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

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. 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. 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. Bob