[HECnet] An example of non-optimal setup

I thought I'd share an example of a non-optimal setup for people, so that you can understand a little better what we currently have. This is from area 1 to area 34. More specifically ANKE to area 34. Now, physically, ANKE is in Stockholm, Sweden, while A34RTR is in Båtbyggartorp, Sweden. They are actually not that far from each other, physically, if you look on a map. Maybe 40 kilometers at the most. However, in HECnet, it is 3 hops, and a cost of 20. Now, when ANKE wants to talk to area 34, the next hops are: PYTHON - New Boston, NH, USA (cost 8) IMPRTR - Washington DC, USA (cost 4) and then I *think* it must be A34RTR, since that should be the final hop, but since both IMPRTR and A34RTR are Cisco boxes, I can't see. And a guess that the cost of that last hop would be 8. But clearly, such a roundabout way to talk to such a close node is kindof silly. :-) We should have reasonable links, in reasonable directions, and with appropriate costs, so that we don't have things like this. No good reason to. It's not like we need to pay money to have physical cables installed between places. (This must have been such a fun work back in the day when you needed to actually pay for the physical cables...) If the link to PYTHON went down, the alternative route would be through A39RTR(9), PYRTR(2), IMPRTR(4) and then A34RTR. The costs in parenthesis. (A cost of 2 between A39RTR and PYRTR seems rather cheap, but what do I know?) A few suggestions on how to look at things: If you have a machine that talks NICE, you can examine for both VMS, RSX and PyDECnet, what the next hop towards an area is. Giving examples on MIM: .ncp tell anke sho area 34 stat Area status as of 10-SEP-22 15:34:49 Next Area State Cost Hops Circuit Node 34 Reachable 20 3 DMC-15 41.1 (PYTHON) .ncp tell anke sho cir dmc-15 cha Circuit characteristics as of 10-SEP-22 15:36:02 Circuit = DMC-15 Level one cost = 8 Hello timer = 60, Listen timer = 630 This can then be repeated for node PYTHON and so on. But as noted, when you get to a Cisco box, you can't do this. Cisco boxes do not speak NICE. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol