harmon@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Bruce Harmon) (03/21/90)
I may be interested in making the transition from Wollongong's TCP/IP (VMS hosted) to the new DEC product. I also need two-way NFS support VMS to/from a non-DEC Unix platform. Does anyone out there have any experience with the new DEC TCP/IP product that he/she would like to share. Areas of particular interest are the use of sockets, ftp, and NFS. Performance and price relative to the Wollongong product would be interesting.
simon@ucs.Adelaide.EDU.AU (Simon Hackett) (03/22/90)
In article <8240001@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM>, harmon@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Bruce Harmon) writes: |> |> |> I may be interested in making the transition from Wollongong's |> TCP/IP (VMS hosted) to the new DEC product. I also need two-way |> NFS support VMS to/from a non-DEC Unix platform. Does anyone |> out there have any experience with the new DEC TCP/IP product |> that he/she would like to share. |> You really should check out Multinet TCP/IP from TGV Inc. Its the best TCP/IP for VMS I have ever seen. They have both client and server NFS available, and I don't know of any other implenetation of client NFS for vax/vms _at all_. Certainly the DEC product doesn't do it. Multinet also does just so much more it's amazing (makes Wollongong software pale in comparison). Try sending some mail to vance@tgv.com for more info. (p.s. No business relationship to them, I'm merely a (very) satisfied customer) Simon Hackett {----------------------------------------------------------------------------} { Simon Hackett, Communications/Systems, University of Adelaide, Australia } { E-mail: simon@ucs.adelaide.edu.au } { Phone: (Australia) 08 228 5669 Fax: (Australia) 08 223 6245 } { "Unix is a registered bell of AT&T trademark laboratories." } {----------------------------------------------------------------------------}
evans@testmax.zk3.dec.com (Marc Evans Ultrix Q/A) (03/23/90)
In article <8240001@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM>, harmon@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Bruce Harmon) writes: > > > I may be interested in making the transition from Wollongong's > TCP/IP (VMS hosted) to the new DEC product. I also need two-way > NFS support VMS to/from a non-DEC Unix platform. Does anyone > out there have any experience with the new DEC TCP/IP product > that he/she would like to share. > > Areas of particular interest are the use of sockets, ftp, and NFS. > Performance and price relative to the Wollongong product would > be interesting. I use the product within DEC. I have used the Wollongong product in the past. I prefer the DEC product. The socket implementation is what is used for providing the TCP/IP transport for the DECwindows VMS implementation. So, You can assume that the AF_INTERNET transport has been very well exercised. It all works like you would hope it would, just as Berkley designed it. The ftp program is very simular to other ftp implementations, probably because the RFC doesn't leave much room for interpretation. You won't be loosing anything by using the DEC flavor. NFS under VMS works reasonably. There are a few gotchas, especially if you are trying to use it in a mixed access (VMS/*ix) environment. In this case, file names and other nits need to use the most common method. There is however a mode which if you are only using *ix will eliminate many of these gotchas. I suggest the change, if for no other reason that the third party products will likely break when DECnet phase V becomes available (I can't really say anything more). - Marc (An unbiased contract software hacker) =========================================================================== Marc Evans - WB1GRH - evans@decvax.DEC.COM | Synergytics (603)635-8876 Unix/X-window Software Contractor | 21 Hinds Ln, Pelham, NH 03076 ===========================================================================
eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding) (03/24/90)
In a recent article evans@decvax.DEC.COM wrote: >In article <8240001@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM>, harmon@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Bruce >Harmon) writes: >> I may be interested in making the transition from Wollongong's >> TCP/IP (VMS hosted) to the new DEC product. I also need two-way >> NFS support VMS to/from a non-DEC Unix platform. >> be interesting. >NFS under VMS works reasonably. There are a few gotchas, especially if you are >trying to use it in a mixed access (VMS/*ix) environment. In this case, file >names and other nits need to use the most common method. >- Marc (An unbiased contract software hacker) We have been using the DEC VMS/Ultrix connection to do NFS serving of disks from our VAXcluster to a DECstation. It works very well. Unfortunately the present version (1.2) does *not* allow a VMS machine to be a NFS client, so it is a one-way only system (unless Marc has a newer version that works both ways and can't tell us because of non-disclosure agreements). The two problems that we have xD encountered are that the NFS$SERVER process likes to grab about 6000 pages of physical memory which is a lot on a server with not too much memory, and the other is the almost infinite variety of VMS file types that are not very readable xD under U*ix. Usually we have to use FTP to transfer the files to U*ix and do the file format conversion. VMS especially C has no problem reading the 'Stream_LF' files from the shared disks. The VMS editors seem pretty happy too. ++Eric FIelding
sdowdy@ariel.unm.edu (Stephen Dowdy) (03/24/90)
In article <6922@decvax.dec.com> evans@decvax.DEC.COM writes: )In article <8240001@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM>, harmon@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Bruce )Harmon) writes: )> ... )> Areas of particular interest are the use of sockets, ftp, and NFS. )> Performance and price relative to the Wollongong product would )> be interesting. ) )I use the product within DEC. I have used the Wollongong product in the past. )I prefer the DEC product. )... )The ftp program is very simular to other ftp implementations, probably because )the RFC doesn't leave much room for interpretation. You won't be loosing )anything by using the DEC flavor. FTP under UCX is less than perfect. there is no MGET/MPUT facility. (This i would consider a MAJOR drawback) Also, i have had problems getting UCX FTP to talk to CMU FTP. I am not willing to say who's at fault here, since i really don't know. UCX FTP to anything else works fine, Anything else to CMU works fine. It is only UCX client/ CMU server (Ftp) that is flaky. (Symptom: Nothing completes, including DIR, It hangs at the end) )I suggest the change, if for no other reason that the third party products will )likely break when DECnet phase V becomes available (I can't really say )anything more). ) )- Marc (An unbiased contract software hacker) (Does the above statement seem to imply proprietary hooks? Hardware LMF in the Ethernet board to disallow other vendor software?... EEEKK) Anyway, i was a CMU site until V1.2 UCX, where Telnet was supplied. Since i am on ESL, and UCX is thusly "free", i went with it, since almost all of our tcp/ip needs are TELNET oriented. UCX Telnet has freed up A LOT of cpu cycles (CMU Overhead) and runs pretty well. (i found a bug in the Rlogin/Telnet server that crashes the machine, but Alex Conta at DEC helped debug it, and there is a patch now available) There are quite a number of bugs/misfeatures in UCX V1.2, and it is the least functional TCP/IP product available. However, for us it is "free" and runs pretty efficiently. If you have money, the way i hear it, Multinet is the most efficient and feature-ful product. I would use it if it were also "free". (or close to free) I wouldn't be surprised if UCX starts to get competitive though "in a future release". the addition of BIND in V1.3 will be a great blessing, and several of the bugs/misfeatures i spoke with Alex@DEC about are due to be fixed in that release. As for wollongong... I have run this on an 8650, and found it to be less than likeable. I have been flamed by a madman (:-)) before on this, but my belief is that any product on VMS should do its best to integrate with VMS. That includes accepting ^Z as EOF, and having a VMS CLD interface to software. You may beg to differ... WIn/VX at least now has the protocol built into the driver, and hence is on the same magnitude of performance as Multinet and UCX. And i regularly use the win/vx ftp on one of our machines to get CMU server files, since UCX doesn't work that way. I don't like the interface, and given a choice of paying more for a better integrated package, would gladly do so. So, in summary, UCX has the fewest features, you should check to see that you aren't giving up functionality in the switch, but has the (perhaps) greatest "integratability" with VMS. Multinet is the highest performance and most featureful (doesn't appear to be any more expensive than Wollongong) Wollongong is the most UNIX-ish (which i consider a great disadvantage) but then you already know about win/vx. -stephen