[Info-vax] Rethinking DECNET ?

[JF Mezei]

On 14-09-01 19:41, Dirk Munk wrote:

> decades ago. You can still use Decnet 4 if you like, but JF is now 
> asking to overhaul Decnet 4 to use it over IP (IPv4 and IPv6?). Decnet 5 
> can be used over IPv4 and IPv6,

I don't care about decnet protocol itself, whether 4 or 5. I care about
the integration of decnet within the operating system/file system.

aka: everywhere you can have node::  (at DCL, application etc).

I mention DECNET 4 because it has NCP which defines network objects,
and AUTHORIZE has the proxy database.

So if there were a way to port various network objects such as FAL to
become native on IP instead of DECNET, it would allow one to continue to
support the same functionality provided by the node:: in many places
used by the user, without needing an actual DECNET network stack since
the objects would be native to IP.

(so tunneling DECNET 5 over IP is not the same as having FAL be native
on IP).

Or in other words: by porting all the common decnet objects to be native
to IP, it would allow one to maintain full functionality without needing
a DECNET networking stack, and NCP would simply be the object definition
database. (much simpler than anything in DECNET 5).

And this isn't too "different" since Apple did the same with Appleshare
when it maved it from being native on Appletalk to being IP native.