[HECnet] Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

[Peter Lothberg]

I assume you are using GRE on the Cisco box. I am not an expert in this
stuff so pardon the na=EFve question but, what is it about Cisco
that makes it better than the bridge? After all aren't they really
doing the same thing?

The bridge connects two ethernets together at L2.

The cisco router can also be configured as DECnet (area) router and 
connects at L3.   This is the same thing as Multinet on a VMS box does,
it just encapsulates in a different way.

The cisco box can also do "decnet NAT"...

Is it just that you don=92t need a server running the bridge (could use
a Raspberry Pi for that now) or is it the use of GRE? From a skim of RFC 2784
and 2890 GRE doesn't look too complicated, perhaps the bridge could be
changed to implement GRE if that helps in some way.

There is a Linux GRE driver. If you can make the emulator to present a
"ethernet interface" to the VMS host, and you stick that etherent
packet in a GRE packet, it should talk to the Cisco box, or you can
talk between two emulators. 

An other option is to do the Multinet UDP encapsulation, the format
was posted to the HECnet mailinglist a while ago.

I don't know much about "professional" routers and Cisco stuff in
particular. If there are advantages to using a Cisco router, what
should I be looking for if I wanted to pick up something cheap on
EBay?

Any cisco that runs "enterprise IOS" after ver 9.21, 

Could this work in a domestic environment with an ISP that
gives out dynamic IP addresses?

My head hurts.. Ask for a /56 of IPv6 space. -:)

If there are many users that need this, I will look in to it, I thnk
there was magic that could be applied.

-P