>>> Oh, I hope not ...
>>
>> Some of them are available for VMS.
>>
>> A lot of them are probably available on VMS using GNV.
>>
>> (separate executables should run under DCL, but I believe
>> some of these are shell internal commands)
>
> bash has some builtins but other things as separate executables.  It
> sounds like busybox just has everything as a builtin.

Yes.

What I was trying to convey was that GNV bash has
some commands that are separate executables (like awk I assume)
and some that are internal commands (like printenv I assume). And
only the first category would potentially run under DCL which I why
I assume more from that list will run under GNV bash than under DCL.

Arne

On 14/07/2023 22:30, gah4 wrote:
> On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 12:44:48 PM UTC-7, Chris Townley wrote:
>
> (snip regarding busybox)
>
>> But does it run under OpenVMS?
>
> It is supposed to be able to port to any system running gcc.
>
> I don't see on the list that anyone has tried OpenVMS.
>
> There are some applets (that is what they call them) that are OS specific,
> and so won't work.
>
> Reminds me of, years ago, porting gnu-utils to OS/2 and finding that
> tail -f works. I don't know if tail -f is supposed to work on VMS, though.
>
> The main target is embedded Linux, especially where the whole system
> is in flash memory.

But type/tail does ISTR

--
Chris

On Friday, July 14, 2023 at 4:36:41 PM UTC-7, Chris Townley wrote:

(snip, I wrote)

> > Reminds me of, years ago, porting gnu-utils to OS/2 and finding that
> > tail -f works. I don't know if tail -f is supposed to work on VMS, though.

tail -f reads the end of a file, then waits and checks to see if it got bigger.
That is, if the EOF went away.

Not all file system, I suspect, can do that.