masscomp@soma.bcm.tmc.edu (Stan Barber, Moderator) (01/20/88)
We are thinking of connecting our PC-AT to our masscomps via ethernet.
We currently have the 201 boards on the masscomps. If any of you
have experience with making such a connection, I would appreciate any
help, gotchas, or advice you might proffer.
---
Bryan Costales, Senior Systems Programmer, EEG Systems Laboratory
1855 Folsom St Rm610, San Francisco, Ca 94103 (415) 621-8343
{ihnp4,sun,bellcore,lll-crg,dual,qantel,pyramid}!ptsfa!eeg!bcx
[There are two PC's on the ethernet with soma and 4 other Masscomps.
We are using 3C501 and the MIT PC/IP package. It all works. The FTP
software PC/IP package is known to work as well. -- sob]mike@poe.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Tankenson) (02/09/88)
> We are thinking of connecting our PC-AT to our masscomps via ethernet. > We currently have the 201 boards on the masscomps. If any of you > have experience with making such a connection, I would appreciate any > help, gotchas, or advice you might proffer. We have experience with ATs running PC/NFS on a 3c501 board (highly recommended). We have also tested the Excelan TCP/IP package (h/w and s/w). We haven't seen any (major) problems with either of these packages. Note that you don't need NFS on your server (Masscomp) to use PC/NFS. It is a full blown TCP/IP implementation with TELNET, FTP, some 'R' commands, etc. When you upgrade to RTU 4.0 (with NFS), you'll be able to share resources from the file server to your ATs. I believe the prices for Excelan and Sun PC/NFS are very close. --mike Mike Tankenson Telos/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA. 91109 (818) 354-1447 Uucp: seismo!cit-vax!jplpro!mike Arpa: jplpro!mike@cit-vax.ARPA -or- mike@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV
dalesys@lamont.columbia.edu (dale chayes) (02/18/88)
In article <3301@soma.bcm.tmc.edu>, (Stan Barber, Moderator) writes:
Bryan Costales, of EEG Systems Laboratory asks about conecting PC-ATs
and Masscomps via ethernet.
We (at Lamont-Doherty) have been using Compaqs (portables and 286's) with
3Com 501 boards in our lab network and in our shipboard network. We have
been running Sun's PC-NFS package as well as MIT's TCP (an old version)
sucessfully. For file transfer, its great.
However:
I find TELNET uncomfortable as a terminal emulator because of
the block buffering enforced by the network protocol, and (since the
distance is short) have both a serial line and a network connection
for the compaq that is normal on my desk.
The older version of the MIT sofware (jan 85) has a timeout built into
their TELNET which disconnects and drives me wild.
I have just recently gotten a copy of the NCSA Telnet which I have not
had a chance to try out yet.
The big advantage of Sun's PC-NFS is that it WOULD allow you to use your
masscomp's disk (or parts of it) as if they were a part of your PC's file
system. IE: from DOS you could mount node:/usr/dale as drive F:. Now
that is really a neat and in may cases useful feature. Unfortunately,
it looks like Masscomp is not going to support the pcnfs daemon in the
forthcomming release of RTU and NFS. Perhaps someday that will happen.
IN SUMMARY:
Almost any network connection will greatly improve the speed of file
transfers, but you may find the terminal emulation agravating if you
are used to a terminal with moderate response.masscomp@soma.bcm.tmc.edu (Stan Barber, Moderator) (03/10/88)
I'm confused by the statement that MASSCOMP doesn't support a pcdaemon in its implementation of NFS. MASSCOMP has implemented NFS, therefore any other NFS implementation should talk to a MASSCOMP. I've been using PC-NFS on a Compaq 286 with a 3Com board for several months now with a MASSCOMP doing duty as a file server. I haven't had any problems with this setup. I've used telnet for terminal emulation to a MASSCOMP as well as mounting several MASSCOMP file systems on the PC. -John *---------------------------------------------------------------------------* | John S. Morris | UUCP: {cbosgd,decvax,seismo}!masscomp!jsm | | MASSCOMP | ATTNet: 617-692-6200 CSERVE: 73720,2134 | | 1 Technology Way | | | Westford, MA 01886 | | *---------------------------------------------------------------------------*
alan@masscomp.UUCP (Alan Atlas) (03/10/88)
In article <3337@soma.bcm.tmc.edu> dalesys@lamont.columbia.edu (dale chayes) writes: > >The big advantage of Sun's PC-NFS is that it WOULD allow you to use your >masscomp's disk (or parts of it) as if they were a part of your PC's file >system. IE: from DOS you could mount node:/usr/dale as drive F:. Now >that is really a neat and in may cases useful feature. Unfortunately, >it looks like Masscomp is not going to support the pcnfs daemon in the >forthcomming release of RTU and NFS. Perhaps someday that will happen. > Actually, we tested our NFS implementation against a PC running PC-NFS and it worked fine. We ran programs on the PC that were stored on the MASSCOMP disk, and we looked at files from machine to machine. When we did that work, the pcnfs daemon wasn't around. We will be looking at it for possible inclusion in RTU in the future, but for now just PC-NFS and RTU 4.0 will allow you to share files between MASSCOMPs and PCs. [ pcnfsd is supplied on the pc disk that comes with pc-nfs in source form. So, that is one way to get pcnfsd to run on the MASSCOMP. It should be noted that pcnfsd provides the following services to the pc-nfs user that would otherwise be unavailable: (1) user authentication -- If the file systems that are nfs-mounted are not world readable or writable, you're stuck! With user authentication, you can tell the computer from which you have mounted these file systems who you really are. (2) Printing from the pc on the unix printer -- this would not be available on the MASSCOMP anyway since they use the SYSTEM V line printer spooler which is not network capable. --sob]