Re: Willem,
>First thing you _should_ avoid on the
>VMS side is auto-negotiate. It's a
>notoirious source of trouble
I have to disagree with this.
It's much better to use AUTONEGOTIATE on your OpenVMS systems. Most switches and hubs default to AUTO. Some of the cheaper ones cannot be configured otherwise. Pick a random port out there and odds are it will want to negotiate, so your systems should go with the majority. The protocol works, so you're better off using it.
The trouble comes when OpenVMS managers specify a fixed speed and the hub or switch it's connected to tries to negotiate. The protocol doesn't understand fixed speed ports, and can configure a duplex mismatch.
(one might argue that this is a failing of the negotiation protocol, but that's not something we're going to be able to change).
As of V8.2 (and recent LAN patches on older versions), OpenVMS will detect and report duplex mismatches on the console. Short term fix is to reset the local port using LANCP, but the long term fix is to enable autonegotiate at the console.
Everything is much simpler if you can forget about trying to make sure a particular cable needs to be plugged into a particular socket. Setting *everything* to autonegotiate makes that happen, so that's the current recommendation from OpenVMS Engineering and HP Customer Support.
Although I agree to some extent with your comment about servers being fixed, so why let them negotiate, the reality is the rest of the world expects autonegotiation, so we're better off complying than standing on principle. It also gives you the flexibility of changing your hub or switch technology without having to worry about configuring it.
A crucible of informative mistakes
