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

[Johnny Billquist]

Bob Armstrong wrote:
Johnny wrote:
You also need to figure out where to connect to, "physically". That is, which remote machine will you talk to, and using which protocol.
There are several options. Most people either use a VMS machine as a router, and go through an IP-tunneled connection handled by VMS, or they use my bridge program, which acts just like any bridge.
  Right - you either need a VAX or Alpha running OpenVMS and the Multinet
TCP/IP package (both of which have free hobbyist licenses), OR you need a
Unix host running Johnny's bridge program.   I believe in the latter case
NetBSD is preferred, but Johnny can correct me if that's wrong.

NetBSD is "preferred" by me personally, but the bridge program is mostly running on Linux boxes I think. :-)
I have it running on both Linux and NetBSD myself, and others have run it on OpenBSD, and I think FreeBSD as well. It can probably be made to run on another bunch of Unix-like systems with little effort. There are a few requirements on the hardware though. The ethernet controller must allow you to send packets with a "fake" source MAC address. Also, the Unix system must have bpf.

  It's unfortunate, but a VAX/Alpha running OpenVMS is the only thing you
can connect directly to HECnet.   For anything else you end up needing an
intermediary to serve as a DECnet router - either an OpenVMS machine or a
NetBSD machine, as described above.

I have actually also done DDCMP connections in the past. DDCMP is basically just a serial line, so I tunneled that traffic using some freeware with a little massaging. I could probably set something like that up again, if needed.
Don't know if anything but RSX and VMS supported DECnet over asynch serial lines, though.

  It's possible that the Linux DECnet implementation supports tunneling over
TCP/IP that's compatible with Multinet, but I can't remember.   Christine
would know.   If that's true, then it would be a third option.

Good question. I know that I've had problems when running DECnet/Linux in the past, but that's definitely another possibility.
I've also talking a bit with John Wilson (who writes E11) about possibly adding the bridging code directly in E11, so that you'd have an ethernet interface which would go directly out on the net. That's not working yet, but if people are interested, I'm sure John could cook that up fast enough.

	Johnny