Re: Install 4GL Apps at Customer Sites

In article <336c9939.8994373@gate.idg.no>, Nils Myklebust <Nils.Myklebust@idg.no> writes >"Paul Mosser" <pmosser@primenet.com> wrote: > >:Hi All! >: >:We use SE on a SCO 3.2.4.2 box to develop customer apps via 4GL. When we >:need to install on a customer machine, we currently dial in to their >:machine from ours, using the CU utility. We can also dial directly from a >:few PC's (W95). When connected, we transfer our proprietary 4GL source >:code, compile/link on customer box, and then remove source code. Customer >:boxes are *generally* HP, but there are also some AIX, DEC Alpha, SCO, etc. >: It is rare that these machines have a transfer pkg such as Kermit, etc. >: >:PROBLEMS: >:Part (1): It seems to be getting more and more difficult to get a >:connection good enough for a clean transfer of large source code files. >:Obviously, there are a lot of developers in c.d.i. -- so how do *YOU* all >:distribute software (remember, we're talking 4GL here, and on UNIX!)???? > >We sure do not use cu. When there is nothing better we can do we use >Kermit. It's available for essentially all variations of Unix. It >shouldn't be hard for the owner of the machine to install it before >you dial in. Otherwise I seem to remember there is a way it can be >installed via something like cu, but I am not sure of that. > We use cu to dial in and kermit to transfer the software. I have the source to ckermit verion 190 which I transfered using cu. (as a compressed tar file). I used dd splli the compressed file into 30K sections and transfered each separately. Then use 'sum' to check each section transfered correctly, cat all the sections together and finally uncompress/untar. The version of ckermit I have will compile on most version of UNIX (even ICL's DRS/NX!). >:Part (2): We would like to build some sort of security into these transfer >:packages. One suggestion was to get some sort of a "pkzip" product that >:runs on UNIX, and which will allow us to password-protect the transfers. >:Anyone have any ideas?? > >We simply use gzip/gunzip (free for all Unixes) to compress the data. At first I used gzip now I use bzip which fives better compression. The whoe source to our product bzip's to 1.2Mb (one floppy!) rather than 1.6Mb with gzip.. bzip refers to gzip in the documentation and says it is suppose to be a compatiable replacement for gzip. >We aren't conserned enough by security to do anything else on a modem >dial up line. It would be hard to tap that, and our sourcecode isn't >that valuable. It would be very hard for anyone to use it even if they Same here :-> >got hold of everything. Mostly we also no longer transfer source code >but compiled binaries, but I understand that's hard for you. (RDS We are moving towards that as the sales team cut costs by not buying 4GL Dev/ISQL. Grrr...How am I suppose to update configuration tables without isql's generate form/run form options. Also tranfering binaries across a 2400 baud modem (No kidding - some of our sites refuse to buy faster modem!), epscially with 4GL version and binaries >1Mb... >"binaries" may be an option though.) > >:Perhaps this is more of a UNIX problem, but I'm not sure where else to >:start. >: >:Please reply to the email below, not to the one where this msg >:originated... >: >:TIA >:-- >:====================================== >:Paul Mosser, DBA / PA >:MiniSoft, Inc. >:Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. >:email: pmosser@minisoftinc.com >:====================================== > >Nils.Myklebust@idg.no >NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway >My opinions are those of my company >The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org -- David Williams