From: act@softserver.canberra.edu.au (Andrew Turner)
Subject: Re: Windows for ... and TCP/IP -- problems GOT IT WRONG
Organization: University of Canberra
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 04:06:40 GMT

act@softserver.canberra.edu.au (Andrew Turner) writes - with misinfo:

Whoooops, I posted an article off comp.protocols.nfs which was apparently 
not quite spot on.  In an attempt to get into even deeper water(must lose
my good samaritan hat you know |-( ) here is a followup from Sun that got
lost in information overload.  Anyway there goes my bandwidth quota for the
rest of the century.  BTW suggest backreading articles on comp.protocols.nfs
from both the honourable Geoff Arnold and Larry Backman about this thorny
issue.  Humble pie for breakfast lunch and dinner ad nauseum

'Mihi crede, hoc mihi magis quam tibi nocet'


Quoth iceman@sequent.com (Ian Evans) (in <1992Dec7.222331.21336@sequent.com>):
#Quite a few people responded to my mail about this, so here's what
#I have found.....
#
#The bottom line from both Sun and Microsoft is this:

I don't know who you spoke  with at Sun, but this description
is inaccurate in almost every respect.

#W4W introduced a new version of the protocol manager, version 2.1.
#PC-NFS, and just about every other tcp/ip product that supports
#NDIS, is compatible with version 1.x.

NDIS is *NOT* the issue. Read the NDIS 1.1 and 2.1 specs. 2.1
introduces some new features (e.g. dynamic bind/unbind) and
clarifies some stuff, but a 1.1 stack can (and does) work
over a 2.1 protocol manager and MAC.

There are a number of incompatibilities between PC-NFS and W4W.  On the
PC-NFS side, we had to rework our emulation of the DOS Int21 5F02
(GetRedirList) call - our original code was legal as defined by the DOS
Tech.Ref, but W4W is picky and won't allow "gaps" in the index list.
However there is also a bug in W4W (specifically in the W4WNET.DRV
driver) which Microsoft has to fix. We've been working with MS on this,
and our testing is substantially complete. (It would be unwise to infer
from this that the fix is ready to be released, since it's possible
that there are additional changes that MIcrosoft needs to make to
W4WNET.DRV.)

#Sun is aware of the bug and it's in their queue to fix.  They did
#not specifically state they were actively working on the fix or
#when it would be available.

OK, let me specifically state that we are actively working on a fix :-)

There would be little point in our releasing a patch to PC-NFS until
we've had a chance to test against the final version of W4WNET.DRV (and
any other changes in W4W). As soon as both PC-NFS and W4W fixes are
ready, we'll announce the fact.

#So for W4W to work with PC-NFS Sun needs to patch/upgrade their
#NDIS driver to support version 2.1 of protman.dos (version 1.1 is
#called protman.sys).

As I noted above, this is actually incorrect. Notwithstanding this,
I expect that our patch may include a new NFS-NDIS.SYS anyway, since
I've made a couple of fixes that will improve multiple stack
coexistence.

Geoff

PS For obvious reasons, I usually prefer not to go into this level of
detail about multivendor problems in a public forum such as this - it
tends to obscure/obstruct/cloud the issues we're trying to solve - but
I felt that it was important to set the record straight. While it would
obviously have been preferable if these incompatibilities could have
been resolved during W4W beta testing, I would like to emphasize that
we've had excellent cooperation with Microsoft in working on the
resolution of the matter. No finger pointing please; we'll get things
fixed as quickly as we can.

--
Geoff Arnold, PC-NFS architect, Sun Select. (geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM)
ADMINISTRIVIA==========ADMINISTRIVIA=====ADMINISTRIVIA==========ADMINISTRIVIA
New address: SunSelect, 2 Elizabeth Drive, Chelmsford, MA 01824-4195
New numbers: Phone: 508-442-0317   FAX: 508-250-5068   



-- 
Renrut Werdna			Probable-Possible, my black hen,
				She lays eggs in the Relative When.
				She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
act@ss.canberra.edu.au		Because she's unable to postulate how