[Info-vax] What would you miss if DECnet got the chop? Was: "bad select 38" (OpenSSL on VMS)

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-10-05 21:26, Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2016-10-05, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>
>> You seem to still fail to understand how it works. The Multinet link and
>> tool do not know anything about DECnet or DECnet addresses. All it is
>> concerned with is IP addresses. And so it also, obviously, do not know
>> anything about DECnet routing. It don't really know anything about IP
>> routing either. It's just communication over IP. Your FTP client, or FTP
>> server don't know anything about IP routing either.
>
> Well I suppose you do need to give Multinet some kind of hint of where
> the target DECnet node is.  By establishing a DECnet-over-IP tunnel from
> node A to node B you've done that.  You do of course need to ensure the
> correct bits of Multinet are configured at each end to process the
> packets going through the tunnel.

Yes. The separate tool to configure the links needs to be told between 
where (in IP addresses) the links should be established.

> The interesting bit might come if you are converting an existing DECnet
> routing node to DECnet-over-IP.  Would you leave the routing bit inside
> DECnet or move it off to the IP side?   I've never done it so don't know
> what would be the best approach here.

That is not an option. The DECnet-over-IP links are just plain lines. 
They might be travelling over half of the world. Don't matter. In DECnet 
it is a line between to adjacent nodes, no matter how long and complex 
path the IP packets might be taking. Think of it as a cable, and you 
should know the answer.

And so, the DECnet routing configuration is never touched. You cannot 
"move" the routing to IP. DECnet is unaware of any IP, and just have a 
line. Everything works just like before in DECnet.

>> Any DECnet node already have a DECnet address, no matter if you have a
>> Multinet tunnel or not. And adding a Multinet tunnel do change anything
>> of your configuration in DECnet, except for adding a line. Although, I
>> don't know if you even understand the concept of a line in DECnet at
>> this point.
>
> Back in the days when we were adding TCP/IP capability to existing
> DECnet nodes, we tried to pick addresses which matched in some way, e.g.
> DECnet node 23.123 would have an ip address of xxx.xxx.xxx.123, but that
> was no more than a naming convention to make identifying a node from an
> IP address buried in error messages or logfiles easier.

Right. Picking DECnet and IP addresses that have some commonality can 
make life easier for humans. But it have no advantage to the software.

	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