[Info-vax] booting vaxstation off alpha

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <kf8uf3$kaj$1 at dont-email.me>, David Froble
<davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes: 

> >> ....DECnet does not need nor use nor depend on clustering.
> > 
> > Do you need DECnet at all?
> 
> Do you need a computer at all?
> 
> I've seen people get stubborn about DECnet.  They feel they are using 
> TCP/IP and therefore won't install DECnet.  I feel this is a big mistake.

Consider a hobbyist user with one cluster at home.  He doesn't need 
DECnet WITHIN the cluster, nor can he connect to any other cluster.  He 
has local console access.  Yes, he can use DECnet within the cluster, 
but there is SET HOST/LAT instead of SET HOST (DECnet), which also works 
without TCPIP.  I don't have DECnet running at home, never have.  I will 
probably set it up when I have time, just to get some experience and 
because it will improve the performance of the OSU HTTP server.

> You need to do something with TCP/IP on a remote system, which will 
> include shutting down and re-starting TCP/IP.  How do you connect to the 
> system?  TCP/IP is down and TELNET won't work.  DECnet will provide you 
> with SET HOST FOO (or whatever the computer name is).

Of course, this works only if you have a DECnet connection to the remote 
system, which is rare these days.  However, what you describe DOES work; 
I have done it.  At some point in the past it became possible to reboot 
a machine when one is logged in via TCPIP.

> When you don't need the complexity of a cluster, DECnet's FAL provides 
> access to RMS files on remote systems.

It's probably easier to set up a LAVC than to set up DECnet.

> Utilities such as COPY, DIRECTORY, and such use DECnet.

They can.  However, this makes sense only for a remote system; within 
the cluster, one can just use them on MSCP served disks.

> Even on a single system there are some advantages with DECnet.

What are they, apart from improving the performance of the OSU server?