Kermit 95 3.0 Preview

Frank da Cruz, Manager, the Kermit Project, Columbia University
This page last updated: Sat Dec 23 11:14:49 2006

Kermit 95 2.1.3 was released 21 January 2003. After that, there were personnel changes and reorganizations here that affected our ability to produce subsequent releases, explained HERE. Briefly, our Windows and security programmer, Jeff Altman, now has his own company, Secure Endpoints, which must be contracted in some manner to work on the Windows and security parts of Kermit 95, and arranging this through the Columbia University bureaucracy is, well, a challenge. I have been working on this more or less continuously since 2003. In the middle of this process, my organization, Columbia University Academic Information Systems, was taken out of its previous reporting structure, renamed to Columbia University Information Technology, and made to report to a completely new management, so I had to start all over again.

The new management wants to see clear evidence, or at least compelling indications, that any investment in a new K95 release will not only pay for itself, but also increase revenue from its current level for some period of years. An essential part of this convincing will be testimony and data from current or potential customers. How do you use Kermit now? How long do you expect to be using it? Would a new release with bug fixes affect your answer? How about new features? If you hold an individual license, would you pay (say) $25 for an upgrade to the new version? (Bulk license holders will not have to pay for upgrades because they already pay an annual maintenance fee for this.)

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What Will Definitely Be in the Next Release

• About 150 bug fixes. See the Bugs section of the Kermit FAQ, the K95 2.0/2.1 Bug List, and and Jeff's List of Fixes. Some of the standouts include our broken keystroke macros (the ability to assign a series of Kermit commands to a key); improper implementation of ASCII (text) mode downloads in K95's FTP client; Long read delays (like 10 minutes) under certain circumstances when using USB serial ports or modems; see the references for others.

• Certain key defaults will be changed to improve the chances that K95 will work "out of the box" for most people in 2007 and beyond:
  • The default terminal type will be VT220 instead of VT320 because the latter is no longer a known terminal type on certain popular host platforms. Note: This does not mean the VT320 will no longer be supported, only that it will no longer be the default terminal emulation.

  • The default terminal character set will change from the standard ISO 8859-1 to Microsoft Code Page 1252, due to intense pollution of the Internet by these nonstandard characters ("smart quotes" and the like), which throw standards-compliant terminal emulators (not to mention the terminals themselves) into horrible states; CLICK HERE for details.

  • SSH COMPRESSION will be OFF by default. The default compression method used by Unix sshd (the SSH server) changed after K95 2.1.3 was released, and since K95's SSH COMPRESSION was ON by default, SSH connections failed (setting SSH COMPRESSION to OFF fixed it, but how would the average user know to do that?). The newer compression method will be supported too, but for safety and longevity, I think it's best that SSH compression be requested explicitly.

  • The default User ID for remote logins will no longer be the user's Windows user ID. This has caused no end of confusion in the past with protocols such as Telnet and SSH, in which the user ID is sent as part of the connection negotiation.

  • K95's default directory is currently \Program Files\Kermit 95 2.1\. There is probably a better choice, e.g. each user's \My Documents\ directory.

  Are there other defaults that bother you? FILL OUT THE SURVEY, let us know. For example, what K95 does when you stretch the screen. You can choose whether it adjusts the font size or changes the screen dimensions. By default, it adjusts the font size, which surprises some people.

• The next K95 release will include everything that was done to the platform-independent portions of C-Kermit since version 8.0.206:
  • C-Kermit 8.0.208
  • C-Kermit 8.0.209
  • C-Kermit 8.0.211
  • C-Kermit 8.0.212 (in progress, version number will probably change)
  • Detailed log of all changes in C-Kermit since K95 2.1.3

  Some highlights (besides Large File Support and 64-bit arithmetic, which have not yet been implemented for Windows) include a super-handy new RENAME command for bulk renaming of batches of files; FTP timeouts, tons of scripting improvements, and numerous bug fixes in the platform-independent code. C-Kermit 8.0.212 will probably be elevated to version 9.0 before release.

• Named Pipe connections for interprocess communication.

• OpenSSL, OpenSSH, and Kerberos upgrades, with K95 adapted to the latest security libraries.

• SSH heartbeat support, whereby idle session limits can be defeated for SSH connections at the application protocol level, as is currently the case for Telnet connections. Also automatic rekeying of long-duration SSH v2 connections, and a new SSH debugging capability.

• Support added to the FTP client for SSLv2, to allow secure access to servers that have not been updated to SSLv3 or TLSv1.

• Hyperlink Extension for Terminals based on ANSI X3.64-1979/ISO-6429/ECMA-048, in which the host can make any string it sends to the terminal into a hyperlink. This is different from K95's current URL recognition in that the user need not see the URL, and the link is always definitely intended to be a link.

• Modern MSI Installer, allowing automated installation and upgrades via Group Policy and organization-specific customizations, e.g. packaging of custom Dialer entries, initialization files, and scripts for Bulk Right-to-Copy license installations.

• Consolidation of reference material.

• Any necessary adaptations to Windows Vista, such as digital signatures.

Support for Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT, and for IBM OS/2, will be dropped.

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What MIGHT Be in the Next Release

• IPv6.
  The next-generation Internet protocol. This will be a LOT of work.

• Large File Support.
  The ability to access, manage, and transfer files larger than 2GB, as well as to handle 64-bit numbers in commands and scripts, and to do 64-bit integer arithmetic. For details CLICK HERE.

• File Upload Dialog.
  A glaring deficiency in K95's user interface is the lack of a regular GUI file dialog for uploading files. This is the one place where nontechnical users still have to cope with the command screen and "escaping back" and re-connecting.

• Notebook Tab Format for the Dialer.
  When K95 first came out, the Dialer used the familiar notebook tab format, but with subsequent K95 releases, the number of notebook pages required outgrew limitations Windows 9x, and we had to adopt a much more cumbersome and less intuitive presentation. By dropping support for Windows 9x, we can put back the notebooks tabs.

• Contract Support from Secure Endpoints.
  This is to eliminate the awkward current arrangement by which users get K95 bug fixes, so tech support and bug fixes will once again become "one-stop shopping".

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Let Us Hear From You

It is especially important to hear from companies or institutions where Kermit 95 plays a key (and perhaps "mission critical") role in their products or services or internal operation. If your organization is considering the purchase of a large license, but you need certain bugs fixed, or certain new features, or simply an assurrance that the product is still alive and actively supported and developed, please let us hear from you. The new administration has no awareness of our history, our place in the world, or the degree to which many organizations depend on our work.

Thanks.

Frank da Cruz fdc@columbia.edu

Letter from Jeff Altman 23 December 2006