[Info-vax] Tertiary VMB?

[gerry77 at no.spam.mail.com]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:46:33 -0500, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca>
wrote:

> Most interesting. HELP SET NODE shows there is a secondary and tertiary
> loader paparemeters. And interesting that it has NISCS_LAA.EXE instead
> of NISCS_LOAD.EXE.

NISCS_LAA is a totally different beast and is used by NCP to collect cluster
parameters to be sent down the Ethernet to the satellite. NISCS_LAA itself is
not sent anywhere, it just creates a block of data that NCP appends to the end
of the image requested by the satellite. (LAA stands for Load Assist Agent.)

Apparently NISCS_LAA is used only by NCP, maybe because LANACP has its
functions integrated into the main image and knows what to do according to the
/BOOT_TYPE parameter (see MCR LANCP HELP DEFINE NODE /BOOT_TYPE).

> Perhaps the LANCP environment uses a more evolved NISCS_LOAD.EXE which
> doesn't require the tertiary one ?

That a good point! I'm just convincing myself that TERTIARY_VMB and NISCS_LOAD
do the same thing. One has to be used with NCP, the other with LANCP.

The most curious thing is that LANCP (which is newer, about V6.x) uses
NISCS_LOAD that is cited in some old references (about V5.x timeframe) while
NCP (which is far more antique) uses TERTIARY_VMB which is never mentioned in
the same documents that explain NISCS_LOAD functions...

Maybe one day or another we'll discover that they can also be swapped :-)

Thanks,
G.