Banyan VINES resurrection
Banyan VINES was a network operating system developed by Banyan Systems for computers running on top of AT&T's UNIX System V. It was used mainly in large corporate networks, with support for wide-area networking, using static and transient dial-up links. Some networks had hundreds of servers, if not more.
The underlying protocol was VINES IP, a protocol similar to Xerox's XNS. TCP/IP was also supported for client workstations in later versions.
Most servers were under support contracts and the software allowed for a fully-remote-managed network. They used this a lot since the underlying UNIX is restricted from system administrators. Banyan could access it to help you, if you paid them for every hour on a support call. The software was protected with a dongle known as a server key - these were used to ensure that each server had a unique serial number, as the serial number was used to generate each server's VINES IP address.
At the heart of VINES was StreetTalk, a directory service. All StreetTalk objects possessed a three part StreetTalk name, in the format Item@Group@Organisations. There were essentially four different classes of StreetTalk objects - Users, Services, Lists and Nicknames. Lists contained one or more StreetTalk names, and could include other Lists. Nicknames were aliases, and could be in a different group or organisation to the target item.
Each group had a list entitled AdminList@Group@Org which contained the administrators for that group. There was also a special organisation named Servers - each server would have it's own group named ServerName@Servers, with AdminList@Servername@Servers containing the adminstrators of that server.
Early versions of VINES were released only for Banyan's own 680x0 based server platforms, the BNS (Banyan Network Server) and the DTS (Desktop Server). There were later ports for PC hardware, and Banyan also produced an Intel based server named the CNS.
Installing Server
Installing Clients
Security
root passwords for a few version leaked:
| Version | Password | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 8.XX | <unkown> | |
| 7.XX | 7thHeaven | not sure of case |
| 6.XX | disisdaONE! | |
| 5.5X | YamIhere | |
| 5.00 | Rain4Est | |
| 4.11 | upyourREV | |
| 4.10 | StorminNormin | Norman Schwartskorf - Gulf War |
| 4.00 | vivelaVINES | |
| 3.10 | logrhythm | spelled incorrectly on purpose |
| 3.01 | nobozos | |
| 3.00 | pandorasbox | |
| 3.00 Beta | makethenumbers | |
| 2.10 | havingfun | |
| 1.31 | springfever |
Other known passwords:
- Low Level format: goforit
- Previous Low Level format: format