TIME and SEND

["Kenneth H. Sinclair" <khs@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM>]

    Date: Thu, 10 Aug 89 18:45:35 EST
    From: grover@potomac.ads.com (Mark D. Grover)

    What do the TCP and UDP TIME protocols buy you on a Symbolics that
    CHAOS doesn't?  I can't find doc on this (at least in the main manual
    set).  In particular, can one of my Suns provide time-of-day service
    when I boot a lone Symbolics on the local net? How?

If you request time service of a machine that doesn't support Chaosnet
or is only reachable via Internet, Genera will use one of the Internet
protocols.

When Genera boots, it uses a Chaos broadcast request to determine the
time, if it decides to use the network, which depends on the specific
machine model.  If it can't use that service for some reason, it looks
like it does a (find-paths-to-service :time), which if it ever
terminates will invoke the time service on every reachable machine using
every supported protocol.  That's painful in complex network
environments, but ought to work reasonably if you just have a Lisp
machine and a few Suns.

When a UX400 boots, it makes a specific query of the host workstation
using the TIME protocol, falling back to other methods if that fails.

    Bonus question: what does SEND TCP SMTP buy me with respect to
    heterogenous machines?  Can I run Converse between my Symbolics and
    some other vendor's machine?  Whose?

Yes.  Anyone who implements the complete SMTP protocol, which is an
Internet standard (see RFC #821).  Unix sendmail doesn't, unfortunately;
ask your vendors to enhance it to support the SMTP SEND command.

    - MDG -
    PS. What am I not reading that I should be?

    Mark D. Grover (grover@Potomac.ADS.COM)				 703-243-1611
    Advanced Decision Systems          1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209