[comp.protocols.appletalk] Phase 2 ghost zone

sms@dou.dk (Sven Meiborg Sorensen) (01/24/91)

How can I remove a dead zone?

Problem: Non-existing zone keeps re-appearing on ethernet phase 2.

Scenario: Phase 2 ethernet with 11 Kinetics and Shiva FastPath 4's,
all of which are configured with K-STAR. They, of course, each
define a single appletalk zone with a unique netnumber on
their appletalk side.
One of the FP4's is seeding the others with respect to ethertalk 2;
it has a range of ethernet numbers from 2 to 2 (i.e. only one number)
and it knows about only one ethernet zone - let's call it ZONE A. 
All other FP4's have range 0 to 0 and no ethernet zones.
There is only one Mac II connected directly to the net with
an Apple EtherTalk card and running ethertalk phase 2. When I installed
ethertalk on this Mac, I assigned it to ZONE A.
The ethernet also contains a 3Com server with appletalk and
several Unix mainframes (without CAP, atalkad, etc.)

History: The seeding FP4 was originally configured with two
zones, ZONE A and ZONE B and a netnumber range of 2 - 12. It
worked like that for some weeks, and then I re-configured it
to only ZONE A and netnumber 2 - 2.

Question: why does ZONE B still appear in the chooser? 
And why do some of the FP4's give the following complaint:
"Conflicting inf.: local range=2-2; 2-12 reported on ETALK2"?
I have tried to zap the pram of my Mac II and re-install ethertalk 2.
Just after re-installing ethertalk my Mac only knew about ZONE A 
- but a few minutes later ZONE B re-appeared from the grave. 
It scares me a little! How can I make it go away for good?

PS: It's not practical to turn off all 11 FP4's at the same
time, as someone might suggest. They are distributed all over
campus.
--
Sven Meiborg Sorensen     Internet: sms@dou.dk
Senior Analyst
Odense University, Denmark

german@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Gregory German) (01/25/91)

sms@dou.dk (Sven Meiborg Sorensen) writes:

>How can I remove a dead zone?

This is a real problem when you have multiple FastPaths and/or GatorBoxes.

>Problem: Non-existing zone keeps re-appearing on ethernet phase 2.

>Scenario: Phase 2 ethernet with 11 Kinetics and Shiva FastPath 4's,
>all of which are configured with K-STAR. They, of course, each
>define a single appletalk zone with a unique netnumber on
>their appletalk side.

>Question: why does ZONE B still appear in the chooser? 

Because the FastPaths are keeping the memory of that former zone alive.

>And why do some of the FP4's give the following complaint:
>"Conflicting inf.: local range=2-2; 2-12 reported on ETALK2"?

Because the Phantom Zone still has a Phantom network number outside
the range you have configured.

>Just after re-installing ethertalk my Mac only knew about ZONE A 
>- but a few minutes later ZONE B re-appeared from the grave. 

If you were watching I would bet that you would have seen an RTMP packet
go by.

>It scares me a little! How can I make it go away for good?

>PS: It's not practical to turn off all 11 FP4's at the same
>time, as someone might suggest. They are distributed all over
>campus.

Well you don't want me to suggest what I know will work then :-(
You have the same kind of problem if you just want to change the zone name.
You have a simular problem if you want to insure that a particular AppleTalk
network number is used for filtering purposes.  The only sure way to get
everyone to think the same thing is to isolate, reconfigure and then
restablish the network.

>Sven Meiborg Sorensen     Internet: sms@dou.dk
>Senior Analyst
>Odense University, Denmark
--
         Greg German (german@sonne.CSO.UIUC.EDU) (217-333-8293)
US Mail: Univ of Illinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL  61801
Office:  129 Digital Computer Lab., Network Design Office