[Simh] VAX XQ and wireless networking

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2012-11-17 21:14, Gary Lee Phillips wrote:
> Is this even possible? I have SIMH 3.9 on Linux Mint 12, running the
> VAX with OpenVMS 7.3. It works great, except for networking. The
> hardware is ASUS EeePC with Atheros AR5001 wireless network adapter
> and Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet adapter.
>
> I have libpcap version 1.1.1 (which is also callable as version 0.8)
> installed on Linux. The VAX module was compiled with networking
> enabled.
>
> The configuration file has an "attach xq0 wlan0" or "attach xq0 eth0"
> depending on which interface I'm trying to use. With the wired
> ethernet (eth0) I am able to use both TCP/IP and DECNET Plus. With the
> wireless (wlan0) neither one works.
>
> I've tried disabling the DECNET IV compatibility mode, which was
> recommended in one source for wireless compatibility, and also tried
> adding "set xq xx-yy-zz-aa-bb-cc" (with the actual MAC address of the
> wireless adapter) to the configuration. The first did nothing I could
> discern, and the second generated an error message during startup of
> the SIMH module, saying that the MAC address was already in use and
> could not be assigned.
>
> Obviously the workaround is to use a cabled connection when the VAX
> emulator is needed, but this isn't very practical in most cases. Is
> there any other possibility I've overlooked?
>
> I notice that this is a frequently found question when using Google to
> look for answers, but I found no responses other than the two
> solutions mentioned above. I suppose a different network card
> emulation for VAX could make the wi-fi adapter look like a normal
> ethernet interface, but apparently that hasn't been done yet and it's
> probably beyond my very rudimentary C coding abilities.

The "problem" is that a wlan interface is not really the same thing as 
an ethernet interface.

As Dan suggested (I noticed), use a tun interface, and let than tunnel 
into the wlan instead, and things might work better.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol