npi Device ???

[John Harper (Barbour)]

We are running VMS 8.3 on Alpha 4100. TCP/IP version 5.6

Users connect using Poweterm or Kea via telnet.

Normally SHOW USER/FULL shows a terminal device on TNAnnnn plus a transation similar to
(Host: ukws0015.barbours.local Port: 3292)

However one user is showing a transation of
(Host: npi1b2e68.barbours Port: 3291)

Can anyone tell me what the "npi" reference means.

The only reference to npi I can find is from a webpage about HP Procurve switches (which we use) but this would be too weird.

Many thanks,

John

[Oswald Knoppers_1]

It must be a name in your hosts file or your local DNS.

Try:

$ tcpip show host npi1b2e68.barbours

This should give you the IP adres.

Oswald

[Hoff]

Though you likely already know this, the translation here is the reverse DNS (rDNS) entry for the originating host. OpenVMS takes the arriving IP address and asks its own assigned DNS server about the IP host name associated with the arriving IP address.

This could well be the ProCurve, too. That would make sense, if you have a ProCurve that is configured to provides DHCP and such, and it's not particularly integrated into the local DNS.

If you want to investigate further, you can

@sys$startup:tcpip$define_commands

Then

dig -x w.x.y.z

and

dig host.name

for a reverse (rDNS) translation and a forward DNS translation, respectively.

Seeing the .local TLD assigned makes some sense for a no-DNS or a very small network environment, but I'd tend to expect a DNS server and a real domain name in a moderate to large environment. (The .local TLD is usually assigned as part of mDNS networks (Bonjour / zeroconf, Microsoft, et al.)

Your question here is likely better asked of your own (no-dot) local network folks, and of your Windows client managers. We can help you poke around in your network, but your own networking folks are best resources.

[John Harper (Barbour)]

Many thanks for your replies.

Oswald, nice try, but all I get is

%TCPIP-W-NORECORD, information not found

Perhaps I should have made it clear that the two host translations come from two sessions from the same PC at the same time.

Hoff, this sounds feasable. We've recently had some procurves installed and I'm not convinced they are properly configured.

As far as talking to the windows networking people, I'm afraid we're one and the same and all were equally perplexed.

[Oswald Knoppers_1]

Could it be that these switches dynamicly register these addresses in DNS

(I don't know ProCurve)

Oswald

[Hoff]

The usual trigger here is how the DHCP box (ProCurve or otherwise) is configured to coordinate with the (I presume) Microsoft Active Directory (AD) that is at the core of your network.

If you use AD, start reading the KBs. Such as:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781697(WS.10).aspx

And read the ProCurve manual for whichever box this is.

I'd offer to look at this (from your New England outpost) but (presuming AD) this case looks to fall squarely in the realm of a Microsoft AD configuration question. And I prefer to use other boxes in place of the Microsoft AD and the Microsoft DNS implementations.

[Hoff]

>Perhaps I should have made it clear that the two host translations come from two sessions from the same PC at the same time.

That implies some issues of skewing within the local DNS configuration.

Start tossing dig commands at your DNS servers, and trace this back. (I still don't know enough about your configuration to be sure. This whether AD or DNS or otherwise. I'm most definitely guessing here.)

It might pay dividends to look toward how you want this DNS and AD and related pieces to work together, rather than troubleshooting how you want this case to work, too. (Sometimes, working the whole network toward a goal can be easier and more budget-efficient than is chasing the individual malfunctioning pieces in a more ad-hoc network configuration.) Make sure what you currently have configured here works the way you want for your budget and your configuration. I've certainly been involved in more than a few networks that have, um, grown sans sufficient design oversight. And then spent more than a few weekends shifting to more capable or more appropriate or more cost-effective configurations.

[John Harper (Barbour)]

Thanks again.

It's now looking like a problem with DNS right enough. I tried a ping -a of the npi device from windows and I got an ip address od a HP printer returned. Sure enough, npi1b2e68 is the host name of a laser printer in our warehouse.

Given my limited knowledge of windows, I think a good reboot of the DC might be in order.

Hoff, I'm mighty impressed you know of our New England outpost ...

[John Harper (Barbour)]

"grown sans sufficient design oversight." sounds like a perfect description of our network.

[Hoff · Accepted solution]

Ensure that the DHCP pool of IP addresses being served here doesn't overlap the pools of any existing (other) DHCP servers, or of any existing static IP allocations. That alone can play havoc with IP network routing.