[Info-vax] Reject Cause=Invalid Message Format, Erroneous Transport PDU='386200BD00000005'H

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-11-27 19:47, Dirk Munk wrote:
> Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2016-11-27 14:51, Supratim Sanyal wrote:
>>>> You can not use NCP to get similar 'bogus' Phase IV information from
>>>> another Phase V node.
>>>
>>> Thanks, that is indeed the case. I can run NCP commands from
>>> RSX-11M-PLUS (NSP version = 4.0.0, Routing version = 2.0.0, Type =
>>> Endnode IV) to both VAXen (running DECnet Plus/OSI) but cannot get NCP
>>> to work between the two VAXen.
>>
>> To be correct:
>> There is a subset of NCP available on Phase V nodes, which can be used
>> to talk, in some limited form to Phase IV nodes.
>> If you want to talk between Phase V nodes, you need to use whatever
>> protocol they designed in Phase V, as it appears Phase V nodes do not
>> have a NICE listener.
>
> No, of course not. NICE is not designed to deal with OSI information.
> For OSI you need the Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP),
> which of course is not DECnet specific.

It's rather incorrect to claim that NICE could not handle OSI 
information. NICE itself is very generic, and can deal with just about 
anything. You have lots of system specific information in the different 
NICE implementations for different OSes. That is not a problem.

However, talking to non-DECnet systems needs something else than NICE, 
obviously. And DEC chose to pretty much deprecate NICE instead of having 
two protocols to deal with the information.

I might have done the same, had I been DEC, But the reason is not 
because NICE couldn't do it.

>> Also, there is something slightly broken in Phase V with regards to
>> Phase IV compatibility in other aspects as well, as can be seen by my
>> reply of how a VMS and RSX box (both on phase IV) gives different errors
>> when trying to talk NICE to a Phase V node.
>
> No, talking NICE to a Phase V node makes no sense. A Phase V node can
> handle Phase IV traffic, it doesn't mean it can give Phase IV management
> information, since that information doesn't exist.

It makes as much sense as any protocol. NICE can deal with anything. It 
is rather open ended in its design. But it is DECnet-centric. Any 
non-DECnet machine would not have implemented it, I expect. Especially 
if there was another protocol (CMIP) already defined for the same 
purpose, which was the officially sanctioned protocol for OSI.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol