phl01@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Lovell) (04/10/91)
I've wondered for a long time how FastPath 4 seeding of appletalk settings works. Specifically, - Does the FastPath seed actively, by finding another gateway and doing some sort of lookup on it (perhaps a ZIP lookup), or does it seed passively by monitoring appletalk traffic? - Will a FastPath that has been set to seed AppleTalk phase 2 information off its ethernet interface only seed from a fully configured gateway? Or will it seed from the first gateway it can find? - Does a FastPath that has been set to seed only seed at startup, or does it continuously update the information it has been seeded with (in effect, "reseed" itself) every so often? If someone could shed some light on the issue, I'd be extremely grateful. If seeded data is continuously updated (as a recent posting seemed to indicate), then seeding would be very useful in an environment such as mine where zone names and the ethertalk phase 2 range changes fairly regularly. If it doesn't continuously update, seeding could result in anarchy. Thanks in advance, Tim Hammett, Department of Botany, Auckland University. (phl01@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz)
kf1j+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Karen L. Frisa") (04/12/91)
For K-STAR 7.0, 8.0, and PROM routing code: >> - Does the FastPath seed actively, by finding another gateway >> and doing some sort of lookup on it (perhaps a ZIP lookup), >> or does it seed passively by monitoring appletalk traffic? For LocalTalk and EtherTalk 1.0, the FastPath listens for an RTMP packet to seed the network number, and then queries for the zone name that goes with that network number (and all the other network numbers it heard about in the RTMP packet). I can never remember if it sends the ZIP Query directly to the router that sent the RTMP, or if it broadcasts, but I think it does the former. >> - Will a FastPath that has been set to seed AppleTalk phase 2 >> information off its ethernet interface only seed from a >> fully configured gateway? Or will it seed from the first >> gateway it can find? In this case the FastPath sends GetNetInfo packets as per the Phase 2 spec. Routers aren't supposed to answer them unless they know the configuration for the net. They may have learned this via seeding or by being a seed router. Once it knows the network number (via a NetInfoReply packet), it sends a ZIP Query for the zone name(s) as it does above. (Actually, it won't do this if there's only one zone for the net range, and that zone is included in the NetInfoReply.) >> - Does a FastPath that has been set to seed only seed at startup, >> or does it continuously update the information it has been >> seeded with (in effect, "reseed" itself) every so often? The FastPath does *not* continuously update or check the seeded information. Once it becomes seeded, it's content. It doesn't store the info permanently, though, so that if it's rebooted, it still looks like a non-seed router. Besides that, once it has seeded, it acts like a seed. I don't know if Shiva plans to change any aspect of this implementation. Hope this helps clarify things. Karen