🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Sys Admins,

Once again I come to the pool of knowledge, asking for your
advice and experience in an area in which I am not too familiar.

We have two thin-net backbones, one a PC-NOVELL network, another
an UNIX Workstation network.  In between is a VAXstation which
the PC group want to access via Pathworks, and the workstation
group wants to access via FTP.

Naturally, I just plugged the two backbones together and everything
worked fine.

However, now I am finding that we are having some NFS problems.  The
client gives the "server not responding" message, the server gets
"le0 - no carrier; transiever cable problems?" message (yup, SUNs)
which I understand is a timeout condition.

We had a nifty Cabletron repeater with Lanview (9 leds) idle on our
shelf.  I plugged the backbones in it and I found that the
Workstation side "receive" light occaisonally blinks, but the PC
side is on almost constantly except at night when everyone goes
home.

Here is the question.  (I suspect you already know the question...)
Do I need a bridge?  Or a router?  What is the difference?  Is one
better than another?

Thanks in advance!

-Rick Morris

Sadtler Research Laboratories
3316 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia, PA  19104

Phone:  (215) 382-7800
Fax:    (215) 662-0585
Email:  rick@sadtler.com