Conference 7.286::fddi

1585.0. "Poor Man's FDDI LANanalyzer ????" by GIDDAY::STANISLAUS () Wed Feb 15 1995 07:04

    Request for a POOR MAN's FDDI LANANALYZER
    ------------------------------------------

Can we use J. Weir's LANANALYZER program to capture data on a FDDI ring ?
What system do you recommend and what FDDI card do you recommend ?
Can we use an Alpha system like a DEC3000-500 running OpenVMS 6.x and
a DEFTA-DA (a DAS FDDI card for the turbo channel) and run LANANNALYZER
on it ?

	If I can't do the above, then can I do the following:

Put an FDDI to Ethernet bridge like a DB900MX (now called DECswitch 900EF)
and put the bridge in a mode where it will send all packets that it sees 
on the FDDI onto one of it's 6 Ethernet Ports. Then use an Ethernet Analyser
to capture the data. Generally the bridge will only send data on the Ethernet
port if that destination station is on that Ethernet port. Whereas I want to
capture all FDDI data by using the DB900MX to send all FDDI data onto one
of the 6 Ethernet ports. CAn I make the DB900MX do this ?

	I hope I am not talking an impossibilty here.

	I am chasing a LAVc problem on an FDDI cluster and I wish to capture
LAVc packets on the FDDI ring. I do not have a WG DA30,a HP Network Advisor
and I am unable to rent one with an FDDI interface, here in Australia. No
Network General Sniffer either. The problem I have is intermittent PEA0
errors on some nodes on the FDDI ring.

    
    Alphonse


Regards,
Alphonse

	

    
    	I forgot to mention in .0 that I am not chasing a physical layer
    problem.
    
    Alphonse

    Using the DB900, there is no feature to get all the FDDI packet onto
    one of the Ethernet ports.
    
    ken