From: goathunter@wkuvx1.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,vmsnet.sources.d
Subject: New: Supervisor Series v5.3 released
Date: 17 Aug 92 07:12:21 CDT
Organization: Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY

I'm pretty sure this didn't make it out because of our power failure.
If it did, sorry for the repost; if it didn't, here it is! 8-)
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The Supervisor Series v5.3 has just been released.  The Supervisor
Series consists of SUPERVISOR (watch another user's terminal and enter
input on their behalf) and PHOTO (record terminal sessions to a log
file).  Access to the SUPERVISOR functions is controlled through the
use of identifiers.

This version fixes two pretty major bugs in v5.2 (additional info can
be found below my sig):

  o  The "invalid log file" hang/crash with PHOTO

  o  The SUPERVISOR "it's not a UCB anymore" crash

NOTE: PHOTO is incompatible with VMS POSIX.  THIS VERSION DOES NOT
      CORRECT THIS PROBLEM.  The problem is that when POSIX has been
      started on the system, a system-wide image rundown handler
      resets the modified UCB fields, effectively turning off PHOTO.
      I hope to have this corrected in a future version of the series.

I also found out that the original authors of the Supervisor Series
were Bob Pasker, Bill Donner, and Terry Way.  My thanks to them for
providing me with a good base to work from.

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**** It will be posted to vmsnet.sources soon ****

The Supervisor Series is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.spc.edu
([192.107.46.27]).  You'll need the following files:

	[.MACRO32]LZDCMP.EXE
	[.MACRO32.SAVESETS]SUPERVISOR.BCK_Z

To get the Supervisor Series via e-mail, send the following commands
in the body of a message to FILESERV@WKUVX1.BITNET:

SEND SUPERVISOR
SEND FILESERV_TOOLS

The Supervisor Series is installed with VMSINSTAL and includes
documentation in ASCII text, Bookreader, and PostScript formats.
There is a mailing list to discuss Supervisor Series problems and
usage.  To subscribe, send the following command in the body of a
mail message to LISTSERV@WKUVX1.BITNET (note, that's LISTSERV):

SUBSCRIBE SUPSER-L "Your real name"
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Thanks for your patience while I found the time to fix these!

Hunter
------
Hunter Goatley, VMS Systems Programmer, Western Kentucky University
goathunter@WKUVX1.BITNET, 502-745-5251

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"Bug Fixes" (from the release notes):

          The Supervisor Series V5.3 provides the following bug
          fixes and enhancements to V5.2:

          1  If an invalid log file was specified to PHOTO, the
             system would hang when the user logged out (SMP
             machines would crash with a SPINWAIT bugcheck).
             This problem occurred because PHOTO didn't clean up
             after itself properly if an error occurred during
             initialization. Not only has this bug been fixed,
             but the initialization was reorganized to make it
             safer.

          2  SUPERVISOR would occasionally crash the system
             trying to access an LT UCB that had already been
             deleted. SUPERVISOR now checks to make sure the UCB
             is still a UCB before accessing it.

          3  Privilege checks were added to SUPERVISOR so that
             the user is notified of the missing privileges
             immediately (the user only sees which privileges
             are missing if he/she holds one of the appropriate
             SUPERVISOR identifiers). This eliminates potential
             problems with privilege-related errors occurring
             during initialization.

          4  A bug in the SUPERVISOR exit handler would cause
             a non-fatal register dump if SUPERVISOR aborted
             during the initialization. This bug has been
             corrected.

          5  SUPERVISOR notifications to the target user would
             hang the supervising terminal if the target user
             had XOFF'ed or switched sessions on a DECserver.
             The $BRKTHRUW call in SUPERVISOR has been modified
             to timeout after 5 seconds to prevent such hangs.

          6  The installation now uses the specified PHOTO help
             library as the default help library for SUPERVISOR.
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms