reilly@facman.wharton.upenn.EDU (G B Reilly) (10/26/87)
Is anyone out there finding a need for both at once? A situation is developing here that could call for DECnet to talk with some VMS-based services (which are written by Digital - hence TCP/IP/telnet is out) and for TCP/IP to talk with IBM and UNIX based applications. Brendan
key@UTKCS2.CS.UTK.EDU (Ken Key) (10/27/87)
>From: G B Reilly <reilly@facman.wharton.upenn.edu> >Is anyone out there finding a need for both at once? >A situation is developing here that could call for >DECnet to talk with some VMS-based services (which are >written by Digital - hence TCP/IP/telnet is out) and >for TCP/IP to talk with IBM and UNIX based applications. >Brendan We are expecting a need for both. We have a number of "power" users who are going to speak DECnet-DOS and PC services to our local VAXen and TCP/IP for NSFnet access. Just for fun, we stuffed a DEPCA and an Interlan in an AT and ran both simultaneously. FTP'ing into a virtual disk was interesting (not too shabby). This is, however, a very expensive solution ;-) I have just started work on "interfacing" between the DECnet-DOS DLL.EXE (datalink layer TSR device driver for DNDOS) and the CMU PC/IP code. This will allow the two systems to run over the same board and let PC/IP to run over any Ethercards that DEC supports (without having to write a device driver) at the cost of TCP/IP performance. While its true that the only card not currently supported by the CMU distribution and supported by the DLL interface is the DEPCA, there's always the future. I have not had much time to put into the project (silly things like Thesis work). If anyone can share their experience in programming for the DLL interface, I'd appreciate it. In particular, I am currently looking for examples of transmit and receive callback routines (everything but is in the VAXmate Tech. Ref.) Thanks in advance, Ken Key University of Tennessee Computing Center key@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu
mwn@ufcsg.cis.ufl.EDU (Michael Nora) (10/27/87)
In article <8710261336.aa01547@Louie.UDEL.EDU>, reilly@facman.wharton.upenn.EDU (G B Reilly) writes: > Is anyone out there finding a need for both at once? I was curious to find out if this would work, and here is what I've learned. I took an IBM PC-XT and inserted a 3Com Etherlink card into one of the slots, with the card jumpered to use the thin-wire connector. We have DECNet-DOS version 1.1a and the IBM TCP/IP software (version ??). I have found out that they will operate concurrently on the same 3Com controller about 90% of the time if you make some modifications to the IBM IP driver. Let me explain. In the CONFIG.SYS file, I load the the DECNet-DOS drivers before I load the IP driver. You also *MUST* start DECNet-DOS before IP, because DECNet goes and changes the Ethernet address of the card. You don't have any control over this change. IP doesn't really care what the address is, as the driver can be configured to use the hardware address, derive an address from the internet address, or use one you specify. But if you want to run them on the same controller, then you must find out what the Ethernet address of the controller is after DECNet-DOS is running, and set the IP driver to use the same address (there is a program included with the IP software that lets you modify the driver). This is important. I found out if you don't do this, you can use a DECNet service, but then when you use an IP service and are finished, DECNet refuses to work anymore because IP used a different address with the controller (I think maybe it changed the address and DECNet didn't like that). But with both using the same address, you can switch back and forth between them. Also note that when an IP task is being used, DECNet-DOS will not respond to DECNet adjacency requests from other nodes, and you will see VMS OPCOM messages stating adjacency down on your DOS node. It comes back up shortly after you finish the IP task. The question is, how do you find out what the address is after DECNet starts up? I have an Excelan Ethernet LanAlyzer, so it was very easy for me to find out using it. But for those not so fortunate, the IP software also comes with sort of a primitive packet watching program, and if you run this on another PC on the Ethernet while doing a DECNet task on the other, you should be able to find out what the address has been changed to. This program gives the source and destination address (plus some other stuff, like type, length, ...) of the packets as they fly by. Like I said, this works about 90% of the time. Every now and then, though, when I finish an IP task, the computer dies. No Ctrl-Alt-Del for this crash, it requires the 'ol turn-off, turn-on. I think an interrupt or two are getting lost somewhere along the line. One of these days I would like to try it on an AT to see if the faster processor can handle the tasks better. As a side note, this PC also has a Sytek 6120 PC Network Adaptor card, and is also running IBM PC LAN software and acting as a server for that network. I found I can get all three up and running on one machine. I have defined virtual drives under DECNet-DOS that existed on a VAX hooked up to our Ethernet, and then used PC LAN hooks to make this DECNet drive available to PC LAN applications. DECNet-DOS and the PC Network seem to get along quite nicely. I haven't tried this with IP because I don't have PC-NFS or anything like that. I also found I can use either DECNet copy or IP FTP to do file transfers over the Ethernet, while AT THE SAME TIME using PC LAN to transfer files between two PCs. No files were corrupted, and the PC LAN software `timeshared' the system with the other task just like the manual promised. I'm curious if anyone else out there has played around with systems like this and what you've found by doing it. Please post your story or send me mail if you know of something else that might be interesting to try. -- ^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^ Michael Nora Internet: mwn@beach.cis.ufl.edu University of Florida UUCP: ...{ihnp4,rutgers}!codas!ufcsv!ufcsg!mwn v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v
macphed@sask.UUCP (Ian MacPhedran) (11/04/87)
>From: reilly@facman.wharton.upenn.EDU (G B Reilly) >Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc >Subject: TCP/IP and DECnet/DOS at once >Message-ID: <8710261336.aa01547@Louie.UDEL.EDU> >Is anyone out there finding a need for both at once? >A situation is developing here that could call for >DECnet to talk with some VMS-based services (which are >written by Digital - hence TCP/IP/telnet is out) and >for TCP/IP to talk with IBM and UNIX based applications. >Brendan I know that this is not exactly what you are looking for, but I am running a VAXmate with an extra Ethernet card (3Com EtherLink+) Through this, I can access DECnet based utilities (e.g. the VAXmate file server software), and PC/IP simultaneously, each through a separate card. For example, I have FTP'd from one machine (UNIX) to a virtual disk on another machine (VMS). (The virtual disk communication being governed by DECnet-DOS.) I see no problem in extending this to low level calls, although I do not have the DECnet-DOS software to find out. (The HLL libraries for DECnet-DOS are not included with the `basic' software for the VAXmate.) Ian. +------------------------------------+--------------------------------+ | Ian MacPhedran | USEnet ihnp4!sask!macphed | | Engineering Applications | BITNET MacPhedran@Sask | | Department of Computing Services | Phone (306) 966-4832 | | 2B13 Engineering Bldg. | Telex 064-2659 | | University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 0W0 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+