$ HELP PING or HELP TCPIP PING shows nothing

[starlet]

On my OpenVMS V8.4-2L1 / Alpha, it seems impossible to find info on PING, although the command works fine.

$ HELP PING or HELP TCPIP_Services PING shows nothing

Some commands are available on both levels, but the help text is not identical:

$ HELP FINGER or HELP TCPIP_Services FINGER - OK
$ HELP TELNET or HELP TCPIP_Services TELNET - OK

Some commands are shown only with HELP TCPIP_Services prefix, I see no consistency...

The version shown with SHOW NET/FULL is HP TCP/IP V5.7 - ECO 5,

but PRODUCT SHOW HISTORY shows: VSI AXPVMS TCPIP v5.7-13ECOF

I guess my system isn't quite clean, but I can't remember the history of installs and upgrades.

[amuir]

Actually, that information is available as follows:
$ TCPIP HELP PING

[starlet]

Thanks. So, the standard discovery and learning is no longer necessarily using the HELP utility.
Are there any other known exceptions?

So why is there also HELP TCPIP *, which differs, at least when it comes to PING? Shouldn't
there be a single .HLB -- or is it just my installation that is corrupt?

[amuir]

I can see where you might think it seems inconsistent. HELP generally displays information on DCL commands. FINGER (which you gave as an example) is a DCL command, whereas PING is not. If you're able to issue the PING command at the DCL prompt, that's only because you presumably defined a symbol such as:
PING :== TCPIP PING

Help on commands for a specific utility, such as AUTHORIZE, SYSMAN, TCPIP, etc., is always found within that utility itself.

[m_detommaso]

The "TCP/IP Service for OpenVMS" stack has evolved in recent years and many tools are now defined as symbols.

system_dirac_opa0 > @sys$manager:tcpip$define_commands
system_dirac_opa0 > sho sym ping
PING == "$SYS$SYSTEM:TCPIP$PING.EXE"
system_dirac_opa0 > ping
usage: ping [-RdfLnqruv] [-c count] [-i wait] [-I interface] [-l preload]
[-p pattern] [-s packetsize] [-V ipversion]
[-G [!]@addr1@addr2@...] [-t timeout] [-b recvsize] host

Although not very up to date, you can find a description of the ping command and its flags in the manual "VSI TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Tuning and Troubleshooting" manual, in the "Appendix A - Troubleshooting Utilities Reference", starting from Pag. 79:

https://docs.vmssoftware.com/docs/vsi-t ... ooting.pdf

/Maurizio

[cct]

There is also help within the tcpip:

Code: Select all

 $ tcpip
TCPIP> help ping

PING

     Sends ICMP ECHO packets to hosts to determine whether they are
     active. Same as the LOOP command.

     Format

       PING  [ host ]

             [ /ADDRESS=xx.xx.xx.xx ]

             [ /ALL ]

             [ /FULL ]

             [ /NUMBER_PACKETS=n ]

             [ /PACKET_SIZE=n ]

             [ /PATTERN="hexadecimal-string" ]

             [ /[NO]ROUTE ]

             [ /WAIT=n ]




  Additional information available:

  Parameters Qualifiers
  /ADDRESS   /ALL       /FULL      /NUMBER_PACKETS       /PACKET_SIZE
  /PATTERN   /ROUTE     /WAIT
  Examples

PING Subtopic?