[HECnet] Multinet circuit costs

On 2012-01-06 00.27, hvlems at zonnet.nl wrote: More than one area router in a given area is never a problem because there is a mechanism that selects the active area router. No. There is not just one "active" area router. But if that was the case, then it could doubly become a problem. Assume the two area routers in an area do not have direct contact with each other. How would they decide which one was active? But correct, having multiple area routers in an area is not a problem. Level 1 routers figure out which area router is the closest, and route all out-of-area traffic to the closest area router. However, if you have two area routers, but they do not have a direct contact with each other, things can become funny. The copy problems are observed with Legato and Star69 (from memory). Thanks. I'll try to look at it this weekend, if it hasn't been solved before then. By the way, does any kind of traffic work, and only file copying is an issue, or what exactly have you observed? Johnny -----Original Message----- From: Johnny Billquist<bqt at softjar.se> Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:21:17 To:<hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Multinet circuit costs I would expect that your area should not ever be a problem. But if you have two area routers for your area, you can potentially mess things up for traffic going out of your area, or in to. Well, there are other potential messups one can do as well. But could you start by telling me between which machines you can observe the problem? Johnny On 2012-01-06 00.15, hvlems at zonnet.nl wrote: Yes I agree that we have a problem. I cannot create the problem between any combination of nodes within my area. The only common factor is that both nodes I cannnot copy from all have a bridge and a tcp tunnel. I haven't tried Ctakan yet. It's too late now. Hans -----Original Message----- From: Johnny Billquist<bqt at softjar.se> Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:04:01 To:<hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Multinet circuit costs Ok. So we do have a problem. Time to figure out what it is, then. I can most definitely say that multiple paths is not the problem. However, there could be some other problem with some machine/setup/paths/whatever that is more local to you Hans. If it works talking to MIM, and you have the bridge running, then it becomes a question of which machines you have problems talking to, and we can check at both ends what the next hop is and reason if that is reasonable and correct. Johnny On 2012-01-05 16.40, hvlems at zonnet.nl wrote: Again, apologies for topposting: my cellphone is somewhat rude... PST is UTC-8 (unless Bob lives in the Philippines, then it's UTC+8 :). Yes I have problems wihile copying files from Legato and Star69 to Ozon. Ozon is the area router for area 44 and uses the bridge software. I can't access the Hecnet map but Legato has multiple paths and IIRC so does Star. Ozon has no problem copying files from MIM or MUSIPC and both are connected with single paths (IIRC again). Reading Bob's analysis I still think that multiple paths may lead to errors. Granted that circuit cost may fix this but right now it is, for me at least, not clear. The area information in the output of show network/old on Ozon shows all areas and about 40% is more than 1 hop away and seen as reachable thru Legato. Hans -----Original Message----- From: "Bob Armstrong"<bob at jfcl.com> Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 07:14:50 To:<hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: RE: [HECnet] Multinet circuit costs Why? What is the percieved problem? I don't know about area 44, but I was talking to Hans on New Years Eve about a problem where he could not copy files, while logged in to OZON, from LEGATO (i.e. a "pull" transaction). According to Hans, it fails with "acp file or directory lookup failed". If I did the same thing from my end (a "push") it would start copying and actually create an empty file on OZON, but then time out after a very long time with -RMS-F-SYS, QIO system service request failed -SYSTEM-F-LINKABORT, network partner aborted logical link Last I heard Hans was going to check the NETSERVER/FAL logs on his side for any error messages, but that was New Years Eve and he was otherwise occupied :-) I see this morning that Hans has actually created a file "TARGET.TXT" on LEGATO (dated 6PM PST on 12/31 even - what time is that in the Netherlands??) so maybe he's solved the problem. If he did he didn't tell me what he did. Hans also mentioned to me that he was having similar problems with the node STAR69 and CANADA. I think all this came up when Hans was trying to write his HECnet crawler script to gather INFO.TXT files... I don't think this is related to the Multinet/Bridge configuration, but I can't guarantee it. One hidden "gotcha" in DECnet is that the circuit costs are determined locally, so the routings don't have to be symmetrical (i.e. the route from A->B might not be the same as the route from B->A). If somebody (Johnny??) wants to try to figure it out, be my guest - GUEST/GUEST. I'm a little busy at the moment and don't really have time to look at it. Bob