mcc@ETN-WLV.EATON.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett) (02/07/88)
With all the discussions in this forum concerning Sun Workstations, perhaps someone can answer a question concerning serial line interfaces for the Sun. We have a LAN with, among other workstations, Sun Workstations which must be interfaced to a secure network over a synchronous serial channel using DDCMP 4.0 as the data link protocol which must be capable of supporting, at least, a 9600 baud circuit. We would like to use a Sun Workstation to interface to the secure network. Sun marketing types indicate that there is no such interface available. Is this an accurate statement? Are there any synchronous serial line interfaces that can be used and are there drivers available? It would be preferable to have the DDCMP 4.0 implementation on the board and to be compatible with the DEC DMR11 implementation but not absolutely necessary. Thanks in advance, Merton Campbell Crockett EATON Information Management Systems AN/GYQ-21(V) Program mcc@etn-wlv.EATON.COM
melohn@SUN.COM (Bill Melohn) (02/07/88)
Sun sells no such interface; we support DECnet as an Ethernet end-node only, and the sync drivers we sell do HDLC, SLDC, and Bisync using the Sun CPU serial port, or optionally a Sunlink comm processor board. Assuming you are planning on doing DDCMP with a DEC host of some kind, I would imagine that it is possible to get a DMR11 driver from DEC that supports HDLC (probably with X.25). I would think you would find it easier to talk to many systems (including Suns) if you used industry standard sync protocols such as HDLC.
bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (02/07/88)
I think I went around that circle a few years ago with DMR-11s. As I remember they support DDCMP in on-board microcode and only DDCMP (it starts doing it as soon as you enable.) You could only hook the other end of a DMR up to either another DMR or a DUP-11 (truly raw sync port) which had software pumping DDCMP through it, or possibly a similar hookup using the sync port on a DMF32, same difference, ya gotta have DDCMP. I suppose that's the answer for that person, get something like a DMF32, DUP-11 or a DV-11 (no, no, you don't really want one of those) and some HDLC software etc but I can't tell from their posting what their real situation is, are they committed to a DMR11 or was that an idle comment about a possible board to purchase? What are they *really* trying to do etc.? Sounds like they'd be better off locating a SLIP implementation for both ends if they're only after a 9600b hookup, a DMR is mostly overkill (unless you happen to have one.) -Barry Shein, Boston University
mcc@ETN-WLV.EATON.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett) (02/08/88)
Barry, Bill, et. al.: You're recollection of the operational characteristics of the DMR11 is accu- rate. It starts transmitting START messages as soon as it is initialized at either 1 or 3 second intervals depending upon the initialization parameters. The basic problem is that a DIA approved "black box" will be inserted into the serial link between the network node and the LAN which was developed, unfortunately, with the assumption that a DMR11 would be present at both ends of the serial link. The "black box" uses a Simpact IPC 1622 to interface to the communication link using a DMR11 DDCMP 4.0 compatible prtocol implement- ation. Merton Campbell Crockett EATON Information Management Systems AN/GYQ-21(V) Program mcc@etn-wlv.EATON.COM