On Jul 24, 2012, at 4:08 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: On 2012-07-24 01:33, Mark Benson wrote: Is it feasible/advisable/possible to have 2 Area Routers on a DECnet Phase IV network? The only reason I ask is that I'd like my emulated cluster system to be able to run Area 6 independently as all the nodes are area 6 nodes and it'd be neat to have area 6 working at places events like DEC Legacy. Would it cause issues on HECNet having 2 Area 6 routers in different places also? I'm guessing not as they are still on the same DECnet network, same as if they are in the same room on the same LAN, but what do I know ;) No problems. The only thing is that all area routers needs to have connectivity with other area routers with no level 1 routers in between. So in your case, your two area routers must be able to talk to each other without using any level 1 routers. However, I don't think that you must have a direct connection between them. I *think* that it should work fine even if they only connect via area routers in other areas. Yes. There are two requirements: 1. Each area must be intact (no partitioned areas). 2. The level 2 net must be intact (not partitioned). The level 2 net is defined as the set of connections between level 2 routers, so a pair of level 2 routers that have "connectivity" only via a level 1 router do not in fact have level 2 connectivity. (They do have level 1 connectivity, so they can communicate with each other and with other nodes in their area, but out of area communication will not work properly.) paul