topic Re: NIC protocol in Operating System - OpenVMS

NIC protocol

wong seng guan — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:40:42 GMT

Gentlement,

i had few DS10 alpha servers wtih OpenVMS version 7-3.1. Every DS10 has 2 ethernet ports and connected to the switch without running any VLAN. my question as below:

1. what type of LAN protocol is being used for DS10?

2. what type commands to issue for checking the DS10 protocol.

Thanks

Re: NIC protocol

Karl Rohwedder — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:47:07 GMT

The DS10 may run any LAN protocol you want, as long as you provide a driver for it :-).
Normally TCPIP is quite common now, whereas DECnet and LAT are decreasing in usage.

Try $ SHOW NETWORK to have a 1st look.

If you have DECnet, it may be the older Phase IV (managed by MCR NCP) or the newer Phase V (managed by MCR NCL).

For TCPIP there are 2 software packages from HP (the older UCX or the newer TCPIP Services, both may be managed by the UCX command (the newer one supports this command for compatibility reasons) and 2 from other vendors (TCPware and Multinet).

regards Kalle

Re: NIC protocol

Volker Halle — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:43:43 GMT

Wong,

to see which network procotols are running on each of your LAN adapters, use:

$ ANAL/SYS
SDA> SHOW LAN ! and type twice

for each LAN adapter, this lists the protocols, which have been started on this adapter. The protocol name in the Client column and the ethernet protocol type in the Value column should be recognisable.

Volker.

Re: NIC protocol

wong seng guan — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 05:53:01 GMT

Gentlemen,

i had tried $show network and its shows:
Product : DECnet
Product : TCPware

$show LAN
UCB UCB addr Fmt
EWA0 8149FA00
EWA2 814BB5C0 802E
EWA3 814E9800 Eth

Value Client State
08-00-2B-80-3C DNAME 017STRTN,LEN,UIQ,STRTD
80-3C DNAME 017STRTN,LEN,UIQ,STRTD
FE DECNETV -DO-

My questions as below:
1. what is these stand for eg: UCB,802E,ETH,DNAME,0017 STRTN,LEN,UNIQ,STRTD

2. What command to show the DS10's MTU?

3. How to change the DS10's MTU

Thanks

Re: NIC protocol

Volker Halle — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 06:06:18 GMT

Wong,

the partial information you've shown indicates:

you seem to only be running DECnet Phase V protocol on EWA0

You're using TCPware as your TCPIP stack, but it's not running on the LAN interface (EWA0) you've shown in your output or your output is incomplete.

I believe the SDA> SHOW LAN output you've shown is incomplete. Otherwise it would indicate an incompletely configured and/or started network software, both DECnet and TCPIP.

What is the problem you're trying to address ?

Volker.

Re: NIC protocol

wong seng guan — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:22:57 GMT

Volker,

Volker you are right. there was only partial information i showed because of limited space for me to type.

Actually i wanna to find out what type of LANs protocol are using? I tried to use network analyzer to capture and the result for frame type was ETHERTYPE and the frame network size was 1508(included 4bytes CRC).

1. Why the frame type display ETHERTYPE not DECnet V?

2. If using ETHERTYPE LAN protocol, the MTU should 1498 bytes not more then 1500bytes

2. Does MTU cause not stable if the frame size more then what i had configured?

3. How to configure the MTU in DS10?

thanks

Re: NIC protocol

David B Sneddon — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:32:42 GMT

What problem are you trying to solve here?
Why do you think you need to change the MTU?

Dave

Re: NIC protocol

Geoff Bryant. — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:04:06 GMT

Dave is right to ask what problem you are trying to solve. It is very unlikely that you want to be changing the MTU.

TCPware can allow you to change the MTU that IP will use on the interface, but that must be done very carefully and must be in agreement with other systems on the LAN.

TCPware most likely will have 2 protocols on the ethernet - TCPIP and ARP.

You can see TCPware's interfaces with $ NETCU SHOW NETWORK.

Re: NIC protocol

Volker Halle — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 05:42:06 GMT

Wong,

I would like to suggest, that you read the chapter on LAN Drivers in the OpenVMS I/O User's Reference Manual and especially chapter 9.4.6 LAN Frame Formats

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/aa-pv6sg-tk/aa-pv6sg-tk.PDF

OpenVMS can run many different LAN protocols via the same network card at any time. Each protocol will be shown as a pseudo UCB in SDA> SHOW LAN

Volker.

Re: NIC protocol

wong seng guan — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:49:18 GMT

Gentlemen,

Dave, you asked why i want to change the MTU? because I found out the frame size that i captured was 1508 bytes when DS10 communicate with other Server but i checked that is only 1500 MTU size in DS10 by commands MCR LANCP > SHOW CONFIG.

Geoff bryant, you are right. must be in agreement with other systems on the LAN if i change the MTU.

So Gentlemen, what should i do if the frame size difference with what i was set in the DS10? And what could happended to the DS10 and other equipment in the network if DS10 transmiting more then 1500 bytes to other equipment?

Volker, thanks for your information about the OpenVMS I/O user reference manual. i already download it.

Thank you every body here to help me out because Im new to the OpenVMS.

hope can hear from you all soon

Wong

Re: NIC protocol

Volker Halle — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:11:16 GMT

Wong,

now let's get to the basics:

a CSMA/CD Frame on the 'wire' can be between 64 bytes and 1518 bytes in size !

The DATA field in that frame is between 46 and 1500 bytes.

The DATA size may vary for each protocol.

Just look at it with ANAL/SYS
SDA> SHOW LAN/FULL

You'll see, LAN device
Receive buffer size 1518

For each protocol unit, you'll see possibly different values:

Maximum buffer size 1498

Whatever your LAN analyzer tells you, you would have to understand in detail, what kind of frame it's looking at, what kind of protocol and what's included in the size shown by the LAN analyzer.

I would suggest, that you believe the OpenVMS software and it's layered products, which drive communication through LAN interfaces. Only if you suspect problems at this level, you should start looking at those lower layers.

Volker.

Re: NIC protocol

David B Sneddon — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:28:06 GMT

Attached is a brief capture of some packets
from my network -- framesizes vary from 53 to
1518.

Are you actually having a PROBLEM with your
network or are you just seeing things that
you don't quite understand?

Dave

Re: NIC protocol

wong seng guan — Tue, 02 May 2006 03:04:13 GMT

Gentlement,

Volker Halle, David Sneddon, Geoff Bryant, Kari Rohwedder.

Thanks for helping me

Re: NIC protocol

Verne Britton — Sat, 06 May 2006 11:00:39 GMT

While everyone on this forum is happy to assist, don't forget support from the vendor :-)

With that in mind, note that TCPware is sold and supported by Process Software (www.process.com) and is not from HP. Process I believe has a discussion list/newsgroup and searchable archives, as well as Tech Support (if you have a contract).

And as always, this is NOT meant to suggest one IP stack is better than another :-) :-)

(p.s. I'm a happy Multinet customer BTW).

Verne