Vince.Fuller@C.CS.CMU.EDU.UUCP (01/28/87)
I suppose I should send this here as well, in an effort to quench all of
the rumors floating around...
--Vince
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Received: ID <VAF@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 15 Jan 87 16:43:37-EST
Date: Thu 15 Jan 87 16:43:37-EST
From: Vince.Fuller@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Status of CMU/Tektronix TCP/IP
To: TEKTCP%KLA.WESLYN%WESLEYAN.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
cc: VAF@C.CS.CMU.EDU, MOORE@PS1.CS.CMU.EDU
Message-ID: <12271197955.34.VAF@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
This message is to report the current status of work at CMU on the Tektronix
TCP/IP system for VAX/VMS. As many people have no doubt heard by now, people
at the CMU Computer Science Department (in particular, myself and Dale Moore)
have been doing extensive work on the Tektronix TCP/IP software - to the point
of rewriting a great deal, if not most, of it. At this point, we believe that
we have a stable enough system that we are willing to share it with others.
The phrase "willing to share" should be emphasized here - this is not a product
announcement and we are making no claims, guarentees, or support agreements.
Note that due to the nature of the license agreement between CMU and Tektronix,
our software can only be made available to sites that already have a license
from Tektronix.
Some of the changes and enhancements that we have made include:
- Complete rewrite of all user programs - the originals were pretty
much unusuable. We have also implemented new programs to support SMTP
and FINGER service.
- Extensive rewriting to fix bugs and improve performance in the ACP
and device driver. We have achieved about a factor of 10 improvement
in performance for FTP data transfers and believe that we have fixed
all bugs mentioned on the TEKTCP mailing list (among many others). It
should be noted that incompatable changes have been made both in the
$QIO and the device driver interfaces.
- Support for the NIC format host table.
- Support for IP gateways connecting the local network to external
networks such as the ARPANET.
- Support for multi-homed hosts, and allocation of IP addresses on a
per-interface basis. Support for IP-layer loopback.
- General purpose interface for name/address translation with support
for the CMU domain naming system. It should be noted that this is
incompatable with the standard Internet domain naming system, which
is not supported in the CMU software.
- Support for the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) in a manner which
can be generalized to any device interface.
- Support for Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) and the User
Datagram Protocol (UDP). New interfaces in the IP device driver exist
to facilitate user access to UDP.
- "Bulletproofing" and debugging of the DEUNA/DEQNA device driver to
work around bugs in older DEQNA's and fix initialization problems.
It should be noted that the CMU system supports only the DEUNA/DEQNA
since no other devices were available to us for testing. Addition of
other devices should be straightforward, however.
- Extensive changes to logging code to facilitate debugging.
- Use VMS message facility for error reporting.
- Additional changes as detailed in the modification history.
Any site interested in obtaining the CMU software first need to send us a
photocopy of the Tektronix licence agreement. When we have received that, we
will send back a CMU licence agreement which should be signed and returned to
us along with a tape and self-addresses, stamped envelope. All correspondence
should be made to:
Dale Moore
Computer Science Department
Carnegie-Mellon University
Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Note that this address may be subject to change, at which point the new address
will be posted to this mailing list.
Vince Fuller
CMU Computer Science Facilities
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