13 May
2002
13 May
'02
8:37 a.m.
Mark Tapley said:
I think they do; the one I built (matching instructions given
previously) does, with a caveat: I've used it to connect two (OT, sorry!)
Mac Powerbook 3400's. The two machines in question have to have Appletalk
changed to use ethernet within a few seconds of one another - otherwise
they each assume they are on a "dead" network and will not recognize the
other machine when it comes up. This may be a unique feature of the
Powerbooks. It is *not* a problem when the two machines are successively
hooked into a hub - even minutes apart - so I don't think it's a problem
with the Appletalk implementation, but I don't know.
Anyone else with more experience on this? Do hubs do any
keep-aliving for their ports, or recheck periodically for connections? Do
other two-node networks need "pinging" from both ends simultaneously to
bring up?
A cross-over cable will ALWAYS work to network 2 10bT hosts. Usually for 2
100bTx hosts, as well, unless they have weird auto-negotiation issues. The
appletalk behaviour you describe above is due to the fact that 10bT hubs
maintain a link signal on all ports all the time, so as soon as you plug a
machine in it sees a link. When you're connecting 2 machines directly, they
have to be on before the link signal is present which is why appletalk doesn't
show the network till they're both on. You'd see the same effect with your
hub if you turned it off -- the machines plugged into the hub would complain
that the appletalk network went away.
- Mark
- Dan Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
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