kenw%noah.arc.CDN@ean.ubc.ca (Ken Wallewein) (05/20/88)
I posted this once before, during the latest Great Mysterious News Blackout. Somebody should investigate those things. Anyway, I never saw it, so here goes again... ----- A while back I posted a message asking for recommendations about DECnet area numbering. I received a number of very helpful replies, totalling somewhere in the range of 120 kbytes. One message, from Phil DeMar of Fermilab, stood out as a most valuable piece of work - a rather large memo entitled "MANAGING AREA NUMBERS IN MULTI- ORGANIZATIONAL DECNET NETWORKS". It outlines the measures taken by SPAN and HEPnet, including, among other things, a recommended numbering scheme, and a DECnet techique called "area filtering", for controlling the propagation of area routing information. The upshot: DON'T USE AREA 1 - USE A NUMBER ABOVE 46. The technique, an admitted kludge necessitated by DECnet, declares areas above the arbitrary value of 46 as local, to do with as you want; the others are global. I would recommend that document to anyone involved DECnet management. It runs about 46 kbytes, so I hesitate to post it to the whole group. If you want a copy, contact either Phil DeMar at DEMAR@FNALE.bitnet, or myself. /kenw A L B E R T A Ken Wallewein R E S E A R C H kenw@noah.arc.cdn C O U N C I L