Specifications

OpenVMS VAX Operating System, Version 5.5-2 SPD 25.01.37
and reclaim space in an RMS file. Refer to the Operat-
ing System Environment section of this Software Prod-
uct Description (SPD) for more information on RMS.
File Differences utility — This utility compares the con-
tents of two files and lists those records that do not
match.
Terminal Fallback Facility (TFF) — This facility allows
Digital 7-bit terminals, such as the VT100, to input and
output the DEC Multinational Character Set (MCS). Spe-
cific tables allow conversion for a number of different
7-bit National Replacement Character sets, such as
French, German, Spanish, and Swedish, to MCS. TFF
also allows character composition on terminals that do
not have the compose key.
National Character Set (NCS) utility — This utility allows
users to define non-ASCII string collating sequences
and to define conversion functions. Conversion func-
tions use conversion algorithms to change an input
string, for example, to change lower case characters
to upper case. NCS also allows RMS indexed files to
be collated using user-specified collating sequences.
System Management Environment
VMS provides a variety of tools to aid the system man-
ager in configuring and maintaining an optimal system.
Some tools available for the system manager are:
Backup utility — This utility provides full volume and
incremental file backup for file-structured, mounted vol-
umes and volume sets. Individual files, selected direc-
tory structures, or all files on a volume set can be backed
up and restored. Files can be selected by various dates
(creation, modification, etc.). Files can be backed up to
magnetic tape, magnetic disk, or WORM (Write Once
Read Many) optical disk. With standalone backup, sys-
tem managers can back up and restore system disks.
Standalone backup can also be used during the instal-
lation of the VMS Operating System. The Backup utility
can be used to restore a saveset or list the contents of
a saveset.
Analyze disk structure utility — This utility compares the
structure information on a disk volume with the contents
of the disk, prints the structure information, and permits
changes to that information. It also can be used to repair
errors that are detected in the file structure of disks.
Monitor utility — This utility permits the system man-
ager to monitor different classes of system-wide perfor-
mance data including process activity, I/O activity, mem-
ory management activity, vector processing activity, and
two-phase commit transaction activity at specified inter-
vals. The data may be displayed as it is gathered or
saved in a file for later use.
License Management Facility (LMF) — This facility al-
lows the system manager to easily determine which soft-
ware products are licensed on a standalone VAX and
on each of the VAX systems in a VAXcluster System.
It allows the system manager to select which subset of
systems or users in a VAXcluster may use the software
products. LMF also provides an audit trail that allows
the system manager to track license changes that oc-
cur within a VAXcluster system. Refer to the VAXclus-
ter Support section for more information on VAXcluster
Systems.
VMS System Management (SYSMAN) utility — This
utility allows the system manager to define a system
management environment so that operations performed
from the local VAX system can be executed on all other
VAX systems in the defined environment. The environ-
ment may include VAX systems in a DECnet–VAX net-
work or in a VAXcluster System.
Operations — VMS enables varying levels of privilege to
be assigned to different operators. In addition, system
generated messages can be routed to different terminals
based on their interest to the console operators, tape li-
brarians, security administrators, and system managers.
Operators can use the VMS Help facility to get an online
description of VMS Error Messages.
Security and Control — VMS provides privilege, pro-
tection, and quota mechanisms to control user access
to system-controlled structures in physical memory, to
system-structured files and volumes, and to certain de-
vices.
User account information is maintained by the system
manager in the User Authorization File (UAF). When
creating user accounts with the Authorize utility, the sys-
tem manager assigns the privileges and quotas associ-
ated with each user account. The system manager also
assigns a unique user name, password, and user iden-
tification code (UIC) to each account. Optionally, addi-
tional identifiers can be assigned to each account, per-
mitting users to belong to multiple overlapping groups
or projects. Account use may be limited by time of day,
day of week, and type of access, such as local, remote,
or batch.
To log in and gain access to the system, the user must
supply the user name and password. The password
is encoded and does not appear on terminal displays.
Users can change their password voluntarily, or the sys-
tem manager can selectively enforce how frequently
passwords change, password length, and generation of
random alphabetic passwords.
Additionally, VMS provides several password filters that
screen all user password changes against a dictio-
nary of common passwords. This prevents users from
reusing passwords that they have used within the last
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