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

[Rich Jordan]

On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 8:35:20 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 11/4/2021 7:07 PM, Rich Jordan wrote: 
> > On Monday, November 1, 2021 at 1:40:00 PM UTC-5, Volker Halle wrote: 
> >> Rich, 
> >> 
> >> thanks for testing and sharing your notes. So it really looks like an upgrade vs. install issue. And it affects the LAN interface, irrelevant of the protocol used. 
> >> 
> >> Is the 'link LED' lit on the physical LAN interface ? 
> >> 
> >> SHOW DEV/FULL EIA0 shows 'no link' - right ? 
> >> 
> >> Please test with the system parameter file from the freshly installed system disk. 
> >> 
> >> Volker. 
> > 
> > Replacing the parameter file on the upgraded system with the one from the clean VSI install did not make a difference WRT the network; it did cause some complaints because DECwindows could not start, but everything else did after I updated SCSNODE and SCSSYSTEMID in the copied file to match the upgraded system's name and ID. 
> > 
> > I tried a second NIC port for the hell of it, but none of them come up. Counters show the same errors as before. 
> > 
> > I'm contacting the customer's VSI rep to find out how we can put in a support request; hopefully that side of things has been taken care of. 
> > 
> > Rich 
> >
> I don't know if this is your problem. It was my problem. 
> 
> By default, DECnet Phase IV installation and configuration will enable DECnet protocol on all available interfaces on the system. Once configured, the system administrator would want to go into NCP and purge all lines and circuits that are not needed from the database. 
> 
> > $ MCR NCL PURGE CIRCUIT EWA-1 ALL 
> > $ MCR NCL PURGE LINE EWA-1 ALL 
> 
> Then use STARTNET to start DECnet.
> -- 
> David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450 
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da... at tsoft-inc.com 
> DFE Ultralights, Inc. 
> 170 Grimplin Road 
> Vanderbilt, PA 15486


VSI found it, though there's still a mystery of sorts attached.

The original system also has EIA-0 (and 1) NICs.  The EIA-0 is set to 1Gbs full duplex, auto negotiation disabled, and the corresponding Cisco port is set the same.  This is because they've had the system long enough that they experienced the bad behavior between VMS and switches doing auto negotiations in the dim past.

When we restored the image backup to the RX2800s, it brought that config along, and the RX2800 also uses the EI devices.  Since this is just offsite testing, we're using a dumb as a stump GbE switch for the uplink.  While running HP VMS, apparently it did not matter; the connection came up at GbE speed.  After the upgrade, there was a problem with it.  VSI had me purge the device from LANCP (we had already done that from DECNet MCP per Volker's suggestion, without success) and reboot.  When the device came up with default settings, the link came up and it worked.

Huzzah.

The mystery is that we had already tried using the other three NIC ports on this box, all of which had auto-negotiation enabled, on the VSI upgraded system, and none of them would come up, though I'm pretty sure they were all set to autonegotiate enabled.  The second NIC on the production RX3600 is not in use but has autonegotiation enabled.  All three of them had the same issue being unable to bring up the link.

So I'm not sure why this worked but it did.  I may test the other NICs for the hell of it but we've been delayed too much by this so probably have to just keep working on the transition now.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.