PCjr Telnet Server Test

[Jules Richardson]

Michael B. Brutman wrote:
> Jules Richardson wrote:
>> Re. testing, is there any way to write something that runs on remote 
>> systems and just hammers the network stack / telnet interface on the 
>> PCjr, or does nothing like that exist already? It seems like so many 
>> TCP/IP stacks have been written for various machines over the years 
>> that it surprises me nobody's come up with a solution for automating 
>> some of the testing.
> 
> Testing exercises what the test writer expects to break.  I've tested 
> quite extensively already, but every once in a while I need to get 
> outside help to try to break things in new and exciting ways.

Sure - I suppose I've just surprised that there isn't already something in the 
public domain that can't flood a system, generate bogus/corrupt packets etc. 
in order to test a stack out; it still wouldn't catch all bugs of course, but 
might give a faster response to most problems than asking the list.

> Btw, everybody must have testing fatigue ..  We're only up to about 50 
> connections since I fixed the suspected bug and restarted things.  Feel 
> free to telnet back in again with whatever you've got handy ...

I'm recovering from Saturday night... :)

Anyway, on the telnet interface side it'd be nice if the system kept track of 
nicks and didn't allow a nick that was already in use, and if messages could 
be sent to a nick rather than a session number (similarly if received messages 
showed the nick that sent them, rather than the session number). But that's 
all "UI stuff" rather than fundamental issues with the server itself...

I did try breaking it by sending huge amounts of data or odd control sequences 
and so far it seems to be holding up well.

> I'm seeing lots of what look like Windows clients and Xterms (Linux or 
> Putty probably).

Yeah, telnetting from a GUI shell in linux gives me a type of 'xterm', but 
telnetting outside of X just shows a type of 'linux'.

Oh, what is the deal with backspace/delete? Backspace does nothing, whilst 
delete echos some form of control code to the screen. ctrl-H seems to work as 
the erase character, though (and genuinely does erase from the string that 
gets sent to the server upon <return>).  Is the PCjr doing something 
non-standard with the handling of such keys, or is it just that other telnet 
servers generally hack such keypress processing to accommodate modern clients?

cheers

Jules