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C-Kermit 9.0 Update Notes

Frank da Cruz
1 July 2011
Updated: 12 October 2021 (FTP links converted to HTTP)

This is the third supplement to Using C-Kermit, Second Edition. I apologize for the scattered nature of the information and I hope I can organize it and gather it all into one place for easy and definitive reference some day. It's a big job and it depends on the demand. For the time being the definitive reference and introduction is the book (which is now available also in a Kindle Edition, plus the C-Kermit 7.0 update, C-Kermit 8.0 update, and now this one. Plus tons of other web pages on this site, sample script programs, and so on.

In version 6.0, C-Kermit was a pretty powerful and flexible communication program with scripting capabilities. By version 9.0, I'd like to think of it more as a scripting language with built-in communications. You can get an idea of the kinds of programs you can write in Kermit language here. You can develop programs quickly because it's an interactive program, not a compiler. The scripting language is the command language. Kind of like the Unix shell but “somewhat” less cryptic, including concepts not only from C but from PL/I, Snobol, LISP, and Smalltalk. The language itself is built upon the command language of the much-loved DECSYSTEM-20 from the 1970s and 80s, the Clipper Ship of the Text Era. (Text is not a bad word. Those of us who can touch-type and who are proficient in text-based computing environments like Unix shell or VMS DCL are likely to be orders of magnitude more productive than users of GUIs.)

– Frank da Cruz   fdc@columbia.edu

What's New in General

Very briefly, the major items:

Open Source License

C-Kermit 9.0 has the Revised 3-Clause BSD License, an open source license approved by OSI, the Open Source Initiative.

Large Files

Kermit is, first and foremost, a file-transfer program. One might expect it to be able to transfer any kind of file, but that has been decreasingly the case as file sizes began to cross the 2 gigabyte threshold.

The biggest change since C-Kermit 8.0.211 is support for large files on platforms that support them. A "large file" is one whose size is greater than 231-1 (2,147,483,647) bytes (2GB-1); that is, one whose size requires more than 31 bits to represent. Before now, Kermit was able to access such files only on 100% 64-bit platforms such as Digital Unix, later known as Tru64 Unix. In the new release, Kermit takes advantage of the X/Open Single UNIX Specification Version 2 (UNIX 98) Large File Support (LFS) specification, which allows 32-bit platforms to create, access, and manage files larger than 2GB.

Accommodating large files required code changes in many modules, affecting not only file transfer, but also file management functions from directory listings to local file manipulation, plus the user interface itself to allow entry and display of large numbers. All this had to be done in a way that would not affect pure 32-bit builds on platforms that do not support large files. Large file support is summarized in the Table of Platforms; entries in Yellow (32-bit builds that support 64-bit integers) and Green (64-bit builds) support large files.

Note that VMS C-Kermit and Kermit 95 for Windows have always been able to transfer large files. However their user interface used 32-bit integers for statistics and the file transfer display. In C-Kermit 9.0 Alpha.03, VMS C-Kermit on 64-bit platforms (Alpha and Itanium) should now give correct statistics and progress displays. (We'll see about Kermit 95 later.)

How to Test Large-File Transfer

Several methods are available for testing large-file transfers:
  • By transferring a real file that is more than 2147483648 bytes long (a file whose length requires more than 31 bits to express); or to be totally sure, that is longer than 4294967296 bytes (32 bits or more). Or to be double super sure, longer than 8589934592 (33 bits).
  • If you don't have such a file or there is not sufficient disk space for such a file, you can create a special kind of file that takes up one block on the disk but appears to be 4.3GB long by compiling and running THIS C PROGRAM on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, or other Unix platform that supports large files. Kermit or FTP or any other file transfer program will transfer the result (BIGFILE) in such a way as to actually put 4.3GB (or other desired size; see source) on the wire.
  • You can use Kermit's CALIBRATE feature to transfer a large file that doesn't exist. At the receiver, use RECEIVE /CALIBRATE. At the sender, use SEND /CALIBRATE:length, e.g.:
    (At remote kermit...)
    $ kermit -Y
    C-Kermit> receive /calibrate
    (Return to local kermit...)
    Ctrl-\c
    C-Kermit> send /calibrate:4300000000
    This sends a simulated file 4.3GB in length, that does not exist on the sender and will not take up any disk space on the receiver. SEND /CALIBRATE: accepts big numbers only in Kermit versions that support them (this does not include Kermit 95 on Windows). This method tests only Kermit's ability to express and understand large file sizes, but does not test Kermit's file-system interface, since no files are involved.

Arithmetic with Large Integers

Because large file support requires the availability of a 64-bit signed integer data type, other aspects of C-Kermit were adapted to use it too, most notably Kermit's algebraic expression evaluator and its S-Expression interpreter, on all platforms that support large files (those listed as 64 or 32/64 in the Word column of the table). In fact, every Kermit command that parses a number in any field can now parse a large number on those platforms.

S-Expressions can now be forced to operate with integers only, without floating-point conversion or having to explicitly truncate each result; as an example. see the revised Easter date calculation script.

FORCE-3 Packet Protocol

The Kermit protocol has proven itself over the past 30 years to be robust in terms of surviving harsh transmission environments and delivering the data correctly and completely. In these times of Internet everywhere and error-correcting modems in the few places where the Internet isn't, few people even recall the kinds of difficult conditions that were common when the Kermit protocol was first developed: noisy telephone lines, serial interfaces that drop characters, lack of transparency to control or 8-bit characters, absence of flow control, "bare" modems without error correction.

But the Internet is not everywhere, and not all modems are error-correcting. Perhaps the most difficult trial so far for Kermit or any other protocol is the EM-APEX project, in which floats are dropped into the ocean from an aircraft into the path of a hurricane; these floats dive into the water measuring current, temperature, and salinity at different depths and then surfacing to phone home, sending the data to land stations using Kermit protocol over non-error-correcting 300bps Iridium satellite modems, with high seas and winds battering the floats and heavy (sometimes electrical) storms between the modem and the satellite.

Because of the transmission speed and long distances involved, the transfers were very slow. The Kermit software in the floats is Embedded Kermit, which did not implement sliding windows, which would have sped up the flow considerably. John Dunlap, engineer at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, undertook the task of adding sliding windows to E-Kermit. For testing, he rigged up a THIS simulator in which Kermit transfers take place over a connection with different amounts of noise and delay. He found that occasionally, a transfer would appear to succeed, but the received file would be corrupt.

According to the Kermit protocol definition, the first packet always has block-check type 1, a 6-bit checksum, which is the only block check type that all Kermit implementations are required to support; thus any Kermit partner can process this packet. This packet itself can negotiate a higher level of checking, such that subsequent packets have (say) block-check type 3, a 16-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) encoded as three printable 7-bit ASCII characters. The 16-bit CRC can catch all errors of certain kinds (single-bit, double-bit, bursts of 16 bits or less), and more than 99.9984741210937% of all other possible errors.

John's simulations revealed that file corruption could occur undetected when the initial packet was corrupted in such a way that a parameter or capability byte was changed and the checksum also changed to make the packet appear to be correct, thus allowing the transfer to proceed with the two Kermit partners out of sync as to packet encoding and interpretation (the chances of two such errors producing a seemingly valid packet are about 1 in 6000 when using the 6-bit checksum). For example the compression technique might be misnegotiated and then the receiver might store incoming data without decompressing it.

The solution is a new option, selected by:

BLOCK-CHECK TYPE 5

to require a type 3 block check (16-bit CRC) on every packet, including the initial ones, thus reducing the probability of a misnegotiation by many orders of magnitude. THIS PARAMETER CAN NOT BE NEGOTIATED. Each Kermit program must be given the "set block 5" command prior to transfer. That's because normally every Kermit program expects the first packet to have a 6-bit checksum, and if the first packet has a 3-byte, 16-bit CRC, the packet receiver will think it is corrupted.

In practice, however, it is possible to code the packet receiver "cheat" by reading the packet data before verifying the block check. Thus when the receiver is C-Kermit 9.0 Beta.01 or later or E-Kermit 1.7 or later, it is only necessary to give the "set block 5" command to the file sender, and the receiver will check for a FORCE-3 first packet. If the receiver does not support this feature, however, the initial packet will be be rejected (after several retries) and the file transfer will not take place. There is no attempt to "back off" to normal behavior.

Table 4. Kermit Protocol Packet Block Check Types
Type Command Bytes Status Explanation
1 SET BLOCK 1 1 Required in all Kermit implementations. Negotiated. 6-bit checksum, suitable for good connections.
2 SET BLOCK 2 2 Optional, negotiated. 12-bit checksum. 64 times stronger than type 1.
3 SET BLOCK 3 3 Optional, negotiated. 16-bit CRC.
BLANK-FREE-2 SET BLOCK 4 2 Optional, negotiated. 12-bit checksum, two nonblank bytes.
FORCE-3 SET BLOCK 5 3 Optional, not negotiated. 16-bit CRC forced all packets.
E-Kermit 1.7

Variable Evaluation

Does the strange behavior of Kermit's \%x variables puzzle or annoy you?

Kermit software development has been a collaborative project over the years, with contributions coming in from almost every country and every sector of the economy – academic, corporate, government. Thus not all versions, and not all features of a given version, are a product of systematic design.

One example was the introduction of variables for text substitution, first in a version of MS-DOS Kermit that was sent in by someone somewhere (I could look it up, but no time...) Although the design of the notation for variable names (table below) is mine, the underlying code was contributed. In that code there was only one kind of variable, and if I recall correctly the variable name was a backslash followed by a single letter, for example \a, \b, etc. The contributed code evaluated these variables recursively, meaning if the definition of a variable contained variable references, then these were resolved when dereferencing the variable, and the process would continue as deep down as necessary to resolve the thing fully.

This was sometimes handy, but it had one severe drawback: There was no way to use variables in a straightforward way to represent strings that contained literal backslashes; for example, DOS or Windows pathnames. This gave rise to all kinds of quoting rules and conventions (e.g. doubling backslashes or forcing single-level evaluation with \\fcontents()), and also to the introduction of other kinds of variables that were evaluated one level deep, rather than recursively.

To accommodate coexistence of different kinds of variables as well as "escape sequences" for representing control and 8-bit characters, the syntax for variable names was extended to include three elements: the leading backslash, then a single character indicating the type of variable, and then the name of the variable in a format corresponding to the type designator, as shown in this somewhat simplified table:

Table 1. Variable-name Syntax in Kermit
Notation Meaning
\000 – \255 8-bit character constant (decimal)
\d000 – \d255 Alternative notation for 8-bit character (byte) constant (decimal)
\o000 – \o377 8-bit character constant (octal)
\x00 – \xff 8-bit character constant (hexadecimal)
\%a – \%z Scalar variable, evaluated recursively.
\%0 – \%9 Macro argument, scalar, evaluated recursively.
\&a – \%& Array name
\&a[x] Array reference, evaluated recursively (x is any constant or variable)
\v(name) Built-in scalar variable, evaluated one level deep.
\m(name) User-defined scalar variable, evaluated one level deep.
\$(name) An environment variable, evaluated one level deep.
\s(name[n:m]) Compact substring notation, evaluated one level deep.
\fname(args...)) Built-in function with zero or more arguments.
\\ Literal backslash
\N OUTPUT command only: NUL, ASCII 0
\B OUTPUT command only: BREAK
\L OUTPUT command only: Long BREAK

Variable names in Kermit are case-independent. The simplifications in the table are that the notation for decimal and octal bytes can have from one to three digits, and can include braces to separate them from text digits, e.g. \7, \{123}, \o{50}. Hex bytes too, except they must always have exactly two hex digits, 0-9a-f. Array indices must be, or must evaluate to, numbers (floating point numbers are truncated). Associative arrays are also available (dynamic arrays with arbitrary text as subscript), but they are really just a variation on \m() variables (read about associative arrays here). Also, there are some alternative notations for compact substring notation.

We didn't want to have lots of "distinguished" characters, as the UNIX shell does; one is enough, clarity over brevity. Although the notation can be a bit cumbersome, we can use the \m(name) form to circumvent the overevaluation in most contexts. But macro arguments are always assigned to the \%0-9 variables, and thus always evaluated recursively, making it difficult and confusing to pass (e.g.) Windows pathnames as arguments to macros. The same is true for array elements, especially in contexts where they are used to return results from built-in functions (for example, \fsplit() used to return the elements of a comma-separated value list if any of the values contained backslashes). An even worse scenario is when macro arguments are passed from one macro to another; for some graphic illustrations see Taming the Wild Backslash – Part Deux from the C-Kermit 7.0 Update Notes.

We can't just change how variables are evaluated because that would break existing scripts. But we can always add Yet Another SET Command:

SET COMMAND VARIABLE-EVALUATION { RECURSIVE, SIMPLE }
This applies only to \%a-z and \%0-9 variables and to \&a-z[] arrays (since all other kinds of variables are evaluated only one level deep). The default, of course, for backwards compatibility, is RECURSIVE. SIMPLE forces the evaluation of these variables to return their literal contents, without further evaluation:

  • An exception is made in the case of array subscripts, because changing how they are evaluated could break a lot of scripts, and anyway there should never be any harm in evaluating them recursively because their final value is always (or should be) numeric, not some string that might contain backslashes.
  • The VARIABLE-EVALUATION setting is on the command stack. Thus you can give this command in a macro, command file, or user-defined function without affecting the calling environment.
  • The new \frecurse() function forces recursive evaluation of its argument regardless of the VARIABLE-EVALUATION setting. The argument can be any string (or nothing at all); all the variables in the string, even \m() ones, are evaluated recursively:

    def \%a 1 \%b 3
    def \%b 2
    def xx easy as \%a
    show mac xx
    echo \frecurse(\m(xx))
    easy as 1 2 3
    echo \frecurse(it's as easy as \m(xx))
    it's as easy as easy as 1 2 3
    
  • The new \v(vareval) built-in variable contains the current setting (recursive or simple) at the current command-stack level.

Here's a short script for illustration:

define path c:\users\fdc\somefile.txt
define test1 {        # Normal recursive argument evaluation
  echo \%0: arg=\%1
}
define test2 {        # Simple argument evaluation
  set var simple
  echo \%0: arg=\%1
}
test1 \m(path)
test2 \m(path)
exit

And here's the result:

?<ERROR:NO_SUCH_FUNCTION:\fdc\somefile.txt()>
test2: arg=c:\users\fdc\somefile.txt

The first line might seem surprising, but under the normal rules (see table above) \f indicates a function call, with the letters following the 'f' being the name of the function. But there is no function by that name... and if there were, you probably didn't intend to call it!

SET COMMAND VARIABLE-EVALUATION SIMPLE has no effect on constants, only on variables. Note how \m(path) is defined. The DEFINE command assigns the literal value of its argument to the named variable (see Table 3 below), thus in this case no special syntax is needed. But in other contexts, you must double the backslashes or use the \fliteral() function to use literal backslashes in data:

test2 c:\\users\\fdc\\somefile.txt
test2 \fliteral(c:\users\fdc\somefile.txt)

C-Kermit 9.0 adds a new notation for \fliteral() which also has certain advantages over it: \q(string):

test2 \q(c:\users\fdc\somefile.txt)

Since \fliteral() is a function, its argument list (the text within parentheses) has special syntax of its own, in which commas and braces are treated specially and introduce another set of quoting problems. \q(string) doesn't have these problems. The only consideration is that parentheses must be balanced or else quoted (preceded by backslash), or represented as numeric character entities (left paren = \40, (right paren = \41).

Or else hold the value in a simple variable as we did with \\m(path) above.

SET COMMAND VARIABLE-EVALUATION SIMPLE is a big change and might have repercussions that didn't show up in the initial tests; a lot more testing is needed.

On the topic of variables, let's summarize in one place the ways in which values can be explicitly assigned to variables. There is nothing new here except the table itself:

Table 2. Variable Assignment in Kermit
Command Shorthand Explanation
DEFINE name value .name = value The literal value becomes the contents of the named variable; variables names in the value are copied without evaluation. This command is for defining macros that take parameters, as well as for defining simple variables, especially if the values contain backslashes.
_DEFINE name value   Like DEFINE but the name is evaluated before use.
ASSIGN name value .name := value The value is evaluated and the result becomes the contents of the named variable.
_ASSIGN name value   Like ASSIGN but the name is evaluated before use.
EVALUATE name expression .name ::= value The expression (in regular algebraic notation) is evaluated arithmetically and the result becomes the contents of the named variable. If the expression contains any variables they are evaluated first.
_EVALUATE name expression   Like EVALUATE but the name is evaluated before use.
INCREMENT name expression   Evaluates the variables in the expression, then evaluates the expression arithmetically, and then adds the value to the contents of the named variable, which must be a number or an algebraic expression. If the expression is empty, a value of 1 is used.
_INCREMENT name expression   Like INCREMENT but the name is evaluated before use.
DECREMENT name expression   Evaluates the variables in the expression, then evaluates the expression arithmetically, and then subtracts the value from the contents of the named variable, which must be a number or an algebraic expression. If the expression is empty, a value of 1 is used.
_DECREMENT name expression   Like DECREMENT but the name is evaluated before use.
DECLARE name = list   An array declaration can include an initializer list; items in the list are evaluated before assignment. This can be defeated by doubling any backslashes or enclosing individual arguments in \fliteral().
DO name arguments name arguments When invoking a macro with a DO command (or an implied one), the arguments are evaluated, then assigned to \%1, \%2, etc, and the macro's name to \%0.
(SETQ name value)   Kermit also includes a mini-LISP interpreter

Variables are evaluated automatically in Kermit commands simply by referencing them, according to rules given in Table 1. The following functions can be used to change how a a particular variable is evaluated:

Table 3. Kermit Functions for Evaluating Variables
Function Argument Description
\fcontents() \%x or \&x[y] Evaluates the variable or array element (which normally would be evaluated recursively) one level deep.
\fdefinition() name If the argument is a \%x variable or an array element, it is evaluated to get the name; otherwise the argument is the name. Its definition is returned with no recursion.
\m() name Equivalent to \fdefinition().
\recurse() \m(name) Forces recursive evaluation of a macro definition (a.k.a. long variable name). NOTE: \frecurse() can operate on any kind of variable as well as on any string containing any mixture of variables.

C-Kermit's RENAME Command

C-Kermit's RENAME command, which is used for changing the names of local files or for moving files locally, has two basic forms:

RENAME [ optional-switches ] oldfilename newfilename
This form lets you change the name of a single file from oldfilename to newfilename. Example:
rename thismonth.log lastmonth.log

RENAME [ optional-switches ] filespec directoryname
This form lets you move (without renaming) one or more files (all the files that match the filespec, which may contain wildcard characters such as "*") to the given directory. Example:
rename *.txt ~/textfiles/

Traditionally, the optional switches have been:

RENAME /LIST oldname newname
Display the old and new name for each file while renaming. Synonyms: /LOG/VERBOSE. Example:
rename /list *.txt ~/textfiles/

RENAME /NOLIST oldname newname
Don't display the old and new name for each file while renaming. This is the default behavior. Synonyms: /NOLOG/QUIET. Example:
rename /nolist *.txt ~/textfiles/

Reminder: Every switch starts with a slash (/) and must be preceded by a space.

New RENAME Features for C-Kermit 9.0

A series of new options (switches) have been added to let you change the names of multiple files at once by case conversion, string substitution, or character-set conversion, and optionally also move them to a different directory:
/LOWER: Convert the filename to lowercase
/UPPER: Convert the filename to uppercase
/CONVERT: Change the filename's character encoding
/REPLACE: Do string substitutions on the filename

If the source-file specification includes a path or directory, any changes are applied to the filenames only, not to the directory or path specification.

Since name changes, when applied to many files at once, can have consequences that are not easily undone, there are also some new controls, safeguards, and conveniences:

RENAME /SIMULATE
This switch tells Kermit to show you what the RENAME command would do without actually doing it. /SIMULATE implies /LIST.

RENAME /COLLISION:{FAIL,SKIP,OVERWRITE}
This switch governs Kermit's behavior when renaming multiple files, and any of the names would collide with the name of a file that already exists. The default, for compatibility with earlier releases of C-Kermit, is OVERWRITE, i.e. write over the existing file. The other two protect existing files. SKIP means to skip (not rename) the file that would cause the collision, and proceed to the next file, if any. FAIL means that no files will be renamed if there would be any collisions; for this Kermit makes two passes, checking each new name it constructs for existence before starting the second pass (however, there is no guarantee that in the second pass, it won't create the same new name for more than one file; in that case, it will stop before executing the second rename). Example:
rename /simulate /collision:proceed * ~/tmp/

Reminder: In switches such as /COLLISION that take arguments (operands), the switch name and its argument(s) are separated by a colon (:) with no intervening spaces. Also remember that Kermit keywords can always be abbreviated by leaving off characters from the right, as long as the result is still unique in its context. Thus "ren /col:f" would be equivalent to "rename /collision:fail".

You can change the following preferences for the RENAME command with the new SET RENAME command:

SET RENAME LIST { ON, OFF }
Tells the RENAME command whether to list its actions if you don't include a /LIST or /NOLIST or equivalent switch.

SET RENAME COLLISION { FAIL, OVERWRITE, SKIP }
Tells the RENAME command how to handle filename collisions in the absence of a /COLLISION switch. That is, it replaces the default action of OVERWRITE with action of your choosing, which is then used in any RENAME command that does not include an explicit /COLLISION switch.

SHOW RENAME
Displays the current SET RENAME settings.

Changing the Case of Filenames

RENAME /UPPER:{ALL,LOWER} filespec [ directory ]
RENAME /LOWER:{ALL,UPPER} filespec [ directory ]
These switches let you change the alphabetic case of letters in all the files whose names match the filespec. If a directory name is given after the filespec, then the files are also moved to the given directory.

By default, all files that match the given filespec have their names changed (if necessary). This is what the ALL argument means, e.g.:

RENAME /LOWER:ALL *
RENAME /LOWER *

You can use either form: RENAME /LOWER is equivalent to RENAME /LOWER:ALL. The other argument (/LOWER:UPPER or /UPPER:LOWER) means to leave mixed-case filenames alone, and rename only those files whose names contain letters of only the given case. Examples:

RENAME /UPPER:ALL foo.bar
Changes the filename to FOO.BAR.

RENAME /UPPER foo.bar
Same as "rename /upper:all foo.bar".

RENAME /UPPER foo.bar ~/old/
Renames foo.bar to FOO.BAR and moves it to the user's old directory (Unix).

RENAME /LOWER *
Changes the names of all files to have only lowercase letters.

RENAME /LOWER:UPPER *
Changes the names of only those files whose names contain no lowercase letters to have only lowercase letters. For example, FOO.BAR would be changed, Foo.Bar would not be changed. foo.bar would not be changed either because it's already all lowercase.

RENAME /LOWER:UPPER * ~/new/
Same as the previous example, but also moves each file to the user's new directory (whether it was renamed or not).

Case conversion works reliably for ASCII characters only. Kermit uses the C library for this, which on any given platform might or might not handle non-ASCII letters, and if it does, then how it works would normally depend on your locale definitions (the LC_CTYPE and/or LANG environment variable in Unix). When non-ASCII letters are not handled by the C library, the RENAME command does change their case. For example, Olga_Tañón.txt might become OLGA_TAñóN.TXT.

String Replacement in Filenames

The RENAME command also lets you change filenames by string substitution.
RENAME /FIXSPACES[:String] filespec [ directory ]
Replaces all spaces in each matching filename by the given string, if any, or if none is given, by underscore. Examples:

RENAME /FIX *
RENAME /FIXSPACES:_ *
RENAME /FIXSPACES:"" *
RENAME /FIXSPACES:<040> *

The first two are equivalent, replacing each space with underscore; a file called "My Favorite Photo.jpg" becomes "My_Favorite_Photo.jpg". The third example removes all spaces ("MyFavoritePhoto.jpg"). The fourth replaces each space with the string "<040>" ("My<040>Favorite<040>Photo.jpg").

RENAME /REPLACE:{{String1}{String2}} filespec [ directory ]
Renames each matching file by changing occurrences of String1 in its name to String2. If a directory specification is included, the file is also moved to the given directory (even if the name was not changed). Note that in this case, the curly braces are part of the command. Example:

RENAME /REPLACE:{{.jpeg}{.jpg}} *

changes all *.jpeg files to *.jpg.

By default, RENAME /REPLACE changes all occurrences of String1 in each filename to String2 so, for example, if you had a file called abcjpegxyz.jpeg, the command just shown would change its name to abcjpgxyz.jpg.

For greater control and flexibility, the /REPLACE: switch argument can take several distinct forms:

RENAME /REPLACE:String1 filespec [ directory ]
This means to remove all occurrences of String1 from the given filenames name. It is equivalent to /REPLACE:{{String1}{}}. A handy use for this option is to remove spaces from filenames.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{String1}{String2}} filespec [ directory ]
As already noted, this replaces every occurrence of String1 with String2 in each filename. Alphabetic case in string matching is done according to the current SET CASE setting.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{ }{_}} filespec [ directory ]
This replaces all spaces in the given filenames with underscore, equivalent to RENAME /FIXSPACES.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{String1}{String2}{Options}} filespec [ directory ]
Options can be included that add more control to the process. The option string is a sequence of characters; each character in the string is an option. The choices are:

 
A String matching is to be case-sensitive, regardless of SET CASE.
a String matching is to be case-independent, regardless of SET CASE.
^ String replacement will occur only at the beginning of the filename.
$ String replacement will occur only at the end of the filename.
1 Only the first occurrence of the string will be replaced.
2 Only the second occurrence of the string will be replaced.
3 4 5 6 7 8 ...
9 Only the ninth occurrence of the string will be replaced.
- (hyphen, minus sign) Before a digit: occurrences will be counted from the right.
~ (tilde) Before digit or minus sign: all occurrences but the given one will be replaced.  
 

The tilde modifier works only with single-byte character sets such as ASCII, CP437, ISO 8859-1, etc, but not with multibyte character sets such as UCS2, UTF8, or any of the Japanese Kanji sets.

Here are some examples showing how to use the /REPLACE options:

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{bar}{^}} *
For all files whose names start with "foo", replaces the "foo" at the beginning with "bar".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{}{New-}{^}} *
Prepends "New-" to the name of each file.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{.jpeg}{.jpg}{$}} *
Replaces ".jpeg" at the end of each filename with ".jpg".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{}{-Old}{$}} *
Appends "-Old" to the name of each file.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{bar}{a}} *
Replaces "foo", "FOO", "Foo", "fOO", etc, with "bar" in each filename.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{bar}{A}} *
Replaces only (lowercase) "foo" in filenames with "bar".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{a}{XX}} *
Changes every "a" to "XX". For example a file called "a.a.a.a" would become "XX.XX.XX.XX".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{a}{X}{2}}
Changes only the second "a" to "X". For example a file called "a.a.a.a" would become "a.X.a.a".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{a}{X}{-1}}
Changes only the final "a" in the filename (it doesn't have to be at the end) to "X". For example a file called "a.b.a.c.a.d" would become "a.b.a.c.X.d".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{NOTFOO}{-2}}
Changes the second-to-last "foo" (if any) in the filename to "NOTFOO".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{}{-2}}
Deletes the second-to-last "foo" (if any) from the filename.

RENAME /REPLACE:{{.}{_}{~1}}
Changes all but the first period to an underscore; for example, "a.b.c.d.e" would become "a.b_c_d_e".

RENAME /REPLACE:{{.}{_}{~-1}}
Changes all but the final period to an underscore; for example, "a.b.c.d.e" would become "a_b_c_d.e".

In the Options field, digits (and their modifiers), ^, and $ are mutually exclusive. If you include more than one of these in the option string, only the last one is used. Similarly for 'a' and 'A':

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{bar}{Aa2$^}} *
This replaces "foo" with "bar" no matter what combination of upper and lower case letters are used in "foo" ('a' overrides 'A' in the option string), but only if "foo" is at the beginning of the filename ('^' overrides '$' and '2').

If you give an /UPPER or /LOWER switch and a /REPLACE switch in the same RENAME command, the /REPLACE action occurs first, then the case conversion:

RENAME /REPLACE:{{foo}{bar}} /UPPER * /tmp
For each file: changes all occurrences of "foo" in the name to "bar", then converts the result to uppercase, and then moves the file to the /tmp directory. So (for example) "foot.txt" would become "/tmp/BART.TXT".

Changing the Character Encoding of Filenames

As you know, text is represented on the computer as a series of numbers, with a given number corresponding to a given character according to some convention or standard. Filenames are represented the same way. The trouble is, different computers, or even different applications on the same computer, might use different standards or conventions ("character sets") for representing the same characters. Usually ASCII is safe, but anything beyond that — non-ASCII characters such as accented or non-Roman letters — is likely to vary. Sometimes you have text that's in the "wrong" character set and you need to convert it to something you can can use. Kermit has always been able to handle this as part of file transfer and terminal emulation, as well as being able to convert text files locally with its TRANSLATE command. Now there's a way to convert filenames too, for example after copying files from a CD that uses a different encoding:

RENAME /CONVERT:charset1:charset2 filespec [ directory ]
Converts filenames from the first character set to the second one. The two character sets can be chosen from the SET FILE CHARACTER-SET list; for complete details see this page. For example suppose you have a file called "Olga_Tañón.txt" on a computer where ISO 8859-1 Latin Alphabet 1 is used, and you have transported it (e.g. on CDROM) to another computer where the text encoding is UTF8. Maybe you also have a lot of other files with similar names in the same directory. You can convert the filenames to UTF8 like this:

RENAME /CONVERT:latin1:utf8 *

/CONVERT can not be combined with /UPPER, /LOWER, or /REPLACE.

You should NOT use UCS2 for filenames since this encoding is not compatible with C strings used in Unix and elsewhere.

RENAME /CONVERT affects only the filename, not the file's contents. You can use the TRANSLATE command to convert the encoding of the contents of a text file.

Other New Features

See the C-Kermit Daily Builds page for details. Very briefly:

  • Perhaps most important, modernized makefile targets for the major Unix platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, AIX, Solaris, etc. These are somewhat automated; not autoconf exactly, but they cut down significantly on redundant targets. For example, one single "linux" target works on many (hopefully all) different Linux configurations, where before different targets were required for different combinations of (e.g.) curses / ncurses / no curses; 32-bit / 64-bit; different feature sets and library locations. (Separate targets are still required for Kerberos and/or SSL builds, but they are "subroutinized".)
  • Bigger buffers, more storage for commands, macros, scripts, strings, and filename expansion in 64-bit versions and in 32-bit versions that support large files.
  • New options for the RENAME command, allowing you to rename groups of files at once, changing case of letters in the name or changing its character set, removing spaces or changing them to something else, and/or doing anchored or floating or occurrence-based string replacement, described HERE.
  • Built-in FTP client for VMS. This is the same FTP client Unix C-Kermit has had since version 8.0, minimally adapted to VMS by SMS, supporting binary and Stream_LF file transfer only (in other words, nothing to handle RMS files), but otherwise fully functional (and scriptable) and theoretically capable of making connections secured by SSL (at least it compiles and links OK with SSL – HP SSL 1.3 in this case). In the present Alpha release, this is an optional feature requested by including the i option in P1 (and by including CK_SSL in P3 if you also want SSL, and then also OPENSSL_DISABLE_OLD_DES_SUPPORT if necessary). Much testing is needed to determine if it should be included in the final C-Kermit 9.0 release.
  • Large file support in VMS, also by SMS. Alpha and Itanium only (not VAX). VMS C-Kermit was already able to transfer large files, but the file-transfer display (numbers and progress bar) and statistics were wrong because they used ints. In the present Alpha test release, this is an optional feature requested by including the f option in P1.
  • User-settable FTP timeout, works on both the data and control connection.
  • FTP access to ports higher than 16383.
  • New PUTENV command that allows Kermit to pass environment variables to subprocesses (Unix only).
  • Unix C-Kermit SET TERMINAL TYPE now passes its arguments to subprocesses as an environment variable.
  • New TOUCH command, many file selection options.
  • New DIRECTORY command options and switches (/TOP, /COUNT; HDIRECTORY, WDIRECTORY...). To see the ten biggest files in the current directory: dir /top:10 /sort:size /reverse * or equivalently, "hdir /top:10 *". WDIR lists files in reverse chronological order, shorthand for "dir /sort:date /reverse".
  • New command FSEEK /FIND:string-or-pattern, seeks to the first line in an FOPEN'd file that contains the given string or matching the given pattern. Example: Suppose you have a file of lines like this:
    quantity   description...
    in which the first "word" is a number, and a description (for example, the name of an item). Here is how to use FSEEK to quickly get the total quantity of any given item, which is passed as a parameter (either a literal string or a pattern) on the command line:
    #!/usr/local/bin/kermit +
    if not def \%1 exit 1 Usage: \fbasename(\%0) string-or-pattern
    
    .filename = /usr/local/data/items.log        # Substitute the actual filename
    set case off                                 # Searches are case-independent
    fopen /read \%c \m(filename)                 # Open the file
    if fail exit 1 "\m(filename): \v(errstring)" # Fail: exit with error message
    .total = 0                                   # OK: Initialize the total
    echo Searching "\%1"...
    
    while true {
        fseek /line /relative /find:\%1 \%c 0    # Get next line that has target
        if fail break                            # Failure indicates EOF
        fread /line \%c line                     # Read it
        if fail break                            # (shouldn't happen)
        increment total \fword(\m(line),1)       # Increment the total
    }
    fclose \%c                                   # Close the file
    echo Total for "\%1" : \m(total)             # Print the result
    exit 0
    
    The syntax of the FSEEK command in this example indicates that each search should start relative to the current file line. Since Kermit is an interpretive language, FSEEK is a lot faster than FREAD'ing each line and checking it for the target, especially for big files. An especially handy use for FSEEK is for use with potentially huge sequentially timestamped logs, to seek directly to the date-time where you want to start processing. Some other improvements for the FOPEN/FREAD/FWRITE/FCLOSE family of commands are included also (performance, bug fixes, convenience features), listed in the change log. (Prior to 9.0.299 Alpha.02, the FSEEK /FIND: command always started from the top.)
  • SET SESSION-LOG TEXT now strips out ANSI escape sequences from the session log.
  • For interacting with POP servers over clear-text or SSL-secured connections:
    • New SSL and TLS "raw" connections (no Telnet protocol).
    • New INPUT command options for reading and capturing (perhaps while scanning) continuous incoming text, such as INPUT /NOWRAP (explained HERE).
    • New \femailaddress() command to extract the e-mail address from an Internet mail message To: or From: line, used in fetching mail from POP servers.
    • Improved date parsing commands and functions for parsing the different date formats that can appear in e-mail.
    • Production scripts for fetching mail from a secure POP server, available HERE.
  • Various features added to make Kermit more useful for writing CGI scripts such as INPUT /COUNT:n to INPUT exactly n characters (useful for reading form data).
  • New \fpictureinfo() function for getting orientation and dimensions of JPG and GIF images, described HERE.
  • New \fgetpidinfo() function for testing whether a given process exists.
  • \fkwdvalue() function fixed to allow multiword values.
  • New function \fcount(s1,s2) to tell the number of occurrences of s1 in s2.
  • New \flopx() function returns rightmost field from string (such as a file's extension).
  • New function \ffunction(s1) to tell whether a built-in s1 function exists.
  • New \fsqueeze(s1) function removes leading and trailing whitespace from string s1, changes tabs to spaces, squeezing each run of repeated whitespace characters to a single space (Alpha.02).
  • Compact substring notation: \s(somestring[12:18]) is the same as \fsubstring(\m(somestring),12,18), i.e. the substring starting at position 12, 18 characters long. \s(somestring[12_18]) means characters 12 through 18 of the string (7 characters).
  • The string indexing functions now accept an optional trailing argument specifying the occurrence number of the target string. Likewise, \fword() can fetch words from the right as well as the left.
  • The COPY command in Unix C-Kermit has a new /PRESERVE switch, equivalent to Unix "cp -p".
  • ASKQ /ECHO:c can be used to make the characters the user types echo as the character c, e.g. asterisk when typing a password.
  • IF LINK filename to test if the filename is a symlink.
  • Ctrl-K, when typed at the command parser, replaces itself with most recently entered file specification.
  • In Unix, the ability to log a terminal session to a serial port, for use with speaking devices or serial printers; described HERE. Also for the same purpose, SET SESSION-LOG NULL-PADDED-LINES for a speech synthesizer than needed this.
  • Adaptation to OpenSSL 0.9.8 and 1.0.0.
  • Lifted the restriction on having a remote Kermit program send REMOTE commands to the local. A very big ex-client needed to be able to do this (branches would connect to headquarters and upload files; HQ would then download patches, a REMOTE HOST command was necessary to allow the remote headquarters machines to install the patches on the local client; of course the client first has to ENABLE HOST because this is a risky scenario). The reason for the restriction was that the server, upon receiving any REMOTE command would send the results (output) back to the client as a file transfer with "destination screen", but of course the remote has no screen.
  • MIME synonyms for character-set names were introduced in Alpha.05. Nobody seemed to notice that after that, character-set selection didn't work at all. Anyway, now it's fixed.
  • Added XMESSAGE, which is to MESSAGE (Alpha.03) as XECHO is ECHO: it outputs a string with no line terminator DEBUG MESSAGE is ON.
  • Fixed \recurse() to not dump core when invoked with no arguments.
  • Improved text for HELP FUNCTION SPLIT and HELP FUNCTION WORD.
  • Patches for Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" from Ian Beckwith.
  • \fcontents(\&a[3]) got an error if the array was declared but its dimension was less than 3. Now it simply returns and empty string.
  • \fsplit(), when parsing lines from CSV and TSV files, was treating backslash in the data the same way it treats backslash in Kermit commands. This was fixed to treat backslash like any other character.
  • Builds for Solaris 9 and later now use streams ptys rather then the old BSD-style ptys. Thanks to Gary Mills for this one, who noticed that he couldn't have more than 48 C-Kermit SSH sessions going at once and figured out why.
  • As noted below DES encryption is being retired from many platforms and libraries that once used it. I changed the Solaris and Linux OpenSSL builds to account for this by testing for it. I probably should also add a OMITDES option to omit DES even if it is installed, but "KFLAGS=-UCK_DES" seems to do the job for now.
  • I changed the Linux build to test for the OpenSSL version (like the Solaris version already did), rather than assuming OpenSSL 0.9.7.
  • A couple minor changes for Tru64 Unix 5.1B from Steven Schweda but we still have some trouble on that platform. As a workaround "make osf1" can be used there.
  • Unix makefile and man page are now included in the Zip distribution.
  • \fjoin(), which is the inverse function of fsplit() now accepts CSV and TSV as a second argument, to transform an array into a comma-separated or tab-separated value list, as described HERE.
  • Even in 2010, Unix distributions continue to change their UUCP lockfile conventions. Alpha.08 contains support from Joop Boonen for OpenSuse ≥ 11.3 and recent Debian, which no longer have baudboy.h, which first appeared in Red Hat 7.2 in 2003.
  • From Lewis McCarthy:
    Based on code inspection, C-Kermit appears to have an SSL-related security vulnerability analogous to that identified as CVE-2009-3767 (see e.g. http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3767).

    I'm attaching a patch for this issue relative to the revision of ck_ssl.c obtained from a copy of http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/test/tar/x.zip downloaded on 2010/07/30, which I believe is the latest.

    When this flaw was first widely publicized at last year's Black Hat conference, it was claimed that some public certificate authorities had indeed issued certificates that could be used to exploit this class of vulnerability. As far as I know they have not revealed specifically which public CA(s) had been found issuing such certificates. Some references:

  • Peter Eichhorn reported that "RENAME ../x ." didn't work; fixed now.
  • If only one file is FOPEN'd, FCLOSE given with no arguments would close it; this was a "convenience feature" that turned out to be dangerous. For safety FCLOSE has to require a specific channel number or the word ALL.
  • Added \fstrcmp(s1,s2,case,start,length), which has the advantage over IF EQU,LGT,LLT that case sensitivity can be specified as a function arg, and also substrings can be specified.
  • Fixed a subtle flaw in the CSV feature that was added in Alpha.06, namely that if the last item in a comma separated list was enclosed within doublequotes with a trailing space after the closing doublequote, a spurious empty final element would be created in the result array.
  • New built-in functions:
    \fcvtcsets(string,cs1,cs2)
    Function to convert a string from one character set to another.
    \fdecodehex(string[,prefix])
    Function to decode a string containing hex escapes.
    \fstringtype(string)
    Function to tell whether a string is 7-bit, 8-bit, or UTF-8.

    For the motivation for these features and an application that uses them to analyze web logs, see the Weblog script below.

  • MIME Character-Set Names: A new equivalence between MIME names and Kermit names for character sets, with a new table showing the supported sets HERE (this feature is also illustrated in the Weblog script).

  • Lazy IF Conditions: Third, now you can do this:
    define foo some number
    if foo command

    instead of this:
    define foo some number
    if \m(foo) command
    Of course the old way still works too. But watch out because if the variable name is the same as a symbolic IF condition (for example COUNT), it won't do what you expected. (IF COUNT was used for loop control in early versions of MS-DOS Kermit, before it got true FOR and WHILE loops; it was added to C-Kermit for compatibility, and it can't be removed because it could break existing scripts).
  • Escape sequences are now stripped from text-mode session logs not only in CONNECT sessions but also in whatever is logged by the INPUT command; described in the next section.
  • New commands for selectively issuing progress or debugging messages from scripts, also described in the next section.
  • Fix from John Dunlap to prevent the fixed packet-timeout interval from going to an unexpected value.
  • Alpha.04 fixes a problem with FTP connections made from 64-bit Unix platforms. All the other changes in this section were to Alpha.03.
  • Relaunching a closed SSH connection with the CONNECT command is now possible, as it always has been with Telnet and other connection types; suggested by Peter Eichhorn (needs testing).
  • A symbol conflict fixed that prevented successful build on FreeBSD 8.0.
  • Fixes from Christian Corti for building on SunOS 4.1.
  • New aixg target for building on AIX with gcc.
  • New aix+ibmssl target. This is nice because the IBM-supplied SSL libraries and header files are in a known location; no need to set environment variables giving their locations.
  • "Large File Support" is now included by default on Alpha and IA64 hardware on VMS 7.3 and later, and it should work much better than before.
  • Kermit's internal FTP client is now included by default in any build that also includes TCP/IP networking. At present, the FTP client seems to work well for binary-mode transfers; text (ASCII) mode transfers still need some work. In builds that also include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security (next item) the FTP client should be able to make securely authenticated and encrypted connections.
  • In network builds that request OpenSSL support, e.g.:
    $ @ckvker  ""  ""  "CK_SSL"
    the OpenSSL version is detected automatically and the appropriate compile-time options are emitted (such as OPENSSL_DISABLE_OLD_DES_SUPPORT).
  • Preliminary / limited support for the ODS-5 file system on VMS 7.2 and later, Alpha and Itanium only (needs testing): Filenames can be mixed case and can be longer.
  • Support for older and older VMS versions.
  • In the VMS build procedure, CKVKER.COM, the "i" option in P1 now means don't include the internal FTP client, and the "f" option means do not include "Large File" support. Large File support in VMS really only applies to the file-transfer display and statistics, which would go out of whack as soon as the byte count overflowed 31 bits because this is C-Kermit, built with the C compiler and the C library (runtime system), which did not support long integers until VMS 7.3.
  • The LISP Operator ROUND now takes an optional second argument that specifies the number of places to round to, e.g. (ROUND dollars 2) rounds dollars to 2 decimal places.
  • Improved pattern matching in many commands for both strings and filenames.
  • Various minor new features, plus numerous bug fixes and speedups.

Incompatibilities

A top priority for new Kermit software releases has always been backwards compatibility. A script written for a previous Kermit release should run the same way in the new release.

There's one exception this time. The \fsplit() function is incredibly handy, it can do almost anything, up to and including parsing a LISP program (the underlying code is the basis of the S-Expression interpreter). But did you ever try to use it to parse (say) a Tab-Separated-List (TSV file) or Comma-Separated-List (CSV)? It works as expected as long as the data contains only 7-bit characters. But if your data contains (say) Spanish or German or Russian text written in an 8-bit character set such as ISO 8859-1, every 8-bit character (any value 128-255) is treated as a break character. This is fixed in C-Kermit 9.0 by treating all 8-bit bytes as "include" characters rather than break characters, a total reversal of past behavior. I don't think it will affect anyone though, because if this had happened to anyone, I would have heard about it!

Since most standard 8-bit character sets have control characters in positions 128-160, it might have made sense to keep 128-160 in the break set, but with the proliferation of Microsoft Windows code pages, there is no telling which 8-bit character is likely to be some kind of text, e.g. smart quotes or East European or Turkish accented letters.

What's Not In C-Kermit 9.0

Some large projects that were contemplated have not been done, including:
  • IPv6. Honestly, there has been zero demand for this, and it would be a lot of work and disruption to the code base. Volunteers welcome, I guess. It could be a CS project.
  • A database interface - MySQL or ODBC. For this one, there is some demand but I haven't had a chance to even look into it.
  • There's a looming issue with DES encryption; major vendors are removing it from their platforms, starting with Apple in Mac OS X 10.6, with Microsoft to follow suit. A secure version of Kermit can be built without DES, but in limited testing successful connections were spotty (e.g. with Kerberos 5).
  • Cleaning up the Unix makefile. It has 25 years' worth of targets in it. It is very likely safe to remove most of them, since (a) most old platforms have gone away by now, or have been upgraded, due to hacking vulnerabilities; (b) the market has consolidated considerably; and (c) most of the new features of C-Kermit 9.0, such as large files, won't be of any use on older platforms and previous C-Kermit versions will remain available.
  • Packages. Everybody wants an install package custom made for their own computer, Linux RPMs being the prime example but far from the only one. These will come, I suppose (especially with some Linux sites having a policy against installing any application that does not come as an RPM). In the meantime, here's a page that describes some Kermit-specific issues in package construction: ckpackages.html.

And a Loose End...
Using External File-Transfer Protocols on Secure Connections

After C-Kermit 8.0.212 Dev.27 (2006/12/22), I spent a big chunk of time trying to solve a particular problem that some of you have complained about and others might be familiar with: If you use C-Kermit to make a secure Telnet connection to another host (e.g. with Telnet SSL/TLS, Kerberos, or SRP) and then attempt to transfer a file using an external protocol such as Zmodem, it doesn't work.

That's because as coded (through 8.0.211), C-Kermit simply starts the external protocol in a fork with its standard i/o redirected to the connection. This completely bypasses the encryption and decryption that is done by C-Kermit itself, and of course it doesn't work. The same thing occurs if you use the REDIRECT command. The routine that handles this is ttruncmd() in ckutio.c.

In order to allow (say) Zmodem transfers on secure connections, it is necessary for C-Kermit to interpose itself between the external Zmodem program and the connection, decrypting the incoming stream before feeding it to Zmodem and encrypting Zmodem's output before sending out the connection.

In principal, this is simple enough. We open a pseudoterminal pair ("master" and "slave") for Zmodem's i/o and we create a fork and start Zmodem in it; we read from the fork pty's standard output, encrypt, and send to the net; we read from the net, decrypt, and write to the fork pty's standard input.

In practice, it's not so simple. First of all, pseudoterminals (ptys) don't seem to interface correctly with certain crucial APIs, at least not in the OS's I have tried (Mac OS X, Linux, NetBSD, etc), such as select(). And i/o with the pty often – perhaps always – fails to indicate errors when they occur; for example, when the fork has exited.

But, even after coding around the apparent uselessness of select() for multiplexing pty and net, and using various tricks to detect when the external protocol exits and what its exit status is, I'm still left with a show-stopping problem: I just simply can not download (receive) a file with Zmodem, which is the main thing that people would probably want to do. I can send files just fine, but not receive. The incoming stream is delivered to Zmodem (to the pty slave) but upon arrival at the Zmodem process itself, pieces are always missing and/or corrupt. Yet I can receive files just fine if I use Kermit itself (C-Kermit or G-Kermit) as the external protocol, rather than Zmodem.

I can think of two reasons why this might be the case:

  1. Zmodem sends all 8-bit bytes and control codes in the clear, and maybe the pty is choking on them because it thinks it is a real terminal.

But Zmodem puts its controlling terminal into raw mode. And C-Kermit puts the pty into raw mode too, just for good measure. If any 0xFF codes are in the Zmodem data stream, and it's a Telnet session, Kermit does any needed byte stuffing/unstuffing automatically. Anyway, if I tell Zmodem to prefix everything, it makes no difference.

  1. Zmodem is a streaming protocol and perhaps the pty driver can't keep up with a sustained stream of input at network speeds. What would be the method of flow control?

I can vary the size of the i/o buffers used for writing to the pty, and get different effects, but I am not able to get a clean download, no matter what buffer size I use. write()'ing to the pty does not return an error, and I can't see the errors because they happen on the master side. It's as if the path between the pty slave and master lacks flow control; I deliver a valid data stream to the pty slave and the master gets bits and pieces. This impression is bolstered somewhat by the "man 7 pty" page in HP-UX, which talks about some special modes for ptys that turn off all termio processing and guarantee a flow-controlled reliable stream of bytes in both directions – a feature that seems to be specific to HP-UX, and exactly the one we need everywhere.

Well, in Pass One I used C-Kermit's existing pty routines from ckupty.[ch], which are well-proven in terms of portability and of actually working. They are currently used by SET HOST /PTY for making terminal connections to external processes. But these routines are written on the assumption that the pty is to be accessed interactively, and maybe they are setting the fork/pty arrangement up in such a way that that's not suitable for file transfer. The Pass One routine is called xttptycmd() in ckutio.c.

So in Pass Two I made a second copy of the routine, yttptycmd(), that manages the pty and fork itself, so all the code is in one place and it's simple and understandable. But it still doesn't work for Zmodem downloads. In this routine, I use openpty() to get the pty pair, which is not portable, so I can have access to both the master and slave pty file descriptors. This version can be used only a platforms that have openpty(): Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, etc.

In Pass Three, zttptycmd(), I tried using pipes instead of ptys, in case ptys are simply not up to this task (but that can't be true because if I make a Telnet or SSH connection into a host, I can send files to it with Zmodem, and the remote Zmodem receiver is, indeed, running on a pty). But pipes didn't work either.

In Pass Four, I extracted the relevant routines into a standalone program based on yttptycmd() (the openpty() version, for simplicity), which I tested on Mac OS X, the idea being to rule out any "environmental" effects of running inside the C-Kermit process. There was no difference -- Kermit transfers (with C-Kermit itself as the external protocol) worked; Zmodem transfers (neither sz or lsz) did not.

Well, it's a much longer story. As the external protocol, I've tried rzsz, crzsz, and lrzsz. We know that some of these have quirks regarding standard i/o, etc, which is one of the reasons for using ptys in the first place, and i/o does work – just not reliably. Anyway, the long, sad, frustrating tale is HERE*. At this point I have to give up and move on; it might be more productive to let somebody else who has more experience with ptys take a look at it – if indeed anyone still cares about being able to do Zmodem transfers over secure Telnet connections.

Demonstration: HP Switch Configuration Backup

A common use for Kermit software is to make automated backups of the configuration of network switches and routers, such as those made by Cisco or Hewlett-Packard (although tftp can be used for this, it is not available in all such devices; Kermit, however, works with those that have tftp as well as those that don't).

Typically a backup can be done by making a Telnet, SSH, or serial connection to the device with Kermit and giving a command such as "show config" at the command-line prompt of the device with Kermit's session log activated. The result is a list of the commands that were used to establish the current configuration, suitable for feeding back to the device's console (e.g. with C-Kermit's TRANSMIT command) to reestablish the same configuration or to duplicate it on another device.

At an HP installation it was noted, however, that while the HP switches (various ProCurve models) produced the desired list of commands, they were interspersed with escape sequences for special effects, thus rendering the recorded sessions unsuitable for feeding back into the switches.

C-Kermit 9.0 introduces a new feature to strip the offending sequences out of a session log, leaving just the text. The command SET SESSION-LOG TEXT activates this feature. In C-Kermit 9.0 Alpha.02 and earlier, escape sequence stripping occurred only while logging interactive (CONNECT) sessions; beginning with Alpha.03 it is done also for data that is read by INPUT commands and therefore works for scripts too.

A sample HP Switch Configuration Backup script is HERE, and its data file is HERE. This script also illustrates some other new features of Alpha.03:

MESSAGE text
This lets you put debugging messages in your script that can be displayed or not, according to SET DEBUG MESSAGE (below). This way you don't have to change your script for debugging.  Hint:  In Unix, invoke the script like this:
$ DEBUG=1 scriptname arg1 arg2...
and then include the following command in your script:
if defined \$(DEBUG) set debug message on
XMESSAGE text
Like MESSAGE but prints the text with no line terminator, so it can be continued by subsequent messages.
SET DEBUG MESSAGE { ON, OFF, STDERR }
ON means MESSAGE commands should print to standard output; OFF means they shouldn't print anything; STDERR means the messages should be printed to stderr. DEBUG MESSAGE is OFF by default, i.e. unless you SET it to ON or STDERR.
IF DEBUG command
Executes the command if SET DEBUG MESSAGE is not OFF.
The \v(lastcommand) variable
This variable contains the previous command. You can use it in debugging and error message to show (for example) exactly what the command was that just failed, without having to make a copy of the command:
set host somehost.somecompany.com
if fail exit 1 "FATAL - \v(lastcommand)"
which, if the SET HOST command fails, prints "FATAL - set host somehost.somecompany.com" and then exits with status 1 (which normally indicates failure).

Demonstration: HP iLO Blade Configuration

THIS DOCUMENT describes a script in production use at Columbia University for configuring and deploying racks full of HP blade servers through their "integrated Lights Out" (iLO) management interface, bypassing the tedious and error-prone process of configuring the servers one by one through the vendor-provided point-and-click Web interface, which is ill-suited to configuring large numbers of blades. The script illustrates some of C-Kermit 9.0's new features; source code is available through the link. The code is apt to change from time to time as new requirements surface.

Demonstration: IBM/Rolm/Siemens CBX Management

THIS DOCUMENT describes a suite of scripts (some in production, some in development) used to manage the Columbia campus 20,000-line main telephone switch, along with about 10 satellite switches at off-campus locations. These switches are 1980s technology*, their management consoles are serial ports. Access is via Telnet to reverse terminal servers. The scripts allow for interactive sessions as well as automatic production (and in some cases formatting) of different reports required by different groups at different intervals. These scripts replace a whole assortment of ad-hoc ProComm ASPECT scripts that were scattered all over the place, with passwords embedded. The new scripts are intended to be run from a centralized server where there is a single well-secured configuration file, and where they can be used on demand, or in cron jobs. They are modular so code duplication is minimal.
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Of course the University is deploying new technology but the but the old system will be used in parallel for some time to come.

Other Demonstrations

ksitemap
A C-Kermit 9.0 script to build sitemap.xml for a website, complete with Google image extensions (this is the file used by webmasters to get their sites crawled and indexed optimally).
The Weblog Script
Reads a web log, extracts the Google searches, normalizes the search strings, and prints the top 20 searches, along with their counts. Documented HERE.
The Amazon Script
Reads an Amazon Associate orders report and lists the products according to the number of orders for each, or the number of clicks on each.

C-Kermit 9.0 / The Kermit Project / Columbia University / kermit@kermitproject.org / validate