[Info-vax] Enabling network in the "student" kit...

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2019-07-13 kl. 10:09, skrev Jan-Erik Söderholm:
> Den 2019-07-12 kl. 22:45, skrev Hans Bachner:
>> Jan-Erik,
>>
>> Jan-Erik Söderholm schrieb am 11.07.2019 um 17:14:
>>> [snip]
>>> OK, installing the 3.0.0.620 kit and then reinstalling the VSI kit
>>> got the device to show up in the config tool. Just clicked "OK" both
>>> times to remove the other one. The device I selected in the config
>>> tool is called "WiFi", same name as ipconfig reports. The laptop
>>> is not wired.
>>>
>>> Then I had to switch EWA0_MODE to FastFD (was some single duplex mode)
>>> and then the VMS environment is visible with PING at least. Both from
>>> the local Win10 laptop and from another laptop on the same subnet.
>>
>> In my case it was set to "Twisted-Pair", which is half duplex. Didn't 
>> matter, worked fine this way. OpenVMS reported during the boot
>>> %EWA0, Twisted-Pair mode set by console
>>> %EWA0, Link state: UP
>>
>>> Then tried with SSH, Telnet and FTP but got could not connect, was
>>> disconnected with some "connection refused" message. Not sure where
>>> that message originated, nothing is logged on the VMS environment.
>>> Tried both from the local Win10 system and a remote Win10 system.
>>>
>>> I have closed down the local Win10 firewall but that didn't help.
>>>
>>> Aything else that have to be done to get the network traffic through?
>>> Is there any issues to share the same WiFi connection in this way
>>> between the local Win10 system and the VMS environment?
>>
>> Apparently, it is a problem to share the network connection with Windows.
>>
>> My test node (Windwos Server 2016) is running as a VM, so I configured an 
>> extra NIC for FreeAXP in the first place.
>>
>> Out of curiosity, I reconfigured the FreeAXP machine to share the NIC 
>> with Windows.
>>
>> Apparently, no outgoing traffic was possible. The VMS instance did not 
>> get an IP address via DHCP. LATCP was able to see the other LAT services 
>> on the network, but SET HOST /LAT to one of them timed out. The other VMS 
>> nodes could not see the STUDNT LAT service.
>>
>> I then switched back to the other NIC, restarted FreeAXP and the network 
>> was working fine again.
>>
>>> Does this has anything to do with those special drivers that also
>>> was discussed here a bit earlier?
>>
>> After a bit of investigation I think the solution is RTFM :-)
>>
>> The Avanti User Guide at 
>> <http://www.migrationspecialties.com/pdf/VirtualAlpha_UserGuide.pdf> 
>> dedicates section 10.4 to "NETWORKING AVANTI ON A SYSTEM WITH A SINGLE 
>> NIC". It explains that you need to install a TAP network device (e.g. 
>> with the OpenVPN kit) and bridge that with the NIC Windows is using.
>>
>> Have fun,
>> Hans.
> 
> Thanks everyone. Yes, it is probably something with sharing of the NIC.
> There was also seems to be some extra issues if the shared NIC is an
> Wifi NIC, as I understand. I'll look some more into it.
> 
> Now, my guess is that probably 9 out of 10 testing this kit will do
> so on a standard Windows laptop. And in most cases using Wifi. So
> the instructions should take that into account, IMHO...
> 
> 
> 

Right, for whoever is still listening... :-)

Got the network running. Some points and I'm not sure I remembered all...

- Since this is a single-NIC installation (and as I wrote before, most
probably are) I installed the TAP part from the latest OpenVPN kit.

- Did all the steps and could not get it going. Saw that I had forgot to
force the TAP to "always connected"...

- The TAP interface was then bridged with the wired interface.

- Now I can get it running usig the wired connection on the laptop (over
a HomePlug mains line LAN extender). Can also connect from another laptop
that runs over wifi on the same LAN.

- Have not been able to get it working by sharing the wifi interface
with the TAP.

- Have had the conncection come and go in a way I do not understand.
Might that one need the NET STOP/START MSIPCAP commands anytime
the config changes. Not sure about that...

Now will try to open some ports in the router and try to connect
from the outside.

My point for doing this, is that we have had a long time issue at
a customer involving Rdb, SQL/Services and a multi threaded Delphi 5
application. The issue is that the external developer is in HongKong
and since this doesn't involve anythig specific at the customer site,
I'd like to see if I can setup an environment that he can run against
from HongKong to debug this. I know what the issue is, the threads
are running ODBC calls unsyncronized and, since the SQL/Services
driver is not thread safe, it crashed after a while...

I would rather have it going over wifi, but wired is OK...

If I still would have had my DS25, this would have been easier... :-)

Jan-Erik.