Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!husc6!rutgers!columbia!cunixc!cck
From: cck@cunixc.columbia.edu (Charlie C. Kim)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: Aufs and MacII ethernet card?
Message-ID: <1012@cunixc.columbia.edu>
Date: 30 Sep 88 18:19:04 GMT
References: <677@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> <3789@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <693@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: cck@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Charlie C. Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 40

In article <693@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> czei@phonon.eng.ohio-state.edu (Michael S. Czeiszperger) writes:
>....
>network.  Why should Aufs only work *through* a localtalk network
>when it would be faster and more direct to just communicate with
>a MacII directly through the ethertalk card?  It seems like a huge
>waste to spend lots of $ on a MacII and ethertalk card, and then
>have to pay several thousand more dollars for a k-box so we can
>remote mounting!                                           
>

Aufs is NOT limited to working through a LocalTalk network.

However, the CAP libraries do NOT, as distributed, allow a transport
method other than KIP.  Since your Mac II with an EtherTalk card does
not support KIP, it must route through an AppleTalk bridge supporting
both the KIP UDP encapsulation method and EtherTalk.

The CAP libraries do not support a transport other than KIP, because,
in general, it would required kernel modifications to support
EtherTalk on the various unix hosts.  A very important goal was not to
have to install kernel modifications to use CAP.

Of course, times change and some unix systems come with EtherTalk in
the kernel or via another method.  For those systems, it is quite
possible to make the CAP libraries use EtherTalk as their transport.
It requires replacement of one module (abkip.c) with well-defined
interfaces to the rest of the libraries (though it could be nicer)
with possible replacment/dropping of atalkdbm.c.  So, if you have
EtherTalk in your kernel, feel free to replace abkip.c.

Making Macintoshes support the KIP UDP encapsulation is a possibility,
but a lot of work and results in a system that requires will probably
require far more configuration than any other Macintosh software (you
would have to assign an IP address, specify nearest router, figure out
broadcast address, etc).

Charlie C. Kim
Academic Computing and Communications Group
Center for Computing Activities
Columbia University