Nortel Host Tools, Annex Communications Server R7.1B, Annex Host Tools R14.2 New Features Manual

Annex Communications Server R7.1B and

Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes

These release notes apply to the following:

❑

The Remote Annex Operational Code Version R7.1

❑

The Annex Host Tools Version R14.2.24

❑

Annex Manager R1.1

Included in these Release Notes are the following topics:

❑

New Features

❑

Special Considerations

❑

Supported Platforms

❑

Known Problems/Lim itations

❑

Problems Resolved wi th this Release

New Features

printer_crlf

Epson printers monitor pin 14 of the parallel port to decide how to
handle CR. If pin 14 is high, the printer performs a CR. If pin 14 is
low , the printer performs a CR/LF. The default value is Y and enables
the converting of <CR> to <CR><LF>. The value of N disables the
parameter so the printer does not add a <LF>.

Telnet Connectivity to Parallel Ports

Parallel ports now appear on the network as Annex TCP ports 5901­5999 and 7901-7999. This means that rtelnet can access the parallel
ports; aprint is no longer necessary to use the parallel ports.

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Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes

Forwarding Broadcasts

This release adds the Annex parameter ip_forward_broadcast. If this
parameter is set to Y, the Annex forwards Network directed IP
broadcasts to installed interfaces of the same network.

Default Domain

This release adds the keyword domain to the gateways file, and
modifies the output of the CLI hosts command. The new gateways
keyword usage is:

domain search <path> <path...>

This form adds a network domain to the DNS search path. The
given paths are decomposed into higher-level names, and all of
the forms are added. For example, mynet.city.company.com
decomposes into mynet.city.company.com, city.company.com
and company.com. T o prevent this, you can quote a portion of the
path that should not be decomposed. For example,
this."that.theother.edu" decomposes into this.that.theother .edu
and that.theother.ed u. When these paths are added, the list is
checked for duplicate entries (case is not significant), and the
duplicates are silently ignored.

domain default <path>

The second form sets the default search path. This path should be
set after all search paths have been added. The Annex will
propagate this path to the top of the search list and r emove it from
all of the hosts entries.

The new hosts output is in response to the hosts -n option. In addition
to displaying the name server data, this option now also displays the
default domain and the domain search list contents.

The Annex still does a reverse address query for its domain name,
and if a valid response is received, the Annex overrides the contents
of the gateways file, sets its default domain and adds the decomposed
response to the search list.

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Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes

ACP to Work with NIS

This release adds simple suppo rt for host passwd and shadow file
reading routines to erpcd. These can be selected by the use of the

NATIVEPASSWD and NATIVESHADOW flags in src/erp cd /
Makefile.

Support for 57.6Kbps

The 57600 speed will be supported only in new hardware platform
with fast octart.

do_compression and allow_co mp ress ion

The slip_do_compression and slip_allow_compression parameters
are renamed to do_compression and allow_compression,
respectively. There is no change to their meaning for SLIP. The
allow_compression parameter now also applies to PPP. If
allow_compression is enabled, the Annex always requests for
compression and always accepts requests for compression. If
allow_compression is disabled, the Annex never requests for
compression, and always rejects requests for compression. The
do_compression parameter is not used for PPP.

The default value for allow_compr ession is N. Be sure to set this to Y
to negotia te fo r VJ co m press ion .

Bootp over SLIP Lines

Both SLIP or PPP listen for any BOOTP packets sent by the remote
device that are addressed to either the Annex address(es) [unlikely]
or 0.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.255 [likely]. It then formulates a response
based upon the na parameters and the input packet by examining
each field. If the Server Name field is not null, the Annex tries to
resolve it as a host name. If this succeeds, the Annex fills in some
reasonable IP addresses in the fields and forwar d s the packet to that
host rather than respond by itself.

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