8/20/2020 OpenNT

WINDOWS AND USER PRODUCTIVITY > WINDOWS 7/8

OpenNT
Michael P. Deignan | Mar 31, 1998
TurnYour NT machine into a fully compliant UNIX system

Get the most out of your UNIX investment by extending UNIX capabilities to your Windows
NT environment. OpenNT, from Softway Systems, creates an enhanced POSIX/UNIX
subsystem within your NT system. The product includes applications and utilities that
comply with UNIX, X/Open Portability Guide (XPG), and POSIX.2 standards. These
applications and utilities operate within the POSIX/UNIX subsystem and interact with their
NT counterparts. For example, on UNIX systems, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)
sockets provide network support. OpenNT provides an interface between BSD sockets and
NT's Winsock library. If you compile and operate a UNIX program written for BSD sockets
(such as a gopher search utility) on an OpenNT-enabled system, the program will make the
appropriate socket call, and OpenNT will transfer the call to the Winsock system.

Adhering to standards is important in the UNIX world, and OpenNT conforms to most
UNIX standards, including the POSIX.1, POSIX.2, and ANSI C interfaces. At the
application layer, OpenNT's libraries support all POSIX and UNIX APIs.

The Core
OpenNT consists of eight core components: the UNIX shells and utilities, X11 runtime
clients and applications, X11 display server, Open Software Foundation (OSF)/Motif
window manager, remote logon Telnet service, UNIX software development tools, X11

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software development tools, and OSF/Motif software development tools. Available OpenNT
packages contain combinations of these core components.

Only the UNIX shells and utilities component is necessary to run OpenNT. This component
includes the OpenNT system files, networking support for UNIX-style sockets, interprocess
communications (IPC) message queues and semaphores, shared memory, memory-mapped
files, and components that facilitate OpenNT's integration with NT subsystems, such as file
systems, security model systems, and services. OpenNT's UNIX shells and utilities
component also includes more than 100 character-based UNIX utilities, such as awk, sed,
and perl. UNIX aficionados will appreciate this component's full versions of C shell and
Korn shell, two popular UNIX shells that support command aliasing, job control, and history.
And UNIX enthusiasts will enjoy editing files using OpenNT's full version of vi.

The optional X11 display server component includes an X11R6-compliant X server, which
lets you run any X application on your NT machine. If you work in a multiplatform UNIX
environment and your UNIX hosts have X administration utilities, OpenNT's X11 display
server lets you run those utilities on your NT machine to remotely perform administrative
functions. Screen 1 shows the X11 Server Control Panel, which lets you configure a
connection to a remote X client program.

If you install OpenNT's X11 runtime clients and applications component, you can run your
NT server's applications on the X servers on your network. The X11 runtime component
contains more than 50 applications, including a port of xterm, which you can use to establish
a shell session on your NT server.

OpenNT's software development tools help you build applications on your NT machine that
are compatible with their UNIX counterparts. The tools supplement Microsoft's Visual C++
4.0, which you must install on your system before you can use OpenNT for software
development. The UNIX software development tools, which include utilities such as yacc,
lex, make, and cc, let you compile generic text-interface utilities such as the trn USENET
newsreader popular on many UNIX systems. The X11 development tools include additional
utilities, such as xmkmf and imake, which supplement the UNIX utilities that produce X-
related applications. The OSF/Motif development tools include utilities that help you build

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Motif applications. Each development system comes with a set of header files and function
libraries you can link to your application.

The Installation
OpenNT's installation is simple. I installed OpenNT on my NT server, a Digital Prioris HX-
590 with 96MB of RAM. First, I installed the base OpenNT product, which consists of the
software's runtime components. I ran the Setup program in the X86 directory, and the
installation proceeded smoothly. I had to select an installation location for my files and
provide activation keys so that the program would install the proper components. When the
installation was complete, I returned to Windows Explorer. I had to log off and then back on
before I could use the software, but I didn't have to reboot my computer. After installing
OpenNT's runtime components, I reran the Setup program to install the software
development kit. Again, I had to answer questions regarding where to install certain files and
provide a license key.

When I finished both steps in the installation process, I tested the software. Using OpenNT
was a joy. I launched a Korn shell prompt through Explorer, and I ran shell scripts from my
UNIX system after modifying them slightly. I ran multiple jobs simultaneously, in both the
foreground and background. You can start background jobs by adding an ampersand (&) to
the command line (e.g., runajob &). Using the fg and bg directives, I moved jobs from the
background to the foreground, and vice versa. I used the jobs command to get a list of
running jobs. The pipes are fully functional, and the shell lets you redirect both stdout and
stderr.

The Telnetd
One of OpenNT's best features is its Telnetd, or remote logon Telnet, capability. Telnetd is a
daemon (the UNIX equivalent of an NT service) that lets users connect to the NT server as if
they were logging on to a multiuser computer system, such as a UNIX host. After they log
on, users can run programs on the NT host, and the output goes to the users' local screens.
(For reviews of other Telnetd products, see John Enck, "InterAccess Telnetd Server," May
1997, and Tim Daniels, "Ataman Provides Telnet and Rlogin Service for Windows NT,"
October 1995.)

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Before I could connect through Telnetd, I had to install the service on my NT server. Telnetd
does not install during the OpenNT installation process. Installing Telnetd takes about 30
seconds. First, you have to log on to the NT system on which you're running OpenNT. Then,
you launch the OpenNT Korn shell. When the shell prompt appears, you enter two
commands to start the service. After you execute these commands, you will see a Telnetd
service running in the Services applet on the NT Control Panel. At that point, you can
connect from remote systems.

I connected to my NT host by telnetting in from my Windows 95 client using Hilgraeve's

The only problem with OpenNT's Telnetd program is that it runs only Win32 console
programs. To run a legacy application, you must either recompile the application to run
under Win32 or somehow update the software. The UNIX shells let you try to execute non-
Win32 applications, but you will not succeed. I tried to run a binary file compiled with CA-
Clipper (a database program from Computer Associates International). After spitting error
messages at me for 2 minutes while OpenNT attempted to process the CA-Clipper binary,
my NT system's kernel aborted and locked up the system.

The Question
As an old-school UNIX devotee who has since converted to NT, I found OpenNT to be a
refreshing addition to my NT system. Softway Systems recently partnered with Intergraph to
provide NFS support for OpenNT, making the product even easier to integrate into NT
environments.

However, despite my enthusiasm for performing text-file manipulations with OpenNT tools,
I question my need for this product. Softway markets the software to technical users who
need UNIX functionality on an NT workstation and to corporate developers and software
vendors who want to port and deploy UNIX applications on NT. For both of these potential

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OpenNT uses, existing NT tools and utilities (which are not limited to Win32 applications)
provide equal or better functionality. If you want to test the software for yourself, you can get
a 30-day evaluation CD-ROM by clicking the Eval icon on OpenNT's Web site.

OpenNT
Contact: Softway Systems * 415-896-0708
Web: http://www.opennt.com
Price: Starts at $229 (workstation with X11R5 runtime)
System Requirements: Windows NT Server 3.51 or 4.0, or NT Workstation 3.51 or 4.0, 15MB to 75MB
of hard disk space

Source URL: https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/opennt

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