Reviving ARPAnet

Paul Koning paulkoning at comcast.net
Thu Jan 18 12:08:00 CST 2018



> On Jan 18, 2018, at 12:27 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 01/17/2018 01:12 PM, Frank McConnell via cctalk wrote:
> ...
>> So you might think I'd be able to move files between it and a modern FreeBSD box, right?  I mean, it's all just Ethernet, right?
> 
> Ethernet != Ethernet
> 
> I'm wondering if it might be possible to use an old NetWare 4.x / 5.x box as a router to convert from one Ethernet frame type to another Ethernet frame type.  I.e. from IP over Ethernet II frames to IP over 802.3 frames.

I didn't know there's any such thing as IP over 802.3.  There's IP over 802.2 (LLC) which is used for things like FDDI, but it would be weird to attempt that on Ethernet.

> ...
> Here are the four frame types that NetWare supports:
> 
> - Ethernet II
>    - I think this is what we are using for just about everything today.
> - IEEE 802.3 "raw"
>    - I'm speculating that this is the frame type that Frank is referring to above.

That's the infamous non-compliant mess Netware came up with by not understanding the 802 standard.  It's never valid to run "raw 802.3" -- the only correct usage is 802.2 (LLC n for some n) over a MAC layer like 802.3 or FDDI.  SNAP is essentially an additional muxing layer on top of 802.2.

	paul



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