oliver@fire.berkeley.edu (Oliver Sharp) (05/03/91)
I am faced with a very simple networking problem, but I haven't had much
experience with the hardware side of things. I'd be grateful for a little
advice about how to get things going.
The problem: I have an HP 300 workstation with an empty Ethernet plug on
the back. The plug is a DB-15 or DB-16 or whatever the standard thing is -
it plugs right into a normal Ethernet network. I also have an ISA
based PC machine, and the goal is to have the two of them talk to each other
quickly. It would also be nice to have the PC act as a convenient print
server (it is hooked to a laser printer), but it's ok if the PC has to sit
in a busy loop and wait for print jobs.
Now for the questions:
1) I have to get an Ethernet board for the PC. There are several, but I
don't imagine that it matters too much which one I get. Western Digital
is a standard one and I can't go wrong if I get it, right?
2) I need to cable the two together. PC Ethernet cards have either or both
of two ports, the DB-whatever and BNC, right? Which of the following
configurations makes sense:
- put a DBxx -> BNC transceiver on the HP and connect the BNC to the BNC
on the PC card, with terminators on both ends.
- put a DBxx -> DBxx cable from the HP to the PC, no transceivers necessary
PC cards have transcievers in them, but does the HP? I thought so, but one
person I talked to said I would need to get one. Can't I just get a PC card
with the right connector and cable them together?
3) I need some software for the PC. The HP is running 4.3 Reno,
so it has all the NFS and TCP/IP stuff. I seem to have a choice between
TCP/IP and NFS. Is PC-NFS reliable? It seems the best choice from the
perspective of convenience ... just copy ... but maybe there is a reason to
go with TCP/IP. There is a PD version of TCP/IP - how is it? FTP Software
makes a TCP/IP; is it quicker/better/more reliable? Which is faster? I'd mostly
be using the link to transfer files for printing, and for backup. I won't
be running PC programs on UNIX data or vice versa.
4) Print server stuff: how does this work? Do I write a script on the PC
that polls for jobs and have the workstation zap the files over in the
background? Is that possible without a multi-tasker? i.e. does NFS sit
in the background as a TSR and write files when NFS requests come? This
seems a bit dangerous. The two systems are on the same desk, so I could
do it manually, but it would be nicer not to.
That's a lot of questions :-). If you can answer any of them, I'd appreciate
the info. I'd prefer emailed responses, since many of these questions are
pretty basic stuff and I don't want to waste net bandwidth on them. I will
summarize in a week or so.
Thanks!
- Oliver