| >>I've got a customer who is running the DEFEA on a Sable running NT
>>server. After he upgraded from RC2 to production Daytona, the DEFEA
>>stopped passing Appletalk packets.
>>
>>Is there a new/updated driver to fix this, and is this expected
>>behaviour?
Jim,
This is the second time I've heard today that there is a problem with
Appletalk and the new DEFEA driver on Sable. I'm assuming that your
customer is running v1.50 of DEFEA.SYS. If not, the driver kit can be
found in
NETCAD::USER$700:[STEFANI.PUBLIC]DEFEANT.EXE;1
Since it WAS working with RC2, but it died on 807, this is very strange
since the driver didn't change. In fact, from the field test driver to
the final one, there were no changes that would have anything to do
with the critical section (send and receive) of the code. I would be
interested in your customer setup (system setup, hardware options,
software loaded, version of NT (workstation or server), bindings) since
it may prove helpful during debug.
To be honest, our protocol testing was limited to NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and
IPX. Appletalk appeared as being tested on the pre-certification
bulletin from Microsoft, but I don't know how extensive their testing
was. The architecture of the new driver is such that it merely passes
frames to and from the NDIS wrapper, so it shouldn't behave any differently
for Appletalk than it would for NetBEUI.
Anyway, please stay in touch next week and I'll let you know how it goes.
Larry Stefani
Network Driver Development
Networks Engineering
|
| Larry,
As far as setup goes, here's the poop (he has 6 of these by the way):
o uniprocessor Sable.
o 256MB memory.
o DEFEA DAS board.
o Mylex RAID controller.
o Just about every networks option, including NWlink, TCP/IP, Netbeui.
o As a workaround, the Ethernet is turned on and Appletalk is flowing
through there. He would prefer not to use the Ethernet port.
o The problem is described by the customer as being a predictable
"1 in 20" type occurence.
He is using V1.5 of the DEFEA driver and build 807 of NTS. Each one
of these systems has 28GB (14 RZ28's) of disk connected to the RAID
controller.
Any help appreciated,
Jim
|
| >>He is using V1.5 of the DEFEA driver and build 807 of NTS. Each one
>>of these systems has 28GB (14 RZ28's) of disk connected to the RAID
>>controller.
What I know at this point is:
1. The Appletalk protocol comes with the Workstation version of
Windows NT 3.5, but according to Microsoft, this is only for
Localtalk hardware, not regular LAN media types. This allows
the workstation to be used as a Localtalk client only.
2. The Windows NT 3.5 Server product does come with the Appletalk
protocol and Services for Macintosh which allows the server
to act as an Appletalk file server for Apple clients over
existing LAN media like Ethernet, Token-Ring, and FDDI.
3. Microsoft as far as I know has NEVER tested the Appletalk file
server functionality over FDDI adapters in the Server product.
Here in development we only had access to the Workstation software
under the (false?) assumption from Microsoft that it is the same (to the
driver) as the Server software. I'm discovering that this is not the
case in that all of the recent troubles have centered around the
Server product.
We should be getting the Windows NT 3.5 Server product this week. I
hope to do Appletalk and NetBEUI testing on it to see what is going on.
Thanks for the feedback. It's also good knowing that NWlink, TCP/IP,
and NetBEUI work since this has been my experience also. I have
received problem reports with NetBEUI but I can't readily explain it
since it works fine here. Then again, I am running the Workstation
product.
/l
|
| >>Thanks. Please keep us updated. This particular site is ok with using a
>>beta driver if that becomes an option.
That's good to know, but unfortunately, I don't know what I would have
to do differently in the driver (if anything) to get this to work.
Keep in touch,
Larry
|