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From: klong@wilkins.bcm.tmc.edu (Kevin Long)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: Shiva NetSerial Review
Message-ID: <1861@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 89 18:33:16 GMT
References: <1005@maytag.waterloo.edu> <3074@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>
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In article <3074@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> jness@ub.d.umn.edu.UUCP (Joel Ness) writes:
>
>   We've just installed a NetSerial ...
>   It seems to work quite well...
>
>Joel Ness			       		INTERNET: jness@ub.d.umn.edu
>Information Services		        	BITNET:  JNESS@UMNDUL

Our experience with the NetSerial has been mixed, and I'd like to ask if
anyone else has the problems we've had.  We use our NetSerial to allow
people to dial in from home into our AppleTalk network.  Our basic setup
is:

      Home -- Hayes 2400 -- phone -- Hayes 2400 --   Shiva   -- Office
      User    baud modem    lines    baud modem    NetSerial    Network

People can call up from home and print small files to printers, etc, with
no problem.  But if we equip the home machine with TOPS and try to mount
a volume at the office or use ncsa telnet to pull a file off of one of
our unix hosts gatewayed through the office network's fastpath, the 
connection is inevitably dropped, sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes 
after 10. 

Phone Line
==========
We have great confidence in the quality of the phone connection--haven't
logged a garbage character in 2 years.  It's all within the same phone
exchange, and most of the route is fiber.

NetSerial
=========
We sent in our NetSerial to have it upgraded and have installed the latest 
version of the NetSerial drivers as of Nov 1 on the relevant machines.  
We have also connected the NetSerial up to an ethernet-to-serial line
multiplexor to have it act as a shared serial port onto our ethernet,
and it's worked very well for everyone in the office in outbound mode,
to access peripherals, to log in to machines, to kermit over files, etc.

The software
============
We're running TOPS 3.0 on MacOS6.0.4, but have had the problem also with all 
previous TOPS versions we've happened to try.  NCSA Telnet is the 2.3 TCP
version.  This software works fine among machines on the office network,
and we're sure that everyone is running the same version of the software.

The Modems
==========
We're using Hayes-compatible 2400-baud modems, that have worked flawlessly
in every other application over the past few years.
We've also tried using Telebit T2500 9600-baud modems configured
according to Shiva's instructions, but with identical results.

The Office Network
==================
Our conclusion: the NetSerial is unreliable in this scheme.  It is dropping
the line.  Is anyone else having these experiences?

	Kevin Long
	Baylor College of Medicine
	klong@bcm.tmc.edu