Hey y'all,

Just wanted to post it here as don't know where else would be better, I managed to get the kermit protocol running in Mystic (I know this isn't a mystic channel) and really would love it if syncterm could handle the kermit protocol.

Is there any way in it's current form there's an ability to use like an external protocol with syncterm? or if not, what are the chances kermit could get added to a future release of syncterm?

After using it for a little while with qodem, I realise that the transfer speeds in kermit are a lot, and I mean a LOT faster than zmodem for example, and think we could all benefit from having that as an option on BBSes that support kermit.

Just my thoughts for the day, lemme know if you think it's a good idea or not, and if there's a way for me to use kermit currently with syncterm.

Thanks for listening =)

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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: Christian Sacks to All on Mon Aug 14 2023 11:47 am

Hey y'all,

Just wanted to post it here as don't know where else would be better, I managed to get the kermit protocol running in Mystic (I know this isn't a mystic channel) and really would love it if syncterm could handle the kermit protocol.

Is there any way in it's current form there's an ability to use like an external protocol with syncterm? or if not, what are the chances kermit could get added to a future release of syncterm?

After using it for a little while with qodem, I realise that the transfer speeds in kermit are a lot, and I mean a LOT faster than zmodem for example, and think we could all benefit from having that as an option on BBSes that support kermit.

Just my thoughts for the day, lemme know if you think it's a good idea or not, and if there's a way for me to use kermit currently with syncterm.

Thanks for listening =)

The place to make SyncTERM feature requests is here: https://sourceforge.net/p/syncterm/feature-requests/

Most likely, any *significant* performance differences you're observing between Kermit and ZMODEM would be in the protocol driver/implementation (e.g. in Qodem) and not the protocol itself.

The ZMODEM protocol also has a lot of options that can impact through-put (e.g. windowing or not, window size, encoding/escaping of characters).

If you want the lowest overhead protocol, use YMODEM-G. It doesn't have all the same features of ZMODEM (or Kermit), but has the lowest amount of protocol overhead of all of them (besides plain TCP, e.g. FTP).
--
digital man (rob)

Sling Blade quote #24:
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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: Christian Sacks to All on Mon Aug 14 2023 11:47 am

managed to get the kermit protocol running in Mystic (I know this isn't a mystic channel) and really would love it if syncterm could handle the kermit protocol.

Is there any way in it's current form there's an ability to use like an external protocol with syncterm? or if not, what are the chances kermit could get added to a future release of syncterm?

After using it for a little while with qodem, I realise that the transfer

speaking of qodem, using it on your bbs gives it an issue where the cursor is at the wrong area on your login matrix.
---
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On 17 Aug 2023, Ryan Fantus said the following...

Any chance you can share how you got it working? And is it in Windows or linux?

It was in Linux, and I posted how to do this in the MYSTIC message base, but here's a TLDR;

Install gkermit from the usual repo, for ubuntu/debian `sudo apt install gkermit

Create a wrapper script called /mystic/kermit_batch.sh, the contents of which should be;

#!/usr/bin/env bash
FILELIST="$1"
FILES=$(cat $FILELIST|tr '\n' ' ')
if [[ "$(basename $FILELIST)" == "file.lst" ]]; then
for FILE in $FILES; do
echo "Sending file: $FILE"
/usr/bin/gkermit -d /tmp/kermit-send.log -Xis $FILE
done
else
echo "Sending file: $FILELIST"
/usr/bin/gkermit -d /tmp/kermit-send.log -Xis $FILELIST
fi
rm $FILELIST

Finally in the Mystic configuration ediror, goto "Editors -> Protocol Editor" Create a new protocol called "Kermit" or whatever you want...

ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ Protocol Editor: Kermit ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»
º º
º Active ³ Yes º
º OS ³ All º
º Batch ³ Yes º
º Hot Key ³ K º
º Description ³ Kermit º
º Send Command ³ /mystic/kermit_batch.sh %3 º
º Recv Command ³ /usr/bin/gkermit -d /tmp/kermit-recv.log -Xir º
º º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ

That's about the nuts and bolts of it.

Hope it helps =)

... There are two types of people; those who finish what they start and

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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: Christian Sacks to Ryan Fantus on Thu Aug 17 2023 02:43 pm

On 17 Aug 2023, Ryan Fantus said the following...

Any chance you can share how you got it working? And is it in Windows or linux?

It was in Linux, and I posted how to do this in the MYSTIC message base, but here's a TLDR;

Install gkermit from the usual repo, for ubuntu/debian `sudo apt install gkermit

Create a wrapper script called /mystic/kermit_batch.sh, the contents of

I havent used kermit since 1998 or something. I'm pretty sure it had problems with error correction and the speed wasn't great.

did you try ymodem G ilke dm suggested? you might be happier with it.
---
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On 17 Aug 2023, Digital Man said the following...

And how fast is that? Is possible that the Qodem Zmodem implementation
is just slower than its Kermit implementation?

Using Zmodem I'm getting about 850,000 cps or about 106KB/s (if my conversion is correct) locally using SyncTERM
Using Kermit I'm getting about 25,900,000 cps or about 3237KB/s (or 3.237MB/s) locally using qodem

Both were downloading the same 45MB file from my BBS.

The suggestion was to try Ymodem-G. Ymodem should normally be much
slower than Zmodem over any kind of decent transport due to its ack/nak nature.

Ymodem-G either is broken in mystic or SyncTERM and Mystic don't play well as it just locks up the terminal and doesn't do
anything until I force hang up. Ymodem (non -G) is ~same as Zmodem, maybe a little slower.

I just tried Regular Ymodem again and now that seems to be borking up too... hmm, might need to restart mystic maybe.

... Some people have no idea what they're doing, and are really good at it!

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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: MRO to Christian Sacks on Thu Aug 17 2023 06:09 pm

I havent used kermit since 1998 or something. I'm pretty sure it had problems with error correction and the speed wasn't great.

did you try ymodem G ilke dm suggested? you might be happier with it.

Same experience here, although it might be easier these days to not worry as much about error correction with the speeds we have now?

---TLM

---
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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: Christian Sacks to Digital Man on Fri Aug 18 2023 10:42 am

On 17 Aug 2023, Digital Man said the following...

And how fast is that? Is possible that the Qodem Zmodem implementation is just slower than its Kermit implementation?

Using Zmodem I'm getting about 850,000 cps or about 106KB/s (if my conversion is correct) locally using SyncTERM
Using Kermit I'm getting about 25,900,000 cps or about 3237KB/s (or 3.237MB/s) locally using qodem

Both were downloading the same 45MB file from my BBS.

The suggestion was to try Ymodem-G. Ymodem should normally be much slower than Zmodem over any kind of decent transport due to its ack/nak nature.

Ymodem-G either is broken in mystic or SyncTERM and Mystic don't play well as it just locks up the terminal and doesn't do
anything until I force hang up. Ymodem (non -G) is ~same as Zmodem, maybe a little slower.

I just tried Regular Ymodem again and now that seems to be borking up too... hmm, might need to restart mystic maybe.

Maybe test with a different BBS software or different protocol driver on the BBS side?

Ymodem-G has almost 0 overhead, so (without compression or other cheats), it's really not possible for Kermit (the protocol) to be faster than Ymodem-G. And Zmodem is only a little slower than Ymodem-G.

So any major speed difference you're seeing (and reporting here) are due to the *implementation* of the protocol on either the sending or receiving side, and not the protocol itself.
--
digital man (rob)

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #24:
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Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: The Lizard Master to MRO on Fri Aug 18 2023 08:31 am

Re: kermit protocol in syncterm
By: MRO to Christian Sacks on Thu Aug 17 2023 06:09 pm

I havent used kermit since 1998 or something. I'm pretty sure it had problems with error correction and the speed wasn't great.

did you try ymodem G ilke dm suggested? you might be happier with it.

Same experience here, although it might be easier these days to not worry as much about error correction with the speeds we have now?

yeah but if you get bad packets how is that going to do you any good.
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