Silly with VMS access via SSH

[cct]

As reported on comp.os.vms:

Just a silly that I have ignored for years. It was the same with the setup for work (IA64 VMS 8.*), and is still present with 9.2-1, and now bugs me!
I have TCPWare on AXP that works OK.

This is with:
VSI X86VMS OPENVMS E9.2-1 Platform Installed
VSI X86VMS TCPIP X6.0-20 Full LP Installed
VSI X86VMS OPENSSH V8.9-1D Full LP Installed


I have both sys$announce and sys$welcome logicals defined:

$ sho lo sys$announce, sys$welcome
"SYS$ANNOUNCE" = "@SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT" (LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)
"SYS$WELCOME" = "@SYS$MANAGER:WELCOME.TXT" (LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)

Both files exist, but when I login using SSH, I get the welcome.txt displayed when I login, but before I do, I get:

Using username "townleyc".
Pre-authentication banner message from server:
|
| @SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT
End of banner message from server
Authenticating with public key "XXXXXXXXX@XXXXXX"

correctly followed by the text in welcome.txt

If I set host from another node, or with set host 0 both are displayed as usual
Both files exist, and have w:re protection

How can I get SSH to display ANNOUNCE.TXT ?


Chris

[m_detommaso]

OpenSSH for VSI OpenVMS Alpha, I64, and x86-64 Release Notes (January 2023)

VSI-AXPVMS-OPENSSH-V0809-1D-1.PCSI
VSI-I64VMS-OPENSSH-V0809-1D-1.PCSI
VSI-X86VMS-OPENSSH-V0809-1D-1.PCSI

https://vmssoftware.com/openkits/i64ope ... RNOTES.PDF

Many parameters may be defined in SSH$ROOT:[ETC]SSHD_CONFIG to control various aspects of SSH server operation; in particular you should check :

...
VmsPrintSysAnnounce (Tcp/ip ssh service old directive PrintSysAnnounce)
Setting this parameter to “yes” causes the OpenVMS welcome banne rassociated with the logical name SYS$ANNOUNCE to be displayed when logging in. The permitted values for this parameter are “yes” and “no”.

VmsPrintSysWelcome (Tcp/ip ssh service old directive PrintSysWelcome)
Setting this parameter to “yes” causes the welcome banner associated with the logical name SYS$WELCOME to be displayed when logging in. The permitted values for this parameter are “yes” and “no”
...

Try to setting the "PrintSysAnnounce" parameters and see if you resolve.

/Maurizio

[cct]

Looked at these, they are both left at their defaults - which is in the release notes as Yes for both

Chris

Added in 4 minutes 56 seconds:
Tried uncommenting, restarted SSH and still get:

Using username "townleyc".
Pre-authentication banner message from server:
|
| @SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT
End of banner message from server


Chris

[m_detommaso]

dirac>type ssh$root:[etc]sshd_config.

...
VmsPrintSysAnnounce yes
VmsPrintSysWelcome yes
...

dirac>@sys$startup:ssh$shutdown
dirac>@sys$startup:ssh$startup

< You are here >

Solution :

$ rename sys$common:[sysmgr]announce.txt sys$common:[sysmgr]announce.com
$ define /system sys$announce "@sys$manager:announce.com"


/Maurizio

[m_detommaso]

one valid alternative :

dirac>type sshd_config.

...
Banner /ssh$root/etc/banner.txt
VmsPrintSysAnnounce no
VmsPrintSysWelcome yes
...

dirac>@sys$startup:ssh$shutdown
dirac>@sys$startup:ssh$startup

/Maurizio

[cct]

Thanks Maurizio

The banner method actually works.
Presumably the failure to handler announce is a VMS implementation bug

Chris

[m_detommaso]

Chris,

thank you for your feedback.

>>> Presumably the failure to handler announce is a VMS implementation bug

In my VMS x86-64 environment, announce method works; the only precaution is to create announce with file extension ".com" and not ".txt" (as I demonstrated in my previously post viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8703#p18790).

announce_fix.PNG (10.58 KiB) Viewed 5998 times

I honestly don't know if this should be considered a bug or not. In any case, VSI Engineering monitors this forum

/Maurizio

[cct]

I did try renaming the announce file to .COM but that did not work, hence I moved on to the banner, which did.

It is not a huge problem, it it might be good if it was added to the documentation or release notes

Chris

[volkerhalle]

In my VMS x86-64 environment, announce method works; the only precaution is to create announce with file extension ".com" and not ".txt" (as I demonstrated in my previously post viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8703#p18790).

I honestly don't know if this should be considered a bug or not. In any case, VSI Engineering monitors this forum :)

Maurizio,

sorry, but it's a bug !

See chapter 5.2.7.11 Creating Systemwide Announcements in

https://vmssoftware.com/docs/HP_OpenVMS ... l_Vol1.pdf

It should work with any 'text-containing file', whether it's file type is named .COM or .TXT, as it does for any other kind of interactive login.

Volker.

[m_detommaso]

Volker,

first of all, thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate.

We should consider that we are discussing the behavior of Open Source code developed for Linux environments and ported to VMS. Furthermore, the current version of VSI OpenSSH for VMS does not handle escape sequences if contained in the announce message; and the exact same behavior is also observable with the Process Software SSH code.

From a VMS perspective, should we consider these behaviors bugs or limitations specific to the open source code ?

I honestly don't know; however, VSI Engineering monitors these forums and will decide how to proceed; in the meantime I have provided two valid workarounds to the problem raised by Chris.

/Maurizio