Adminisetera

General Information

Publisher

MicroSabio

6520 Platt Ave., #104

West Hills, CA 91307 USA

email: info@microsabio.com

Authors

Jack McGregor has been developing and documenting A-Shell since 1994, and his authorship continues through the date of this publication. Ty Griffin is responsible for editing, formatting, spilling and pulbishing.

Support

MicroSabio provides extraordinarily good support for A-Shell and its other software products.

The first place to go with a question is the A-Shell forum, also known as the "Bulletin Board" (BBS) and the "A-Shell Network." You can search the forum by keyword, quite possibly finding the answer(s) you need. If not, then post your question there; you have to create an account to post a question, but doing so is painless and free. Email us if you have any problems or questions about signing up. All of the forums are moderated by MicroSabio, which means that if another user or developer does not answer your inquiry, MicroSabio staff will.

The main MicroSabio web site contains a variety of documentation, utility, and other support pages and downloads.

If you are not getting satisfaction via these support avenues, send MicroSabio an email message with your question and it will be answered promptly.

MicroSabio provides free email support for A-Shell operational issues to anyone with a current maintenance contract, and also within the first 90 days of purchasing a license. If you are running a demo copy for evaluation purposes, you can obtain free support on the BBS. If you would like a free pre-sales consultation, please contact MicroSabio. Either of these avenues is also a good way to discuss or initiate a request for more advanced support than what we can provide for free, such as help with developing subroutines, custom enhancements to A-Shell, etc. We pride ourselves on providing a higher level of support than most other software developers with whom you may be familiar, so don't hesitate to take advantage of it.

Software History

Following is a table showing A-Shell versions and dates published. If you are trying to track down when some particular thing was introduced or changed, you might try searching the A-Shell History documentation available on our Downloads...Documentation page.

While Under Development			At Formal Release
	First Release			Final Release*
Version	Build	Date	Version	Build	Date
6.5	1600	April/May 2017
6.3	1500	November 2015	6.4	1545	March 2017
6.1	1300	Spring 2012	6.2	1421	Autumn 2015
5.1	1100	November 2007	6.0	1270	Autumn 2011
4.9	850	October 2003	5.0	997	Autumn 2007
4.7	796	February 2002	4.8	833	June 2003
4.5	652	November 1998	4.6	712	December 1999
4.2	507	August 1996
**	468	August 1995
4.0	463	August 1995
3.0	310	August 1993
2.0	134	June 1991
1.0	100	February 1990

* Bug fixes continue to be applied past the date of the "final" release.

** John Bown was the original developer of A-Shell, and continued through build 467. With build 468, Jack McGregor took over developer responsibilities.

Documentation History

In early 2002, a new documentation system and format was adopted, and version numbers for the documentation—as well as printed manuals—were abandoned. Between 2002 and 2010, documentation was published in the CHM format, with PDF and DOC (MS Word) files available on request. Since 2010, all A-Shell documentation has been online in a customized HTML format.

Documentation

Using This Document

The author of this help file says:

● Click on the little books or plus marks next to topics in the table of contents; this will expand/contract the listing of items under that heading.

● Use the Index and Search functions to quickly find topics of interest. See "Using Search" below.

● To copy the URL of the current page, copy from the address bar or click on the email icon at top of the document.

● Use "Previous" and "Next" buttons on the toolbar to go forward and backward through document. The browser's "back" button takes you to the page you last viewed, not to the previous page of the document you're viewing.

● To locate your position in a document after using search or index or links, click on "Content" and then look for the highlight. It may be necessary to scroll up/down through the table of contents.

Available Docs

All published documentation for A-Shell and related topics are listed at the MicroSabio website on the download...documents page. If that page doesn't answer your questions about what docs are available, or if you need historical docs or docs in unlisted formats, contact MicroSabio with your concerns.

Developer documentation—i.e., for more recent versions of A-Shell than have been formally released—may be available from other locations, which will be noted on the documents page.

Using Search

Along with the index, the search function provides the best way to find what you're looking for. The operators AND, OR, NOT, along with quotes, are supported and work as expected.

● Searching for quite useful, or quite and useful, will return all the pages that contain both of the words quite and useful.

● Searching for "quite useful" (with the quotes) will return the pages that contain the phrase quite useful.

● Searching for quite or useful will return all the pages that contain the word quite plus all the pages that contain the word useful.

● Searching for quite not useful, or quite and not useful, will return all the pages that contain the word quite and do not contain the word useful.

Note that many common words (this, that, the, to, for, it, them, etc.) are ignored by search unless they part of a quoted string. Also note that the case of the operators (AND, and) is not significant.

Other Tips

● To get the URL for the page you are currently viewing, copy it from the address bar of your browser or click on the little email icon Email on the right end of the tool bar.

● You can drag the border between the table of contents and the documentation body to create more room for one side or the other.

Updates

The A-Shell documentation is kept very up to date. Jack meticulously documents every change/addition/improvement to A-Shell, writes the text version of ashdevnotes, and posts it with new versions of the software. As mentioned above, you can always find the up-to-the-second release notes with the latest versions of A-Shell.

Usually within hours but no more than a day or two, Ty converts the text version of ashdevnotes into an HTML version, and posts it in the same place. All the new or changed material from ashdevnotes is incorporated immediately into the applicable manual(s) of the main A-Shell doc set, and those docs are immediately published and available.

To read the latest versions of any A-Shell documentation, simply go to the download...documents page and click on the doc that interests you.

Feedback

Just as A-Shell itself is a work in progress, so the documentation is constantly being tweaked, twiddled and improved. Ty works on the docs more or less continuously, and enthusiastically welcomes feedback of all types, particularly:

● identification of language mistakes (typos, misspellinggs, bad sentences, missing words, etc.)

● identification of "real" mistakes, namely saying something that isn't true

● suggestions for better explanations

● suggestions for index entries

If you have any comments, ideas, suggestions or other kinds of feedback, please post them in the "All Other A-Shell Topics" at the A-Shell forum or email them to us.

File Types

Although web-based HTML help files are recommended for most readers in most circumstances, other file formats may be applicable or needed in some situations. Sometimes, for historical reasons or by special request, the A-Shell documents may be available in other file formats. If you would like to get the documentation in a format you don’t see, it may be available on request. Continue reading for information about document formats and files types, and why you might prefer one or another.

Formats

icon_ie20 HTML (aka "Net Help"): These help files are standard web pages, with hyperlinks, tables of contents, linked indexes and search capabilities. They reside on the MicroSabio web servers, are always up to date, and require no downloading step; pages are downloaded on demand—and very quickly. As long as you have a good internet connection, this is the preferred format for help/documentation files.

icon_chm20 CHM (Compiled HTML, standard Windows help files): CHM files are compilations of HTML pages into a single document which includes all the features of the HTML documents. CHM files are downloaded to and accessed from your computer, and are the preferred help file format when you do not have a good internet connection. CHM files are opened using built-in components of Windows, so no additional programs are required to view them. If you are running Windows 98 or later, you have what you need in order to read CHM files. If you download them to your Windows computer and then double-click on them, they should be properly opened and displayed in the familiar help-file context. Important note: for security reasons and because they include "active content," CHM files may be blocked from displaying their contents properly by recent versions of Windows. To release the lock and have the files display properly, right click on the CHM file, select “Properties,” and then “unblock” the file.

icon_pdf20 PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format): Various A-Shell docs have been available as PDF files in the past, and may be available on request; inquire if you are interested. Files of this type consist of exact replicas of printed pages, just as they appear in a printed manual. If you plan to print a copy of the document, this is the best type of file to download. PDF files are not hypertext documents or pure help systems, but most documents (including all the PDF files on this site) come with an interactive table of contents. This file format and the program(s) needed to read these files are the property of Adobe Systems. If your computer does not already have a copy of Adobe® Acrobat®, which you will need in order to read the files, you may download a free copy from the Adobe Acrobat download page.

PDF Printing - Important note: If you intend to print the PDF documents, be sure that your printer is configured to interpret colors as either black or white; if the printer tries to interpret colors as shades of gray, all the color printing in the document will appear as gray—i.e., light and not very readable black. A-Shell help files do not use a lot of color, but they use some for text formatting and screenshots. On pure black and white printers, configured as black and white printers, the colored material prints fine.

icon_txt20 TXT: Text files are universally readable by all computers and all operating systems, so you can download or display them regardless of your system. They do not contain any organizational or text formatting, however, and are therefore the most difficult file type to read.

icon_word20 DOC: This is the native file format of Microsoft Word, and is the original source of most MicroSabio documentation files. We write the docs in Word, in other words, and translate into all the other formats with various types of conversion and authoring programs. So all of the documents are readily available in Word format, either .doc or .docx; if you want them, just ask.

Printing

HTML and CHM files are not particularly well-suited for printing. They are fine if you want to print a few pages or even a full section, but not if you want to print an entire doc/manual for reading and reference. The best format for printing is PDF. If you wish to print the docs, therefore, make sure to get a PDF version of the doc(s) you want to print. If you don’t see them here, contact MicroSabio and ask about a PDF for the doc in question.

CHM Files

CHM files have largely been superseded by HTML in the A-Shell library. CHM files were the best choice in days of limited internet access—and still are the best choice when the internet is not available. Here is some general information on CHM files.

Background Information

● Compiled HTML help ("CHM") is a proprietary format for help files developed by Microsoft. It was first used in 1997 (Win98) as a successor to the even-older WinHelp format, and is still supported through Windows XP, Vista, Win7 and Win8. Microsoft no longer creates CHM files for its own documentation and has moved on to a new format, but CHM will likely be supported for a long time.

● CHM files consist of individual web pages plus a hyperlinked table of contents. The resulting file is compressed using LZX compression, making CHM files rather efficient and relatively small.

● CHM files are created using a free tool from Microsoft called "HMTL Workshop." Many additional tools for creating CHM files, as well as other help-file formats, are on the market. They are collectively known as "help authoring" tools or systems. The help file you're reading right now was created by a combination of Microsoft Word and a help-authoring tool called "Doc to Help."

● CHM files contain "active content"--i.e., the files are executable—and therefore are frequently perceived as being security risks. Gmail, for example, blocks CHM files.

● For more information, see the Wikipedia entry for CHM files (from which some of the above facts were taken).

Problems and Solutions

● For security reasons, CHM files will normally not be displayed properly or at all when you are trying to access them from network drives or remote servers. It is possible to change your security settings to accommodate such files, but the easier solution is just to move the CHM file(s) to a local drive.

● CHM files will not work if their path or filename includes the pound (aka hash) character '#'. The hash character signifies an anchor in HTML so the CHM viewer fails to resolve the path properly and to retrieve the content. If this is your situation, move the file to a path that does not have a hash character in its name. In general, avoid using '#', '?', '&', '+', and other special characters in directory names.

● When you click on an external link inside a CHM file, the web page is opened with Internet Explorer and not with your computer's default browser. Why? Since the CHM viewer itself is a component of IE, or *is* IE operating in some special mode, the program does not issue a conventional call to the PC to use the default browser. Instead, since IE is already running and available, IE simply "tells itself" (?!!) to open the external page. There is no work-around to this "problem."

● Windows (XP/Vista/Seven) security provisions may prevent CHM files from opening. If you get a "cannot display" message in the right pane of the display window, this may be the problem. Solution: right-click on the CHM file and select Properties from the popup menu. Click on the Unblock button immediately below the Advanced button on the General page, then click Apply. Once the CHM file has been unblocked, the Unblock button disappears, and you need only do this once—i.e., not every time you open the file.

● If the ideas and suggestions mentioned above do not resolve your problems opening CHM files, you might want to do a web search for "MJ's Help Diagnostics." This is a program that checks to see if the Windows programs and components needed to display CHMs are properly and completely installed on your (Windows) computer.

Legal Notices

This documentation and the software it describes contain proprietary information belonging to MicroSabio, a California proprietorship owned entirely by Jack McGregor. The software and this related information is provided under the terms of the REF _Ref292099695 \h MicroSabio License Agreement 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000E0000005F005200650066003200390032003000390039003600390035000000 , which contains restrictions on use and disclosure, and is protected by copyright law. This information is confidential between MicroSabio and the client, and remains the exclusive property of MicroSabio.

Due to continued product development, the information contained herein may change without notice. It is believed to be accurate and reliable, at least at the time of its writing. However, no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or use of this information is assumed by MicroSabio. If you find any problems in the documentation, please report them to the publisher.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the expressed or licensed permission of MicroSabio.

Acknowledgments

LibXL: Licensed from XLWare.

Trademarks

MicroSabio, A-Shell, INMEMO, INFLD and EZ-SPOOL are trademarks of Jack McGregor.

AIX and Informix are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.

Alpha Micro, AMOS, and AlphaBASIC are registered trademarks of Alpha Micro Products, Inc.

HP-UX is a trademark of the Hewlett-Packard Company.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

OpenSSL is a trademark of the OpenSSL Project. See REF _Ref292099588 \h \* MERGEFORMAT OpenSSL Project License 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000E0000005F005200650066003200390032003000390039003500380038000000 .

Red Hat is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

ZTERM is a trademark of Rod Hewitt at Cool.stf.

All other products, services, companies, events and publications are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

MicroSabio License Agreement

This is a legal agreement between you, acting as an individual on your own behalf or as an authorized agent for your organization, and MicroSabio. By installing the software on your computer(s) or by using the software product for which this license was issued, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this agreement. If for any reason you do not agree to the terms of the Software License, delete all relevant files from your computer(s) and return all related physical items (disks, license forms, documentation, etc.) to the point of purchase within 30 days for a full refund.

Software License

Grant of License—Single Computer: MicroSabio grants to you the right to use the accompanying software product ("Software") on a single computer. You may not network the software or otherwise use it on more than one computer.

Grant of License—Multiple Computers: MicroSabio grants to you the right to use the software on the specific number of computers for which the software has been licensed. You may not use the software on more than the specified number of computers.

Grant of License—Multiple Users: MicroSabio grants to you the right to use the software on one or more computers but only for the specific number of users for which the software has been licensed.

Copyright. The software is owned by MicroSabio or its suppliers and is protected by United States copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the software like any other copyrighted material (e.g., a book or musical recording) except that you may either (a) make one copy of the software solely for backup or archive purposes, or (b) transfer the software to a single hard disk provided you keep the original solely for backup or archive purposes.

Other Restrictions. You may not rent, loan, sell or otherwise transfer the software to anyone else unless (a) you permanently transfer all copies in your possession, and (b) the recipient agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may not decompile, translate, reverse engineer or disassemble the software.

Limited Warranty. MicroSabio warrants that the software will perform substantially in accordance with its accompanying written materials and published specifications, when properly installed on a properly configured computer for which it is intended, for a period of 90 days from the date of receipt.

Customer Remedies. MicroSabio's, its suppliers' and its distributors' entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, at MicroSabio's option, either (a) return of the price paid or (b) replacement of the software which is returned to the point of purchase with your receipt. This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the software has resulted from accident, abuse or misapplication. Any replacement software will be warranted for the remainder of the original warranty period or 30 days, whichever is longer.

Limitation of Warranty. MicroSabio, its suppliers and its distributors disclaim all other warranties, expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, any implied warranty of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall MicroSabio. its suppliers or its distributors be liable for any consequential damages whatsoever arising out of the use of or inability to use this product, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of California. If you have any questions regarding the license agreement, the limited warranty or any other matters, please write to MicroSabio at the address provided on the "Contact" page of the MicroSabio web site.

OpenSSL Project License

OpenSSL is used in A-Shell by both the ATE SSH2 transport and TCPX.SBR when the TLS or STARTTLS options are used.

The OpenSSL toolkit stays under a dual license, i.e. both the conditions of the OpenSSL License and the original REF _Ref292029163 \h SSLeay License 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000E0000005F005200650066003200390032003000320039003100360033000000 apply to the toolkit. See below for the actual license texts. Actually both licenses are BSD-style Open Source licenses. In case of any license issues related to OpenSSL please contact openssl-core@openssl.org.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgment: "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)"

4. The names "OpenSSL Toolkit" and "OpenSSL Project" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact openssl-core@openssl.org.

5. Products derived from this software may not be called "OpenSSL" nor may "OpenSSL" appear in their names without prior written permission of the OpenSSL Project.

6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following acknowledgment: "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/)"

This software is provided by the openssl project "as is"' and any expressed or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the opensll project or its contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com). This product includes software written by Tim Hudson (tjh@cryptsoft.com).

SSLeay License

SSLeay is a component of OpenSSL and is used in A-Shell by the ATE SSH2 transport .

This package is an SSL implementation written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com).

The implementation was written so as to conform with Netscape's SSL.

This library is free for commercial and non-commercial use as long as the following conditions are adhered to. The following conditions apply to all code found in this distribution, be it the RC4, RSA, lhash, DES, etc., code; not just the SSL code. The SSL documentation included with this distribution is covered by the same copyright terms except that the holder is Tim Hudson (tjh@cryptsoft.com).

Copyright remains Eric Young's, and as such any Copyright notices in the code are not to be removed. If this package is used in a product, Eric Young should be given attribution as the author of the parts of the library used. This can be in the form of a textual message at program startup or in documentation (online or textual) provided with the package.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: "This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com)." The word 'cryptographic' can be left out if the routines from the library being used are not cryptographic related.

4. If you include any Windows specific code (or a derivative thereof) from the apps directory (application code) you must include an acknowledgement: "This product includes software written by Tim Hudson (tjh@cryptsoft.com)"

This software is provided by eric young "as is'' and the author disclaims any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the author or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

The license and distribution terms for any publically available version or derivative of this code cannot be changed—i.e., this code cannot simply be copied and put under another distribution license (including the GNU Public License).

DYNCALL Library License

The DYNCALL library provides the basis for the A-Shell subroutine "DYNLIB.SBR."

Contact: <dadler AT uni-goettingen DOT de>; <tphilipp AT potion-studios DOT com>

Web resources: http://www.dyncall.org/license

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

The software is provided "as is" and the author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, direct, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.

LIBSSH3 Library License

The LIBSSH3 library is used by A-Shell's "libashtls," which is used in turn by TCPX if the TCPXFLG_TLS flag is set.

Web resources: https://libssh2.org/

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

• Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of any other contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

This software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the copyright owner or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

GnuTLS Library

The GnuTLS library is used by A-Shell's "ashnet2," which provides SSH2 support to ATE.

Web resources: https://libssh2.org/

The library is licensed for use and distribution under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.