A/UX: EtherTalk Support and MacTCP Issues (9/94)


I have heard that A/UX ships with EtherTalk already built into the kernel. Is this true?

If yes, how do I change the driver to run on the Macintosh IIfx and 1.2 to run on a Phase 1 network to update later revs to the driver?

I also noticed that MacTCP is shipped locked, and the MacX folders says not to add MacTCP Admin to A/UX. I did this anyway, so I could unlock MacTCP to change the IP addressing. This resulted in the system hanging.

After restarting, I tried newconfig with commando to turn on NFS and the Berkeley file system and restarted. The EtherTalk NB Card (rev K) did not get configured. I replaced MacTCP with a different, unlocked version, ran newconfig without commando, and the card was configured with no problem. I was using a Macintosh IIfx.

Why is MacTCP shipping locked? How do I make changes to it if I cannot use MacTCP Admin?

The AppleTalk for A/UX product, which could be ordered as a separate product for A/UX 1.1.1 and was rolled into the A/UX 2.0 and 3.0 release, is based on the new AppleTalk Phase 2 protocol specification but is in no way tied to any version of the Macintosh OS EtherTalk driver.

The Ethernet driver running under A/UX is completely different from the driver written to support the Macintosh OS. The driver for A/UX is called ae6; you add and remove this driver from A/UX via the newconfig(1M) command. This driver does not have the same problems that the Macintosh OS driver has with the Macintosh IIci and Macintosh IIfx and, therefore, does not require the same revisions that the Macintosh OS driver needed.

There is no Ethernet support for the AppleTalk Phase 1 protocol suite. If you're using A/UX on an Ethernet and you want to use AppleTalk services, you must be attached to a Phase 2 network.

MacTCP for A/UX is a completely different version from the one we use under the Macintosh OSs. The version running under A/UX does not, and cannot, use the MacTCP Admin CDEV for configuration purposes. MacTCP running under A/UX gets all its configuration information from the kernel, making the Admin utility unnecessary. Use the ifconfig(1M) command to configure the IP network parameters under A/UX, or edit the /etc/NETADDRS file to change them permanently.

This shouldn't be necessary for a first-time installation since A/UX asks you for all configuration information it needs after you run the newconfig(1M) command to add an IP (ae6/bnet/ae6) network device driver to the kernel.



Article Change History:
06 Sep 1994 - Reviewed.
31 Aug 1992 - Reviewed.

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Published Date: Feb 18, 2012