Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!CS.UTAH.EDU!crum
From: crum@CS.UTAH.EDU (Gary L. Crum)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: the FastPath dilemma
Message-ID: <8801042306.AA24931@cs.utah.edu>
Date: 4 Jan 88 23:06:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 20

Neither KIP nor the Kinetics "combined" (EtherTalk&UDP routing) code seems
to have all the answers when it comes to LocalTalk<->Ethernet bridging.

Are there groups out there adding EtherTalk support to the KIP code generously
provided by Bill Croft?  Or, will CAP someday work with the gateway code
of Kinetics?  Does Kinetics have plans to incorporate dynamic IP address
allocation into their combined code?

At Utah the CS Department runs UNIX with TCP/IP on ethernet almost exclusively.
We are running KIP 09/87 in a FastPath in order to take advantage of CAP and
the dynamic IP address allocation mechanism of KIP that works well with NCSA
Telnet.  However, the need for EtherTalk support in LocalTalk<->Ethernet
(KFPS) bridges is clear.  The Center for Engineering Design department here
uses the Kinetics combined gateway code along with the AlisaTalk product for
their VAX/VMS systems.  Utah has a class B Internet and wants to use 8 bits
as a subnet number, but if each new LocalTalk network is assigned a full
subnet (as we understand the Kinetics code requires), we will be wasting
many IP addresses.  If you have thought about and solved problems like these,
please share your experiences.

Gary