poulson@cs.widener.edu (Joshua Poulson) (12/20/90)
Here at Widener University we have a problem with a pair of Novell networks that we are trying to connect. Here is a summary of our situation: In a computer laboratory we have 42 total workstations and 2 servers. Currently the lab is configured as two separate networks. We have 22 machines connected via ARCNet to each server as follows: +---+ +------------+ | S |--------| Active Hub | | e | +------------+ | r | | | | | | v | | | | +---- | e | | | +------- (each line is connected to 4 to 6 stations | r | | +---------- in a bus configuration.) +---+ +------------- The servers are IBM PS/2 Model 60-071 machines with 3Mb of memory, a 70Mb fixed disk drive, and SMC PC-110 ARCNet boards. The servers are running SFT Netware/286 version 2.15. They were upgraded from 2.12 a while ago. The workstations are IBM PS/2 Model 30-002 machines with SMC PC-210 ARCNet boards. These workstations are set up with Boot PROMS so that they boot from information stored on the file servers. Both servers have the same boot profile for all machines. We made sure that there were no address conflicts between machines on the two networks. Each network works fine by itself. When we try to connect the two networks, active hub to active hub, we have troubles. After connection we can bring up each workstation, ONE AT A TIME, and there is no trouble. However, if we bring up just a few workstations at once the routing buffers space on each server overflows and both servers hang. We cranked the routing buffers limit up to 150 with no effect on this problem. Watching with a Sniffer we've seen that each workstation sends out a boot request that is responded to by a server. If a server has sufficient load, it routes the request to the other server. Responses are ALSO routed. So it seems that instead of talking directly to the server its booting from, workstations are having their packets ROUTED to them. This is unnecessary overhead since it's painfully easy to talk directly to each server. We have another network similar in setup to this one except that a Netware/386 v3.1 server is also present on the network. This problem does not appear in that network. Does anyone have any ideas on courses we should try? Please email me and I will post a summary of responses after a while. Thank you for any help you may offer in our time of need! Merry Christmas, everyone! -- --JRP [Joshua.R.Poulson@cyber.Widener.EDU] [poulson@cs.Widener.EDU] "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." (Abraham Maslow, 1966) You owe the oracle six weeks of tax-free paid vacation in sunny Nome, Alaska.