Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!siemens!steve
From: steve@siemens (Steve Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.xerox
Subject: Vax file servers
Message-ID: <8801291534.AA03356@siemens.siemens.com>
Date: 29 Jan 88 15:34:43 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 41

We have around 9 1109 and 1186's with our own fileserver.  (We share printing
and other services with the Viewpoint system that the administration uses.)
Unfortunately, our fileserver-for-lisp-users is a lemon.  It's so bad that
we are losing files and it's down most of the time.

In our lab we also have a fair number of Vaxes, micro and otherwise.  We have
VMS and several varieties of Unix - Berkeley, Mt. Xinu, and Ultrix - running
on them.  The obvious solution is to get some software and a disk, and use one
of the Vaxes as a fileserver.

We already can use TCP-IP to acces files on some Vaxes, but we think we need
the XNS based server so we can keep sysouts, and because TCP-IP is not really
100% comfortable.  (It struggles to deal with different ideas about file names
for example.)

How much work is required to get the DEI software from Xerox up and running?
Is it really satisfactory?  Does it collide with other ethernet software
running on the same Vax?  How much Vax computer power does it use up?

Is there satasfactory software to run under Unix?  The Unix guys point out
that XNS is available on the distribution tape from Berkeley or Mt. Xinu,
but does that include the  server program(s)?

I hope someone with actual experience with these approaches can enlighten
me.  I know that there are people out there using quite a variety of machines
as fileservers.

Extra credit question:  Is it possible to set up a Postscript type printer
(that is, an Imagen) that is currently sitting on the Ethernet printing files
from a variety of Vaxes and workstations all running Unix, so that the
D-machines access it as if it were a print server?  I have seen that there
is software for producing Postscript files, but what eelse is necessary?

If you know all about this stuff, and you'd like to help us get such a
system set up, you might even (if you're lucky) be able to convince management
here to pay you as a consultant to do it.  But act like it was your own idea,
not mine (to be a consultant that is).

Steve Clark, lowly peon
Siemens Research and Technology Laboratory
Princeton New Jersey
steve@siemens.com,  ...!princeton!siemens!steve