[comp.dcom.lans] X.25 terminal/port servers out there?

jeh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (06/27/90)

We have an HP 9000/825 that we are about to connect to a
commercial database vendor via an X.25 link over a leased line.
HP doesn't sell a PAD card for this machine that we can use for
straight X.25 connections. For various reasons, including the
lack of expandability and the sheer ugliness of it, we don't like
the traditional solution of 16 async ports with 16 cables
connecting to an X.25 PAD.  Another one of the solutions that
I've thought of is to buy an inexpensive Unix machine that has an
inexpensive PAD available for it, but this adds up. 

What I'm really looking for is the X.25 equivalent of an Annex 
box that has an Ethernet port on one side and the appropriate 
synchronous serial port on the other, and can be used for dial in 
and dial out over an X.25 network.  Does such a thing exist?

I'll summarize if need be.

  --jh

-- 
John Hood, Mann Library, Cornell University  
jhood@albert.mannlib.cornell.edu

broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) (06/28/90)

In article <4355.26879a8d@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> jeh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>What I'm really looking for is the X.25 equivalent of an Annex 
>box that has an Ethernet port on one side and the appropriate 
>synchronous serial port on the other

Hmm.  Don't know if this will work, but there are HDLC cards for PCs...
could you do it with a PC, an ethernet card, an HDLC card and NOS?
You'd have to hack the code a bit, but the low-level stuff and the LAPB
stuff is already there.  (Don't know whether it handles X.25, or if it's
hardcoded for AX.25 only).  You could then write an application (using
Phil's socket routines) that provides a Telnet-to-outbound X.25 capability.
It would listen on the standard Telnet port, and when it gets a call it
opens an X.25 connection.

Dial-in would be similar; incoming sessions would act like telnet clients.

(Hmm... this might actually be useful around here, too).

If Phil is listening, he could probably tell you (us) whether it'll work or
not.  I'm not at all bothered by writing the upper layers myself, but digging
into the guts of LAPB might be a lot of work.

-- 
	Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept
	Mail: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu OR broehl@watserv1.UWaterloo.ca
	BangPath: {allegra,decvax,utzoo,clyde}!watmath!watserv1!broehl
	Voice:  (519) 747-5056 [home]  (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]

audit036@spacm1.uucp (--->D.L.) (06/28/90)

> In article <4355.26879a8d@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> jeh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>>What I'm really looking for is the X.25 equivalent of an Annex
>>box that has an Ethernet port on one side and the appropriate
>>synchronous serial port on the other
>
	DEC does have an X.25<>DECnet gateway, that O.K. ?
--
>>> between fact and fantasy there is a thin zone, the creative zone <<<-> D.L.

jqj@rt-jqj.Stanford.EDU (JQ Johnson) (06/29/90)

In article <4355.26879a8d@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> jeh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
writes:

>What I'm really looking for is the X.25 equivalent of an Annex
>box that has an Ethernet port on one side and the appropriate
>synchronous serial port on the other

Gandalf, Develcon, and cisco all make boxes that can act as a telnet/Ethernet
to PAD/X.25 gateway.  We have on order a cisco Protcol Translator to serve
this purpose.  Several vendors of Unix boxes, for instance SGI and Sun, sell
software and hardware to make the Unix box an X.25 gateway, including PAD <=>
telnet translation functions.

JQ Johnson                              voice: 415-723-3078
Manager, Special Projects               Internet: jqj@jessica.stanford.edu
Networking and Communications Systems
Pine Hall Rm 125-A 
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4122

mshiels@tmsoft.uucp (Michael A. Shiels) (06/29/90)

Even better you could use an Eicon X.25 card with NOS and have a telnet
server waiting to connect you to an X.25 session (and maybe emulate some sort
of a PAD) and also an X.25 server waiting to connect you to telnet sessions
again emulating some sort of a PAD.

Eicon is located in Montreal, Quebec.

PS: I already have a preliminary socket interface (hooked into NOS) for Eicon's
X.25 NABIOS (Netbios like) interface.