[comp.unix.sysv386] SYSV R4.0 High speed UUCP

witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) (02/08/91)

I am having major difficulties getting Intel SysvR4 UUCP to work using
a V.32/V.42bis modem (to uunet).  The problem is that uucico will quit
(after a while) saying ``alarm n'' where n is 1 through 5.  When this
happens I see that my machine is sending a message to UUNET, but UUNET
is not responding.  My machine has NS16550A uarts, and I have tried
both the built in ASY driver, and the FAS driver.  Neither fixes the
problem.  I am trying determine whether SYSVR4 UUCP is broken, or if
the problem is with UUNET.

If someone knows any tricks about this, could he/she send me some
mail?

Thanks!
-- 
---
 Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
 Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Uucp: witr@rwwa.COM

davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (02/11/91)

In article <1991Feb7.224752.1932@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) writes:

|                     My machine has NS16550A uarts, and I have tried
| both the built in ASY driver, and the FAS driver.  Neither fixes the
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  Does the new FAS have streams support? I had al older one which
didn't, and I didn't even look at the new one yet.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me

bernd@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Bernd Gill) (02/11/91)

In article <1991Feb7.224752.1932@rwwa.COM>, witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W.
Withrow) writes:
|> I am having major difficulties getting Intel SysvR4 UUCP to work
|> using
|> a V.32/V.42bis modem (to uunet).  The problem is that uucico will
|> quit
|> (after a while) saying ``alarm n'' where n is 1 through 5.

With high speed modems it is most important to have flow control set up
properly. Any lost or corrupted packets cause alarms. Depending
on what protocol you are using you need the following flow control:

Protocol Used           Modem       	   		Computer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
g-protocol		xon/xoff OFF			xon/xoff OFF
			RTS/CTS  ON			RTS/CTS  ON
			Error Correction OFF

f-protocol		xon/xoff OFF			xon/xoff OFF 
			RTS/CTS  ON			RTS/CTS  ON
			Error Correction ON

Modem Error Correction sometime interferes with the g-protocol (which
uses software error correction) and should be OFF.
-- 
Bernd Gill				Dept. of Computer Science
					Victoria University of Wellington
Email: bernd@comp.vuw.ac.nz		Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
					Phone: +64 4 721-000 x8658

gemini@geminix.in-berlin.de (Uwe Doering) (02/12/91)

davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes:

>In article <1991Feb7.224752.1932@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) writes:
>
>|                     My machine has NS16550A uarts, and I have tried
>| both the built in ASY driver, and the FAS driver.  Neither fixes the
>                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>  Does the new FAS have streams support? I had al older one which
>didn't, and I didn't even look at the new one yet.

No. But some SysVr4 users reported that they could use FAS with the
help of certain SysVr3 compatibility functions that are still in the
kernel but are not guaranteed to be in future releases of SysVr4.

On the other hand, I got reports from some people that FAS doesn't
work under SysVr4 (kernel panics and the like). I don't know whether
these contradicting statements are caused by differences between the
SysVr4 versions (they were from different vendors), or by differences
in kernel hacking experience.

In the mean time I'm still waiting for my Dell SysVr4 copy. I'll start
working on a port to STREAMS as soon as I get the tape.

     Uwe
-- 
Uwe Doering  |  INET : gemini@geminix.in-berlin.de
Berlin       |----------------------------------------------------------------
Germany      |  UUCP : ...!unido!fub!geminix.in-berlin.de!gemini

jdeitch@jadpc.cts.com (Jim Deitch) (02/15/91)

In article <1991Feb10.201122.29918@comp.vuw.ac.nz> bernd@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Bernd Gill) writes:
>
>In article <1991Feb7.224752.1932@rwwa.COM>, witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W.
>Withrow) writes:
>|> I am having major difficulties getting Intel SysvR4 UUCP to work
>|> using
>|> a V.32/V.42bis modem (to uunet).  The problem is that uucico will
>|> quit
>|> (after a while) saying ``alarm n'' where n is 1 through 5.
>
>With high speed modems it is most important to have flow control set up
>properly. Any lost or corrupted packets cause alarms. Depending
>on what protocol you are using you need the following flow control:
>
>Protocol Used           Modem       	   		Computer
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>g-protocol		xon/xoff OFF			xon/xoff OFF
>			RTS/CTS  ON			RTS/CTS  ON
>			Error Correction OFF
>
>f-protocol		xon/xoff OFF			xon/xoff OFF 
>			RTS/CTS  ON			RTS/CTS  ON
>			Error Correction ON
>
>Modem Error Correction sometime interferes with the g-protocol (which
>uses software error correction) and should be OFF.

HUH?

    That means:
1.  I can't use a Telebit modem's uucp spoofing because the modem
    has to do pep for it to work, but that pep is an error correcting
    protocol done by the modem.  Right?

2.  That the uucp transfers that have been happening the last six
    months wern't really happening, and all those bits are on the
    floor behind my computer?

3.  You made a mistake in the chart, and I am responding before the
    corrected one comes out.

Which choice?

Jim



>-- 
>Bernd Gill				Dept. of Computer Science
>					Victoria University of Wellington
>Email: bernd@comp.vuw.ac.nz		Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
>					Phone: +64 4 721-000 x8658


-- 
ARPANET:    jadpc!jdeitch@nosc.mil
INTERNET:   jdeitch@jadpc.cts.com
UUCP:	    nosc!jadpc!jdeitch

gandrews@netcom.COM (Greg Andrews) (02/17/91)

In article <1991Feb15.054602.913@jadpc.cts.com> jdeitch@jadpc.cts.com 
(Jim Deitch) writes:
>
>> [quoting Bernd Gill]
>>With high speed modems it is most important to have flow control set up
>>properly. Any lost or corrupted packets cause alarms. Depending
>>on what protocol you are using you need the following flow control:
>>
>>Protocol Used           Modem       	   		Computer
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>g-protocol		xon/xoff OFF			xon/xoff OFF
>>			RTS/CTS  ON			RTS/CTS  ON
>>			Error Correction OFF
>>
>>Modem Error Correction sometime interferes with the g-protocol (which
>>uses software error correction) and should be OFF.
>
>HUH?
>
>    That means:
>1.  I can't use a Telebit modem's uucp spoofing because the modem
>    has to do pep for it to work, but that pep is an error correcting
>    protocol done by the modem.  Right?
>
>2.  That the uucp transfers that have been happening the last six
>    months wern't really happening, and all those bits are on the
>    floor behind my computer?
>
>3.  You made a mistake in the chart, and I am responding before the
>    corrected one comes out.
>
>Which choice?
>

Um...er...door #3, but not because he's 'wrong' -- he's just overstating
the case a little.

Among all the modems on the market, there are very few that can separate
the computer--->modem flow control path from the modem--->computer flow
control path.  For those modems, you have no choice but to use RTS/CTS 
(if your computer can support it), or disable all flow control.  Telebit
modems have the ability to define different types of flow control in the
two directions.  This allows the modem to ignore XON and XOFF bytes from
the computer (they might appear in uucp transfers) while still sending
XON/XOFF to the computer.  The modem becomes transparent to data flow
while still retaining the ability to pause the computer.

Since the Telebit PEP mode has special support for uucp, it's able to do
important things like disabling the XON/XOFF flow control to prevent
alarms from the unexpected flow control characters.  Definitely the
exception to the rule (and note that this only happens when the modem
is doing uucp spoofing -- plain connections would still have XON/XOFF
active).

Also, the assertion that modem error correction "interferes" with uucp
is probably not right.  There have been a lot of reports that error
correction caused trouble with uucp, but just as many reports that it
seems to work fine (my own experience).  Most modems enable flow control
and allow higher RS232 speeds when error correction is used.  Could be
the problems were caused by the modem's buffering and/or flow control 
rather than the error correction itself.

-- 
.-------------------------------------------.
| Greg Andrews      |   gandrews@netcom.COM |
`-------------------------------------------'

witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) (02/18/91)

In article <24318@netcom.COM> gandrews@netcom.COM (Greg Andrews) writes:

>Also, the assertion that modem error correction "interferes" with uucp
>is probably not right.  There have been a lot of reports that error
>correction caused trouble with uucp, but just as many reports that it
>seems to work fine (my own experience).

Yes, and there is the rub.  My interpretation is that each modem
manufacturer has implemented V.42/V.42bis slightly differently (this
was the gist of a Byte review of these modems) leading to
incompatabilities.  I know for a fact that I cannot do 9600 BPS UUCP
using a Practical Periphials modem to a Telebit T2500 when using
V.42(bis) LAP-M/compression.  If I turn off the V.42/bis stuff the
transfer works OK.

The annoying thing is that you get into a p***ing match where both
modem manufacturers swear that their modem is correct and the other guy
is in the wrong.  In my case there are 6 parties involved:  1)Me,
2)Intel (for the OS), 3)UUNET (for their computer), 4)Telebit,
5)Practical Periperals, and 6)the TELCO.

And numbers 2 throug 6 have been precious little help in getting the
problem solved!
-- 
---
 Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
 Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Uucp: witr@rwwa.COM

gandrews@netcom.COM (Greg Andrews) (02/18/91)

In article <1991Feb17.195353.25156@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.COM 
(Robert W. Withrow) writes:
>
>Yes, and there is the rub.  My interpretation is that each modem
>manufacturer has implemented V.42/V.42bis slightly differently (this
>was the gist of a Byte review of these modems) leading to
>incompatabilities.  I know for a fact that I cannot do 9600 BPS UUCP
>using a Practical Periphials modem to a Telebit T2500 when using
>V.42(bis) LAP-M/compression.  If I turn off the V.42/bis stuff the
>transfer works OK.
>
>The annoying thing is that you get into a p***ing match where both
>modem manufacturers swear that their modem is correct and the other guy
>is in the wrong.  In my case there are 6 parties involved.
> [list deleted]
>
>And [Telebit and PPI] have been precious little help in getting the
>problem solved!
>

It's certainly possible for two sets of engineers to interpret the
recommendation differently.  It's also possible for one group of
programmers (or both) to make mistakes in their code.

I would expect a problem that really is an incompatibility between
the modems would be easy to demonstrate to tech support.  I can't
think of any data sets that would work fine with Xmodem or Ymodem
but would fail with uucp.  Even so, Telebit tech support has a
Unix system available for uucp testing.  I would suggest that you
call and try some test transfers.  Kermit and X/Ymodem transfers
can be done by any of the support techs.  Uucp can be arranged in
about ten minutes. 

-- 
.-------------------------------------------.
| Greg Andrews      |   gandrews@netcom.COM |
`-------------------------------------------'

shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) (02/19/91)

witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) writes:

>Yes, and there is the rub.  My interpretation is that each modem
>manufacturer has implemented V.42/V.42bis slightly differently (this
>was the gist of a Byte review of these modems) leading to
>incompatabilities.  I know for a fact that I cannot do 9600 BPS UUCP
>using a Practical Periphials modem to a Telebit T2500 when using
>V.42(bis) LAP-M/compression.  If I turn off the V.42/bis stuff the
>transfer works OK.

	Ah, but are you using early T2500 or recent T2500? Telebit data
sheets for the original T2500 did not indicate V.42bis support, but only
MNP 2-5. Recent data sheets not only explicitly list V.42 and V.42bis
support but additional goodies like callback. Thus, if your modem insists
on running V.42bis/LAP-M when its counterpart insists it can't grok that
protocol, you're doomed to failure. 

-----------  
uunet!media!ka3ovk!raysnec!shwake				shwake@rsxtech

rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) (02/22/91)

In article <1991Feb17.195353.25156@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow) writes:
>Yes, and there is the rub.  My interpretation is that each modem
>manufacturer has implemented V.42/V.42bis slightly differently (this
>was the gist of a Byte review of these modems) leading to
>incompatabilities.  I know for a fact that I cannot do 9600 BPS UUCP
>using a Practical Periphials modem to a Telebit T2500 when using
>V.42(bis) LAP-M/compression.  If I turn off the V.42/bis stuff the
>transfer works OK.
>
	Try puttsing with the direction that compression is allowed on
	the Telebit side. You CAN turn off compression and just use
	LAP-M, this worked betwixed my T2500 at home and the MultiTech
	at work. The T2500 can also be told to do compression in both, one
	or neither direction. What I did in the end was switch to MNP 5 and it
	all just worked.

	Why use LAP-M when MNP works just as well? The only way you'll
	get 4x compression out of V42.bis is if you transmit zeros...
	You'd be surprised how well zero's compress... B^). In my
	practical experience, MNP 5 does just as well as LAP-M/compression.

		-Rob