Re: Question about adding EBCDIC conversion function

[David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com>]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 05:41:14PM -0500, Tom Sellers wrote:
> I have a question about adding function to convert EBCDIC encoded
> data to ASCII...  Before my primary machine died this last weekend I
> was working on a NSE script to extract information from IBM DB2
> database instances in a manner similar to what we do now with MS SQL.
> Right now I can pull the server version, platform and database instance
> name using a IBM DB2 EXCSAT (Exchange server attributes) command.
> This is an IBM supported command that, from what I can tell, has no
> negative effects.  Wireshark's dissectors are absolutely invaluable when
> doing this..those guys are great.
>
> Anyway... its almost done, I should be able to submit it when I get my
> machine up and running again.
>
> Part of this script takes EBCDIC encoded hex values from the server
> response and returns the human readable ASCII values.  While the
> conversion code is not super robust it should be sufficient for the
> NSE script I am using it in.
>
> Would there be any value to adding this conversion ability to one of
> the existing libraries?  I expect us to see EBCDIC encoded data when
> dealing with big iron and certain classes of software, such as DB2.

I would say let's keep it in the script for now. If there's a greater
need for it in the future we'll know where to find it and we can move it
to a library in a backwards-compatible fashion.

David Fifield
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