Which PCI Token Ring card should I use?
Mike
to my house network and have some fun with them. They will be running
OS/2 or some older version of NT, and I am assuming the 3Com Token
Ring cards they have will be just fine in them. What I am wondering is
where I should bridge between Token Ring and 100bt ethernet, and that
led me to looking at the current generation of PCI Token Ring cards
and the notion of putting one of them into a non MCA box, like a cheap
modern PC maybe running some linux version. This leads to some
questions;
Which PCI Token Ring card should I be looking for, Madge mk4 only?
Where should the bridge software live, Linux box, OS/2, NT 3.5?
I don't want anyone to look at my home network and assume a sane
person was envolved, so does that make use of some gigabit fiber
essential? Token Ring fiber is even weirder than ethernet fiber isn't
it?
Thanks, and yes I am serious, just wait til I start integrating the
arcnet bits.
Neil Pike
> Which PCI Token Ring card should I be looking for, Madge mk4 only?
As long as the o/s has a driver for it, it really shouldn't matter. I've got
Olicom, Madge and IBM all running in various machines.
> Where should the bridge software live, Linux box, OS/2, NT 3.5?
I wouldn't bridge it - I would route it. NT4 and above can run "proper"
routing protocols like RIP/OSPF. Below that you'd need to use static routes.
Plenty of routing options for Linux.
Or do you want to bridge for legacy (non IP) reasons?
> I don't want anyone to look at my home network and assume a sane
> person was envolved, so does that make use of some gigabit fiber
> essential? Token Ring fiber is even weirder than ethernet fiber isn't
> it?
>
> Thanks, and yes I am serious, just wait til I start integrating the
> arcnet bits.
>
Neil Pike
Protech Computing Ltd
(Please post ALL replies to the newsgroup only unless indicated otherwise)
T. Sean Weintz
> I have some beautiful old PS/2 model 95's, and I plan to hook them up
> to my house network and have some fun with them. They will be running
> OS/2 or some older version of NT, and I am assuming the 3Com Token
> Ring cards they have will be just fine in them. What I am wondering is
> where I should bridge between Token Ring and 100bt ethernet, and that
> led me to looking at the current generation of PCI Token Ring cards
> and the notion of putting one of them into a non MCA box, like a cheap
> modern PC maybe running some linux version. This leads to some
> questions;
>
You don't mention what type of MAU you have. How are you connecting all
the token ring cards together?
> Which PCI Token Ring card should I be looking for, Madge mk4 only?
It's the easiest to get nowadays (unless you want to ebay it) They work
well. That's what most large corporations used before they ditched their
token ring.
Pretty much any standard PCi token ring will work. However - 1 caveat -
if you want to sniff the token packets, do NOT get a card based on the
IBM chips. Get a TI based card. The true blue IBM cards (and 100%
compatibles) are not capable of running in promiscous mode. I don't
recall if the madge cjhip on the MKIV card will do promisuous or not,
but I THINK it will. 99% sure. It's more of an issue in the PCMCIA world
- most pcmcia cards were IBM chip based - Olicom being one of the
exceptions. And since most sniffers are run on laptops...
>
> Where should the bridge software live, Linux box, OS/2, NT 3.5?
Linux is a good choice. But i'd route it, not bridge it. Later versions
of NT do real routing (ospf and rip). If ya need to route IPX try a
novell 3.11 box.
>
> I don't want anyone to look at my home network and assume a sane
> person was envolved, so does that make use of some gigabit fiber
> essential? Token Ring fiber is even weirder than ethernet fiber isn't
> it?
What ya really need is some thicknet.
> Thanks, and yes I am serious, just wait til I start integrating the
> arcnet bits.
As I recall, the frame size on standard arcnet is too small to do IP. It
was most common on IPX novell networks.
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> As I recall, the frame size on standard arcnet is too small to do IP. It
> was most common on IPX novell networks.
As IP allows fragmentation, it can't really be too small.
It may not perform well, and would work best if the MTU was
set appropriately, but it should work.
-- glen