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Conference azur::mcc

Title:	DECmcc user notes file. Does not replace IPMT.
Notice:	Use IPMT for problems. Newsletter location in note 6187
Moderator:	TAEC::BEROUD

Created:	Mon Aug 21 1989
Last Modified:	Wed Jun 04 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	6497
Total number of notes:	27359

3137.0. "Bridge protocols - Where docuemented?" by MSDOA::LOVE (Do it with DNA) Fri Jun 05 1992 10:17

         This is being posted in the DNT and MCC conferences.
         
              I have been working for a customer who has me building a 
         network management tool that builds a table of Ethernet 
         addresses and the bridge to which they are attached.  They 
         use this tool for three purposes.
         
              1.   Address management.
              2.   Network problem diagnostics.
              3.   Security
         
         At present the customer has an extended LAN off of a 
         broadband backbone using 3COM bridges.  My tool simply 
         request each bridge to send the forwarding address table from 
         which the above mentioned list is created.  They have now 
         begun to add subLANs using DEC bridges and they want me to 
         add them to the bridge search list.  I had to use a 
         LANanlyzer and reverse engineer the calls to allow my code to 
         get the forwarding tables from the 3COM bridges.  Does anyone
         know where I might get the protocols used by RBMS and/or ELMs 
         or someone who might know?
         
         Thanks,
         
         Norm

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
3137.1		SLINK::CHILDS	Strike a poseur.	`Fri Jun 05 1992 11:08`	14
	The RBMS protocol document is marked "Digital Company Confidential". From your description it sounds like you are helping a customer build their own network manangement software. Legally, I don't think we can just hand over our specs. You might want to pursue this with your manager though. One thing you could do, would be to have the customer purchase a DECmcc ELM kit and a DECmcc Developer's Toolkit. Using the Bridge AM's API you could write your own network management application which would call the Bridge AM to get forwarding database information. If your customer has DECbridge 5xx/6xx series, these are SNMP-manageable (as well as RBMS). You could use any SNMP manager to get the information you need, so why not DECmcc's?
3137.2		SUBWAY::REILLY	Mike Reilly - New York Bank District	`Fri Jun 05 1992 18:17`	11
	Use DECmcc with the bridge AM and enter the following command MCC> show bridge .bridge.nnn forwarding table physical entry *, with outbound port = x, to file bridge_nnn_port_x.dat This works just fine for me. It would be nice if you could take your code for querying the 3-com bridges and plug it into the sample access module, thus giving us all a 3-com bridge access module !!!! - Mike
3137.3		SLINK::CHILDS	Strike a poseur.	`Mon Jun 08 1992 11:48`	5
	MCC> show bridge .bridge.nnn forwarding table physical entry *, With DECmcc ELM V1.2, this will no longer work. Physical Entry has been split into Dynamic Entry (for addresses the bridge learns) and Static Entry (for addresses that are management created).
3137.4		SUBWAY::REILLY	Mike Reilly - New York Bank District	`Mon Jun 08 1992 12:49`	5
	Thanks Ed, I was wondering why some of my trouble-shooting procedures had broken since I upgraded to 1.2. - Mike
3137.5	Thanks	MSDOA::LOVE	Do it with DNA	`Tue Jun 16 1992 09:25`	11
	Thanks for your commits. A customer has MCC and claims it takes about{7 minutes to get this information from 1 600 series bridge. This is down from the original 30 minutes. This is why I have been asked if my code might help. Yes, I have considered making it a module under MCC. The system is designed to run on a stand alone VAXstation with a control module which can serve up to 10 clients via DECnet. The problem with SNMP is getting the forwarding table one address at a time. Norm