Sun Microsystems 1.0 Adapter User Manual

SunFDDI/P™1.0AdapterUser’sGuide

Sun Microsystems Computer Company

A Sun Microsystems, Inc. Business 2550 Garcia Avenue Mountain View, CA 94043 USA 415 960-1300 fax 415 969-9131

Part No.: 805-0809-10 Revision A, May 1997

Copyright 1997 Sun Microsystems,Inc. 2550 Garcia Avenue,Mountain View, California 94043-1100U.S.A. All rights reserved.This product or document is protected by copyright and distributed under licenses restricting its use, copying, distribution,

and decompilation. No part of this productor document may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written authorization of Sun and its licensors, if any.

Portions of this productmay be derived from the UNIX®system and fromthe Berkeley 4.3 BSD system, licensed from the University of California. UNIX is a registeredtrademark in the United States and in other countries and is exclusively licensed by X/Open Company Ltd. Third-partysoftware, including font technology in this product, is protected by copyright and licensed from Sun’s suppliers.

RESTRICTEDRIGHTSLEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the government issubjectto restrictions as set forth in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Softwareclause at DFARS 252.227-7013 and FAR52.227-19.

Sun, Sun Microsystems,the Sun logo, Solaris, SunOS, SunFDDI/P,and SunNet Manager are trademarks or registeredtrademarks of Sun Microsystems,Inc. in the United States and in other countries. All SPARCtrademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. Productsbearing SPARCtrademarks are based upon an architecturedeveloped by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Netware®is a registeredtrademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

The OPEN LOOK®and Sun™ Graphical User Interfaces weredeveloped by Sun Microsystems, Inc. for its users and licensees. Sun acknowledges thepioneeringefforts of Xerox Corporation in researchingand developing the concept of visual or graphical user interfaces for the computer industry.Sun holds a nonexclusive license from Xerox to the Xerox Graphical User Interface, which license also covers Sun’s licensees who implement OPEN LOOK GUIs and otherwise comply with Sun’s written license agreements.

X WindowSystem is a trademark of X Consortium, Inc. THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,

BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Copyright 1997 Sun Microsystems,Inc., 2550 Garcia Avenue,Mountain View, Californie 94043-1100U.S.A. Tous droitsréservés. Ce produit ou document est protégé par un copyright et distribué avec des licences qui en restreignentl’utilisation, la copie

et la décompilation. Aucune partie de ce produitou de sa documentation associée nepeut être reproduite sous aucune forme, par quelque moyen que ce soit, sans l’autorisation préalable et écrite de Sun et de ses bailleurs de licence, s’ilyena.

Des parties de ce produitpourront être derivées du système UNIX®et du système Berkeley 4.3 BSD licencié par l’Université de Californie. UNIX est unemarqueenregistrée aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays, et licenciée exclusivement par X/Open CompanyLtd.Lelogiciel détenu par des tiers, et qui comprendla technologie relative aux polices de caractères, est protégé par un copyright et licencié par des fournisseurs de Sun.

Sun, Sun Microsystems,le logo Sun, Solaris, SunOS, SunFDDI/P,et SunNet Manager sont des marques déposées ou enregistrées de Sun Microsystems,Inc. aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays. Toutesles marques SPARC,utilisées sous licence, sont des marques déposées ou enregistréesde SPARCInternational, Inc. aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays. Les produits portant les marques SPARCsont basés sur une architecturedéveloppée par Sun Microsystems, Inc. Netware®est une marqueenregistrée de Novell, Inc. aux Etats-Unis et dans d’autres pays.

Les utilisateurs d’interfaces graphiques OPEN LOOK®et Sun™ ont été développés de Sun Microsystems,Inc. pour ses utilisateurs et licenciés. Sun reconnaîtles efforts de pionniers de Xerox Corporation pour la rechercheet le développement du concept des interfaces d’utilisation visuelle ou graphique pour l’industrie de l’informatique. Sun détient une licence non exclusive de Xeroxsur l’interface d’utilisation graphique, cette licence couvrant aussi les licenciés de Sun qui mettent en place les utilisateurs d’interfaces graphiques OPEN LOOK et qui en outre se conforment aux licences écrites de Sun.

Le système X Windowest un produit du X Consortium, Inc. CETTE PUBLICATION EST FOURNIE "EN L’ETAT" SANS GARANTIE D’AUCUNE SORTE, NI EXPRESSE NI IMPLICITE, Y COMPRIS, ET

SANS QUE CETTE LISTE NE SOIT LIMITATIVE, DES GARANTIES CONCERNANT LA VALEUR MARCHANDE, L’APTITUDE DES PRODUITS A REPONDRE A UNE UTILISATIONPARTICULIERE OU LE FAITQU’ILS NE SOIENT PAS CONTREFAISANTS DE PRODUITS DE TIERS.

Please

Recycle

Regulatory Compliance Statements

Your Sun product is marked to indicate its compliance class:

• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — USA

• Department of Communications (DOC) — Canada

• Voluntary Control Council for Interference (VCCI) — Japan

Please read the appropriate section that corresponds to the marking on your Sun product before attempting to install the product.

FCC Class ANotice

This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

1. This device may not cause harmful interference.

2. This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation. Note: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules.

These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environment. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction manual, may cause harmful interferenceto radiocommunications. Operationof thisequipment in a residential area is likelyto cause harmful interference in which case the user will be required to correct the interference at his own expense.

Shielded Cables: Connections between the workstation and peripherals must be made using shielded cables in order to maintain compliance with FCC radio frequency emission limits. Networking connections can be made using unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cables.

Modifications: Any modifications made to this device that are not approved by Sun Microsystems, Inc. may void the authority granted to the user by the FCC to operate this equipment.

FCC Class BNotice

This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

1. This device may not cause harmful interference.

2. This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation. Note: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules.

These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

• Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.

• Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.

• Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected.

• Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television technician for help.

Modifications: Any modifications made to this device that are not approved by Sun Microsystems, Inc. may void the authority granted to the user by the FCC to operate this equipment.

DOC Class ANotice-Avis DOC, ClasseA

This Class A digital apparatus meets all of requirements the Canadian Interference-Causing Equipment Regulations. Cet appareil numérique de la classe A respecte toutes les exigences du Règlement sur le matériel brouilleur du Canada.

DOC Class BNotice-Avis DOC, ClasseB

This Class B digital apparatus meets all of requirements the Canadian Interference-Causing Equipment Regulations. Cet appareil numérique de la classe B respecte toutes les exigences du Règlement sur le matériel brouilleur du Canada.

Declaration of Conformity

Compliance ID: PCI-S10-100

Product Name: SunFDDI/P SAS Adapter

This equipment complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: 1) This equipment may not cause harmful interference and 2) This equipment must accept any interference that may cause undesired operation.

In addition this equipment complies with the following requirements of the EMC Directive 89/336/EEC and Low Voltage Directive 73/23/EEC;

EMC: EN55022 / CISPR22 (1991) Class B

EN50082-1 IEC801-2 (1991) 4 kV (Direct), 8 kV (Air)

IEC801-3 (1984) 3 V/m IEC801-4 (1988) 1.0 kV Power Lines, 0.5 kV Signal Lines

EN61000-3-2/IEC1000-3-2(1994) Pass (Class D)

Supplementary Information:

This product was tested and complies with all the requirements for the CE Mark.

_________/ S /_______________ ______/ S /_________________ Dennis P. Symanski DATE Stephen McGoldrick DATE Manager, Product Compliance Quality Assurance Manager

Sun Microsystems Computer Company Sun Microsystems Limited 2550 Garcia Avenue, M/S UMPK15-102 Springﬁeld, Linlithgow Mt. View, CA 94043, USA West Lothian, EH49 7LR Tel: 415-786-3255 Scotland, United Kingdom Fax: 415-786-3723 Tel: 0506 670000

Fax: 0506 760011

Declaration of Conformity

Compliance ID: PCI-D10-100

Product Name: SunFDDI/P DAS Adapter

In addition this equipment complies with the following requirements of the EMC Directive 89/336/EEC and Low Voltage Directive 73/23/EEC;

EMC: EN55022 / CISPR22 (1991) Class B

EN50082-1 IEC801-2 (1991) 4 kV (Direct), 8 kV (Air)

IEC801-3 (1984) 3 V/m IEC801-4 (1988) 1.0 kV Power Lines, 0.5 kV Signal Lines

EN61000-3-2/IEC1000-3-2(1994) Pass (Class D)

Supplementary Information:

This product was tested and complies with all the requirements for the CE Mark.

_________/ S /_______________ ______/ S /_________________ Dennis P. Symanski DATE Stephen McGoldrick DATE Manager, Product Compliance Quality Assurance Manager

Fax: 0506 760011

Contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Part 1 —Installing and Configuring SunFDDI/P

1. SunFDDI/P Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Feature Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

FDDI Conformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2. Hardware Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Device Instances and Device Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Installation Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Installing SunFDDI/P Adapter Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Connecting Fiber Optic Cables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

▼ To Connect the Fiber Optic Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

MIC-to-MIC Coupler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cleaning the Fiber Optic Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

▼ To Clean the Fiber Optic Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Link Status Indicator (Diagnostic LED) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

vii

3. Installing SunFDDI/P Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Installation Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Declaring IP Addresses for SunFDDI/P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Installing and Configuring SunFDDI/P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

▼ To Load and Mount the CD-ROM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

▼ To Install SunFDDI/P Using pkgadd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

▼ To Finish the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

▼ To Check the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

▼ Unloading Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Installing SunNet Manager Agents for SunFDDI/P . . . . . . . . . 20

▼ To Use pf_install_agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Removing SunFDDI/P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

▼ To Remove SunFDDI/P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4. Improving Network Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

High Performance FDDI Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Ring Latency Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Data Throughput Improvement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Send and Receive Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Performance Across Bridges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Improving Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Changing the High and Low Water Marks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

▼ To Tune the High Water Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

▼ To Tune the Low Water Mark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

viii SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Tuning the High and Low Water Marks at Boot Time. . . . . 29

Tuning the Socket Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

MTU Path Discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

▼ To Tune the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) . . . . . . . . . 30

▼ To Disable MTU Path Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

▼ To Tune the Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT). . . . . . 31

5. Troubleshooting and Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Troubleshooting Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

▼ To Check the Connection to the Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

▼ To Check the Connections Between Stations . . . . . . . . . 34

▼ To Check the Link Status Indicator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Checking the MAC Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

▼ To Check the SunFDDI/P Driver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

▼ To Check the IP Addresses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

▼ To Check the IP Routing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

▼ To Check the Protocol Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

▼ To Check the SMT Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Solving Common Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Running the Hardware Self-Test Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

▼ To Run the Hardware Self-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Loading the Device Driver Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

▼ To Configure and Load the Device Driver . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Part 2 —Planning and Implementing SunFDDI Networks

6. FDDI Network Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Contents ix

FDDI Network Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Physical (PHY) Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Media Access Control (MAC) Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Station Management (SMT) Layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Communication Between FDDI Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

FDDI Network Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

FDDI Stations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

FDDI Concentrators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

FDDI Failure Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Station Wrapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Optical Bypass Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

FDDI Ring Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Unrestricted Asynchronous Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

FDDI Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

7. FDDI Network Topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Basic Dual-Ring Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Standalone Concentrator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Concentrators with Dual-Homing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

x SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Tree of Concentrators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Ring of Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Mixed FDDI/Ethernet Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

FDDI/Ethernet IP Router . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

A Tree of Concentrators in an Ethernet Network . . . . . . . . 80

A Ring of Trees in an Ethernet Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Routes in Mixed FDDI/Ethernet Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

8. Using the SunFDDI

Network Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Changing the Default MAC Address (pf_macid) . . . . . . . . . 86

▼ To Change the Default MAC Address with pf_macid 86

Displaying SunFDDI/P Statistics (pf_stat). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Displaying Local Interface Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Displaying Statistics from Neighboring Stations . . . . . . . . . 94

Monitoring SMT Frames (pf_smtmon). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

SMT Frame Classes and Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Filtering Output from pf_smtmon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

9. Managing FDDI Stations

Using SunNet Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Installing the SunNet Manager Agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Contents xi

▼ To Install the Standard SNM Agents on a Client. . . . . . 104

▼ To Install the FDDI Schemas on a Client . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Installing the FDDI Schemas on the Console . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

▼ To Share pf_install_agents From a Client . . . . . . . 107

Managing FDDI Networks with SunNet Manager . . . . . . . . . . 109

▼ To Set Up the SunNet Manager Console. . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Using the SunFDDI/P Local Agent (pf_fddi) . . . . . . . . . 110

▼ To Use the SunFDDI/P Proxy Agent (pf_fddismt7_2)112

Interpreting Traps and Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

MAC Address Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

10. Developing Applications that

Run over SunFDDI/P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Developing Applications with DLPI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

DLPI Connectionless Service Primitives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

DLPI Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

11. Setting Up Servers

and Diskless Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Setting Up a Server and Diskless Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

▼ To Set Up a Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

▼ To Introduce Diskless Clients to a Server. . . . . . . . . . . . 127

▼ To Update the NIS Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Installing the SunFDDI/P Driver for a Diskless Client . . . 133

Booting a Diskless Client Over SunFDDI/P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

▼ To Boot a Diskless Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

A. Frequently Asked Questions About SunFDDI . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

xii SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Contents xiii

xiv SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Figures

Figure 2-1 Aligning SC-Type Fiber Optic Cable Connectors. . . . . . . . . . . 6

Figure 2-2 Cleaning the End of a Fiber Optic Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figure 6-1 FDDI Architectural Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Figure 6-2 Communication Between FDDI Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Figure 6-3 Basic FDDI Network Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Figure 6-4 Single-Attached Station (SAS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Figure 6-5 Dual-Attached Station (DAS). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Figure 6-6 Single-Attached Concentrator (SAC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Figure 6-7 Dual-Attached Concentrator (DAC). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Figure 6-8 Isolating a Single Station Failure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Figure 6-9 Isolating a Single Cable Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Figure 6-10 Dual-Attached Station in Wrap Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Figure 6-11 Dua-Ring Network Divided by Two Faults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Figure 6-12 Optical Bypass Switch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Figure 6-13 Optical Bypass Switches used in a Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Figure 7-1 Basic Dual-Ring Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Figure 7-2 Basic Dual-Ring Network with Two Faults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Figure 7-3 Standalone Concentrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Figure 7-4 Standalone Concentrator With Dual-Homing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Figure 7-5 Hierarchical Tree of Concentrators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Figure 7-6 Ring of Trees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Figure 7-7 Basic Mixed FDDI/Ethernet Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Figure 7-8 Tree of Concentrators Attached to an Ethernet Network . . . . 80

Figure 7-9 Ring of Trees Attached to an Ethernet Network. . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Figure 7-10 Routing in an FDDI/Ethernet Internetwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Figure 8-1 Normal Sequence of PCM States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Figure 9-1 Quick Dump (Local Statistics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Figure 9-2 Quick Dump (Neighbor Statistics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Figure 9-3 SunFDDI/P Proxy Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Figure 9-4 Specifying the Target Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Figure 9-5 Quick Dump (SMT Frames). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Figure 9-6 Single-Attached Station Disconnected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Figure 9-7 Single-Attached Station Reconnected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Figure 9-8 Dual-Attached Station Halted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Figure 9-9 Dual-Attached Station Restarted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Figure 10-1 DLPI Access to FDDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Figure 10-2 DLPI Request/Response Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Figure 10-3 SunFDDI/P DLSAP Format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

xvi SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’s Guide—May 1997

Tables

Table 5-1 Problems Installing SunFDDI/P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Table 5-2 Problems Running SunFDDI/P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Table 5-3 Problems Using the SNM Agents for SunFDDI/P. . . . . . . . . . 43

Table 8-1 pf_stat States Under the ECM Heading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Table 8-2 pf_stat States Under the RMT Heading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Table 8-3 pf_stat States Under the PCM Heading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Table 10-1 DL_INFO_REQ Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

xvii

xviii SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’s Guide—May 1997

Preface

The SunFDDI/P™ 1.0 Adapter User’s Guide describes how to turn your system into an FDDI station attached to an FDDI network. It is intended for experienced network administrators who are familiar with the Solaris 2.5.1 Hardware: 4/97 operating environment. The SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter is supported on Sun-4u PCI-based system architectures.

How this Book is Organized

The SunFDDI/P™ 1.0 Adapter User’s Guide is divided into two parts: If you are unfamiliar with FDDI network terminology, or if you are

implementing an FDDI network for the first time, read Part 2 first.

• Part 1 — “Installing and Configuring SunFDDI/P,” describes how to turn your

machine into a SunFDDI/P station. It tells you how to install and configure the SunFDDI/P device driver, and how to tune your FDDI station to get the best performance. It also includes troubleshooting advice to help you detect and resolve problems with your FDDI network.

• Part 2 — “Planning and Implementing SunFDDI Networks,” includes a brief

overview of the FDDI protocols, and describes common FDDI network topologies. It tells you how to use the SunFDDI/P network utilities, how to use a SunNet Manager™ console to manage your SunFDDI/P stations, how to develop applications over SunFDDI/P, and how to boot a diskless station across an FDDI connection.

xix

The connector type has been changed for SunFDDI/P to an SC-type connector. If you are connecting the SunFDDI/P card to a network that has a MIC connector, an SC-MIC converter cable is required.

Part 1 — “Installing and Conﬁguring SunFDDI/P”

Chapter 1, “SunFDDI/P Overview,” describes the SunFDDI/P 1.0 implementation of the FDDI protocols and includes a list of the specifications to which it conforms.

Chapter 2, “Hardware Installation,” tells you where to find detailed instructions on how to install your SunFDDI/P PCI card in your machine and describes how to connect the FDDI cable.

Chapter 3, “Installing SunFDDI/P Software,” describes how to install the SunFDDI/P device driver and utilities on machines running a Solaris™ 2.5.1 Hardware: 97 environment. It includes a description of the post-installation scripts that configure your machine as an FDDI station.

Chapter 4, “Improving Network Performance,” describes the configurable network parameters and provides general advice on how to obtain the best performance from your network.

Chapter 5, “Troubleshooting and Diagnostics,” tells you how to detect and resolve problems with your FDDI network.

Part 2 — “Planning and Implementing SunFDDINetworks”

Chapter 6, “FDDI Network Architecture,” provides an overview of the FDDI network model and describes how FDDI networks operate.

Chapter 7, “FDDI Network Topologies,” describes various pure FDDI network topologies and discusses their relative strengths and weaknesses. It also describes how to implement routing between mixed FDDI and Ethernet networks.

Chapter 8, “Using the SunFDDI Network Utilities,” describes the network utilities delivered with SunFDDI/P and tells you how to use them to recover network statistics.

xx SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

UNIX Commands

Chapter 9, “Managing FDDI Stations Using SunNet Manager,” describes how to install the SunNet Manager agents for SunFDDI/P and how to set up the SunNet Manager console to manage them.

Chapter 10, “Developing Applications that Run over SunFDDI/P,” describes how to create applications that run over SunFDDI/P, using the DLPI interface for a Solaris 2.x environment.

Chapter 11, “Setting Up Servers and Diskless Clients,” describes how to set up a server so that you can boot and run diskless clients over an FDDI network.

Appendix A, “Frequently Asked Questions About SunFDDI,” contains a list of common questions and their responses.

This document may not include specific software commands or procedures. Instead, it may name software tasks and refer you to operating system documentation or the handbook that was shipped with your new hardware.

The type of information that you might need to use references for includes:

• Shutting down the system

• Booting the system

• Configuring devices

• Other basic software procedures

See one or more of the following:

• Solaris 2.x Handbook for SMCC Peripherals contains Solaris™ 2.x software

commands.

• Online AnswerBook™ for the complete set of documentation supporting

the Solaris 2.x software environment.

• Other software documentation that you received with your system.

Preface xxi

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic changes used in this book.

Typeface or Symbol Meaning Example

Shell Prompts

AaBbCc123 The names of commands,

files, and directories; on-screen computer output

AaBbCc123 What you type, contrasted

with on-screen computer output

AaBbCc123 Command-line placeholder:

replace with a real name or value

AaBbCc123 Book titles, new words or

terms, or words to be emphasized

Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files.

machine_name% You have mail.

machine_name% su Password:

To delete a file, type rm filename.

Read Chapter 6 in the User’s Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.

The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Shell Prompt

C shell machine_name% C shell superuser machine_name# Bourne shell and Korn shell $ Bourne shell and Korn shell

superuser

xxii SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

FeatureSummary

SunFDDI/POverview

Feature Summary page 1 FDDI Conformance page 2

This chapter describes the Sun FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) implementation of the FDDI protocols, including a list of the ANSI/FDDI standards to which it conforms. See Chapter 6, “FDDI Network Architecture” for more information on FDDI architecture.

The SunFDDI/P 1.0 product is a combination of hardware and software that turns your system into an FDDI station. There are two hardware options:

• SunFDDI/P SAS — single attached station on fiber

• SunFDDI/P DAS — dual attached station on fiber

SunFDDI/P is a high-speed networking product that provides significantly greater bandwidth (up to 10 times) compared to 10-megabit Ethernet networks. It is designed for Sun-4u PCI-based system architectures running Solaris 2.5.1 Hardware: 97.

SunFDDI/P provides the following capabilities:

• Implements FDDI single-attached station (SunFDDI/P) and FDDI

dual-attached station (SunFDDI/P Dual)

• Provides connection to multimode fiber (SunFDDI/P and SunFDDI/P Dual)

networks

• Supports data transfer rates of up to 100 Mbps

• Provides power-up self test and system diagnostic tests

• Provides high reliability and availability through distributed, automatic

recovery (DAS adapter only)

• Supports up to four SunFDDI/P PCI cards installed in one PCI bus and up

to eight SunFDDI/P PCI cards installed in one machine

• Conforms to the 32-bit Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)

specification for short form adapter cards

• Supports 33 MHz operating frequency and 5.0 volt I/O signaling

• Supports 62.5/125 micrometer, multimode fiber (MMF)

• Provides SunNet Manager™ agents for the effective management of FDDI

stations and networks from a centralized SunNet Manager console; (requires SunNet Manager 2.2 or later in addition to SunFDDI/P)

• Complies with the ANSI X3T9.5 standard for single-attached LAN fiber

rings and with revision 7.3 of the ANSI/FDDI SMT specification

FDDI Conformance

SunFDDI/P conforms to the following standards and specifications:

• ANSI/FDDI Media Access Control (MAC) X.3.139-1987

• ANSI/FDDI physical sublayer (PHY) X3.148-1988

• ANSI/FDDI physical medium dependent (PMD) X3.166-1990

• ANSI/FDDI Station Management (SMT) X3.299 R7.3 (formally R7.2.99)

• PCI Spec. Rev 2.1 (Part Number 802-2387-02)

2 SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

HardwareInstallation

Device Instances and Device Names page 4 Installing SunFDDI/P Adapter Cards page 5 Connecting Fiber Optic Cables page 5 Link Status Indicator (Diagnostic LED) page 9

This chapter tells you where to find step-by-step procedures for installing PCI cards. It describes the convention used to assign device names to SunFDDI/P adapter cards, and tells you how to connect fiber optic cables.

Caution – For your personal safety and to protect your machine, please

observe the following precautions when you install an PCI card in a SPARC™ workstation or server:

Before opening your machine, always ensure that the power switch is off (O position). When the power is off, the green light on the front of the machine is unlit and the fan in the power supply is not running. Always take care to protect your equipment from the effects of static electricity.

A lithium battery is molded into the NVRAM—TOD chip on the main logic board. This battery is not a customer-replaceable part. Do not attempt to disassemble it or recharge it.

Device Instances and Device Names

You can install a SunFDDI/P PCI card in any available master PCI slot. SunFDDI/P supports up to four SunFDDI/P PCI cards installed in one PCI, and up to eight SunFDDI/P PCI cards installed in one machine.

SunFDDI/P 1.0 PCI cards are assigned device names of the form pf<inst>, where the instance number <inst> is determined by the number and relative positions of the cards installed. When you install a SunFDDI/P card in your machine for the first time, it has instance number 0 and a device name pf0.If multiple cards are installed, the device name pf0 is associated with the card in the lowest numbered slot, the device name pf1 is associated with the card in the next highest numbered slot, and so on.

Refer to the hardware installation manual that came with your system for instructions on how to identify the PCI slots in your machine.

Note – For machines running Solaris 2.5.1: If a SunFDDI/P PCI card is moved from its initial slot to a different one, the operating system will find the device in the new slot and assume that it is a new instance of the device. As a result, the operating system will assign the next instance number to it and two devices will appear to be installed in the machine.

Installation Items

Before proceeding with the installation, make sure you have the following items. Contact your sales representative if any of these items are missing.

• SAS or DAS SunFDDI PCI adapter

• FDDI converter cable

• MIC (Media Interface Connector) coupler

• Disposable grounding wrist strap

• CD-ROM containing SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter software

• SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’s Guide

4 SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Installing SunFDDI/P Adapter Cards

Caution – The SunFDDI/P PCI card is sensitive to static electricity. Always use

the wrist strap supplied with SunFDDI/P when handling the card and ensure that the wrist strap is properly grounded. Handle the SunFDDI/P PCI card by the edges, and avoid touching any of the components.

Refer to the hardware installation manual that came with your system for detailed instructions on how to install an adapter card in your machine.

There are no user-configurable jumpers or switches on the SunFDDI/P PCI card. Altering any of the components on the card may affect its operation adversely and will render any product warranty void.

Connecting Fiber Optic Cables

Note – If you are connecting the SunFDDI/P card to a network that has a MIC connector, a converter cable is required. Earlier versions of SunFDDI used MIC connectors.

Sun provides converter cables that enable existing MIC-based networks to connect to the SunFDDI/P adapter without making cabling changes. Networks that have already been designed for SC connections do not need the converter cable. Less than one decibel of signal integrity is lost when using the adapter. Borderline applications may need to reconfigure the network directly for SC connection if the signal loss materially affects the error rate.

Fiber optic cable is fragile and should not be subjected to mechanical stress or impact. Always observe the following precautions when handling fiber optic cable and connectors:

• Fiber optic cable connectors consist of a ceramic or steel ferrule through

which the optical fiber passes. Do not touch the tip of the ferrule, as marring or depositing oil or dirt on its delicate surface will destroy its ability to transmit light.

• Use the protective caps provided on the fiber optic cable connectors and

optic data links whenever the cable is not connected.

HardwareInstallation 5

• Fiber optic cable has a limited turn radius. Do not bend it in a way that

could damage the fiber or cause signal loss.

▼ To Connect the Fiber Optic Cable

1. Unpack the cable, remove the plastic protective caps or plugs from each end, and remove the plug from the transceiver unit on the card.

2. Orient the fiber optic cable to the connector on the SunFDDI/P card.

Most fiber optic cables have raised keys on one side of the connectors (see Figure 2-2). There are also keyway notches on the inside of the connector on the card; orient the fiber optic cable so that the keys on the cable connectors line up with the keyway notches on the card. Also make sure to connect the cable to the proper port, either Port A or Port B (see Figure 2.2).

Warning – Not all cables have raised keys to help you orient the connection.

Port A

A B

Figure 2-1 Aligning SC-Type Fiber Optic Cable Connectors

3. Plug the cable into the card connector.

A “click,” tells you that the cable is properly mated with the card connector.

6 SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Port B

Keys

MIC-to-MIC Coupler

A separate MIC (Media Interface Connector) coupler is shipped with the SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter product to support MIC-to-MIC network connections.

Two different versions of the coupler are available:

• One with raised keys to help you properly orient the connection

• One without raised keys, which has specific connecting instructions

Note – Make sure you properly connect the coupler. An improper connection will “twist” or “cross” the ring.

Cleaning the Fiber Optic Cable

Fiber optic cable connectors can be cleaned if they become contaminated with dirt, dust or oil, which can cause signal noise on the network.

HardwareInstallation 7

▼ To Clean the Fiber Optic Cable

1. Gently wipe the end of the ferrule with an alcohol-moistened cotton swab.

Figure 2-2 Cleaning the End of a Fiber Optic Cable

2. Blow clean, dry compressed air around the end of the connector and around the ferrule to dislodge loose dust and grit.

3. Clean the adapter by running a pipe cleaner moistened in alcohol running though it.

Repeat with a dry pipe cleaner.

4. Dry the adapter with clean, dry compressed air.

8 SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’sGuide—May 1997

Link Status Indicator (Diagnostic LED)

A link status indicator is mounted on the SunFDDI/P PCI card. The color of the LED indicates the current status of the connection to the FDDI network as follows:

• No LED lit: Either the driver is loaded and the interface is not configured or

the driver has not been loaded.

• Amber: Interface configured, no valid line state to an active FDDI network

exists.

• Green: Connection established to an active FDDI network.

• Blinking green: In a dual-ring environment, this is an invalid connection.

In a dual-homing environment, this is normal. The connection is in Standby mode.

• Red: Adapter fails FDDI path test.

Refer to Chapter 5, “Troubleshooting and Diagnostics,” for more information on diagnosing problems with your FDDI network.

HardwareInstallation 9

10 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

InstallingSunFDDI/PSoftware

Installation Requirements page 12 Declaring IP Addresses for SunFDDI/P page 12 Installing and Configuring SunFDDI/P page 13 Installing SunNet Manager Agents for SunFDDI/P page 20 Removing SunFDDI/P page 22

This chapter assumes that you have already installed the SunFDDI/P adapter card in your machine and that you are loading the software from a local CD-ROM drive.

This chapter tells you how to install the SunFDDI/P device drivers, utilities, and SunNet Manager agents in a Solaris 2.5.1 Hardware: 4/97 environment. It includes instructions on how to check your installation and how to remove the SunFDDI/P software, if necessary.

Installation Requirements

• Hardware and Software Platforms

SunFDDI/P is designed for Sun-4u PCI-based system architectures (32 Mbytes RAM minimum) running a Solaris 2.5.1 Hardware: 4/97 environment.

• Disk Space

A machine with 1600 KBytes of disk space is required to install SunFDDI/P.

• Host names and IP Addresses

A unique host name and IP address must be assigned to each SunFDDI/P device installed in your machine. If you are installing more than one interface in a single machine, each interface must be connected to a different subnet of a network.

Declaring IP Addresses forSunFDDI/P

You must assign a unique IP address to each SunFDDI/P interface. If you have more than one networking interface installed on your machine—either multiple SunFDDI/P interfaces or some other LAN interface (for example, an Ethernet interface)—each interface must be connected to a different subnet.

Before installing the SunFDDI/P software, update the files on your NIS/NIS+ server to assign IP addresses and host names for the SunFDDI/P interfaces that you are going to configure. If you are not using a name service, update the /etc/hosts file on each machine in the network to add the IP addresses and host names of the stations attached to the FDDI ring.

The installation script updates the /etc/hosts file on the local machine and enters the IP addresses and host names assigned to the SunFDDI/P interfaces in which it is installed.

12 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Installing and Conﬁguring SunFDDI/P

Use pkgadd(1M) to install unbundled software. See the Solaris 2.5 Software and AnswerBook Packages Administration Guide for detailed information on installing

software products using pkgadd. For detailed instructions on how to load software from a CD-ROM drive

mounted on a remote directory, see the Solaris 2.5 Software and AnswerBook Packages Administration Guide.

▼ To Load and Mount the CD-ROM

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Place the CD-ROM in its caddy and load the caddy into the CD-ROM drive.

3. Mount the CD-ROM on a local directory.

• If the Volume Manager (vold) is running on your machine, then the

CD-ROM is mounted automatically under /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0.

• If the Volume Manager (vold)isnot running on your machine, create a

directory called /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0 and mount the CD-ROM manually:

# mkdir /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0 # /usr/sbin/mount -o ro -F hsfs /dev/dsk/c0t6d0s0 /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0

▼ To Install SunFDDI/P Using pkgadd

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Start pkgadd by typing:

# /usr/sbin/pkgadd —d /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0/Product

Installing SunFDDI/P Software 13

3. Enter the number that corresponds to the package you want to install and press Return. Respond to any prompts that are displayed.

Two packages are associated with SunFDDI/P. They contain the device drivers and utilities used to manage your SunFDDI/P station.

The following packages are available:

1 SUNWpfr SunFDDI/P (Driver)

(sparc) 1.0

2 SUNWpft SunFDDI/P (Man Pages/Utilities)

(sparc) 1.0

Select package(s) you wish to process (or “all” to process all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

▼ To Install the Device Driver (SUNWpfr)

The SUNWpfr package contains the SunFDDI/P device driver and the SunNet Manager agent daemon and start-up scripts. By default, the base directory <basedir> for this package is /. You can change the default base directory for this package when you start pkgadd(1M) with the —R option. This package must be installed on every machine that runs SunFDDI/P.

An installation script is executed automatically when you install the SunFDDI/P device driver (SUNWpfr). This script checks that the hardware is installed and displays the number of SunFDDI/P interfaces that it finds. If there is no hardware installed, the script halts the installation process without installing the software.

1. Indicate whether you are installing the driver for a diskless client.

• Type y if you want to install the driver in the /export/root/<client> file

system for a diskless client

• Type n if you are installing the driver for the machine on which you are

running the script. You must use pkgadd with the —R option to change the base directory when you install the driver for a diskless client.

14 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Is this install for a diskless client [n] [y,n,?]

(See Chapter 11, “Setting Up Servers and Diskless Clients” for more information on booting diskless clients across an FDDI network.)

The number of SunFDDI/P interfaces found is displayed and you are asked how many interfaces you want to configure.

2. Enter a number from 1 to 16 or press Return for the default.

How many FDDI (pf) interfaces do you want to configure?

3. Type the host name for which you want the interface associated.

What host name do you want to use for interface 1: hysop-pf

4. Type the IP address that corresponds to the host name or press Return for the default IP address.

If an IP address is already associated with the host name (either in the NIS/NIS+ database or in the /etc/hosts file) the script offers it as a default IP address. You must assign a unique IP address to each SunFDDI/P interface. If you have multiple IP interfaces installed on one machine, each interface must be attached to a different FDDI subnetwork.

What ip address do you wish to use for hysop-pf [<ip_address>]:

5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until you have assigned a host name and IP address for each SunFDDI/P PCI card installed in your machine.

6. Indicate whether you want the SunNet Manager agents for SunFDDI/P to start when you reboot the machine.

• Type y to start the SunNet Manager agents for SunFDDI/P.

Installing SunFDDI/P Software 15

• Type n, or press Return, if you are not using SunNet Manager to manage

your network; if you are running SunNet Manager agents on another machine; or if you want to start the SunNet Manager agents manually.

Do you want to start the SunNet Manager daemons for SunFDDI at boot time? [n] [y,n,?,q] y

7. Type y to use the installation scripts with superuser permission.

This package contains scripts which will be executed with superuser permission during the process of installing the package.

Do you want to continue with the installation [y,n,?] y

The script displays a list of the files that it installs, loads the driver, and configures the IP interfaces automatically.

If the installation is successful, your SunFDDI/P interfaces are now active. The link status indicator (diagnostic LED) will be:

• Amber—if the interface is configured and no valid line state to an active

FDDI network exists

• Green—if the interface is configured and connected to an active network

▼ To Install the Utilities, man Pages, and SNM Agents (SUNWpft)

The SUNWpft package contains the SunFDDI/P utilities and man pages. By default, the base directory <basedir> for this package is /opt. You can change the default base directory when you start pkgadd(1M)with the —R option. This package can be installed on a server and shared between multiple machines, if required.

An installation script is executed automatically when you install the SunFDDI/P utilities and man pages (SUNWpft):

16 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

1. Type y to accept the installation of files with setuid/setgid permission.

If you are installing the SUNWpft package for the first time, this step will not occur.

Do you want to install these setuid/setgid files [y,n,?,q] y

2. Type y to accept the installation scripts with superuser permission.

This package contains scripts which will be executed with superuser permission during the process of installing the package.

Do you want to continue with the installation [y,n,?] y

▼ To Finish the Installation

1. Type q to stop pkgadd when the list of available packages is displayed again.

The following packages are available:

1 SUNWpfr SunFDDI/P (Driver)

(sparc) 1.0

2 SUNWpft SunFDDI/P (Man Pages/Utilities)

(sparc) 1.0

Select package(s) you wish to process (or “all” to process all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

2. Eject the CD-ROM from the CD-ROM drive.

• If Volume Manager (vold) is running on your machine, the CD-ROM is

unmounted automatically when it is ejected:

# eject cdrom

Installing SunFDDI/P Software 17

▼ To Check the Installation

SunFDDIInterface pf<inst> ---->

• If Volume Manager (vold) is not running on your machine, unmount the

CD-ROM before you eject and remove the directory that you created:

# /usr/sbin/umount /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0 # eject cdrom # rmdir /cdrom/sunfddip_1_0

3. Reboot your machine.

1. Use netstat(1M) to check for SunFDDI/P interfaces.

% /usr/bin/netstat -i Name Mtu Net/Dest Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Collis Queue lo0 8232 loopback localhost 21 0 21 0 0 0 le0 1500 our-lan hysop 2146 0 950 1 13 0 pf0 4352 our-fddi hysop-pf 1086 0 907 0 0 0

2. Use ifconfig(1M) to check the current state of the SunFDDI/P interfaces.

% /usr/sbin/ifconfig pf0 pf0: flags=863<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 4352

inet <host_address> netmask <netmask> broadcast <ip_address> ether <mac_address>

3. Use ping(1M) to verify that you can send and receive data across the FDDI connection.

If your SunFDDI/P station is attached to an active FDDI network, try to access a remote station.

% /usr/sbin/ping hemlock-pf hemlock-pf is alive

18 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Your SunFDDI/P station should now be active, and you should be able to send and receive data across an FDDI connection.

For optimum performance from your FDDI network, you may need to tune the configurable network parameters. See Chapter 4, “Improving Network Performance,” for detailed instructions.

If you have problems configuring or using your SunFDDI/P station, see Chapter 5, “Troubleshooting and Diagnostics,” for help.

▼ Unloading Drivers

The driver for the SunFDDI/P 1.0 adapter can be unloaded while the system is running by using the modunload(1M) command. If the SunNet Manager daemons are running on your system, you must kill that process before you unload the SunFDDI/P driver.

♦ If SunNet Manager is configured and running on your system:

% ps -ef | grep pf_snmd % kill -9 <process IDs from above command> % modinfo | grep smt % modunload -i <module ID for smt driver>

♦ To unload the SunFDDI/P driver:

% modinfo | grep pf % modunload -i <module ID for pf driver>

Installing SunFDDI/P Software 19

Installing SunNet Manager Agents for SunFDDI/P

Use pf_install_agents to install the SunNet Manager agents for SunFDDI/P. This script copies the FDDI schema files to the directory in which the standard agents are installed and updates the configuration files for SunNet Manager. Run pf_install_agents on each SunNet Manager Console, and on each SunFDDI/P station you want to manage using SunNet Manager.

▼ To Use pf_install_agents

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Start pf_install_agents by typing:

# /opt/SUNWconn/bin/pf_install_agents

3. Type the host names of the console machine(s) that you want to receive SMT Request Frame (SRF) trap reports from the local station.

You can send SRF trap reports to more than one console. Each console must have the schemas for SunFDDI/P installed, for example:

Enter hostnames (if any) to send SRF Trap reports to: (enter blank to terminate)

Hostname ofConsole -------> Hostname ofConsole -------> PressReturn toterminate --->

20 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

enter hostname:opus enter hostname:rigel enter hostname:

4. Specify the destination directory for the SunFDDI/P schemas.

SunNet Manager looks for the schemas in the directory <basedir>/SUNWconn/snm/agents. The variable <basedir> is set to /opt by default. If you installed the SunNet Manager agents and libraries on the FDDI station, or if you used getagents to recover the agents from the console, then this directory exists.

Enter the base directory under which you installed the SunNet Manager agents as the destination directory for the SunFDDI/P schemas.

What is the name of the root directory under which the SunNet Manager is installed? [/opt]: [?]

5. Specify the current location of the SunFDDI/P schemas.

This is the base directory under which you installed the SunFDDI/P software package (SUNWpf) using pkgadd(1M).

What is the name of the root directory under which the pf FDDI software is installed? [/opt]: [?]

The script copies the SunFDDI/P schemas to the destination directory and modifies the local configuration files for SunNet Manager.

6. Start the SunNet Manager agents for SunFDDI/P by typing:

# /usr/sbin/pf_snmd

Note – If you typed n in response to the question “Do you want to start the SunNet Manager daemons for SunFDDI at boot time?” when you installed the SunFDDI/P software, you must start the SunNet manager agents for SunFDDI/P manually each time you reboot your machine. Alternatively, you can install the start-up script into the /etc/rc2.d directory.

# cd /opt/SUNWconn/SUNWpf/utilities # cp pf_fddidaemon /etc/rc2.d/S98pf_fddidaemon

Installing SunFDDI/P Software 21

Removing SunFDDI/P

▼ To Remove SunFDDI/P

If you remove the SunFDDI/P hardware interfaces from your machine, you also need to remove the SunFDDI/P software to prevent the device driver from starting each time you reboot the machine.

Use pkgrm(1M) to remove unbundled software from machines running a Solaris 2.x environment. Refer to Installing Solaris Software for detailed information on removing software packages using pkgrm.

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Use pkgrm to remove SunFDDI/P.

The post-remove script removes the modifications made to the system files and updates the package information on your machine.

# /usr/sbin/pkgrm SUNWpfr # /usr/sbin/pkgrm SUNWpft

3. Modify the /etc/hosts file to remove the IP addresses and host names for the SunFDDI/P interfaces that were inserted by the post-installation script.

4. Reboot the machine to ensure correct system operation.

22 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

ImprovingNetworkPerformance

High Performance FDDI Networks page 24 Ring Latency Improvement page 24 Data Throughput Improvement page 25 Performance Across Bridges page 25 Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT) page 26 Improving Performance page 27

This chapter tells you how to optimize your FDDI network and assumes that you are familiar with FDDI network architecture and related terminology. See Chapter 6, “FDDI Network Architecture” for a detailed description of the FDDI protocols, and Chapter 7, “FDDI Network Topologies” for a detailed description of the FDDI network architecture.

Caution – The procedures for improving network performance are discussed

in this chapter; however, these should be undertaken only by experienced system administrators. Tuning your network incorrectly can affect network performance adversely.

High Performance FDDI Networks

FDDI networks increase the potential to carry more information, rather than create faster connections. If the applications running over the network do not use the available bandwidth efficiently, you will not see much improvement in the performance of your network by using FDDI.

You can obtain optimum performance by balancing the complementary objectives of maximum throughput and minimum access delay:

• Throughput is a measure of the ring use. Network efficiency is defined as

the ratio of actual throughput to theoretical maximum bandwidth (100 Mbps).

• Access Delay is the time a station waits before it can transmit on the

network. This is largely dependent on how fast the permission token rotates around the ring.

For some applications (for example, bulk data transfers), throughput is critical; other applications (for example, voice or video applications) are more sensitive to access delay.

Ring Latency Improvement

The ring latency is the physical delay inherent in the FDDI network. It is dependent on the number of stations in the ring and the overall length of the ring. The speed of the microprocessor in the FDDI station also has a significant effect on ring latency.

The FDDI specifications define a network that supports up to one thousand physical connections with a total ring length of 200 km (100 km per ring in a dual-ring topology). There are two physical connections for each dual-attached station; therefore, in theory, up to five hundred dual-attached stations could be connected in a single ring. In reality, optimum performance is obtained by limiting the number of connections to less than one hundred stations in an unsegmented ring.

Performance improvements are possible by changing the topology of the network, trading off the total number of stations in comparison to the overall length of the ring, and selecting faster machines to act as FDDI stations. However, these modifications are rarely practical in an established network.

24 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Data Throughput Improvement

The most significant improvements in throughput are achieved by maximizing the rate at which data is transferred to and from the FDDI network. If you are running TCP/IP or UDP/IP applications, you can improve throughput by modifying the parameters that control the rate at which these protocols transfer data to and from the SunFDDI/P device driver—that is, between user space and kernel space.

Send and Receive Buffers

The send and receive buffers control the maximum rate at which data is transferred between user space and kernel space by applications that use sockets. The size of these buffers defines the amount of data that can be transferred at one time.

To optimize performance, consistent values must be assigned for the send and receive buffers. The default value (4 Kbytes) assigned to these parameters is optimized for transmission across Ethernet connections. For applications running over FDDI, the send and receive buffers should be set to 32 Kbytes.

Performance Across Bridges

The maximum transmission unit (MTU) for each physical layer in the network defines the maximum size (in octets) of the transmitted packets. A larger MTU means that more data can be transmitted in a single packet; a larger MTU usually means higher throughput.

For SunFDDI/P, the MTU is set to 4352 by default1, and for an Ethernet interface, the MTU is 1500. This difference can cause performance problems in mixed FDDI/Ethernet networks.

Packets are transmitted between the two networks across a bridge, which handles the translation between the two protocols. When data is transmitted across the bridge from the FDDI network, the larger FDDI packets need to be

1. This value makes allowance for the frame header and has been demonstrated to be the optimum value of

MTU for pure FDDI networks (see RFC 1390)

ImprovingNetwork Performance 25

fragmented so that they do not exceed the MTU of the Ethernet network. Some low-cost bridges that do not support fragmentation will reject the 4352-byte packets.

Fragmenting and reassembling the packets introduces a considerable overhead that affects performance. It also increases the risk of out-of-sequence or dropped packets. Therefore, if there is heavy network traffic across the bridge, it may be more efficient to force the MTU in the FDDI network to be 1500 to match the MTU on the Ethernet side of the bridge. This argument can also be applied to a mixed FDDI/NetWare® network. In this case, the MTU in the NetWare LAN is 4178 octets.

Target Token Rotation Time(TTRT)

Caution – Modifying the target token rotation time (TTRT) can affect network

performance adversely. In the worst case, it can reduce network throughput to zero. In general, the TTRT should not be set to less than 8000 microseconds (ms).

The target token rotation time (TTRT) is the key FDDI parameter used for network performance tuning. In general, increasing the TTRT increases throughput and increases access delay.

For SunFDDI/P, the TTRT must be between 4000 and 165000 microseconds, and is set to 8000 ms by default. The optimum value for the TTRT is dependent on the application and the type of traffic on the network:

• If the network load is very irregular (bursty traffic), the TTRT should be set

as high as possible to avoid lengthy queueing at any one station.

• If the network is used for the bulk transfer of large data files, the TTRT

should be set relatively high to obtain maximum throughput, without allowing any one station to monopolize the network resources.

• If the network is used for voice, video, or real-time control applications, the

TTRT should be set low to decrease access delay.

The TTRT is established during the claim process. Each station on the ring bids a value (T_req) for the operating value of the TTRT (T_opr) and the station with the lowest bid wins the claim. Setting the value of T_req on a single station does not guarantee that this bid will win the claim process.

26 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

ImprovingPerformance

Changing the High and Low Water Marks

▼ To Tune the High Water Mark

The following section describes how to modify the user-configurable network parameters. To obtain optimum network performance, you may need to tune these parameters, depending on your network configuration and the type of network traffic.

The maximum rate at which data is transferred between user space and kernel space by applications that use STREAMS is controlled by the high water marks. These parameters define the maximum amount of data that can be queued for transmission to the TCP or UDP STREAMS modules. There are independent send and receive high water marks for TCP and UDP applications.

When the number of bytes queued exceeds the high water mark, transmission is halted temporarily the backlog can be cleared. The low water mark specifies the level to which the queue must drop before transmission is restarted.

Assign consistent values for the transmit and receive high water marks. The default value (8192) assigned to these parameters is optimized for transmitting across Ethernet connections. For applications running over FDDI, the high water marks should be set to 32 Kbytes. Use ndd(1M) to change the TCP and UDP high water marks:

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Use ndd —get (the default) to check the current value of the TCP high water marks (tcp_xmit_hiwat and tcp_recv_hiwat).

# ndd /dev/tcp tcp_xmit_hiwat 8192 # ndd /dev/tcp tcp_recv_hiwat 8192

ImprovingNetwork Performance 27

3. Use ndd —set to modify the current value of the TCP high water marks (tcp_xmit_hiwat and tcp_recv_hiwat).

For optimum performance over FDDI connections, the TCP high water marks should both be set to 32 Kbytes.

# ndd —set /dev/tcp tcp_xmit_hiwat 32768 # ndd —set /dev/tcp tcp_recv_hiwat 32768

4. Use ndd —get (the default) to check the current value of the UDP high water marks (udp_xmit_hiwat and udp_recv_hiwat).

# ndd —get /dev/udp udp_xmit_hiwat 8192 # ndd —get /dev/udp udp_recv_hiwat 8192

5. Use ndd —set to modify the current value of the UDP high water marks (udp_xmit_hiwat and udp_recv_hiwat).

For optimum performance over FDDI connections, the UDP high water marks should both be set to 32 Kbytes.

# ndd —set /dev/udp udp_xmit_hiwat 32768 # ndd —set /dev/udp udp_recv_hiwat 32768

▼ To Tune the Low Water Mark

By default, the low water mark is set to 2 Kbytes. Provided the high water mark is also tuned, increasing the low water mark can improve the performance slightly. The low water mark must never be set higher than the high water mark. Use ndd(1M) to change the TCP and UDP low water marks:

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

28 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

2. Use ndd —set to modify the current value of the TCP and UDP low water marks (tcp_xmit_lowat and udp_xmit_lowat).

For optimum performance over FDDI connections, set the TCP and UDP low water marks to 24 Kbytes.

# ndd —set /dev/tcp tcp_xmit_lowat 24576 # ndd —set /dev/udp udp_xmit_lowat 24576

Tuning the High and Low Water Marks at Boot Time

Each time you reboot your machine, the high and low water marks are reset to their default values. If you want to configure your system so that the high water marks are modified automatically each time you reboot the machine, you must put these commands in a start-up script.

An example script is locate on the SunFDDI/P CD-ROM. Once installed on your machine, this script sets the TCP and UDP high and low water marks each time you reboot. The TCP and UDP high water marks are set to 32 Kbytes; the TCP and UDP low water marks are set to 24 Kbytes. You can modify the example script to enter your own values, if required.

Tuning the Socket Options

For applications that use Sockets, the application developer can make more efficient use of the increased bandwidth provided by an FDDI connection by increasing the size of the send and receive buffers used by a specific application. This manipulation is restricted to applications and do not affect the other socket connections.

Solaris 2.5.1 environments support program calls to getsockopt(3N) and setsockopt(3N). The options SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF are used to set the size of the TCP send and receive buffers for a specified Socket. See the man page for more detailed information.

To optimize performance, assign consistent values for the transmit and receive buffers. The default value (4 Kbytes) assigned to these parameters is optimized for transmitting across Ethernet connections. For applications running over FDDI, the send and receive buffers should be set to 32 Kbytes.

ImprovingNetwork Performance 29

MTU Path Discovery

Machines running a Solaris 2.x environment support MTU path discovery, which allows the optimum MTU to be negotiated. Under most circumstances, this ensures efficient use of the network resources. However, to enable MTU path discovery to work, the “don’t fragment” bit in the packet is set, which causes a problem with some bridges and routers that do not support this feature. In this case, packets are not transmitted across the bridge, and the generated error messages as a result can be misleading.

Refer to “To Disable MTU Path Discovery” for instructions on how to accommodate bridges and routers that do not support this feature.

▼ To Tune the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU)

The maximum transfer unit (MTU) has been optimized for pure FDDI networks for FDDI/P. Follow these steps to change the value of the MTU on a station running SunFDDI/P:

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Edit the /etc/system file to add the following line:

set pf:pf_mtu=<packet_size>

The variable <packet_size> is set to the desired value for MTU entered in octets. The default value for MTU is 4352 octets. It must be in the range 512 to 4500 octets.

3. Reboot the machine to apply the changes to the system.

Note – Additionally, the ifconfig(1M) command can be used to change the

MTU.

30 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

▼ To Disable MTU Path Discovery

Many bridges do not support MTU path discovery.

♦ To disable this feature in order to transmit packets across a bridge, type:

# ndd —set /dev/ip ip_path_mtu_discovery 0

MTU path discovery is re-enabled each time the machine is rebooted.

▼ To Tune the Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT)

The target token rotation time (TTRT) for the network is the lowest value of

T_req bid during the claim process. Follow these steps to change the value of T_req bid:

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Edit the /etc/system file to add the following line:

set pf:pf_treq=8000

3. Reboot the machine to apply the changes to the system.

ImprovingNetwork Performance 31

32 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

TroubleshootingandDiagnostics

Troubleshooting Checklist page 34 Solving Common Problems page 39 Running the Hardware Self-Test Program page 44 Loading the Device Driver Manually page 45

This chapter describes how to detect and resolve common problems with your FDDI network. It includes instructions on how to load and configure the SunFDDI/P device driver manually, if required. Note that SunFDDI/P supports almost all of the standard SunOS™ network diagnostic utilities, including snoop(1M), netstat(1M), ping(1M), and etherfind(8C).

For a Solaris 2.5.1 Hardware: 4/97 environment, the default base directory <basedir> is:

/opt/SUNWconn/bin

Troubleshooting Checklist

Use the following checklist to verify the major components of your SunFDDI/P station, and to check that it is installed, configured, and attached to the network correctly.

▼ To Check the Connection to the Station

♦ Check that the cable connector is seated firmly into the plug on the

▼ To Check the Connections Between Stations

♦ Check that the cables are connected correctly between ports of different

SunFDDI/P adapter card.

You should feel the connector “click” into place.

types.

The keys provided with most FDDI cables will help you to avoid “crossing” or “twisting” the ring. See “Connecting Fiber Optic Cables” on page 5 for a detailed description.

• For single attached stations (SAS), cables should be connected by either

S↔M (to a concentrator) or S↔S (back-to-back).

• For dual attached stations (DAS), cables should be connected by either

A↔BB↔A (dual-ring) or A↔MM↔B (dual-homing).

▼ To Check the Link Status Indicator

♦ Check the status of the SunFDDI/P interface by looking at the Link Status

Indicator (diagnostic LED) mounted on the backplate of the SunFDDI/P PCI card.

• If the LED is green, the SunFDDI/P driver is loaded, the pf interface is

configured, and the station is attached to an active FDDI network. This is the operating state.

34 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

• If the LED is amber, the SunFDDI/P driver is loaded, the pf interface is

configured, but no valid line state to an active FDDI network exists.

a. Check the physical connections between the station and the ring, or

the station and the concentrator.

b. Check the status of the neighboring station.

If this station is down, it will bring down the link between the stations.

• If the LED is red, the adapter failed the FDDI path test.

• If no LED is lit, either the SunFDDI/P driver is loaded and the interface is

not configured, or the driver has not been loaded.

•

a. Configure the pf interface with the ifconfig(1M) command of the

form:

# ifconfig plumb pf<inst> <hostname> netmask <mask> up

• If the LED is red, the SunFDDI/P driver is not loaded, or is loaded

incorrectly.

a. Check that the software is installed.

b. Remove the existing version, if necessary, and reload the software.

Checking the MAC Address

By default, the first SunFDDI/P interface installed in the machine adopts the host-resident Media Access Control ( MAC) address stored on the motherboard. Each subsequent SunFDDI/P interface takes the card-resident MAC address stored in its IDPROM.

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 35

▼ To Check the SunFDDI/P Driver

SunFDDIinterface pf<inst> ---->

▼ To Check the IP Addresses

♦ Use netstat(1M) to check that the SunFDDI/P (pf) driver is installed

correctly, and to check for an excessive number of errors and collisions:

% netstat -i Name Mtu Net/Dest Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Collis Queue lo0 8232 loopback localhost 21 0 21 0 0 0 le0 1500 our-lan hysop 2146 0 950 1 13 0 pf0 4352 our-fddi hysop-pf 1086 0 907 0 0 0

A sudden increase in the number of errors could indicate a noisy connection caused by a dirty cable.

You must assign a unique IP address to each SunFDDI/P interface. If you have more than one IP interface installed in your machine—either multiple SunFDDI/P interfaces, or some other LAN interface (for example, an Ethernet interface)—each interface must be attached to a different subnetwork.

♦ Use ifconfig(1M) to check the IP addresses assigned to the two

SunFDDI/P interfaces:

# ifconfig -a pf0: flags=843(UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST) mtu 4352

inet 123:123:201:71 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 123:123:201:255 pf1: flags=843(UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST) mtu 4352

inet 123:123:201:75 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 123:123:201:255

If the interfaces have the same subnetwork number, as shown in this example, you must change the IP address assigned to one of the interfaces.

Ensure that the IP addresses and host names for each SunFDDI/P interface are entered in the NIS map, or in /etc/hosts on the local machine if you are not using NIS/NIS+.

36 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

▼ To Check the IP Routing

1. Check the IP routing table using the netstat(1M) command:

% netstat —nr

2. Check that the FDDI subnetwork is featured in the routing table.

If the routing table is empty, check that the routing daemon (in.routed)is running on your machine.

▼ To Check the Protocol Statistics

♦ Use netstat(1M) to check the per-protocol (IP, TCP, UDP, etc.) statistics

for errors:

# netstat -s UDP

udpInDatagrams = 1423udpInErrors = 0

udpOutDatagrams = 540

TCP tcpRtoAlgorithm = 4tcpRtoMin = 200

tcpRtoMax = 60000tcpMaxConn = -1

tcpActiveOpens = 38tcpPassiveOpens = 1

tcpAttemptFails = 0tcpEstabResets = 33

tcpCurrEstab = 2tcpOutSegs = 427

tcpOutDataSegs = 264tcpOutDataBytes = 15917

tcpRetransSegs = 38tcpRetransBytes = 0

tcpOutAck = 143tcpOutAckDelayed = 56

tcpOutUrg = 1tcpOutWinUpdate = 0

tcpOutWinProbe = 0tcpOutControl = 111

tcpOutRsts = 36tcpOutFastRetrans = 0

tcpInSegs = 606

tcpInAckSegs = 292tcpInAckBytes = 15949

tcpInDupAck = 62tcpInAckUnsent = 0

tcpInInorderSegs = 311tcpInInorderBytes = 99169

tcpInUnorderSegs = 0tcpInUnorderBytes = 0 . . .

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 37

♦ Use netstat(1M) to check the driver statistics:

# netstat -k pfo

ipacket = x, ierror = y, opackets = z . . .

▼ To Check the SMT Traffic

If the target station is not running SunFDDI/P, it does not necessarily support the same set of SMT frames. If the target station receives an SMT request for an unsupported service, it issues a Request Denied Frame (RDF).

♦ Use pf_smtmon(1M) to examine the SMT frames:

# <basedir>/pf_smtmon

[-i pf<inst>] [—x] [—h] [<frameclass>]

38 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Solving Common Problems

Use the information in Table 5-1 and Table 5-2 to diagnose and resolve some of the common problems that can occur when installing, configuring, or running SunFDDI/P.

Table 5-1 Problems Installing SunFDDI/P

Problem Action

The SunFDDI/P software package (SUNWpfr) cannot be found.

The SunFDDI/P man pages/utilities package (SUNWpft) cannot be found.

The configuration script cannot configure the IP address. “What ip address do you want to use for xyz

[] [?] 0.0.0.0 Illegal ip address. . . . Try again”

The configuration script cannot find the hardware devices installed in the machine.

The configuration script cannot load the SunFDDI/P driver. The procedure fails with the message, “no available major numbers.”

The configuration script cannot load the device driver.

The configuration script cannot configure the device driver. The procedure fails with the message, “Duplicate MAC address.”

Check that you have inserted the CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive and that the CD-ROM is mounted on a local directory. If the Volume Manager (vold) is running on your machine, the SunFDDI/P software is located in the following directory: /cdrom/sun_fddip_1_0/Product. If the Volume Manager (vold) is not running on your machine, you must create a directory and mount the CD-ROM as described on page 13.

Check that you have entered the valid IP address. The script will keep prompting you until you enter a valid address.

Check that the SunFDDI/P PCI card is installed correctly and is seated firmly in the PCI slot. Use the prtconf command to see if the pf card exists.

The number of major numbers—that is, the maximum number of device drivers that can be installed—is limited to 127. This number is quickly exhausted by the large number of drivers installed in a typical system. Remove an existing driver before loading SunFDDI/P.

Check whether the driver is already installed on the system. If you removed a previous version of the package using pkgrm(1M), you must reboot the system before attempting another add_drv.

Two or more interfaces have been assigned the same MAC address. The most likely conflict lies between the first SunFDDI/P 1.0 interface (pf0) and one or more SunFDDI/P interfaces (pf1, etc) installed in the same machine.

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 39

Table 5-2 Problems Running SunFDDI/P

Problem Action

The link status indicator (diagnostic LED) remains red.

The link status indicator (diagnostic LED) remains amber.

The link status indicator (diagnostic LED) remains amber, even after the local station is connected to the network and the driver is configured and loaded.

The SunFDDI/P interface (pf) is not displayed by netstat.

Check that the SunFDDI/P software is installed correctly and that the driver is loaded and configured.

Check that the SunFDDI/P PCI card is connected to the network.

Check that the other end of the cable is connected and that the neighboring station or concentrator is configured correctly. Some concentrators have diagnostic LEDs that indicate if the ring is operating correctly. Check that the ring is not crossed.

Check that the SunFDDI/P device driver is loaded, using modinfo(1M) to display information about loaded kernel modules. If the device driver is not loaded, see “Loading the Device Driver Manually” on page 45 for detailed instructions.

The SunFDDI/P interface (pf) is not displayed by

ifconfig.

The local station can reach FDDI stations located on the same subnetwork, but these stations cannot reach the local station.

The local station cannot reach other FDDI stations located on the same subnetwork.

Running pf_stat without the —m option (to display information about the local station) shows the ring alternating frequently between UP and DOWN.

Check that the IP address and host name of the local station is entered in the NIS map or NIS+ tables (or in /etc/hosts on each remote station if you are not running NIS or NIS+).

Check that the link status indicator is green, indicating that the SunFDDI/P interface is attached to an active network. Use ifconfig(1M) to check that the SunFDDI/P interface (pf)is up.

Check that the IP address and host name of the remote station is entered in the NIS map or NIS+ tables (or in /etc/hosts on the local station if you are not running NIS or NIS+).

Check that the link status indicator is green, indicating that the SunFDDI/P interface is attached to an active network.

Check the connections to the concentrator. Some concentrators have diagnostic LEDs that indicate if the ring is operating correctly.

40 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Table 5-2 Problems Running SunFDDI/P (Continued)

Problem Action

Running pf_stat without the —m option (to display information about the local station) shows that the ring is ISOLATED.

The local station cannot reach FDDI stations located on a remote FDDI network.

Check that the link status indicator is green, indicating that the SunFDDI/P interface is attached to an active network. Check the connections to neighboring stations or the concentrator. Some concentrators have diagnostic LEDs that indicate if the ring is operating correctly.

Check that the neighboring stations are configured correctly. If everything else seems to be working, check the cable itself. Fiber optic cable is fragile and should not be subjected to stress or impact. If the turning curve around objects is too tight, the light path is interrupted. Clean the connectors.

Check that the IP address and host name of the remote station is entered in the NIS map or NIS+ tables (or in /etc/hosts on each remote station if you are not running NIS or NIS+).

Check that the routing tables are using netstat —r. Check for an pf interface that shows a route to a gateway with the UG flags set. If you can reach the local gateway, then the problem probably lies with the IP routing.

Try to confirm that the remote station is configured and running, and if possible try to reach the local station from the remote station. If you can, it indicates that the problem lies with the local IP routing.

Try to reach the router nearest the remote station. If you can, it indicates that the fault lies between the remote station and the router. If you cannot, try to reach a router that is closer to the local station. Continue in this way until you have isolated the router that is dropping or misrouting packets.

If the dynamic routing protocol is not adding routes, try adding a static route to the remote station. This method is not recommended for large networks with a large number of nodes.

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 41

Table 5-2 Problems Running SunFDDI/P (Continued)

Problem Action

The local station cannot reach FDDI stations located on a remote Ethernet network.

Check that the IP address and host name of the remote station is entered in the NIS map or NIS+ tables (or in /etc/hosts on each remote station if you are not running NIS or NIS+).

If you are operating in a Solaris 2.x environment, which uses MTU path discovery, check that packets are being transmitted across the bridge between the networks. Many bridges do not yet support MTU path discovery and do not fragment the large packets sent by the FDDI stations. In this case you may need to disable this feature on your station by typing:

# ndd —set /dev/ip ip_path_mtu_discovery 0

If the dynamic routing protocol is not adding routes, try adding a static route to the remote station. This method is not recommended for large networks with a large number of nodes.

Running pf_stat with the —m option (to display information about the neighboring stations) shows frequent error frames and lost frames.

42 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

This could indicate a noisy network. For fiber connections, noise is probably caused by dirt or grease on the optical surface or by a damaged cable. Unshielded twisted-pair is sensitive to electrical and electromagnetic interference. Note that the receipt of error frames and lost frames does not give any indication of where the problem is occurring on the ring.

Table 5-2 Problems Running SunFDDI/P (Continued)

Problem Action

Running pf_smtmon shows the frequent occurrence of request denied frames (RDF).

Table 5-3 Problems Using the SNM Agents for SunFDDI/P

Problem Action

Cannot select pf_fddi or pf_fddismt7_2 agent for quick dump.

Cannot recover SMT statistics from the proxy agent. The procedure fails with the error message, “Cannot

create RPC client: program is not registered.”

The SMT entity on one of the remote stations does not support the same set of SMT services. This should not occur on a station running SunFDDI/P. You can use this facility to detect problems communicating with a remote station using the SunNet Manager proxy agent.

Check that the SNM agents for SunFDDI/P are enabled in the properties window for the proxy station. See “Using the SunFDDI/P Local Agent (pf_fddi)” on page 110 for detailed instructions.

Check that you specified the host name or MAC address for the target machine in the properties window for the target station. See “Using the SunFDDI/P Local Agent (pf_fddi)” on page 110 for detailed instructions.

Check that the SNM daemons are started on the proxy and the target machines:

# ps -ef | grep snm root <pid> <date&time> <path>/pf_snmd root <pid> <date&time> <path>/pf_snmd

root

On a Solaris 2.x client, you can start the SunNet Manager daemons for SunFDDI/P by typing:

# /usr/sbin/pf_snmd

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 43

/pf_snmd

Running the Hardware Self-Test Program

If you suspect that there may be a problem with the SunFDDI/P adapter card, you can use the built-in hardware self-test to check the state of its primary components and the connection to the network.

▼ To Run the Hardware Self-Test

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Halt the machine.

# sync;sync;halt

3. At the boot prompt, type:

ok test /pci/pf

Local MAC Address 0:80:d8:10:3:ed (Canonical)

Interrupt register read/write test .... PASS

CMT Processor read/write test ......... PASS

S Port register test .................. PASS

MAC register test ..................... PASS

DMA register test ..................... PASS

DMA bus master test ................... PASS

Performing FDDI path test ............. PASS

Connection Management (CMT) test ...... PASS

Local loopback packet test ............ PASS

Network loopback packet test .......... connection not active

/pci/pf selftest failed. Return code = -1

This example shows that the primary components on the board are working, but that the board is not currently connected to the network.

44 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Loading the Device Driver Manually

Normally, the SunFDDI/P device driver is loaded and configured by the post-installation script, which is launched automatically when the software is installed. If you encounter problems when running this script, or if you want to customize the installation, you may need to load the device driver manually.

▼ To Configure and Load the Device Driver

1. Log in as root or become superuser.

2. Check that there are no partially installed drivers for SunFDDI/P.

a. Check for existing SunFDDI/P devices in the /dev directory.

# ls /dev | grep pf pf

b. Use rem_drv(1M) to remove any installed SunFDDI/P devices and remove the device directories.

# /usr/sbin/rem_drv pf # /bin/rm —f /dev/pf

c. Check the /etc/name_to_major file for entries of the form pf<num> and smt<num> and remove these if they exist.

3. Use add_drv(1M) to inform the system about the new drivers.

# /usr/sbin/add_drv pf

4. Check that the device drivers have been added to the system correctly.

a. Look in the /devices/pseudo directory for entries of the form:

ls -l /devices/pseudo | grep pf

crw------- 1 root sys 11,119 <date> clone@0:pf

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics 45

b. Look in the /dev directory for links to these entries:

ls -l /dev | grep pf

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other <date> pf -> ../devices/pseudo/clone@0:pf

5. Create a file called /etc/hostname.pf<inst> for each SunFDDI/P IP interface that you configure.

Each file must contain the host name assigned to the IP interface. These files are used to configure the interfaces when the system is rebooted. If you assign the primary host name to one of the FDDI interfaces, this host name must be entered in the file /etc/nodename.

6. Use ifconfig(1M) to configure the SunFDDI/P IP interfaces (pf<inst>).

The host name assigned to the IP interface must be entered in the NIS map, NIS+ tables, or in /etc/hosts on the local machine. Configure the interface using an ifconfig command of the form:

# /usr/sbin/ifconfig pf<inst> plumb <hostname> netmask + up

Note that the modifier netmask + takes the netmask defined in the /etc/netmasks file. If this entry is missing, you must specify the netmask

explicitly using dot notation.

Provided the installation and configuration was successful, your SunFDDI/P station is now active and you can send and receive data transparently across an FDDI connection.

46 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Part2 — PlanningandImplementing

SunFDDINetworks

FDDINetworkArchitecture

FDDI Network Model page 50 FDDI Network Architecture page 55 FDDI Failure Recovery page 60 FDDI Ring Operation page 65 FDDI Performance page 66

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), and the network architecture described by the following specifications:

• ANSI/FDDI Physical Media Dependent (PMD) X3.166-1990

• ANSI/FDDI Physical Layer (PHY) X3.148-1988

• ANSI/FDDI Medium Access Control (MAC) X.3.139-1987

• ANSI/FDDI Station Management (SMT) X3.299 R7.3 (formally R7.2.99)

FDDI Network Model

FDDI provides high-performance, multistation networking at data transfer rates of up to 100 Mbps. It is based on a Token-Ring network architecture, and provides communication over optical fiber or copper twisted-pair connections.

The ANSI/FDDI specifications define a network model that consists of the following components:

• Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) Layer

• Physical (PHY) Layer

• Medium Access Control (MAC) Layer

• Station Management (SMT) Protocol

Figure 6-1 shows the organization of these components, and their relationship with other network protocols that use them.

User space

OSI TCP/IP

DLPI interface V2 / BSD ifnet

LLC/Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP)

Media Access Control (MAC) layer

Physical (PHY) Layer

(SMT)

Physical medium dependent (PMD) layer

Station Management

Figure 6-1 FDDI Architectural Model

50 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Kernel space

Hardware

Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) Layer

This portion of the FDDI network model defines the physical medium used to carry the encoded digital signal. It is also referred to as the media layer.

The PMD layer determines the characteristics of the transmitters, receivers, connectors, and cables used to attach the FDDI station to the network. SunFDDI/P supports only the Multimode fiber (MMF)—single and dualattached PMD option.

Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)

A fiber optic FDDI connection supports data transmission rates of up to 100 Mbps and, because attenuation in the fiber is very low, larger distances between FDDI stations are possible without the use of repeaters. In addition, fiber does not emit electromagnetic radiation and is electrically nonconductive. Therefore, it neither causes, nor suffers from, problems due to signal interference between adjacent equipment or cabling.

SunFDDI/P supports 62.5/125 micrometer, multimode fiber (MMF). Multimode fiber cannot support such large distances between FDDI stations as single-mode fiber (SMF), which is not supported by SunFDDI/P. However, multimode fiber is cheaper, and uses lower cost terminations, connectors, and light-sources.

Physical (PHY) Layer

The physical (PHY) layer handles the efficient encoding and decoding of digital data. It is also referred to as the signal layer.

At the transmitting end, the PHY layer encodes the digital data into FDDI symbols and passes them to the physical medium dependent (PMD) layer for transmission. At the receiving end, the PHY layer decodes the FDDI symbols and passes the digital data to the medium access control (MAC) layer. An FDDI symbol is the basic transmission unit in an FDDI network.

The PHY layer also provides the network synchronization mechanism. It uses a distributed clocking scheme under which each FDDI station has its own local clock to synchronize the transmission of outgoing data. The PHY layer extracts clocking information from incoming data as it is received.

FDDI Network Architecture 51

Media Access Control (MAC) Layer

The Media Access Control layer specifies the access mechanism used to transmit and receive data on the FDDI network. It packages digital data in frames.

The MAC layer specifies three classes of digital data traffic:

• Synchronous (guaranteed) traffic

• Asynchronous (priority-based) traffic

• Restricted (dialogue-based) traffic

The MAC layer uses a timed token rotation protocol that regulates how much digital data can be sent at one time. This protocol ensures that the network bandwidth is used predictably and efficiently. It also gives the FDDI network its distinctive “ring” topology.

The FDDI stations connected on the network use a token to control the right to transmit data for a predefined time, determined by the local timed target rotation timer (TTRT) on each station. When an FDDI station completes transmission, it releases the token for use by downstream stations. In this way, the token rotates continuously around the ring.

Each attachment to an FDDI network is identified by a unique MAC address. The first SunFDDI/P card installed in a machine takes its identity from the host-resident MAC address that is stored in nonvolatile memory on the motherboard of the machine in which it is installed. Each subsequent SunFDDI/P SBus card takes its identity from the card-resident MAC address stored in its own IDPROM.

Use the pf_macid(1M) utility to display the card-resident MAC address. See Chapter 8, “Using the SunFDDI Network Utilities” for detailed instructions.

Station Management (SMT) Layer

The Station Management layer provides services to manage, control, and configure the FDDI network. It is also referred to as the network management layer.

52 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

At its lowest level, the SMT protocol handles connection management (CMT). This includes station initialization, the insertion and removal of stations on the network, and connection compatibility between stations. At a higher level, the SMT protocol handles ring management (RMT). This includes the detection of duplicate addresses and the isolation of fault conditions.

The SMT protocol also defines the FDDI management information base (MIB). This is a set of managed objects and associated attributes that includes the MAC entity (MAC), data path (PATH), attachment type (ATTACHMENT), and port identifier (PORT).

Communication services are used to exchange objects and information between peer SMT entities through special management frames that are carried at the same time as normal network traffic. This frame-based management is used to:

• Examine and modify FDDI station configuration

• Schedule synchronous (guaranteed) and asynchronous (priority-based)

traffic

• Gather network statistics

• Generate status reports

SunFDDI/P includes SunNet Manager agents that access the SMT entity to collect and return FDDI statistics to a SunNet Manager console. See Chapter 9, “Managing FDDI Stations Using SunNet Manager” for detailed instructions on how to manage FDDI networks using a SunNet Manager console.

Communication Between FDDI Layers

The MAC layer transfers data between peer entities in the form of frames that are encoded as FDDI symbols by the PHY layer. The PMD layer transmits FDDI symbols across the network as a bit stream of light pulses (for fiber connections) or electrical signals (for twisted-pair connections).

The communication between layers in the FDDI architectural model is summarized in Figure 6-2.

FDDI Network Architecture 53

Media access control (MAC) layer

Frames

Physical (PHY) layer

(SMT)

Station management

Physical medium dependent (PMD) layer

Figure 6-2 Communication Between FDDI Layers

Symbols

Bit stream

54 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

FDDI Network Architecture

A typical FDDI network is based on a dual, counter-rotating ring, as illustrated in Figure 6-3. Each FDDI station is connected in sequence to two rings simultaneously—a primary ring and a secondary ring. Data flows in one direction on the primary ring, and in the other direction on the secondary ring.

FDDI station FDDI station

FDDI station

Secondary ring

FDDI station

Figure 6-3 Basic FDDI Network Architecture

The secondary ring serves as a redundant path. It is used during station initialization, and may be used as a backup to the primary ring in the event of a station or cable failure. When a failure occurs, the dual-ring is “wrapped” around to isolate the fault and to create a single, one-way ring. The components of a typical FDDI network and the failure recovery mechanism are described in more detail in the following sections.

FDDI Network Architecture 55

Primary ring

FDDI Stations

An FDDI station is any device that can be attached to a fiber or copper twistedpair FDDI network through an FDDI interface. The FDDI protocols define two types of FDDI stations:

• Single-attached station (SAS)

• Dual-attached station (DAS)

Single-Attached Station (SAS)

A single-attached station (SAS) is attached to the FDDI network through a single connector called the S-port. The S-port has a primary input (Pin) and a primary output (Pout). Data from an upstream station enters through Pin and exits from Pout to a downstream station, as shown in Figure 6-4.

Single-attached stations are normally attached to single- and dual-attached concentrators, as described in “FDDI Concentrators” on page 58.

Single-attached station

Data to downstream station

Figure 6-4 Single-Attached Station (SAS)

56 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Pout

(SAS)

MAC

PHY

S-port

Data from upstream station

Dual-Attached Station (DAS)

A dual-attached station (DAS) is attached to the FDDI network through two connectors called the A-port and the B-port, respectively. The A-port has a primary input (Pin) and a secondary output (Sout); the B-port has a primary output (Pout) and a secondary input (Sin).

The primary input/output is attached to the primary ring and the secondary input/output is attached to the secondary ring. The flow of data during normal operation is shown in Figure 6-5.

To complete the ring, you must ensure that the B-port of an upstream station is always connected to the A-port of a downstream station. For this reason, most FDDI DAS connectors are keyed to prevent connections between two ports of the same type.

Data to downstream station

Data from downstream station

Figure 6-5 Dual-Attached Station (DAS)

Pout

Dual-attached station

PHY B

B-port

Sin

(DAS)

MAC

Sout

PHY A

A-port

Data from upstream station

Data to upstream station

FDDI Network Architecture 57

FDDI Concentrators

FDDI concentrators are multiplexers that attach multiple single-attached stations to the FDDI ring. An FDDI concentrator is analogous to an Ethernet hub.

The FDDI protocols define two types of concentrators:

• Single-attached concentrator (SAC)

• Dual-attached concentrator (DAC)

Single-Attached Concentrator (SAC)

A single-attached concentrator (SAC) is attached to the FDDI network through a single connector, which is identical to the S-port on a single-attached station. It has multiple M-ports, to which single-attached stations are connected, as shown in Figure 6-6.

Single-attached station

(SAS)

S-port

M-port M-port M-port

Figure 6-6 Single-Attached Concentrator (SAC)

Single-attached station

(SAS)

S-port

Single-attached

concentrator

(SAC)

S-port

Pout

Single-attached station

(SAS)

S-port

Data from upstream stationData to downstream station

58 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Dual-Attached Concentrator (DAC)

A dual-attached concentrator (DAC) is attached to the FDDI network through two ports—the A-port and the B-port, which are identical to the ports on a dual-attached station. It has multiple M-ports, to which single-attached stations are connected, as shown in Figure 6-7.

Dual-attached concentrators and FDDI stations are often arranged in a very flexible network topology called the ring of trees. This configuration is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7, “FDDI Network Topologies.”

Single-attached station

(SAS)

S-port

M-port M-port

Data to downstream station

Data from upstream station

Pout

Single-attached station

A-port

(SAS)

S-port

Dual-attached

concentrator

(SAC)

Sin

Sout

Single-attached station

(SAS)

S-port

M-port

B-port

Data from upstream station

Data to downstream station

Figure 6-7 Dual-Attached Concentrator (DAC)

FDDI Network Architecture 59

FDDI Failure Recovery

Station Wrapping

One of the primary advantages of FDDI is its ability to recover reliably from failures in stations and cables. The failure mechanism is implemented and controlled by the Station Management (SMT) entity described in the section “Station Management (SMT) Layer” on page 52.

A failure could be something as insignificant as someone switching off their workstation; the ability of FDDI to recover from such an event increases the reliability of the network significantly.

Figure 6-8 shows the effect of a single-station failure in an FDDI network that comprises four dual-attached stations connected in a basic ring configuration. When a failure occurs, the SMT entities on the stations on either side of the fault reconfigure the network dynamically to isolate it. In this condition, the primary and secondary rings are wrapped on to each other to form a single, one-way ring.

Failed FDDI DAS

FDDI DAS

Figure 6-8 Isolating a Single Station Failure

60 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

FDDI DAS

Secondary ring

Primary ring

This failure recovery mechanism is only supported by dual-attached stations and concentrators; a single-attached station connected directly to the ring cannot wrap around the fault because it is only connected to one ring at a time.

The effect of a cable or link failure on a basic FDDI network is very similar to a station failure, as shown in Figure 6-9. The SMT entities on the stations on either side of the failed connection reconfigure the network dynamically so that the primary ring is wrapped onto the secondary ring.

FDDI DAS

Failed cable

FDDI DAS

Secondary ring Primary ring

FDDI DAS

Figure 6-9 Isolating a Single Cable Failure

Wrapping occurs within the MAC layer. Figure 6-10 on page 62 illustrates how the dual-attached station is reconfigured to wrap the primary ring onto the secondary ring. Dual-attached concentrators wrap in a similar way. In this case, all of the single-attached stations connected to the concentrator are also wrapped onto the secondary ring.

FDDI Network Architecture 61

PHY B

port B

Pout

Data to downstream station

Figure 6-10 Dual-Attached Station in Wrap Mode

Optical Bypass Switches

Dual-attached station

(DAS)

MAC

PHY A

port A

Sin

Data from upstream station

Primary and secondary rings wrapped within the MAC l

Station wrapping provides effective network recovery in the event of a single station or cable failure. However, two or more failures in the ring will isolate portions of the network, as shown in Figure 6-11.

This limitation can be overcome to a certain extent by fitting optical bypass switches to the dual-attached stations. As their name suggests, these switches provide an optical connection that bypasses the station in the event of failure, or if the station needs to be removed from the ring. Optical bypass switches can only be used to overcome station faults; they have no affect in the event of a cable fault.

The attenuation in an optical bypass switch is far greater than in a normal FDDI connection; therefore, the number of optical bypass switches that can be connected in series in a single ring is limited.

62 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Failed FDDI DAS

FDDI DAS

Failed cable

Secondary ring

FDDI DAS

Figure 6-11 Dua-Ring Network Divided by Two Faults

FDDI DAS

Primary ring

The maximum number of active optical bypass switches that can be connected in a series is four. This assumes that the maximum distance between stations in the ring is no more than 400m; otherwise, the aggregate attenuation in the ring exceeds the total optical power budget.

Figure 6-12 shows how connecting an optical bypass switch to a dual-attached station is used to conserve the connection when the station is switched off, or removed from the ring.

Active station Inactive station

Dual-attached

station

Dual-attached

station

B A

Pout Pin Pout Pin

Optical bypass

Figure 6-12 Optical Bypass Switch

FDDI Network Architecture 63

SoutSin

Sin

B A

Optical bypass

Sout

Figure 6-13 shows the occurrence of two different fault conditions in an FDDI network that includes optical bypass switches. The station fault is bypassed effectively to conserve the majority of the network intact; however, the cable fault still causes station wrapping.

FDDI DAS

Optical

bypass

Failed cable

FDDI DAS

Optical

bypass

Optical

bypass

Failed FDDI DAS

Figure 6-13 Optical Bypass Switches used in a Network

Optical

bypass

FDDI DAS

Secondary ring Primary ring

64 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

FDDI Ring Operation

UnrestrictedAsynchronousTransmission

Two types of traffic are allocated bandwidth on an FDDI ring:

• Asynchronous traffic (unrestricted and restricted)

The unrestricted asynchronous service allocates bandwidth dynamically based on the timed token rotation protocol, and according to the priority assigned to the traffic. It does not guarantee bandwidth; therefore, unrestricted asynchronous traffic may be delayed on a heavily loaded network.

The restricted asynchronous service allocates bandwidth for extended transmission based on restricted token exchange between communicating stations. During restricted transmission, the timed token rotation protocol is suspended until the restricted token is released. The use of the restricted asynchronous service is relatively rare.

The FDDI network is most commonly used for unrestricted asynchronous traffic. This is the default mode for SunFDDI and is the only mode supported in a Solaris 1.x environment. Access to the FDDI ring is controlled by a permission token, or right to transmit. The permission token is a special frame that is passed between stations. Unlike the tokens used in a Token Ring network, the FDDI permission token contains no additional information.

The station holding the permission token completes transmission either when it has no more packets to transmit, or when its right to hold the token expires. It then releases the token, which is now available for use by the next station on the ring. In this way, the permission token rotates around the ring, at a rate determined by the overall target token rotation time (TTRT).

The TTRT is established when the ring is initialized, based on a bidding procedure called the claim process. During the claim process, each station puts in a request (T_req) for the TTRT. The lowest bid or, the fastest rotation time wins the claim process and is stored in 2’s complement form as the operating value of TTRT (T_opr). The maximum value of TTRT (T_max) allowed by the MAC layer is implementation dependent, but is always in the ~165 ms range. SunFDDI/P has T_max=167.874 ms.

FDDI Network Architecture 65

The maximum time for which a station can hold the permission token, and therefore the time for which a station can transmit on the ring, is determined by these two station timers that work together to maintain the target token rotation time (TTRT), irrespective of the load on the network:

• Token Rotation Timer (TRT)

The TRT measures the time between successive arrivals of the token or, the time taken for the token to rotate once around the ring. The TRT is reset to the operating value of TTRT (T_opr) each time the token is received. If the TRT expires before the token arrives, the token is considered late and the flag Late_Ct is set. Only synchronous (high priority) traffic can be transmitted when Late_Ct is set.

• Token Hold Timer (THT)

The THT determines how long a station can hold a token or, how long a station can transmit asynchronous traffic. It is loaded with the value remaining in the token rotation timer (TRT) each time the token arrives. Thus, the faster the token rotates, the more transmission time is allocated to each station. If the token is delayed because the network is heavily loaded, the amount of transmission time is reduced. If THT expires during transmission, the current transmission is completed before the token is released.

The interaction of these two timers causes token rotation to increase (reduced transmission time per station) in a heavily loaded network, and to decrease (increased transmission time per station) in a lightly loaded network.

FDDI Performance

Although the FDDI standards define a medium that supports data transfer rates of up to 100 Mbps, this does not translate directly to an increase in overall system performance. If fact, it frequently transfers the bottleneck elsewhere, so that the FDDI connection is not used to full capacity.

An FDDI ring has the potential to carry more information rather than to be a faster connection. If the applications running over the network do not use the available bandwidth efficiently, you will not see much improvement in the performance of your network above that of traditional Ethernet connections.

Among the factors that affect FDDI network performance are:

• Network topology

66 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

• Network load

• Network efficiency

• Processor speed (on the FDDI stations)

• Bus architecture

There are a number of ways of improving the overall performance of the network, some of which are discussed in Chapter 4, “Improving Network Performance.” However, the majority of these suggestions should only be undertaken by experienced system administrators. Any improvement made by modifying the actions of the FDDI network is negligible compared to what is gained by making more efficient use of the available bandwidth.

FDDI Network Architecture 67

68 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

FDDINetworkTopologies

Basic Dual-Ring Network page 70 Standalone Concentrator page 72 Concentrators with Dual-Homing page 74 Tree of Concentrators page 75 Ring of Trees page 77 Mixed FDDI/Ethernet Networks page 79

FDDI networks can be arranged in a variety of ways, depending on the placement of stations (SAS and DAS) and the use of concentrators (SAC and DAC). The optimum arrangement for a particular installation is dependent on several factors, including:

• Cost

• Network size

• Required Bandwidth

• Type of network traffic

• Fault resistance and network reliability

This chapter describes some of the common FDDI network topologies and discusses the primary advantages and disadvantages of each.

Basic Dual-Ring Network

The dual ring (or dual, counter-rotating ring) is one of the simplest FDDI network topologies. It clearly illustrates the distinctive ring architecture most commonly associated with the FDDI standards, as shown in Figure 7-1. Each station is critical to the operation of the network; therefore, the basic dual-ring topology is best adapted to small, stable networks that are not subject to frequent reconfiguration.

In a dual-ring network, dual-attached stations are connected directly to the primary and secondary rings. Data, and the token that controls the flow of data, are transmitted in one direction on the primary ring. Data flows in the other direction on the secondary ring, which is used during ring initialization and as a backup in case of a ring failure.

FDDI DAS

Figure 7-1 Basic Dual-Ring Network

Advantages

The primary advantages of the dual-ring network topology are its simplicity and its ability to recover from simple station and line faults. The secondary ring provides an effective backup in the event of a single failure in the ring.

70 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

FDDI DAS

Secondary ring Primary ring

When a ring fails, the primary ring is wrapped automatically on either side of the fault so that the primary and secondary rings are combined to form a single, one-way ring. This mechanism is described in more detail in “FDDI Failure Recovery” on page 60. A dual-ring network does not require a concentrator.

Disadvantages

Although the dual-ring topology is resistant to single failures in the ring, two or more failures break the network into parts. Small fragments of the network can still function, but they are isolated from the other stations. Figure 7-2 shows how two faults in a network, with five dual-attached stations, isolates two parts of the network. Cable and connection costs can be high in large installations because there are two cables between each station.

Failed FDDI DAS

FDDI DAS

Failed cable

Secondary ring

FDDI DAS

Figure 7-2 Basic Dual-Ring Network with Two Faults

FDDI Network Topologies 71

FDDI DAS

Primary ring

Standalone Concentrator

Figure 7-3 shows multiple single-attached stations connected to a single, dual-attached concentrator through its M-ports. The concentrator can also be connected to an external dual ring through its A- and B-ports.

A standalone concentrator provides a stable, low-cost alternative for small work groups that do not require the fault recovery facility provided by the dual-ring configuration.

FDDI SAS

S-port

M-port M-port M-port

FDDI SAS FDDI SAS FDDI SAS

S-port S-port

Figure 7-3 Standalone Concentrator

The typical ring architecture of the FDDI network is less obvious in this topology because it exists within the concentrator itself. For this reason, this arrangement of stations is usually described as a tree, with the concentrator as the root.

Advantages

S-port

M-port

Dual-Attached concentrator

To external ring

(optional)

A-port B-port

In the standalone concentrator configuration, individual stations have less influence on the operation of the network, which is controlled by the concentrator. Concentrators are inherently more stable than FDDI stations. They do not have monitors, or disk drives, are subject to more predictable

72 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

usage, and are less likely to be switched off. As a result, a standalone concentrator provides a more reliable network than the basic dual-ring configuration described on page 70.

Concentrators are equipped with built-in electrical bypass facilities that isolate single-station faults. Unlike the station optical bypass facility described on page 62, there is no limit to the number of stations that can be bypassed using the electrical switches in concentrators.

The majority of stations attached to the concentrator are single-attached stations; therefore, only one cable is required for each station.

More flexibility is allowed in the physical location and wiring configuration. Since the stations do not have to be attached in any fixed order and all cables return to a central concentrator, this configuration is useful at sites where FDDI cable has already been installed.

The A- and B-ports on a concentrator can be used to connect it to an external dual-ring configuration. This is a common configuration called the ring of trees, which is discussed on page 77.

Disadvantages

The number of stations that can be attached to a single concentrator is limited by the number of M-ports. This is typically in the 2 to 32 range.

The cost of a concentrator is significantly higher than that of a single-attached or dual-attached station; however, there are some low cost concentrators available that do not support all SMT management functions.

Although concentrators are more stable than FDDI stations, when the concentrator goes down, the entire network goes down with it.

FDDI Network Topologies 73

Concentrators with Dual-Homing

Figure 7-3 shows two dual-attached stations connected to two dual-attached concentrators in a dual-homing configuration. In this case, each dual-attached station is connected to both DACs. This topology is typically used for connecting critical systems such as file and name servers.

FDDI DAS

B-port

M-port M-port M-port M-port

Dual-attached concentrator

A-port

Dual-attached concentrator

(primary)

B-port B-port

Figure 7-4 Standalone Concentrator With Dual-Homing

FDDI DAS

B-port

(secondary)

A-port

Dual-homing provides two independent data paths for each dual-attached station. Under normal conditions, the station communicates on its primary path through the B-port. In the event of a cable or concentrator failure, the station switches to the secondary path connected through the A-port.

Dual-homing is equivalent to the redundant single-attached station (RSAS) configuration, which was supported by SunFDDI 2.0. In the RSAS configuration, two single-attached interfaces are used to emulate a dual-attached interface connected in a dual-homing configuration. RSAS is not supported by SunFDDI/P 1.0.

74 SunFDDI/P 1.0 AdapterUser’s Guide—May 1997

Sun Microsystems 1.0 Adapter User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Preface

FeatureSummary

SunFDDI/POverview

FDDI Conformance

HardwareInstallation

Device Instances and Device Names

Installation Items

Installing SunFDDI/P Adapter Cards

Connecting Fiber Optic Cables

▼ To Connect the Fiber Optic Cable

MIC-to-MIC Coupler

Cleaning the Fiber Optic Cable

▼ To Clean the Fiber Optic Cable

Link Status Indicator (Diagnostic LED)

InstallingSunFDDI/PSoftware

Installation Requirements

Declaring IP Addresses forSunFDDI/P

▼ To Load and Mount the CD-ROM

▼ To Install SunFDDI/P Using pkgadd

▼ To Install the Device Driver (SUNWpfr)

▼ To Finish the Installation

▼ To Check the Installation

▼ Unloading Drivers

Installing SunNet Manager Agents for SunFDDI/P

Removing SunFDDI/P

▼ To Remove SunFDDI/P

ImprovingNetworkPerformance

High Performance FDDI Networks

Ring Latency Improvement

Data Throughput Improvement

Send and Receive Buffers

Performance Across Bridges

Target Token Rotation Time(TTRT)

ImprovingPerformance

Changing the High and Low Water Marks

▼ To Tune the High Water Mark

▼ To Tune the Low Water Mark

Tuning the High and Low Water Marks at Boot Time

Tuning the Socket Options

MTU Path Discovery

▼ To Tune the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU)

▼ To Disable MTU Path Discovery

▼ To Tune the Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT)

TroubleshootingandDiagnostics

Troubleshooting Checklist

▼ To Check the Connection to the Station

▼ To Check the Connections Between Stations

▼ To Check the Link Status Indicator

Checking the MAC Address

▼ To Check the SunFDDI/P Driver

▼ To Check the IP Addresses

▼ To Check the IP Routing

▼ To Check the Protocol Statistics

▼ To Check the SMT Traffic

Solving Common Problems

Running the Hardware Self-Test Program

▼ To Run the Hardware Self-Test

Loading the Device Driver Manually

▼ To Configure and Load the Device Driver

FDDINetworkArchitecture

FDDI Network Model

Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) Layer

Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)

Physical (PHY) Layer

Media Access Control (MAC) Layer

Station Management (SMT) Layer

Communication Between FDDI Layers

FDDI Network Architecture

FDDI Stations

Single-Attached Station (SAS)

Dual-Attached Station (DAS)

FDDI Concentrators

Single-Attached Concentrator (SAC)

Dual-Attached Concentrator (DAC)

FDDI Failure Recovery

Station Wrapping