Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] problem 'routing' AppleTalk zones
From: a sun (asun@saul6.u.washington.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 29 1999 - 21:30:05 EDT
The AppleTalk protocol spec isn't quite verbatim on this subject, but if
you carefully read Inside AppleTalk, you'll realise that the protocol
designers never thought of any network without a router, but that does have
zones. Having zones simply *implies* having a working router, and I know
lots of systems that implement AppleTalk in a way that breaks when zones
appear with a network in the start-up range. This is not a problem with
the products, but with the protocol.
while that may be true for other appletalk implementations, netatalk's
single-interface routing is just that. it starts up as a router for a
single interface. i actually read that part of inside appletalk pretty
carefully. the docs clearly indicate that routing can occur over a
single interface and that that's how you're supposed to implement
zones on an unsegmented network.
in terms of netatalk, atalkd requires the same things with
single-interface routing that it does with multiple-interface
routing. i.e., you need to specify a valid network range for things to
work. if you get zones in the startup range, i would consider that a
bug. in other news, i keep meaning to add the fews bits needed to get
atalkd to do multi-homing with multiple interfaces, but no one's
really been hankering for that. so, i've never bothered.
-a
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sat Dec 18 1999 - 16:16:39 EST