[Info-vax] DECnet Phase IV broken after VSI update

[Dave Froble]

On 11/1/2021 10:23 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 10/29/2021 1:56 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>
>> Recently I installed VSI VMS V8.4 2L3 on an RX2660 system.
>>
>> DECnet is not working.
>
> I just checked the sources for NETACP.EXE and NETDRIVER.EXE, and there was a single change between V8.4-2L1 and V8.4-2L3.
>
> It was a change that I made that fixed a problem in searching the binary trees in the volatile database
> for node entries.
>
> That code is only used for searching the node entries themselves, since node databases can hold up to 63*1024 entries
> and needed some form of optimization.
>
> The other volatile databases (line, circuit, object, etc...) hold far fewer entries, and are not implemented as binary
> trees.
>
> I'm pretty sure the DECnet Phase IV code is not broken.
>

Well, I figured the most likely culprit would be, well, me.
But I had no idea what I had done wrong.  As before, I had
run NETCONFIG, then used STARTNET to start DECnet.

I'll add that I've had little to no experience with multiple ethernet
ports.

And it could be a HW issue.

And it is the first itanic on which I've installed VMS.

Anyway, one of the fine support people wrote:

===============
It looks like DECnet is configured on both EWA-0 and EWA-1.  It is also a nonrouting node so DECnet can only function on one interface, not two or more.  Could you reply back with the output from $ MCR LANCP SHOW CONFIG/USER so we can see what interfaces are active and what other protocols you have running?

Once we know that, we can remove one of the interfaces from the NCP database so only the correct one is active on the system.

To remove the incorrect linen and circuit from NCP, you would use the following commands:

$ MCR NCL PURGE CIRCUIT name ALL
$ MCR NCL PURGE LINE name ALLL


Also, the correct way to stop and restart DECnet on your system without rebooting is to use the following commands:

$ MCR NCL SET KNOWN CIRCUIT STATE OFF
$ MCR NCL SET KNOWN LINE STATE OFF
$ MCR NCL SET EXEC STATE OFF

$ @SYS$MANAGER:STARTNET

Best regards,
Walt
=================

So other than the suggestion to use NCL instead of NCP for DECnet IV,
I at least figured that out, and this seemed to get things working.
DECnet is still working without the line sync issue.

I hate not understanding.  I still don't know what I did wrong, to get
both ethernet interfaces involved.

As Robert mentioned, no problems in the DECnet code, just a Dave problem.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
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