Getting Started with Linux-SNA Verify correct installation of your Linux-SNA server

Copyright:
Copyright 2001 (c), All rights reserved. Jay Schulist <jschlst@samba.org>

Written by:
Jay Schulist <jschlst@samba.org>

For a while now people have been attempting to use Linux-SNA without a real lot of success, or at least not easily won success. This is the second document in the Linux-SNA Getting Started series which is attempting to make Linux-SNA a much easier protocol and application suite to use. If you feel anything is missing from this document or you would like to contribute please feel free.

1. Read the Quick installation of your Linux-SNA server guide to get a Linux-SNA server installed and all the software in the correct places.

2. There are two ways in which one can verify the correct installation of a Linux-SNA server.

• LAR (Lan Address Resolution Protocol)
  • LAR is a search and query protocol similar to the TCP/IP ARP protocol. LAR only works with IEEE 802.2 hardware, such as Ethernet, Tokenring and FDDI. If you are on a network other than those mentioned you will need to use the Aping method.
  • Note: The LAR method is more useful with the more LAR capable SNA machines you have.
• Aping (Advanced Peer to Peer Ping)
  • Aping is a standard SNA Transaction Program (TP) that is bundled with most SNA servers and will work over most any network media.
  • More advanced configuration of the local SNA node is required to use the Aping method. Because of this I recommend using the LAR method and then the Aping method after you have fully configured you Linux-SNA node.

3. Basic configuration of local Linux-SNA node to verify installation via the LAR method.

• First you need to start the local node like this
  • # snaconfig lnxsna.ehead nodeid 01234567 appn start
    • lnxsna.ehead is the netid (lnxsna) and nodename (ehead), you should customize this to your network.
    • nodeid 01234567 is a 8 character hex string that represents your local nodes Block ID and Physical ID. If you do not know this just pretend and make up something like the above.
    • appn is the type of node you want. For Linux-SNA in its current state I recommend only using appn.
    • start is the command that will actually start the node.
  • The commands above will need to be tailored to your network setup. You can refer to the snaconfig man page for more information.
• Next you need to define a datalink and port for the Linux-SNA node to use.
  • # snaconfig lnxsna.ehead dlc eth0 0x04 pri
  • The commands above should not need to be changed unless you are using an interface other than eth0. You will though need to have the netid and nodename to reflect what you choose when you started the node.
• Finally you need to start the datalink which you just defined.
  • # snaconfig lnxsna.ehead dlc eth0 0x04 start
  • This command will place the datalink and port into a RUNNING state.
• Using ifconfig you need to turn on the allmulti option for the interface you are configuring to use with Linux-SNA.
  • # ifconfig eth0 allmulti

4. Check the output of snaconfig to ensure everything is configured and in a running state from step 3.

• To check the status of the local node run the following command
  • # snaconfig
• If you followed the instructions in step 3 correctly the output of snaconfig should be very similar to the following:

         LNXSNA.EHEAD  nodeid:0x01234567  nodetype:Appn_En  RUNNING

               datalink:eth0  type:llc2  numports:1  RUNNING

               port:0x04  role:pri  numls:0 mia:0 moa:0 mtu:0 RUNNING

               datalink:lo  type:loopback  numports:0 RUNNING

5. Running LAR to verify correct installation of Linux-SNA.

• You are now ready to use LAR to verify that your installation is correct.
• Using snaconfig you now perform a search of all SNA nodes on the network
  • # snaconfig find lnxsna IROUTSNA appn
    • lnxsna is the netid or network which you want to search for other sna nodes in. You will want to change this to the netid you configured your node to in step 3.
    • IROUTSNA is the routing capabilities of the node you are searching for, this option is best left alone.
    • appn is the type of node you are looking for, this option is fine left alone also.
  • The commands above will need to be tailored to your network setup. You can refer to the snaconfig man page for more information.

6. Viewing the results of the LAR query.

• After issuing the command in step 5 you if your node is configured correctly and you searched for a node with the netid the same as you searched for (in our example lnxsna). You will at least have one node listed. That is the local node. This verifies the node is working locally and the interface is correctly working.
• If you have other SNA nodes on your network those should also appear in the list displayed after running the command in step 5. If you have more than one node listed your installation is working.
• If you attempted to configure your Linux-SNA node to show the other SNA nodes on you network and nothing shows in the list there may be a few reasons why
  • The other SNA nodes are in a different network (netid)
  • The other SNA nodes do not have the group of IROUTSNA and you should try IGO2HOST or IGIVNAME.
  • The other SNA nodes do not have the routing capabilities of a appn node you should try subarea or nameserver.
  • The Linux-SNA node is setup wrong (review steps 1 - 5 again, if problem persists email the Linux-SNA mailing list)

7. Viewing your new Linux-SNA node from other LAR capable SNA servers.

• Most SNA servers are LAR capable though each SNA implementation has a diferent way to perform this task. I will describe how to do this using IBM's Communication Server on WindowsNT, though the examples are very similar for IBM's CS on UnixWare also.
• First open the Communications Server Node Operations application.
• Second the node should be running if not start it.
• Third go to the connections leaf on the node tree.
• Fourth select the pop-up menu option to Create a new link. (Follow link to see screen shot)
• Fifth press the discover network address button.
• Next leave the default options alone and select seach.
• This will now search for all nodes, if your node is setup correctly it will then be displayed in the list. (See example screen shot)

8. Your Linux-SNA node now should be installed correctly and you can proceed to actually setting up the Linux-SNA box to perform more useful functions. I recommend using the other Getting Started Guides for this.