tripathy@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Dilip Tripathy) (08/22/90)
Help!! We are trying to communicate over an ethernet lan from a QNX box to an HP3000 running MPE/XL. We are trying to use tcp-ip. We have tried several commercial packages (CMC and FASTech) which provide Berkeley socket development tools. HP has told us that their NETIPC protocol will communicate with a socket. We have had no luck in doing this. We have been told from two different HP sources conflicting stories on compatibility between NETIPC and Berkeley sockets. One source says it will work, the other says it won't . If knowledgable person out there knows the truth on this matter your help would be GREATLY appreciated. Does, or doesn't, NETIPC speak Berkeley sockets? If so, what's the magic word that gets it to work? If not then are there alternative protocols we can consider? Any info is useful. Please help set us straight. Thanks, Dilip and Jeff The Gap Eastern Distribution Center 3434 Mineola Pike Erlanger, KY 41018
coolidge@speaker.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) (08/25/90)
In article <1793@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> tripathy@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Dilip Tripathy) writes: > > > > Help!! > > We are trying to communicate over an ethernet lan from a QNX > box to an HP3000 running MPE/XL. We are trying to use tcp-ip. > We have tried several commercial packages (CMC and FASTech) which > provide Berkeley socket development tools. HP has told us that > their NETIPC protocol will communicate with a socket. We have > had no luck in doing this. We have been told from two different > HP sources conflicting stories on compatibility between NETIPC > and Berkeley sockets. One source says it will work, the other > says it won't . If knowledgable person out there knows > the truth on this matter your help would be GREATLY appreciated. > Does, or doesn't, NETIPC speak Berkeley sockets? If so, what's > the magic word that gets it to work? If not then are there > alternative protocols we can consider? Any info is useful. Please > help set us straight. > > > Thanks, > > > Dilip and Jeff > The Gap Eastern Distribution Center > 3434 Mineola Pike > Erlanger, KY 41018 I tried to send you an email response to your email to me on this question; perhaps it didn't get through. I'm sure you'll get to see this one, though. NetIPC is not a protocol, it's an API, just like sockets. So, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the applications _and_their_protocol_stacks_ must talk peer-to-peer all the way up and down the stack. MPE/XL uses TCP/IP, which probably matches your QNX stack. However, the QNX uses Ethernet packet encapsulation. MPE/XL uses IEEE 802.3. Moreover, MPE/XL uses the HP-proprietary Probe protocol for IP address resolution; QNX probably uses ARP. Since the two machines don't share a common protocol stack all the way up and down, communication is impossible. IP addresses can never be resolved (each machine lacks the protocol the other uses to do so), and packet encapsulation will differ, anyway. There are three possible ways around this problem: 1) cisco Systems makes routers that speak Probe, ARP, 802.3, and Ethernet. You could use one of those boxes as a gateway between the 3000 and QNX. 2) HP's 9000 family (except the 500 series) can do the same thing. 3) MPE/XL is planning on releasing an Ethernet/ARP product soon. They may even already have done so. (MPE/V has had such a product for some time). Contact your HP rep to find out. Given common address resolution and packet encapsulation, applications using NetIPC can, and do, communicate perfectly well with peer applications using sockets. Such tests were always part of our compatibility testing when I worked at HP, and I'm sure it's still done. Within HP, FTP and Telnet are commonly used between 3000s and 9000s (Unix machines). But unless you match protocols all the way down, it won't work. - Don Coolidge