[comp.dcom.sys.cisco] Decnet max-address problems

HANK@BARILVM.BITNET (Hank Nussbacher) (08/13/90)

I was recently playing around with Decnet on my AGS and encountered
a strange problem.  I defined a router (AGS) as being a routing-IV
router.  Its address was 1.599.  I did not change max-address from
its default of 255.  It appeared that the router was sending out
hellos so sites were seeing that it existed but since max-address
was 256, it was not sending out its own routing information.  There
happened to be a number of Decnet routers (DECSA - PDP 11/24s) on
the network that picked up the router as being connected via them
and not local to the Ethernet.  It appears that various DEC
equipment implements the DNA system differently.  It was only the
DECNET routers that acted strangely.  Even after removing the AGS
form the network, they still reported the AGS as reachable via their
lines.
 
I think it would be nice that when I do my config and define myself
as being some node higher than what is defined in max-address that
the config command yell at me that I will cause DECNET routing
problems.  I almost did not find this oversite and it almost
eliminated cisco from our evaluations.
 
At the same time I was trying to run debug with decnet-routing and
decnet-packets.  I would have assumed that decnet-routing would show
me routing tables sent and received, level 1 and level 2 routings
and hellos, metric changes etc.  But instead, decnet-packets is what
shows me this information and I am still unable to see what
decnet-routing is debugging for me.  Also, I think that the logging
commands (buffered, console, monitor) show be EXEC commands and not
config changes.
 
Thanks,
Hank Nussbacher