Sorry for the long delay in summarizing, but since there's been some
traffic dealing with PPP on this list, I think this info will still
be useful.
I haven't reached a final conclusion yet (i.e., no serious testing
yet) , but here's what I got on OSPF/PPP.
------ORIGINAL MESSAGE----------------------------------------------
Hi,
We have two networks of sparctations (sunos 4.1.1) that we are
connecting together,and both are subnets of a common class B network
(campus wide). The networks will be connected directly to each other
and also to the campus backbone, and since I'd like to do dynamic
routing network loops may be a problem. Currently we run routed (RIP),
but people have told me that gated (HELO,RIP) would be more appropriate
for this situation. I've done some reading, and it seems to me that OSPF
would be the best.
Do any of you know of available implementations of OSPF ? Ideally I'd
like to use some 12MHZ ATs we have as routers. I have NWU software to
implement a RIP router (PCROUTE), but don't know of any other that
implements "gated" or OSPF. I'd be most interested on PC implementations
of these.
Is anyone out there running PPP on Suns or PCs ? I'd like to know pros
and cons of PPP versus SLIP, which is the way we are connecting a couple
of distant machines. Is there a PC implementation of PPP ? Obsolete PCs
abound around here, so it seems to me most of them can get a after-life
as routers/bridges!
-------------END OF MESSAGE-----------------------------------------
I haven't been able to locate on the net any PC program that
implements gated functionality. PC-ROUTE remains the only choice.
OSPF seems to be a good idea, since our network is turning out to
have a hell of a lot of loops :-( . Seems that everybody around here
enjoy experimenting cross-connecting networks! The only
implementation of OSPF I found on the net was an alpha version of
gated:
gated.cornell.edu:pub/gated/gated-alpha.tar.Z
The latest official release of gated can also be found at this
directory. Since I'm chicken I did not try out the alpha version on
our backbone. :-)
So the OSPF issue is still open. It seems to be a very good thing,
but apparently it's so new that few people out there are using it.
Nevertheless it's something to watch closely. I'd be most interested
in reports of OSPF sightings.
I have experimented a bit with PPP, but only with the PC
implementation I got from the net, KA9Q's . It's at,
merit.edu: pub/ppp/ka9q.zip
So far it seems to work well.I think there really aren't any cons to
PPP, other than a larger per packet overhead.
There are several PPP implementations for Unix boxes on the net.
Check wuarchive.wustl.edu:packages/ppp for some of them.
FTP Software has PPP for PCs, and Morning Star has one for most Unix
boxes. Bob Sutterfield (bob@MorningStar.COm) kindly sent me a LOT of
info about their product and PPP in general. Their user manual is
very clear and informative, and can be retrieved by aftp from
ftp.morningstar.com . Contact J. Laskey (marketing) at
jamey@morningstar.com for more info. I learned a lot more about PPP
reading their material than thru the RFC.
I have no connection with them other than as an extensively briefed
prospective customer!
Overall PPP seems definitely superior to SLIP, and it's available
here and now for several architectures. I'm certain that all our SLIP
connections will be replaced by PPP ones shortly, depending only on
our 92 budget restrictions on purchases. If it's not possible to
buy commercial implementations then I think we'll go with the PD
ones, which seem to be relatively stable.
Thanks for all msgs,
From: Bob Sutterfield <bob@roughy.MorningStar.Com>
From: bill@aloft.att.com
From: dan@ees1s0.engr.ccny.cuny.edu (Dan Schlitt)
From: "Pedro A.M. Vazquez" <vazquez@iqm.unicamp.ansp.br>
From: rpj%inel.gov@ucdavis.BITNET (Randall P Johnson)
Filipe Santos
FVSANTOS@BRLNCC.BITNET
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:06:37 CDT