[HECnet] Quiet list and a question about setting up a system

[Johnny Billquist]

Andrew Back skrev:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2008, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I'm not sure how much traffic gets routed, but I've got a decent amount of bandwidth available as well.

I've never really noticed any real hit on my bandwidth.

So how do I get started with the node numbers and what-not?

Hopefully Johnny will show up sometime soon, he is the central registry for such things.   You need to figure out if you just need a node number or two, or an area.   Most people don't need an area, and in order to have an area, you need an area router.   I suspect most of us have our own areas for historical reasons (i.e. one of our systems was originally in such and such area).

Right. If anyone wants an area, and have an area router, just say so. There are still plenty of unallocated areas, and I don't really see it as likely that we'll run out of them.
I'd quite like to have a go at running an area. Will OpenVMS VAX 7.3 w/corresponding UCX install suffice for tunneling DECnet-over-IP (RFC1006) to other HECnet routers?

Don't know the answer to that one, but Bob Armstrong and others do. I hope they'll chime in.

If so I have a SimH instance on my home server I could use. And then a couple of Alpha boxen that are sometimes powered-up which it could route to. And if so am I right in thinking I could use Phase V but as long as I configure all it's Phase IV aspects appropriately? It's over 10 years since I was a VMS admin and it's all getting a bit hazy.

Yes, phase V should probably work in most cases. What you need to be aware of is that the DECnet routing license isn't included in the VMS hobbyist program, so unless you have some other license for that part, you will not be able to actually do this. Also, area routing is only supported on OpenVMS/VAX. No Alpha support. And finally, I'm not sure if phase V can do routing. It might be that you need phase IV for that part, but this is something others will have to verify.

	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