DEC DNA Routing packet

[Joshua Chaw]

) Has HP discontinued support for Pathworks32 ver 7.0/7.1 all together ?



2)

When using Pathworks 7.4, we observe that the CPU usages on the HP DL360 G3 Dual Xeon server is consistently 35-40% when we have more than 15 workstations connected to the server even though those stations are not performing any activities. The CPU is ok when we have less number of stations (< 3) connected to the server.

I captured the network packet activities (see the Etherreal capture file, or txt equivalent attached) and realized that there are a lot of DEC DNA Routing packets being sent in very short interval perhaps too oftenly ?? Please enlighten if we can configure to reduce the interval for those packets or any explanation on the consistently high CPU usage when the number of connections increase (without application activities, those are sort of domant connection)?

I think an explanation of why the DEC DNA Routing (protocol 0x6003) packets are being sent so oftenly will be helpful as we do not have Routing Node on our network and the server is configure as End Node, all nodes are on the same area. Can we configure the intervals

[Robert Gezelter]

Joshua,

Perhaps it is too early in the morning. Are the packets coming from your DL360, presumably running a server version of Windows? What is your network topology?

Are there active connections between the workstations and the DL360? Is there an OpenVMS system somewhere on the network?

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Joshua Chaw]

Hi Robert,

The Server is running Windows 2003 Server and the network topology is a straight forward STAR connected thru hub.

The stations have active connection to the server but they are not sending application data. They just stay connected only.

There is an attachment on my thread on the network capture, appreciate if you want to have a look.

There is a OpenVMS located on the other hub of the network which is connected to this hub but no connections are initiated from any of the station to that host.

As in the capture file, those DEC DNA routing packets seem to be between the servers and the connected stations.

[Volker Halle]

Joshua,

x6003 is the DECnet Phase IV network protocol type. You seem to have one DECnet router in your DECnet network (node 11.270) and lots of end-nodes, this can be seen from the DECnet HELLO messages, which are being sent every 16 seconds (from the router) or every 30 seconds (from the end-nodes).

Every DECnet Phase IV packet on the ethernet has a 'DECnet routing header', so what Ethereal is showing as 'DEC DNA Routing' is actual DECnet point-to-point traffic between the nodes.

The majoriy of traffic seems to be going to/from node 11.550 (MAC address aa-00-04-00-26-2e). Try to find this server and do a NCP SHO KNO LINKS, it should show the DECnet-links to other nodes.

Volker.

[Joshua Chaw]

Hi Volker,

Thanks for the clarification. That would make sense if there are node-to-node traffics and not the routing packets as that frequecy if sending routing packets is just unjustifiable.

Perhaps the high usage of CPU lies somewhere in the Pathworks 32 rather than the DEC DNA routing packets... tough.

[Volker Halle]

Joshua,

if you look at the packet data in the full trace, you may be able to find out, what kind of data is flowing between the nodes (assuming it's some kind of ASCII text).

Your trace captured 3155 packets within 147 seconds, this is an avg overall rate of 24 packets/sec and should not cause any problems at all.

Volker.