Excelan LWP & XENIX-NET

[Chris Hapgood]

Kevin,
This is an open letter in response to your posting I received last
week.  It was going to be mailed, but I think it might be of general
value on the net.


I have been using EXCELAN LAN WORKPLACE (LWP) semi-successfully for
several months at my site.  The streams part from SCO was purchased
with no particular hassle from SCO.  The item you need is indeed the 
SCO Streams Runtime package.  I believe that release 1.2 is the most
recent version.  I am running SCO XENIX 386 version 2.3.1.  I will
upgrade to 2.3.2 next week.  In any case, here is a list of problems
I have encountered with LWP and XENIX:

1.  EXCELAN LWP for XENIX w/ SCO XENIX-NET cannot connect to a DOS
server running an MSNET-type redirector.  In fact, our servers are
running LWP for DOS!!!!   What a shame.  Clients can attach to the
XENIX server with no difficulties.  The problem is with the XENIX
client software.  Some SCO people have told me that this config should
work, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out.  Once again: DOS client
to XENIX server is ok, XENIX client to DOS server is not, despite SCO's
claims to the contrary.

2.  SCO gives instructions for boosting performance of DOS clients by 
changing the value of NBIOSZ.  I have tried this procedure seven ways to
Sunday with no luck.  Every time I try, my DOS clients (running EXCELAN
LWP for DOS) go to LALA land when accessing "big" files.  I say "big"
cuz clients can do a DIR and even access small files ok.  Big files
cause the clients to start beeping.  Only the three-fingered salute
will bring them back to life.

3.  (Smaller bug)  You cannot restart the network after having stopped
it once.  It will continuously stop itself every time you restart it.
Only way to keep it working is to boot it in the configuration you want
(server, all, rdr) and not fool with it.

These three problems (especially #1) have really lowered my opinion of
SCO, and especially EXCELAN.  SCO has at least tried to help (although
I'm still waiting for some promised configuration files for verification
from Phil Newman at SCO, hint, hint).  EXCELAN, on the other hand, has
pretty much given me some lip service, told me the problem was with 
SCO and left it at that.  It seems to me that at least the first part
of my problems would be their responsibility.

I do have two good things to say about LWP and XENIX-NET combo.  Make it
more than two.  

1.  Pretty good docs from Excelan.  They don't seem to have
changed since merger with Novell.
2.  Very nice TELNET/FTP/RLOGIN/SMTP implementation as far as I can tell
3.  Decent performance for many DOS clients using NETBIOS.

One more prblem:  XENIX-NET does not correctly report disk space re-
maining to DOS clients.  It includes free space on all file systems on
hard drive in its value, not just space on /u filesystem.

OVERALL assessment:  good TELNET/FTP/RLOGIN-type value, mediocre NETBIOS
value.  Too bad I was counting on the NETBIOS support...

Chris Hapgood				Sperry Marine, Inc.
2111 Michie Drive #100			1070 Seminole Trail
Charlottesville, VA  22901		Charlottesville, VA  22901
(804) 977-8345				(804) 974-2584
@Virginia.EDU:@smarine.uucp:cch0241 at medusa
...!uucp!virginia!smarine!medusa!cch0241