RPC problems/questions

[Bill Thorson]

  I am having a very strange problem that someone may be able to help me
with.  We have several Sun's, NeXT's, and Vaxen on our network.  I was
always curious why the Sun's were the only who would respond to the
rusers request from my Sun.  Today I logged onto one of the NeXT boxes
and did an rusers and all Sun's and NeXT's reported.  Where is the
problem?  Is it on the NeXT or the Sun.  I looked at both /etc/rpc and
/etc/inetd.conf on both types of machines and cannot find and problems.
  When I specifically give the name of a NeXT box on the rusers 
command then their machine reports.  What gives?  Here are some 
examples of the mess.

EXAMPLE rusers from a SUN (typhoon):
  galileo      bogus_a bogusname_a bogusname_a
  typhoon      thorson thorson thorson thorson thorson
  localhost    thorson thorson thorson thorson thorson
  olympic      bogus_b bogus_c bogus_c

EXAMPLE rusers from a SUN (typhoon) specifying NeXT host (erehwon):
  erehwon      bogus_i

EXAMPLE rusers from a NEXT (erehwon):
  olympic      bogus_b bogus_c bogus_c
  galileo      bogus_a bogus_a bogus_a
  typhoon      thorson thorson thorson thorson thorson
  redfish      bogus_d
  canyon       bogus_e bogus_f bogus_f bogus_f
  kiwi         bogus_g bogus_g bogus_g bogus_g bogus_g bogus_g
  mirage       bogus_h
  erehwon      bogus_i thorson
  bart         bogus_j
  neptune      bogus_k bogus_k
  janus        bogus_l bogus_m
  summit       bogus_n bogus_o

Also here is an interesting result from spray:
</users/thorson> /usr/etc/spray erehwon        <== A NeXT CUBE
sending 1162 packets of lnth 86 to erehwon ...
        663 packets (57.057%) dropped by erehwon
        42 packets/sec, 3633 bytes/sec
</users/thorson> /usr/etc/spray janus          <== A IBM RISC THINGIE
sending 1162 packets of lnth 86 to janus ...
        356 packets (30.637%) dropped by janus
        430 packets/sec, 37026 bytes/sec
</users/thorson> /usr/etc/spray galileo        <== A SPARCSTATION
sending 1162 packets of lnth 86 to galileo ...
        no packets dropped by galileo
        632 packets/sec, 54406 bytes/sec
</users/thorson> /usr/etc/spray typhoon        <== spray myself.. feels good
sending 1162 packets of lnth 86 to typhoon ...     when it's hot outside.
        no packets dropped by typhoon
        382 packets/sec, 32872 bytes/sec

Why do the non-Sun machines drop packets?  What gives?
Any ideas?

Bill Thorson


#!/bin/sh
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------#
echo Bill Thorson                   thorson at typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu
echo Dept of Atmospheric Science    (303) 491-8339
echo Colorado State University
echo Ft. Collins,  CO  80523        Cray||Sun||Amiga -- I can't decide?
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------#