Re: (tcp:install-nic-host-table)

[Mabry Tyson <TYSON@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM>]

Nobody else has replied to your msg so I'll take a shot at it.

    Date: Tue, 10 Oct 89 09:25 ADT
    From: Gavin%BALROG.DREA.DND.CA@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Gavin L. Hemphill)

	    Mabry's reply to the recent message requesting help with
    networking raises an issue I'd like to get some input from other people
    on, Specifically (tcp:install-nic-host-table).  Our route to the NIC is
    through at least two (possibly more) gateways (DREnet, NYSERNET, ....,
    ARPANET).  Trying to get an update to the host table using
    tcp:install-nic-host-table is usually a couple of weeks worth of
    attempts since the process takes long enough that I'm almost guaranteed
    an interruption of service somewhere near the end of it.  The question I
    have is: Now that the ARPANET is being switched over to many separate
    backbones, how many other people are having trouble using the RFC-811
    protocols to snarf a copy of the host table.
	    The funny part is that I can FTP (copy file) the table without
    too much trouble, its just using the RFC-811 protocol that gives me
    problems.  If I had the time to dig around into exactly what format the
    811 protocol returns the file in, I suspect I could write something that
    could use the hosts.txt file in the same way.
	    G++
    -------

Chris Linblad had some code that was running at MIT to do an update (via
FTP) of the NIC host table.  We run it here every weekend.  I'm sure
that is available if that is what you want.  (Although the NIC machine is
just 100 feet from me, I too have problems talking to it.  You can imagine
how many connections are made to that machine each day and how many
copies are made of the host table!)

The reason I said "if that is what you want" is that, with the domain system,
the NIC host table is somewhat a relic.  I believe there are several sites
that are running without the large INTERNET namespace that it generates.
If we get to beta-test Genera 8.0, I'm going to try to build our worlds without
the INTERNET namespace and see if everything still works.

If there are sites that are running without the large INTERNET namespace,
I'd like to hear what they've had to do to get it to work well.