How do we let multiple sites/namespaces hooked on the same chaosnet KNOW about each other???

[Richard Lamson <rsl%max-fleischer.ila-sf.dialnet.symbolics.com@RELAY.CS.NET>]

    Date: Tue, 28 Nov 89 15:48 PST
    From: Eric Buckman <BUCKMAN@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM>

    I just got a call back from Steve Saeedi (Symbolics Software Phone Support), and
    these are the instructions he gave me for letting two Namespaces and sites Know
    about each other.  (Of course I couldn't find any real documenatation on the
    matter.)

    These are the step by step instructions he gave me for hooking up two sperate
    sites/namespaces.

Well, uh, no, not exactly.

    1)  Make sure both sites namespace object:   Network Chaos   have Type  CHAOS.

Yes.  Also, each network object should have a global network name, and
those names should be the same.  Make sure it is reasonably unique, so
if you wind up talking NAMESPACE via TCP (might happen someday) or if
the DOMAIN service or its successor is powerful enough you don't wind up
topologically connected to Outer Siberia.  For example, the two Chaos
networks might each have LOCKHEED-AI-CHAOS as their global names.

    2) At each site edit the Namespace object so that Primary-name-server is the
    server at that site, and Secondary-name-server is the server of the other site.

No, this is probably not right.  You certainly don't want to do this
until after you do the next step.  I usually make each primary namespace
server have the "Default Secondary Name Server" property instead.

    3)  On the Namespace server at each site, run the function:

	    (neti:find-site  :other-site-name)  and that will let that world KNOW
    about the other site, then do an Incremental-world-save.

Cold boot the namespace server first, do JUST the above, and the
disk-save.  You can prevent services being enabled during the
world-building process by saying "Server-Machine: Yes" in the namespace
entry for the namespace server host (do this before you cold boot!).  If
you have a dedicated namespace server/file server/etc. machine, this is
a good thing to leave in the namespace; you should have the init file
for the server enable services (SYS:ENABLE-SERVICES does this).  If not,
you can turn the flag off after you save the world.

    These instructions sound kind of funky to me,  I am quite supprised that you
    need to run some undocumented function "neti:find-site"  and then do the
    incremental save.  I would have thought that by just updating the namespaces
    at each site in the appropriate way, the problem would be solved.  
Well, that's not the way it works.  Getting a world to know about a
namespace is a tricky bootstrap (look at the code sometime for a true
hairball treat -- it's quite obscure).
								       Also, the
    filling in of the secondary-name-server seems to be innapropriate because my
    understanding of that functionality is that if one namespace server at a site
    goes down, then the secondary server at that site is used for namespace info.

The trick is that you need a local host to agree to be an authority for
the other site.  This doesn't matter too much if the Chaos connection
between the two sites is fast, but it might be 56Kbps (or 9600bps).  At
any rate, so you don't need to change all the worlds on all the other
machines at the local site, you need to have the host which is the local
authority also claim to be an authority for the other site.

    Does anyone out there have experience with this and could explain the reason for
    the above steps (or other recommended ones).

I hope this helps.