Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!ora!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: SLIP reliability
Message-ID: <420@minya.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jul 90 03:38:15 GMT
References: <9006141305.AA22966@vax.ftp.com> <30819@cup.portal.com>
Lines: 27

In article <30819@cup.portal.com>, thinman@cup.portal.com (Lance C Norskog) writes:
> 	2) If your SL/IP tosses packets when the hardware gives framing
> or lost-byte errors, SL/IP should be very reliable.  If you run SL/IP over
> modems, be sure to use MNP or some other error-corrected protocol.  These 
> modems are so cheap that it's pointless running on a raw one.

Be careful here.  Where I work, we've been running SLIP over some modems
that do MNP, and we use raw mode.  The reason is that the MNP comes with
software flow control, which means that any packet with a ^S causes the
link to die.  It usually doesn't take too long for such a packet to come
along.

I spent of bunch of time on the phone with Customer Support people at
the manufacturer (Codex), trying to figure out how to correctly configure
the modems, and all I got from them was "Of course you want flow control; 
you'll lose data without it."  They couldn't conceive of an application
that didn't care about lost data.  If there's a way to do MNP that lets 
*all* 8-bit values pass, they wouldn't or couldn't tell me how to do it.

If anyone out there knows how to do it, I wouldn't mind getting some
email on the subject...

-- 
Typos and silly ideas Copyright (C) 1990 by:
Uucp: ...!{harvard.edu,ima.com,eddie.mit.edu,ora.com}!minya!jc (John Chambers)
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