On Sun, 16 Mar 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:

>  The target system is vs2000....
>  Additionally, I have a 486DX2/50 PC (dos/winders3.1) with a CDrom....
> Now the goal.  I wish to get the VAXen off the VMS base and also put unix 
> <or equivelent> on the uVAX, VS2000 and also two PDP-11s.  The initial 
> starting point is the VS2000 as the target.  Later the PC will go the linux 
> route.

Given that you're going to be putting NetBSD on the uVAX and the
VS2000, it might be a good idea to go with NetBSD on the PC as
well. This will give you a much more homogenous environment and
allow you to share more stuff. A 486 makes a much better NFS server
than your VS2000 or uVAX will.

    o The uVAX 2000 may be happier running from NFS than from a local
      disk; the 486 could serve this machine. 

    o If you do this, since you'll have it anyway, the uVAX could also
      NFS-mount the same /usr from your 486, saving you some space.

    o All three machines can share a single copy of /usr/share.

    o All machines can share /usr/src, so you can build kernels and
      utilities for both architectures from one copy of the source code.

    o You can use NIS to share password, group, etc. files amongst all
      your machines, saving administration hassles.

I have this sort of arrangement at home with a couple of PCs, a
couple of Sparcs, an Alpha, a Sun 3, and soon a VAX as well. I use
one of the PCs to route my entire network to the Internet via modem.
Now that NetBSD-current has ipfilter in it, it will do firewall
stuff and address translation and goodies like that.

Once you get past the different types of hardware, all the systems
`feel' the same; except for the speed using a 386 is just like
using a Sparc.

> What is the best installation path?

I find the easiest installation path is to netboot. If you put
NetBSD on your 486 you'll have all the tools you need except (at
this time) mopd. However that compiles and installs right out of
the box. You just have to put up the MOP boot file, load that on
the VAX, and the rest of the boot procedure is exactly as stated
in the diskless(8) manual page. (Most NetBSD machines boot identically
after the initial bootstrap load; getting the VAX up was a cinch
since I've done a lot of Sun 3 and Sparc diskless boots.)

> I'd like to have the Vaxen have the ability to run SLIP/PPP access to the 
> ISP via modem and eventually an IP eithernet connection between all the 
> vaxen and the PC.

Should be no problem, so long as PPP is compiled into the kernel.
My only worry would be the speed of the serial port, but so long
as the hardware is ok there and you're not putting much other load
on the machine it should work fine. My entire network was routed
through a 28.8 modem on a Sun 3/50 (68020 @ 20 MHz and 4 MB of RAM)
running NetBSD for a year, and it was fine.

cjs

Curt Sampson    cjs@portal.ca	   Info at http://www.portal.ca/
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