>From: gerber@sirius.astro.uiuc.edu (Richard A. Gerber)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm
Subject: Networking FAQs
Date: 29 Apr 92 14:18:21 GMT
Date-Received: 29 Apr 92 15:31:37 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Keywords: Ethernet, X Windows, TCP/IP, Novel, Appletalk, DECnet
Summary: First networking FAQ list


Amiga networking FAQ -- 4/29/92
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the premier post of the Amiga networking FAQ list. This list
is primarily devoted to questions about commercial products, ie.
ethernet, TCP/IP, X Windows, DECnet, Novel Netware and AppleTalk.
All information provided here is mean for informational purposes and
is not to be taken as an endorsement for any particular product. (Note: in
most cases only one company provides any given service anyway). If
anyone knows of additional relevant products, let me know and they'll
be added to the list.

Questions about SLIP and DNET have not been included. While
there have been lots of questions about these subjects on the net, there
have been few if any definitive answers about them. If anyone is actually using
SLIP and/or DNET and would like to handle a FAQ list about them, let me
know and we can include it here.

There was recently posted an AmigaNOS FAQ list.

Send corrections, updates and suggestions to:
gerber@sirius.astro.uiuc.edu

Richard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Frequently asked questions:

A. Product availability

A01. What do I need to hook up my Amiga to ethernet?
A02. Can I hook up an Amiga 500 or Amiga 1000 to ethernet?
A03. Is X Windows available for the Amiga?
A04. Is DECnet available?
A05. Is AppleTalk available?
A06. Is Novel Netware available?
A07. Are there any peer-peer network packages for the Amiga?

B. Commodore AS225 TCP/IP software

B01. I can't login to my Amiga over the network. Why?
B02. When I ftp to some hosts, I get part of an introductory message and
     then either the network hangs up or the connection gets closed. Why?
B03. Is Domain Name Resolution available with the AS225 software?
B04. Can I use NFS to mount a partition on my Amiga from a remote machine?
B05. I can't use FTP, rsh or rcp into my Amiga. Why?
B06. FTP into my Amiga works, but rsh and rcp into my Amiga don't.
B07. I can communicate with machines on my network/floor/building, but I
     can't communicate with other machines even though they are in my
     inet:db/hosts file.

C. General

C01. What terminal emulations are available over ethernet?
C02. Can I use multiple protocol stacks on my Amiga at the same time?

A list of manufacturers and brief product specifications appear at the end of
this list.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A01. What do I need to hook up my Amiga to ethernet?
   The Commodore A2065 Ethernet Network Interface Adapter, which can 
   be used with software such as Commodore AS225 TCP/IP Networking Software,
   Syndesis TSSnet DECnet software, and Oxxi Netware. (See specifications
   at the end of this file.) The A2065 card is a full size Amiga
   card for the Amiga 2000 and 3000 line of computers. (The original
   Ameristar ethernet card is functionally equivalent to the A2065 card.)

A02. Can I hook up an Amiga 500 or Amiga 1000 to ethernet?
   The A2065 has reportedly been used successfully with third-party
   expansion boxes, such as Bodega Bay.

A03. Is X Windows available for the  Amiga?
   X11 Release 4 full color for the Amiga is available from GfxBase.
   Also available are XView, OpenLook, Motif, programmers toolkits,
   and Berkeley sockets library.
   X Windows supports Commodore TCP/IP and Syndesis DECnet for ethernet
   and serial connections, SANA for local.

A04. Is DECnet available?
   TSSnet from Syndesis allows DECnet networking.
   TSSnet supports X11 from GfxBase, which provides DECWindows support for
   applications running on a VAX system. TSSnet can communicate over
   ethernet as well as the Amiga serial port.
 
A05. Is AppleTalk available?
   There are a few implementations of AppleTalk software and LocalTalk
   hardware available for the Amiga. DoubleTalk from Progressive 
   Peripherals & Software is an AppleTalk compatible network for
   the Amiga 500, 2000 and 3000.

A06. Is Novel Netware available?
   A Novel Netware client package is available from Oxxi.

A07. Are there any peer-peer network packages for the Amiga?
   DoubleTalk from Progressive Peripherals provides a full peer to peer
   file sharing capability. However it only runs on the PP DoubleTalk
   board which limits its speed to about 1/20 that of ethernet.
   ALAN-FS is a peer-to-peer network package that allows full transparent
   file-sharing, device sharing over ethernet. It requires WB2.0 and the
   Commodore AS225 package. It is available from GfxBase, or
   Canadian Prototype Replicas, PO Box 8, Ontario, Canada 519-884-4412
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

B01. I can't login to my Amiga over the network. Why?
   The AS225 software does not support interactive remote logins to the Amiga.
   It does have servers for rsh (remote shell), rcp (remote copy) and does
   support remote ftp logins. rsh allows you to execute commands on the
   Amiga, but does not allow an interactive shell.

B02. When I ftp to some hosts, I get part of an introductory message and
then either the network hangs up or the connection gets closed. Why?
   There apparently is a bug in the AS225 software that causes trouble when
   ftp'ing to a system that has a long login message. You can suppress this
   login message on some systems by typing a hyphen ('-') as the first
   character in your password.

B03. Is Domain Name Resolution available with the AS225 software?
   No. You must have an entry in the host table for each machine you wish
   to reference by name (as opposed to IP address). And no, the gateways
   file is not currently used.

B04. Can I use NFS to mount a partition on my Amiga from a remote machine?
   No. Currently, the AS225 software only supports NFS as a client. An NFS
   server is not included.

B05. I can't use FTP, rsh or rcp into my Amiga. Why?
   Make sure that you are running inet:s/start-inet with the servers keyword
   (ie, "execute inet:s/start-inet servers").

B06. FTP into my Amiga works, but rsh and rcp into my Amiga don't.
   Make sure that you have an entry in inet:db/passwd for the user who is
   rshing into the Amiga (you can use the -l option to change the user
   trying to do the remote access.) Make sure that you have an entry in
   inet:db/hosts.equiv for the machine being rsh'd from.

B07. I can communicate with machines on my network/floor/building, but I
can't communicate with other machines even though they are in my
inet:db/hosts file.
   Make sure that you have routes set up to other networks. Many networks 
   have one primary gateway which you should make your default route for
   reaching all other networks. See the commented-out "route add default"
   line in inet:s/start-inet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

C01. What terminal emulations are available over ethernet?
   The AS225 package allows rlogin using the Amiga console (a termcap is
   supplied) only. A separate rloginVT program is supplied for VT100 
   emulation. 
   Under X Windows, xterm provides terminal emulation that typically
   works with all software available on the host.

C02. Can I use multiple protocol stacks on my Amiga at the same time?
   If all desired protocol stacks support the SANA-II standard, several
   protocols can be run simultaneously on the same A2065 card.  No
   commercially available versions of the network protocol stacks support 
   the SANA-II specification yet. Today you can have multiple hardware
   interfaces to run different protocols on the same machine simultaneously
   (i.e. one A2065 used for TCP/IP and one used for Netware).

 

***************************************************************************
Specifications:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A2065 - Commodore Business Machines
Function: Full ANSI 802.3 type Ethernet protocols over either Type A (Thick
          Ethernet) or Type B (Thin Ethernet/Cheapernet) connections.
          32K onboard RAM Buffer provides shared RAM between Am7990 processor
          and the Amiga.
Card Type: Amiga bus (100 pin), Autoconfig
Interface Specs: 15 pin female "D" connector for Type A (Thick Ethernet)
          networking with 100 nodes per segment Female BNC coax connector
          for Type B (Thin Ethernet/Cheapernet) networking with 30 nodes per
          segment.
Speed:    10Mbps CSMA/CD interface DMA data reading and writing to shared RAM
Card Size: Full size Amiga board
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
AS225 - Commodore Business Machines
Compatibility:  NFS - TCP/IP software for the Amiga is compatible with
                all models of the Amiga. Connection to Internet, DDN
                and other networks supporting TCP/IP and UDP/IP protocols.
                Works with the A2065 and Ameristar Ethernet Adapters.
Network Functions: rlogin  (client only), rloginVT (client only VT100
		terminal emulation), rsh (client and server, but no
		interactive shells), NFS client, telnet (client only),
                ftp (client and server), finger (client only), ping, arp,
                netstat, rcp (client and server), route, showmount  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
X11R4 - GfxBase, Inc.
Compatibility:  AS225(tcp/ip) TSSnet(DECnet) Local(SanaI), all Amigas.
                WB1.3 and WB2.0
Requires: min 1M ram for server, 7M harddisk, more ram for local clients
Graphics: lowres (upto 32 colors), hires (upto 16), super/productivity (upto 4)
          All resolutions up to 2kx2k. A2024(Hedley) at 1024x800(1024/pal),
          interlace
Includes: pbmplus utilities, X11R5 fonts, xpr for Amiga printers.
Input: international keyboard support, 3 button mouse.
Other graphics cards: GDA-1 (upto 1024x768 256/16M colors), Ameristar 1600GX
	 (upto 1600x1280 256/16M colors)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DoubleTalk - Progressive Peripherals & Software
Compatibility: Amiga 500, 2000 and 3000. Apple File Protocol used in
               standard AppleTalk networks.
Functions: Share files, printers on existing AppleTalk network.
           For Amiga-only networks, has a high-speed mode (twice AppleTalk
           speeds) and allows any Amiga to function simultaneously as
           a file server, printer server or client.
Hardware: Network interface card with 512K ROM and phone jack network adapter.
          Network card provides an additional serial port for the Amiga.
Software utilities: Network Manager, AutoLogoff, AutoPublish, password
          security, NetMail.
*****************************************************************************

Manufacturers:
	
Canadian Prototype Replicas, PO Box 8, Ontario, Canada 
(519) 884-4412

Commodore Business Machines, 1200 Wilson Dr., West Chester, PA 19380
(215) 431-9100, (215) 436-4200

GfxBase, Inc., 1881 Ellwell Dr., Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 262-1469, (408) 262-8276 (FAX)

Oxxi, P.O. Box 90309, Long Beach, CA 90809
(213) 427-1227

Progressive Peripherals & Software, 464 Kalamath Street, Denver, CO 80204
(303) 825-4144, (303) 893-6938 (FAX)

Syndesis Corporation, N9353 Benson Road, Brooklyn, WI 53521
(608) 455-1422, (608) 455-1317 (FAX)

--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Gerber
Grad Student Physics
gerber@rigel.astro.uiuc.edu
University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign
------------------------------------------------------------- 


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