Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdahl!twg-ap!john From: john@twg-ap.UUCP (John Caughy) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Subject: Re: Help with Netware compatible (hardware independent) pc-tcp/ip Message-ID: <241@twg-ap.UUCP> Date: 5 May 88 15:45:39 GMT References: <8804291122.aa21854@Louie.UDEL.EDU> Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 28 Summary: Netbios Datagram Interface Spec By all means a spec for Netbios interfaces would be most welcome. The spec should describe a Netbios interface which utilizes Netbios datagram service as opposed to Netbios sessions. I feel that areas which need the most attention are Netbios name conventions and encapsulation. With regard to Netbios name conventions we use the ascii dot notation of the IP address with a prefix of "WIP". This probably guarantees we won't interoperate with anyone but this is easily changed. I think the Netbios name should imply the protocols used as well as the address. Such a naming scheme would permit the multiplexing among various protocol stacks a` la the Ethernet type field. The simple ascii dot notation is perhaps sufficient to identify IP protocols but may later become confused with other addressing schemes which might operate over this interface. This leads to a second important consideration of the spec regarding encapsulation. Wollongong currently directly encapsulates the IP datagram as Netbios data without any other extraneous information, such as a type field. Is there any other data other than the IP datagram which might be useful to encapsulate in the Netbios datagram? My immediate answer is a probably not. I would like to see the interface kept as simple as possible. In regard to your other suggestions, 2. and 3., I don't feel that these are appropriate functions for the interface per se. The IETF is currently defining additional ICMP messages one of which is called the "Gateway Delivery Request/Reply" which is similar to the "Address Mask Request/Reply" message.