philip@cel.cummins.com (Philip D. Pokorny) (05/30/91)
In response to Heather's requests:
I'm curious why you are getting rid of the Apollo Token-Ring
cabling you already have in place... Why not just bridge from
the Token-Ring to the Ethernet with one or two nodes? It should
cost you less since you only have to buy one or two Ethernet
cards not 18, and you wouldn't have the administration problem of
other root's (or locksmith!)
About ns_helper... It is a program that translates node-id's
into node-names and vice-versa... If you purchase a new disked
node, format the drive and bring it up with the name //fred,
then when you add it to the ring, no other node on the network
will know about //fred and won't have any idea what his node-id
is. If you were to log into one of the existing nodes on the
network and type:
lvolfs -n //fred
without the ns_helper running, you should get something like:
?(lvolfs) "//fred" - name not found (OS/naming server)
But if you had ns_helper running, you could add the name //fred
and the node-id to the ns_helper database. (using edns) Then
whenever you ask for a node by name, if that name isn't found in
the local network root directory (//), the node will contact the
ns_helper and ns_helper will respond with the node-id. The node
will then catalog the node in the local network root so it
doesn't have to contact the ns_helper again. What does this
save you? Well you don't have to run ctnode -update on EVERY
node after adding a new node to the network... You can also
give diskless nodes names (other than diskless_$001234) using
the ns_helper... If you have multiple Domain networks, then you
ns_helper makes the job of reaching nodes on other networks much
easier because a 'ctnode -update' WON'T get nodes from other
networks... (I have no idea how you would catalog a node on
another network...)
As for the problem's of root... For TCP/IP stuff you can set up
your host.equiv file with only those nodes who's root (and other
accounts?) are valid without password. You should also be able
to create multiple SEPARATE rygd's that would give you local
control of accounts and passwords for your machine. Fred
Mallett gave a good talk at ADUS last year on just such an
arrangement. He is an ex-Apollo training person who now runs a
company called FAME Computer Education (612)888-6009. You
might ask him if you could take a class or if he could help you
out... (Sorry I can't be of more help...)
Sincerely,
Philip D. Pokorny
philip@cel.cummins.com
:)