Nortel Host Tools Owner's manual

1302566-A Rev. 00
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and
Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
These release notes apply to the following:
❑The Remote Annex Operational Code Version R7.1
❑The Annex Host Tools Version R14.2.24
❑Annex Manager R1.1
Included in these Release Notes are the following topics:
❑New Features
❑Special Considerations
❑Supported Platforms
❑Known Problems/Limitations
❑Problems Resolved with this Release
New Features
printer_crlf
Epson printers monitor pin 14 of the parallel port to decide how to
handle CR. If pin 14 is high, the printer performs a CR. If pin 14 is
low, the printerperforms aCR/LF. The default value is Yand enables
the converting of <CR> to <CR><LF>. The value of Ndisables the
parameter so the printer does not add a <LF>.
Telnet Connectivity to Parallel Ports
Parallel ports now appear on the network as Annex TCP ports 5901-
5999 and 7901-7999. This means that rtelnet can access the parallel
ports; aprint is no longer necessary to use the parallel ports.

302566-A Rev. 00
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
2
Forwarding Broadcasts
Thisreleaseadds theAnnexparameter ip_forward_broadcast.If this
parameter is set to Y, the Annex forwards Network directed IP
broadcasts to installed interfaces of the same network.
Default Domain
This release adds the keyword domain to the gateways file, and
modifies the output of the CLI hosts command. The new gateways
keyword usage is:
domain search <path> <path...>
This form adds a network domain to the DNS search path. The
given paths are decomposed into higher-level names, and all of
the forms are added. For example, mynet.city.company.com
decomposes into mynet.city.company.com, city.company.com
andcompany.com. To preventthis, you canquote a portion of the
path that should not be decomposed. For example,
this."that.theother.edu" decomposes into this.that.theother.edu
and that.theother.edu. When these paths are added, the list is
checked for duplicate entries (case is not significant), and the
duplicates are silently ignored.
domain default <path>
The second form sets the default search path. This path should be
set after all search paths have been added. The Annex will
propagatethispathto thetopofthesearchlistandremoveitfrom
all of the hosts entries.
Thenewhostsoutputisinresponsetothehosts-noption.Inaddition
to displaying the name server data, this option now also displays the
default domain and the domain search list contents.
The Annex still does a reverse address query for its domain name,
and if a valid response is received, the Annex overrides the contents
ofthegatewaysfile,setsitsdefaultdomainandaddsthedecomposed
response to the search list.

3
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
302566-A Rev. 00
ACP to Work with NIS
This release adds simple support for host passwd and shadow file
reading routines to erpcd. These can be selected by the use of the
NATIVEPASSWD and NATIVESHADOW flags in src/erpcd/
Makefile.
Support for 57.6Kbps
The 57600 speed will be supported only in new hardware platform
with fast octart.
do_compression and allow_compression
The slip_do_compression and slip_allow_compression parameters
are renamed to do_compression and allow_compression,
respectively. There is no change to their meaning for SLIP. The
allow_compression parameter now also applies to PPP. If
allow_compression is enabled, the Annex always requests for
compression and always accepts requests for compression. If
allow_compression is disabled, the Annex never requests for
compression, and always rejects requests for compression. The
do_compression parameter is not used for PPP.
The default value for allow_compression isN. Be sure to set this to Y
to negotiate for VJ compression.
Bootp over SLIP Lines
Both SLIP or PPP listen for any BOOTP packets sent by the remote
device that are addressed to either the Annex address(es) [unlikely]
or 0.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.255 [likely]. It then formulates a response
based upon the na parameters and the input packet by examining
each field. If the Server Name field is not null, the Annex tries to
resolve it as a host name. If this succeeds, the Annex fills in some
reasonable IP addresses in the fields and forwards the packet to that
host rather than respond by itself.

302566-A Rev. 00
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
4
DSR Signal
TheuseofDCDandDSRsignalshasbeensplitacrosstwoparameters:
need_dsrandcontrol_lines.Iftheparameterneed_dsrissettoY,DSR
must be asserted to establish a connection on a port. If the parameter
control_lines includes modem_control, that is, the control_lines
parameter is set to both or modem_control, DCD must be asserted
to establish a connection. Separating control of these two signals
provides more flexibility in the use of modem signals.
New Value for output_flow_control
The NA per-port parameter output_flow_control allows the new
value both. This setting (if control_lines is set to flow_control or to
both) enables both in-band (XON/XOFF) and out-of-band (CTS/
RTS) flow control on the Annex III and Micro Annex CD180 serial
communicationschip.Thesemethodsofflowcontrolareindependent
and have no overhead since they are handled by the CD180's
hardware rather than in software.
Setting output_flow_control to both enables both of these flow
control methods by default. It is then up to the user (via stty), or to
TELNET or rlogin protocol to disable the XON/XOFF portion of the
flowcontroliftheremotemodemis capableof out-of-band signaling,
and thus does not need the in-band flow control.
Since the standard character MIB doesn't support both forms of flow
control at the same time, you can't currently set this optionvia SNMP,
and a port with output_flow_control=both will lie to the host and
say it has hardware flow control enabled when queried via SNMP.

5
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
302566-A Rev. 00
TCP keepalive Timers
Threenew tcp_keepaliveparametershavebeenaddedfortheAnnex,
ports and printer. The Annex parameter is the default for all TCP
connections to or from the Annex. The default setting is 120 minutes
(per RFC specifications). It is settable from 1 to 255 minutes. This
parameter is read only on boot-up, so you need to reboot the Annex
if you want to change it. The port parameter is the default for TCP
connections to or from a given port. If it is set to zero, it defaults to
the value of the annex tcp_keepalive parameter.
The printer parameter is the default for TCP connections to a given
printer port. If it is set to zero, it defaults to the value of the annex
tcp_keepalive parameter.
The Annex also does 10 retries at 75 second intervals. So this time
must be added to the tcp_keepalivesetting. Forexample, if the timer
is set to 5 (5 seconds), the maximum time would be approximately
17.5 minutes.
Year 2000 Compliance
TheR7.1Breleaseofsoftware isYear2000CompliantforMicroAnnex
ELS.TheR7.1embeddedimageiscompliantonaselfbootonlymodel
(nohosttools)orinconjunctionwiththe R14.2.24hosttools.Formore
information, refer to SPR 11150 in the Problems Resolved with this
Release section.
Supported Platforms
TheDistributionmediacontainsbinaryfilesformostofthesupported
platforms. When the script detects that there are binary files for the
host operating system, it gives you the option of installing the binary
files or loading the source code and compiling the software at a later
time. If there are no binary files available, the script loads the source
code and uses an available compiler on the host system to build the
image. If the script does not identify a compiler on your system, it
ends the installation session.

302566-A Rev. 00
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
6
The operating system versions supported by Annex and the binary
files that are provided on the distribution media are shown in Table 1.
Known Problems
Self-boot Annexes
Aself-boot Annex does not correctly load its image into flash from an
Annex boot server (another Annex). The Annex correctly loads its
image into flash from any other host, and the Annex correctly boots
from an Annex boot server.
R7.1 can not fit into half megabyte of FLASH in self-boot units.
Table 1 Operating System Support
Operating System Files Available
Sun Microsystems SunOS 4.1.4 Binary files and source code
Sun Microsystems SunOS 4.1.3 Binary files
Solaris 2.5.1 Binary files
Solaris 2.4 Binary files and source code
IBM RS/6000 AIX 4.2 Binary files and source code
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 10.20 Binary files and source code
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 10.0 Binary files
Linux 2.0.34 Binary files and source code

7
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
302566-A Rev. 00
Other Limitations
The NA and Admin command set port speed 57600 produces an
erroneous return when the hardware does not support that speed.
Admin produces invalid structure for parameter :speed: 7. NA
produces Netadm error: erpc abort; invalid parameter value.
The parameter need_dsr is ignored for SLIP and PPP lines.
The Annex ignores parameters after rs232AsyncPortAutobaud that
are contained within the same SNMP Set request. The work-around
isto insurethatthers232AsyncPortAutobaudset requestis attheend
of the set request packet or is alone in the set request.
Problems Resolved with this Release
SPR 11150 The acp_logfile is now year 2000 compliant.
The year 2000 is now displayed as "00" rather than "100".
If you are not installing on one of the supported host
platforms and you use the acp_logfile for accounting
purposes, you should be aware that after 991231 (which
represents 1999/12/31) midnight, the entry in the
acp_logfile will appear as 1000101 instead of 000101. If
youhavescriptsthatusethisinformationforaccounting,
you need to modify those scripts to handle this properly.
SPR.9576 Aprint now works properly.

302566-A Rev. 00
Annex Communications Server R7.1B and Annex Host Tools R14.2 Release Notes
8
Features Not Supported in This Release
The following list of features are not supportedby the R10.0B release
of software. The Annex Administrators Guide for Unix that is sent with
this release of software mentions several features which are not
present in the R10.0B software release. Some (but not all) of these
features are listed below:
❑PPP
❑Windows NT
❑Dialback
❑type_of_modem (parameter)
❑LP and LPD
❑tstty
❑tmux
❑embedded RADIUS and RADIUS proxy