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1992-09-14
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The documentation accompanying the NetWare 3.11 update part# 136-001369-001
revision C has errors.
The documentation for TOKEN.LAN and TOKENDMA.LAN mentions that "A description
of each file follows." There is no description of TOKEN.LAN following.
The documentation describes parameters NBR and NBT which alter the performance
of the TOKENDMA driver. The usage and meaning of these parameters is not
documented. With the omission of the TOKEN.LAN documentation, it is unknown
whether these parameters are used by this driver.
This omision is particularly important to NetWare for SAA clients. The SAA
documentation states that the TOKENDMA driver will not work, and that
TOKEN.LAN, v3.16 or higher must be used. Without documentation for the TOKEN
driver, errors are likely.
The documentation for TOKENDMA.LAN describes a condition where the driver
pauses execution until beaconing stops. This pause accounts for the queuing
of ECBs. I believe that the driver's behavior differs significantly from that
which is described in this documentation.
After adopting the TOKEN.LAN version 3.16, shipped with SAA, I recognized a
problem similar to that described in the update docs.
I am making some assumptions to help me work around the omissions in the
update documents.
I assume the behavior of v3.16 TOKEN is similar to v3.16 TOKENDMA with regards
to it's reaction to "Beaconing" errors. I am also assuming that the queueing
of ECBs in the send queue might drive up the number of Packet Receive Buffers
and/or the Permanent Pool memory.
Given these assumptions, I have observed the following behavior of the
TOKEN.LAN v3.16 driver.
The driver appears to pause when a "RECEIVE CONGESTION ERROR" (RC error)
occours. The driver does not appear to resume when the RC error is cleared.
Several minutes after the node(s) reporting RC errors are removed, the server
still is unavailable.
In the presence of RC errors, the 3.16 TOKEN.LAN driver appears to pause. The
Permanent memory pool continues to grow. Packet Receive Buffers (PRBs) grow.
I have not waited for the PRBs to grow up to Max PRB.
While the PRBs and Permanent memory grow, the server continues operating.
Only Token Ring activity has paused. MONITOR continues to function as well as
do other NLMs.
If a connection is specified for clearing via MONITOR while the driver is
paused, monitor pauses. With monitor paused, the server STILL functions. If
MONITOR is unloaded from the console, the console pauses. I would expect this
behavior if the driver were pausing.
Clearing the RC errors does not cause the driver to resume, at least not
quickly. I waited approximately twenty minutes after eliminating all MAC
layer errors, but the driver remained paused.
The RC error is reported when a Token Ring interface's receive buffer is not
being serviced, and overflows. This is a node error, not a ring error. Token
Ring traffic continues in the presence of RC errors. To the best of my
knowlege, this is not "Beaconing."
While the RC errors persist, the Token Ring continues to pass traffic. Other
3.11 servers running v3.13 TOKEN.LAN continue normaly, as do 2.2 servers.
A detailed description of these observations has been posted as a message with
"TOKEN.LAN" 3.16 bugs" as it's subject.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Larry Rubanka
73465.643