archie/prospero/CHANGES

Changes since Alpha.5.2b:

Documentation about the list structures is now present in the library manual.

NAMED ACLs are new.

Database internals have changed: dsrobject() format for files.
Databases now call dsrobject().  Databases now use NAMED acls for
their database ACLs.

Bug fixed: connection ID now reset upon each fork.

PROSPERO-CONTENTS access method added.

Code ported to SOLARIS and SCO dialects of UNIX.

Changes from Alpha.5.2a to Alpha.5.2b:

Fixed bug where GOPHER-GW would sometimes crash with a segmentation
fault, depending on your compiler's implementation of ANSI C
variable-length argument lists.

Made Mail/Save/Print features work correctly in the menu browser.
They no longer open the same file twice, and they now handle errors
appropriately.

Changed output format for vls -A; should be less confusing.  Multiple
tokens in a SEQUENCE are now separated with ' ; '.

ARDP library now works correctly even if you make an ARDP call, then
fork and make ARDP calls in the child processes.  This used to break.  
This was causing great trouble to potential collaborators.

Fixed ACL checking bugs in Version 1 backwards compatability stuff
(server/dirsrv_v1()).  These bugs were introduced in Alpha.5.2.	

Changes from Alpha.5.2 to Alpha.5.2a:

Major bug fix: Message fragmentation and reassembly seem to be
finally fixed correctly.  They now work even for messages which do not
contain a newline somewhere within them, and work both for the client
and for the server.  

Minor bug fixed in way FORWARDED response is given on the server; this
won't affect current users much, since forwarding pointers are still
not in widespread use.

Minor bugs fixed in lower levels of ARDP library; these do not affect
people who were not directly using the ARDP library.

Changes between Beta.5.1 and Alpha.5.2:

The MENU browser interface  and GOPHER-GW gateway are new.  See the README file
or doc/gopher.ann or the user's manual.  

Link attributes can now be added to all links, including those which
are stored in native UNIX directories (for example the anonymous FTP
area).  The link target (FILE/DIRECTORY) is now tested and returned
for all links in a directory, even if they are in native unix
directories.  The directory server used to, as an efficiency hack, not
bother statting big native directories, but would sometimes lie and
claim directories were actually FILEs.  This information is cached on
the server for most directories.  If PSRV_CACHE_NATIVE is defined,
then this cacheing will occur even for entirely native directories.
OBJECT attributes are cached in cached directories.

Bugs fixed in Kerberos version 5 support.  There is a new definition
in pserver.h, KERBEROS_SRVTAB.

Disabled return of connection ID for V4 clients.  This change
compensates for a bug in some V4 clients due to the use of an
incorrect type (signed long vs. unsigned short) as the connection ID.
This change has no effect on the V5 protocol.  However, it does make a
number of older clients, including most versions of the xarchie client,
work with the new code.

The server's CREATE-OBJECT function with the DIRECTORY option now
creates the subdirectory first and only then creates a link to it.
This keeps a link to nowhere from appearing in case of a system crash
during the directory creation process.

The server function dswdir() that writes out modified directories now
writes them out to a temporary file and then atomically renames it to
the correct filename.  This means that in case of running out of disk
space or other system failure, no information will be lost and the
directory state will remain consistent.  This feature was inspired
after PROSPERO.ISI.EDU's main disk filled up and a Prospero directory
that belonged to the implementor of this feature (swa) was affected.

A number of places in the code which used to store protocol messages
in static buffers now store them in dynamically allocated buffers.
Attributes and protocol messages now can have arbitrarily long tokens
in them.   This change affected enough places in the code that we have
made the first release containing it an Alpha (Alpha.5.2); the default
prospero.tar.Z file still points to Beta.5.1.

NEWVS used to work incorrectly when making a new virtual system that
was to have multiple principals in the initial ACL.  Fixed.

The old pkl and psrvchat commands have been replaced by the new
'padmin' command.  Padmin can be used to administer a Prospero server
(kill it, restart it, set the message of the day).  It can also be
used by a programmer to send raw Prospero protocol messages to the
server (with the -command option) and by anybody to retrieve the
message of the day (with the -get MOTD option).  Documentation in the
user's manual.

p__vfsetup and p__vcd now let you explicitly override your SHELL
environment variable with '-s sh' or '-s csh' flags.  gen_vfsetup and
p__vfsetup now generate commands which by default include the -s sh or
-s csh flag as appropriate.  The old hack of checking your SHELL
environment variable in the absence of such a flag will stick around
for a while, but will probably go away in a future release.  This
feature was inspired by a problem that a user who had renamed his
shell experienced.

rd_vlink(".") now works correctly; this fixes the behavior of set_acl
and list_acl.

list_acl and set_acl don't dump core any more when called with
incorrect arguments.  In addition, they are now more flexible about
how arguments may be specified.  Fixed case where some legal arguments
to set_acl sometimes segfaulted.

Compiling with HPUX prototypes used to generate warnings of the form:
"warning: argument passing of non-const * pointer from const *".  It
doesn't any more.

Compiling under HPUX used to generate warnings about the arguments to
select() and bcopy() and wait(); it doesn't any more.  

Enhancement to lib/pfs/p__req.c: userids not in the passwd database
are sent across the network as uid#<decimal number> instead of as
*nobody*.

Changes between Alpha.5.1 and Beta.5.1:

One bug fix: The server's CREATE-OBJECT command used to reuse
directory names even if there were still active links to those
directories.  It now generates new unique names.  As a result, the
following sequence will no longer destroy the contents of the new
directory tlink:

        vmkdir test
        vln some-file test/some-file
        vln test tlink
        vrm test
        vmkdir test

Changes between Alpha.5.0 and Alpha.5.1:

A special stripped-down FTP only version of the release is now
available, for sites that want to publish their anonymous FTP archive
areas through Prospero and don't want to worry about the full gamut of
configuration options.

The user-level name format has been enhanced.  Special characters in
user-level names ('#', ':', '/', '(', ')', and now '\') can be quoted
by preceding them with a backslash ('\').  This change will be useful
as more new databases with unusual names are integrated into the
propero naming network.  The library routines p_uln_index() and
p_uln_rindex() have been added to help in manipulating the new name
format.

get_vdir() now takes a pointer to a list of tokens as its acomp
argument instead of a single string with slash separating the multiple
components.   This makes the code much cleaner and  solves the problem
of get_vdir() reading  files whose user-level names contain slashes.  
A similar change has been made to the database function code on the server.

The code sending names across the network has been improved; Spaces in
file names sent across the network still occasionally caused problems
in the Alpha 5.0 release; they no longer do in Alpha 5.1.  

A new type of link has been added: INVISIBLE links.  You can make them
by giving the new '-i' option to vln.  You can list them by giving the
new '-i' option to vls.  They are just like dot files in UNIX, except
that their names can have any format.

A new LOCAL access method has been added.  Along with it is a new
definition in pserver.h called SHARED_PREFIXES.  This definition,
among other things, makes it very easy to retrieve files through NFS
on systems that run an automount demon.

VGET can now retrieve files using any access method.  VGET used to not
know about AFS or NFS.

The psite.h file now also contains a new option for special
applications, PCOMPAT_SUPPORT_FTP.  If defined, routines linked with
the pcompat library (such as our version of CAT) will prompt for an
FTP username and password if necessary in order to access a file.  In
other words, they, too, can retrieve with any access method.

Some unusual cases involving forwarding of links and expansion of
union links have been fixed.

The server logging has been improved slightly.

The protocol has been extended so that it is easier to add new types
of FIELD attributes and so that multiple-component names are sent in a
cleaner fashion.  Alpha 5.0 clients continue to work, as do pre-5.0 clients.

AIX support for the server has been added.

CHANGES between Beta.4.2 and Alpha.5.0:

This release speaks version 5 and version 1 of the Prospero protocol.
Previous releases have all spoken only version 1.  The new server is
backwards-compatable with clients speaking the previous version
(version 1) of the prospero protocol.  This is described in greater
depth in the document server/COMPATABILITY.  The clients only speak
version 5 and will not work with servers still speaking only 
version 1.  There have been many updates in the new version of the
protocol. 

This release can be configured to perform authentication of users
using Kerberos version 5.  Version 5 is still experimental; version 4
is not supported.

This release supports Archie 3 servers in addition to the older Archie 2.

Quoting of names internally in the Prospero protocol is now fully
supported (it was not in previous versions of Prospero).  Therefore,
host-specific object names may now have spaces or other strange
characters in them, as may attribute names and values and filenames.

This release includes support for PREDEFINED filters that run on the
server side.  Such filters solve the security problems that have
plagued filters in the past.  A later release will come with a number
of predefined standard server and client

This release includes support for remotely modifying link and object
attributes with the library routines pset_at() and pset_linkat() and
the user program SET_ATR.   

VLN now handles external links rather differently from the way it used
to.  To make an external link to a file reachable by anonymous FTP,
type:

        vln -e AFTP hostname name-on-that-host BINARY new-name
or
        vln -e AFTP hostname name-on-that-host TEXT new-name


Until we finish revising the user's manual, contact us with questions
about the new vln and about set_atr.

AF has not been ported to the new release and will probably never be.
Filters have changed quite a bit.  You can add filters to links by
using the SET_ATR program with the -linkprec and -filter options to
modify the FILTER attribute on the link of interest.

Client developers should note that some of the fields in some of the
structures have been renamed or changed in format.  FILTER and PATTRIB
structures have been introduced.

See the file doc/v5.announcement for a discussion of additional
changes. 

This release of Prospero includes a standalone client to query archie
servers.   See the README file.

This release also includes an alternative ls.  To compile first build
Prospero (either with or without the compatibility library), then
connect to the user subdirectory and type make als.  als is still
under development by Steve Cliffe (steve@cs.uow.edu.au).  Please send
any comments or bug reports related to als to him.  Eventually, the
vls command will be replaced by als.