🚀 go-pugleaf

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Reply-To: mike@erix.UUCP (Mike Williams)
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Organization: L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden
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A few weeks ago I posted an article about the possibilities of gatewaying
a TCP/IP network to DecNet. The problem is illustrated by the following
diagram:

Ethernet===================================================
with TCP/IP          |            |           |                      
                     |            |           |                      
                     |            |           |                      
                   TCP/IP       TCP/IP      TCP/IP                   
                   (4.2BSD)     (4.2BSD)    DACU
                   SUN          VAX         IBM/VM/CMS
 
                                 / \
                                /   \
                               /     \
                              /       \
                            Decnet   Decnet
                            /           \
                           /             \
                          /               \
                        VAX/VMS         VAX/VMS
                        
The question I asked was if any of the existing TCP/IP - DecNet gatway
implementations would allow the transparent sending of files from one side of 
the gateway to the other (ie a direct FTP). Likewise for remote login (Telent).
In otherwords could the SUN (or the IBM) on the Ethernet communicate
transparently with the VAX/VMS's and vice versa. Note that most of the Decnet
machines are not on the Ethernet.

The answers I have received indicate that none of the existing TCP/IP gateway 
software (eg ULTRIX or Wollongong) could manage this. Remote login would mean 
first logging in on the gateway and then rologining (is this a verb?) from the
gateway to the machines on the other side. Likwise file transfer would
also mean sending the files to the gateway and then copying them from the 
gateway to another machine. It was pointed out that it should be possible to 
make this fairly transparent to the user by embedding the necessary commands 
in scripts. Ie first a copy (rcp or ftp or CMS/sendfile or VAX/copy) to
the gateway and then a remote command from the gateway to the destination 
machine (rsh etc). The remote command bit seem possible in the Decnet,
4.2 world, but nobody I have asked seems to know if it is possible in the
IBM/VM/CMS world. If not, one could always have some form of spooler at the
gateway which checked for files to send futher every few minutes.

We intend to try and implement all this in the near future and I will post
another article to let you know how we managed.

Thanks to

cernvax!jmg, dartvax!cis1733, cfa!wyatt, genie!scooter, utcs!geoff, wucs!kurt,
osu-eddie!pritch, jhunix!mwh, robert%cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk, kelvin!dbw

for answers to my origional question and comments.

Mike Williams
...{philabs,seismo,decvax}!mcvax!enea!erix!mike