Comments on: Building a 100% virtual SNA network on your desk!

By: neozeed

neozeed — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 06:41:26 +0000

In reply to atar. I would try manually linking it. I haven’t tried it specifically, but for SDL after building it, I’ve been able to statically link stuff just by adding all the objects. You can also build static libraries out of the objects and link with those if that is any easier . Assuming there is no startup special inits on load. The pcap stuff can get involved though if going cross platform.

By: atar

atar — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 15:55:37 +0000

Do you know if there is a way to have a hercules/hyperion network in a complete rootless environment? I’m experimenting with it in a cluster where I don’t even have “unshare” (and indeed no root access whatsoever), so there appears to be no way of simulating a tap device, but maybe there is a trick of faking it via loading something with LD_LIBRARY_PATH? Or setting SLiRP via c3270?

Indeed I tried to run it in a nested emulation first (hercules under qemu), and it sort of works, but the emulation overhead is dramatic, IPL takes some hours making the construct actually not usable.

By: neozeed

neozeed — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 17:34:57 +0000

In reply to Chris M..

well if I had access to a real mainframe I’d see about a DSLW link out of that to a cisco router, to complete the SNA link if I wanted to keep as much of this as possible.

real 390’s have networking options and worst case would have a Front End Processor for full LU6.2 style access, or the newer OS’s have TCP/IP but I’m not all that interested in boring TCP/IP as I started this insane thing to get some real (fake) SNA.

By: Chris M.

Chris M. — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 17:02:48 +0000

Is there any way to play with this stuff if you had say….. TN3270 access to a real zSeries? I once thought about actually trying to connect a real 3278 to a session, but abandoned the idea when I found out you needed a 3174 terminal controller….that usually only had a Token Ring interface AND required a set of special configuration disks.

I see there are open source options now, but that would be a ton of effect just to say “Hey that’s neat”! Plus the keyboard jawas have pillaged all the 3270s!

https://ajk.me/building-an-ibm-3270-terminal-controller