Table of Contents
General description
CHARON-AXP supports emulation of the following network adapters:
- DE435
- DE450
- DE500AA
- DE500BA
- DE602
- DE602AA
Each of them is a PCI Ethernet adapter based on the DEC21040 (DE435, DE450, DE500AA and DE500BA) and the Intel i8255x (DE602 and DE602AA) PCI Ethernet adapter chips for the HP Alpha.
CHARON-AXP maps the virtual adapter to a dedicated Ethernet adapter in the Windows host system.
All the emulated controllers are loaded and configured in the same way.
The Ethernet adapter in the Windows host system must support dynamic changes of its MAC address (i.e. no reboot of the host system is required to change the MAC address), which is the case with nearly all modern Ethernet adapters.
Configuration steps
To configure CHARON-AXP networking, follow these 3 steps:
Load network adapter (if required)
Use the "load" command as shown below.
Example:For DEC21040 adapters For Intel i8255x adapters load DE500BA/dec21x4x NICload DE602/i8255x NIC
By default each loaded virtual network adapter uses first available PCI slot. If instead some particular slot is neded, refer to this section for details of specific placement of PCI peripherals on CHARON-AXP PCI bus.Load "packet_port"
Load "packet_port" to connect network adapter to the host hardware network card (or to a virtual network interface).
Example:load packet_port/chnetwrk NDIS interface = "connection:Charon"Connect the loaded "packet_port" to the loaded virtual network adapter
Connect the network adapter to the "packet_port" by setting the interface name.
Example:set NIC interface = NDIS
Configuration parameters
Each virtual network controller has the following parameters that are specified with the "set" command:
Parameter | Type | Value | |||||||||||||
interface | Text String | Name of the corresponding instance of the "packet_port" component | |||||||||||||
| station_address | Text String | The "station_address" provides the ability to configure the adapter’s permanent address. By default the adapter’s permanent address is read from the host system’s NIC. Set the "station_address" when you need to configure a satellite (remotely booted) system that will run DECnet or when the migrated software uses the permanent address on the network adapter. Format:
or
Example:
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rx_fifo_size | Numeric | "rx_fifo_size" sets the receive FIFO size. The value is specified in Kb and, by default, is pre-calculated from the connected port’s size of the receive queue. Typically, you do not need to change the "rx_fifo_size" parameter. It is available for extended tuning and debugging purposes. | |||||||||||||
| adapter_mode | Text String | Defines the link speed and the duplex settings of the virtual network adapter (except for DE602/DE602AA - see below). The values are:
Example:
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Example:
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DE602 and DE602AA network adapters link speed and duplex settings
Regardless of the "adapter_mode" setting in CHARON-AXP configuration file (see above), DE602 and DE602AA network adapters remains in "Auto-negotiation" mode, since the EIDRIVER of OpenVMS checks for EIx0_MODE environment variable when configuring the network card.
So mode propagation is implemented in CHARON-AXP via SRM console EIx0_MODE environment variable ("x" is A, B, C... depending on CHARON-AXP configuration), for example:
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The EIx0_MODE variable name is case insensitive, while its values are case sensitive! This is feature of OpenVMS EIDRIVER.
The values are:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| "Auto" | Auto-negotiate (default) |
| "Twisted" | 10Mbps half duplex |
| "Full" | 10Mbps full duplex |
| "Fast" | 100Mbps half duplex |
| "FastFD" | 100Mbps full duplex |
Example:
>>>set eia0_mode FastFD |
Packet Port
The CHARON-specific "packet_port" interface establishes a connection between an Ethernet adapter in the Windows host system and a network adapter in the virtual HP Alpha system.
For every virtual adapter instance loaded, one dedicated host Ethernet physical adapter is required.
To create instances of the "packet_port", use the “load” command in the configuration file as follows:
load packet_port/chnetwrk <instance-name> |
Example:
load packet_port/chnetwrk NDIS |
"packet_port" uses several configuration parameters to control its behavior.
Parameter | Type | Value | ||
interface | Text string | This parameter identifies an Ethernet adapter of the host system dedicated to CHARON-AXP with a keyword "connection" preceeding it. Syntax:
Example:
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port_enable_mac_addr_change | Boolean | If "true" is specified (default value), CHARON-AXP sets the appropriate Ethernet address automatically. If "false" is specified, set the Ethernet address manually. Example:
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port_ignore_on_rx | Numeric | The "port_ignore_on_rx" parameter provides the ability to shutdown the port when a specified number of sequential "on receive" errors is exceeded. Typically, errors "on receive" indicate serious (unrecoverable) errors. By default, the value is set to the value of the "port_pending_rx_number" parameter. A value of ‘0’ means infinite. Example:
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port_retry_on_tx | Numeric | The "port_retry_on_tx" parameter controls the number of times a port will attempt to transmit a packet before giving up. By default, the value is 3. Increasing this value may introduce problems in carrier loss logic, because not all NIC drivers support a carrier status query. Typically, you do not need to increase the value. Example:
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port_pending_rx_number | Numeric | The "port_pending_rx_number" parameter sets the number of pending receive buffers. The default value is 63. The maximum value allowed is 195. You may want to increase the "port_pending_rx_number" when you have very busy networking and experience problems like losing connections not related to the carrier loss. Typically, you do not need to change this parameter. Example:
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port_pending_rx_number | Numeric | The "port_pending_tx_number" parameter sets the number of buffers the port uses to transmit. The default value is 62. You may want to increase the "port_pending_tx_number" value if the log file indicates dropped TX packets due to TX queue overflow. Typically, you do not need to change this parameter. Example:
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suspend_msg_on_mac_change | Boolean | To avoid confusion arising from non critical errors during a MAC address change, logging is by default suppressed (default value is "true"). To enable tracing during a MAC address change set this parameter to "false" Example:
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| legacy_mode | Boolean | If this parameter is set to "true" CHARON-AXP tries to use very first implementation of "packet_port" having certain restrictions such as inability to automatically change MAC address on given interface etc. This setting may be needed if CHARON-AXP runs in VMware environment for example. In other situations please do not change its default value ("false"). Example:
This parameter is required only if you do not want to allow promiscuous traffic for the VMware adapter/port. In this mode, CHARON-AXP uses legacy MAC address change logic, so use of this option is not desirable. Thus for ESXi networking configuration:
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Example:
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CHARON-AXP supports VLAN adapters. If for some reasons you are going to use them, proceed with their installation and configuration according to the network adapter's vendor's User's Guide and then use the resulting VLAN interface the same way as the regular network interface.