Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

2369.0. "Query of IOS from Windows Pathworks" by WELCLU::NICHOLL (Jeannie with the light grey hair) Fri Mar 05 1993 14:50

    Hi,
    
    With reference to my previous note in 2291.  I relayed your responses 
    back to my customer and he has now come back to me with the following 
    
    His original question. 
    Is there a utility/tool available to allow a Windows PATHWORKS user 
    to query the ALL-IN-1 IOS system to find out how many messages they 
    have in their INBOX (actually through PENDING.DAT).  It should be 
    possible through DECnet task to task programming, but I'm wondering 
    if anyone has done anything already.  Anything we implemented would 
    have to secure (i.e. it would have to be impossible to find out how 
    many messages were waiting in someone else's INBOX).
    
    One of our notes replies.
    Alternatively, a program to read the count out of Pending.Dat would 
    be pretty trivial (MailCount is just over 1 page of Macro-32!) It 
    would have to be installed with READALL privs and make its own checks 
    (somehow) that its caller was looking at their own record only. You'd 
    then need some simple protocol from another little program on the PC 
    (DECnet task-to-task for example).
    
    His response 
    This para is closest to what we might want to do.  If we were 
    interested in pursuing this, could we talk to someone - e.g. Alan 
    Sharkey for the PC side & someone who could write a multi-threaded 
    VMS server task?  A quick summary follows:
    
    PC Windows program with single button [Show New Mail] to use DOS 
    environment variable to pass login id to server task (if not logged 
    in to PATHWORKS, not allowed).  Should expect to receive back a 
    number (or time-out after suitable interval).  This should be 
    displayed along with the time it was received.  Ideally written in 
    Visual Basic so we could modify it as required.  Note that everyone 
    has the same, unique login id on all machines they use, PATHWORKS or 
    ALL-IN-1.
    
    Server process A will run on the user's home PATHWORKS server & 
    should take incoming request with login id (VMS username) as only 
    data.  This should be checked against current active PATHWORKS 
    sessions to ensure that the user has logged in from the same PC the 
    request comes from (this ensures the user is who he says he is).  
    This login id is passed to a server process B on the the ALL-IN-1 
    cluster.  Server process B looks up the login id (secondary key) in 
    the PROFILE.DAT to find the ALL-IN-1 username (all users should have 
    one-to-one correlation between login id and ALL-IN-1 username).  The 
    ALL-IN-1 username is used as the key into PENDING.DAT to find the 
    number of unread mail messages.  This info is returned to server A, 
    which returns it to the PC.
    
    Given the number of links & clusters involved, both server processes 
    have to be efficient & multi-threaded.  If it takes a similar amount 
    of time to logging in & running our equivalent of MAILCOUNT.EXE, then 
    there is no point.
    
    My question
    Can anyone provide me with the names of technical people who could 
    address this type of application development.  I am based in the 
    Welwyn office in the UK.
    
    Many thanks again.
    
    Jean

    
    I would again like to suggest using the FCS, why?
    
    - It is multi-threaded and very efficient
    
    - it's already there
    
    - it provides all the needed security that you want
    
    - it is fully supported and built to do what you client wants.
    
    - You could toss a VB application together fairly quick to make the
      calls out to a MSC C application that calls the fCS, 
    
    Basically what you need to do to do this are the following calls:
    
    OafcOpenCabinetW
    OafcGetNewMailW
    OafcListW
    OafcCloseCabinetW
    
    Basically what you client side (PC) application would do is:
    
    Call OafcOpenCabinetW, to establish a connection to the FCS and to 
    the guys A1 account, you pass the VMS username and password and we
    authenticate you.
    
    Call OafcListW to get the name of the mail drawer and INBOX
    
    Call OafcGetNewMailW to perform the get pending
    
    Call OafcListW on the INBOX which will return a count of mail messages
    in the inbox.
    
    Call OafcCloseCabinetW to close everything down.
    
    Your customer seems to be wanting to re-write something that is there,
    namely the FCS.  It's job in life is to provide access to the ALL-IN-1
    file cabinet.  If it is secure enough for use by ALL-IN-1 and
    TeamLinks, then it should be secure enough for anyone.
    
    --Bob
    

    
    	And the name you need is Tony Redmond @DBO. He would probably
    	do a project for your customer to build such a thing.
    
    Regards,
    Paul