Random Interruptions to Terminal Concentrator Connections

Terminal concentrator connections made through a router can experience intermittent interruptions. These connections might come alive for random periods, then go dead again. When the connection is dead, any new Terminal Concentrator connection attempts will time out. The Terminal Concentrator will show no signs of rebooting. Subsequently, a needed route might be re-established, only to disappear again. The problem is due to Terminal Concentrator routing table overflow and loss of network connection.

This is not a problem for connections made from a host that resides on the same network as the Terminal Concentrator.

The solution is to establish a default route within the Terminal Concentrator and disable the routed feature. You must disable the routed feature to prevent the default route from being lost. The following procedure shows how to do this. See the Terminal Concentrator documentation for additional information.

The config.annex file is created in the Terminal Concentrator's EEPROM file system and defines the default route to be used. You also can use the config.annex file to define rotaries that allow a symbolic name to be used instead of a port number. Disable the routed feature using the Terminal Concentrator's set command.

How to Establish a Default Route

1. Open a shelltool(1) connection to the Terminal Concentrator.

   # telnet terminal-concentrator-name Trying 192.9.200.2 ... Connected to xx-tc. Escape character is '^]'. Rotaries Defined: cli - Enter Annex port name or number: cli Annex Command Line Interpreter * Copyright 1991 Xylogics, Inc.

2. Enter the su command and administrative password.

   By default, the password is the IP address of the Terminal Concentrator.

   annex: su Password: administrative-password

3. Edit the config.annex file.

   annex# edit config.annex

4. Enter the highlighted information appearing in the following example, substituting the appropriate IP address for your default router:

   Ctrl-W:save and exit Ctrl-X: exit Ctrl-F:page down Ctrl-B:page up %gateway net default gateway 192.9.200.2 metric 1 active ^W

5. Disable the local routed.

   annex# admin set annex routed n You may need to reset the appropriate port, Annex subsystem or reboot the Annex for changes to take effect. annex#

6. Reboot the Terminal Concentrator.

   annex# boot

   It takes a few minutes for the Terminal Concentrator to boot. During this time, the Sun Cluster node consoles are inaccessible.