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Annotation of pgp/src/readme.vms, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: PGP/Open VMS Version 2.2
        !             2: -------------------
        !             3: 
        !             4: All rights to PGP are reserved by Phil Zimmermann. All contributed modules
        !             5: are also subject to the copyrights of their individual authors, on the same
        !             6: conditions. Certain algorithms used by PGP are subject to patent restrictions
        !             7: and this software as a whole may be subject to export control in certain
        !             8: countries. Read the PGP Guide for full copyright information and for details
        !             9: about export control.
        !            10: 
        !            11: These notes are intended for those people using and working with PGP under
        !            12: the VAX/VMS and OpenVMS operating systems. These are intended to supplement
        !            13: rather than replace the PGP guide. You should read and understand the guide,
        !            14: particularly the section about key management.
        !            15: 
        !            16: Digital in their infinite wisdom have renamed VMS as of version 5.5 to OpenVMS.
        !            17: OpenVMS for VAX (the old VAX/VMS) has been renamed to OpenVMS/VAX and the new
        !            18: version for their RISC processor to OpenVMS/Alpha AXP. When I refer to VMS, I
        !            19: mean VAX/VMS version 5.3 and upwards and OpenVMS/VAX V5.5 and up. I am *not*
        !            20: referring to OpenVMS/Alpha AXP. See the developers notes for information.
        !            21: If you unzip under VMS using the public domain Zipper - you will probably have
        !            22: a problem with file characteristics. If you have the PD FILE utility, you can
        !            23: fix this by saying:
        !            24: 
        !            25: $ FILE/type=stream  *.*
        !            26: 
        !            27: Otherwise you can fix using either TPU or CONVERT/FDL.
        !            28:  
        !            29: PGP/VMS was written using the VAX C compiler, which you must have to
        !            30: compile it. If you wish to use another compiler, see the developers notes.
        !            31: PGP is provided with an MMS description file. To build using this file, go
        !            32: to the directory containing the uncompressed files and type the following:
        !            33: 
        !            34: $ MMS
        !            35: 
        !            36: You may wish to delete the object files at this point, they are not needed
        !            37: unless you are working on the code. To build a version under the VAX/VMS
        !            38: debugger, define the DCL symbol PGP_DEBUG=1. The debugger version will be
        !            39: built without any optimisation and will be *significantly* slower.
        !            40: 
        !            41: If you do not have MMS you may execute the DCL supplied command procedure 
        !            42: VMSBUILD.COM to compile and link PGP.
        !            43: 
        !            44: Once you have built PGP, it should be placed somewhere that is protected
        !            45: against tampering. It is not impossible that someone may replace PGP.EXE 
        !            46: with a patched version designed to capture keys. You may wish to use the 
        !            47: CHECKSUM utility (CHECKSUM/IMAGE PGP.EXE) to control against modifications, 
        !            48: however CHECKSUM does not use very effective algorithms and may itself be 
        !            49: compromised.
        !            50: 
        !            51: You should then use PGP by defining it as an "external command" in your
        !            52: LOGIN.COM, or alternative the system wide login command procedure, SYLOGIN.
        !            53: This is done simply with the following line of DCL:
        !            54: 
        !            55: $ PGP:==$device:[directory]PGP
        !            56: 
        !            57: After executing this line (remember the dollar sign before the device name), 
        !            58: you should be able to display a help text by typing:
        !            59: 
        !            60: $ PGP
        !            61: 
        !            62: PGP will want to retain the keyrings and some other information. These are
        !            63: stored in the device and directory pointed to by the logical name PGPPATH.
        !            64: You should copy the files LANGUAGE.TXT and CONFIG.TXT to this directory.
        !            65: 
        !            66: Your secret keyring contains information that could be cryptographically
        !            67: analysed - it must be protected against world access. However, your secret key
        !            68: ring is encrypted so is protected against casual browsing. If anyone that you
        !            69: can not trust has privileged access to your system, your plaintext files are
        !            70: vulnerable and potentially, also your keyrings.
        !            71: 
        !            72: Note that keyrings should be directly transportable between VMS, MSDOS
        !            73: and other PGP implementations. Text files may not be portable because of the
        !            74: different text record representations across operating systems. If you wish
        !            75: to send a text file to a system other than VAX/VMS, you are recommended to
        !            76: use the 'canonical-form' switch '-t'.
        !            77: 
        !            78: If you wish to take binary files such as backup savesets between two systems
        !            79: running VMS, you can use the special flag 'i' with the encrypt function to
        !            80: preserve the file and record characteristics. When decrypting, PGP will read
        !            81: the 'i' flag and the type of the system that created the file. If both systems
        !            82: are VMS, the file will be correctly decrypted with the correct file
        !            83: characteristics.
        !            84: 
        !            85: Developers Notes
        !            86: ----------------
        !            87: 
        !            88: There are two key conditionals throughout the source for the VAX/VMS
        !            89: implementation:
        !            90: 
        !            91: VAXC -  Allows specific optimisations permitted by the VAX C compiler and
        !            92:         overcomes problems with the differences between VAX C and ANSII C.
        !            93: 
        !            94: VMS  -  This allows VMS specific file handling and some optimisations. It
        !            95:         should be noted that the primitives do not work with
        !            96:        OpenVMS/Alpha AXP until someone has done some work on porting VAX.MAR.
        !            97:        Other RISC implementations have always shown disappointing performance
        !            98:        when relying on C alone.
        !            99: 
        !           100: There was also some preliminary work done on porting this to GNU C and indeed
        !           101: an earlier (developers) version ran under GNU C. The code affected is usually
        !           102: conditionalised with GCC. If someone wishes to complete this and (hopefully)
        !           103: integrate the inline assembler stuff used for moves and zero-fills, this
        !           104: would be very useful.
        !           105: 
        !           106: All optimizations were checked out using DEC's PCA, and this version appears
        !           107: to be optimal under VAX C.
        !           108: 
        !           109: As for cleaning up, there are verious areas which could be improved:
        !           110: 
        !           111: 1)      PGP's own erase on delete could be replaced by the standard VMS 
        !           112:         function so the file system does the work.
        !           113: 2)     PGP spends a long time moving data between temporary files. This
        !           114:        should be reduced where possible.
        !           115: 3)     We need an Open VMS/Alpha AXP version of PGP. This code has never
        !           116:        faced DEC C but it is reputably more ANSII compilant. The VAX.MAR
        !           117:        stuff should go through the MACRO-32 translator. Please advise me
        !           118:        if you have time to spare to make an Alpha port.
        !           119: 4)     I have never tried this stuff with VMS POSIX. The combination of VMS
        !           120:        and VAX C but with a Unix-like file system will blow the existing code
        !           121:        unless it is correctly conditionalised.
        !           122: 
        !           123: 2)      The random number generation uses a polling loop from the keyboard
        !           124:         which is neither nice nor necessary. A better approach would be to do
        !           125:         single character I/Os and fetch the system clock after each
        !           126:         character.
        !           127: 
        !           128: Contributing Authors
        !           129: --------------------
        !           130: 
        !           131: This port was originally performed by Hugh Kennedy with assistance from
        !           132: Mark Barsoum and others.
        !           133: 
        !           134: Support
        !           135: -------
        !           136: 
        !           137: This software is provided in the public domain and without charge other than
        !           138: for copying. For support issues concerning PGP and VAX/VMS, you are welcome 
        !           139: to contact me via Electronic Mail on Compuserve using ID 70042,710 and on the 
        !           140: Internet with [email protected]. This software is provided "as-is" and 
        !           141: any support given will be of an informal nature.
        !           142: 
        !           143: Hugh A.J. Kennedy, 17th November 1992

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