ane@hal.UUCP (Aydin "Bif" Edguer) (10/07/88)
Environment: DEC VAX 11-750, DEUNA, UNIX 4.3 BSD Network environment is a number of Sun workstations and VAXstations. Some VMS machines with either DECnet or Wollogong TCP/IP. Some terminal servers running LAT. Question: What are the hazards of running trailers? More specifically: I understand that the use of trailers is negotiated between hosts and if a host does not support trailers then my host will not use trailer encapsulation. This negotiation uses ARP messages. Can this negotiation break other implementations of tcp/ip? Can the encapsulation itself interfere (with non-involved hosts)? Does the use of trailer encapsulation interfere with other ethernet protocols (DECnet, etc)? I am really curious because I have been told by the network manager that I MUST shut off trailers. I thought that trailer encapsulation produced a BIG win in performance (for the machines involved). Is this true? Does anyone have actual statistics on the difference (if any)? Pointers to papers, books, etc appreciated. Aydin Edguer ane@hal.cwru.edu or hal!ane