Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pyramid!leadsv!esl!esl.ESL.COM!dml From: dml@esl.com (Denis Lynch) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Loss of non-NetInfo Network Configuration Message-ID: Date: 5 Mar 90 20:42:10 GMT References: <23460002@pnl-geo.UUCP> Sender: news@esl.ESL.COM Organization: ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 37 In-reply-to: gary@pnl-geo.UUCP's message of 28 Feb 90 18:49:27 GMT In article <23460002@pnl-geo.UUCP> gary@pnl-geo.UUCP ( Gary Black ) writes: I am having some repeated diffuculty in keeping a NeXT machine alive on a heterogeneous (non-NetInfo) thin ethernet network. It seems that when the network is interrupted temporarily by disconnecting the BNC connector from the Next for instance, the network configuration is lost as well as the link to the user accounts. It comes up logged in automatically as "me" and gives the message "Cannot connect to NetInfo server. Assuming no NetInfo parents" when I inquire about the local configuration with NetManager. We have no trouble here with a (very large) net of non-NeXT machines, that happens to have a little NeXT net on it. If you reboot a NeXT without the network connected, it determines that it isn't on one (logically enough) and doesn't bring up any of the NetInfo stuff. There are two things you might want to know: 1) You don't need to power the machine off to disconnect/reconnect the net. It won't even mind having the net gone for a while. Just pull the T off the cube, do whatever you need, and put the T back on when you're done. 2) If you want to bring NetInfo up even though there isn't really a net connected, do this: Get a T connector, and put a 50-ohm terminator on EACH arm. Connect that to the cube's ethernet connector, and it will think it's hooked to a network. (Of course if the machine isn't a NetInfo Cofiguration Server it will wait 'til it finds one, which might be a long time!) We use this trick when we need to cart a machine to another building for a demo or something. In other words, your problem has nothing to do with disconnecting the network, it has to do with booting the machine with the network disconnected. Denis Lynch ESL Inc.