[comp.protocols.tcp-ip] Any experiences with PCroute 2.0?

fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) (11/07/90)

We've started playing here with Vance Morrison's PCroute 2.0 TCP/IP
routing package - has anyone else had any experiences with it?

From the looks of it, it seems like a great package for setting up a
router, quickly, in a low-traffic situation.  The main disadvantage
seems to be that you need turbo-assembler to build it, and rebuilding
it is necessary to reconfigure the interface hardware.  But it handles
plain routing, SLIP, proxy-arping and RIP, and it runs on a machine
that you can buy for $800 these days.

In fact, I'm kinda surprised it isn't used all over the place....

---
Tom Fitzgerald   Wang Labs        fitz@wang.com
1-508-967-5278   Lowell MA, USA   ...!uunet!wang!fitz

PIRARD%vm1.ulg.ac.be@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Andr'e PIRARD) (11/08/90)

On Wed, 7 Nov 90 02:41:18 GMT Tom Fitzgerald said:
>We've started playing here with Vance Morrison's PCroute 2.0 TCP/IP
>routing package - has anyone else had any experiences with it?

I have been using PCROUTE 2.0 (now 2.1 for just a fix to SLIP) for 6 months
without a glitch (or should I say with just one which was a power one
after which the PC wouldn't restart and no PCROUTE's fault).
3 days work (tests before production) for a router novice at that time.
It's got 2 Ethernet, 1 Appletalk and 2 SLIPs (SLIP not tried yet).
I didn't figure how to get to overload it. Our hosts would overload first.
It even helps big blue's static routing with its proxy-arp.
The doc is excellent. But it doesn't teach what is routing and RIP.
Practically, it doesn't even cost what you say: it's the occasion to
dust stranded PC's or reuse unwanted ones. Better use ATs for SLIP, though.
I didn't mind using the savings to buy TurboAsm (and TC++).

>In fact, I'm kinda surprised it isn't used all over the place....

So am I. Or is it and nobody cares to say?
We are hearing much about problems, don't we?
The only good reason we don't use more of it here is that it would be a good
reason not to buy more sophisticated hardware that some people feel proud of.

I wanted to make this reply public both in thanks to Vance and in reaction
to having read that PCROUTE is not supported. It doesn't need it. It works.
This note via tn3270 through it.

Andr'e PIRARD             SEGI, Univ. de Li`ege
B26 - Sart Tilman         B-4000 Li`ege 1 (Belgium)
pirard@vm1.ulg.ac.be  or  PIRARD%BLIULG11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU