Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!eagle.wesleyan.edu!hdtodd
From: hdtodd@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Diskless node packet size limits?
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.211328.41202@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 91 02:13:28 GMT
Organization: Wesleyan University
Lines: 26


	I am running two diskless 2500's from a disked 2500 over Ethernet and
via a bridge.  The bridge is PCBRIDGE, an AT&T 6300 with two WD8003 boards 
running Vance Morrison's public-domain PCBRIDGE code.

	When the 2500's were all side-by-side, performance of the diskless 
machines was fairly respectable ... booting was reasonably fast, etc.  Now that
they have the bridge between them (for security reasons), they require 20
minutes to boot and frequently hang in the process.

	It *SEEMS* clear that the problem is in the bridge.  We suspect that
the 8K buffer limit in the WD boards is a major problem, one that Morrison
noted in conjunction with NFS support.

	One solution would seem to be to replace the bridge: not easy to do
because of financial constraints.

	Another solution might be to tell netman to use small packets.  I
cannot find man pages or manual entries for netman parameters: are there any
options?  It appears that the diskless systems actually generate the requests
and netman merely responds: if that's the case, is there any way to limit the
packet sizes on diskless nodes as they boot?

	Thanks for any help you can offer.

					David Todd, Wesleyan University