monty@blackhole.lerc.nasa.gov (Monty Andro) (07/27/90)
I'm attempting to use "talk" between a sun 386i and SPARC station which for some reason is not working. I get the following error message on the SPARC station when it responds to a "talk" request from the 386i: Unable to connect with initiator: address family not supported by protocol family (47) Can anybody explain this ? Is there a compatibility problem with the 386i and SPARC ? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
guy@uunet.uu.net (Guy Harris) (07/31/90)
>Can anybody explain this ? Yes, the SunOS "talk" program is based on the 4.2BSD "talk" program, whose messages are sent over the wire in a machine-dependent format. The original Sun version had some heuristics to try to make it work between VAXes and 68K-based Suns; those heuristics would probably have made it work between 68K-based and 80386-based Suns as well. Then the heuristics were changed to make it work between 68K-based and SPARC-based Suns; this may have broken its ability to work between 68K-based Suns and VAXes, and/or may not have increased its ability to work between SPARC-based Suns and VAXes or 386 machines. >Can I correct this problem with a different software package or command ? Yes, throw out the SunOS "talk" software on all your Suns and grab the 4.3-tahoe "talk" software instead. It's in the "AT&T-free BSD software" archives on "uunet"; in 4.3BSD, Berkeley fixed it to send stuff over the wire in a much more machine-independent fashion.