FireNet (firewire network)?

[NitzGuy]

I was curious, sometime in the next few weeks I will have 2 of my comps outfitted with firewire cards, and I noticed the firenet stuff and the speeds and all that. What I was wondering is how does it all work? does it integrate into your current network? (to say, if I go \\comp2\c, will it go to the C drive on comp2 over the firewire card?) or does it need something totally differant? Thanks in advance.

[iggy]

If you have WinME, WinXP, Win2K3, most Linux with Kernel 2.4.x and above, or Mac OS X and above - tehy have built in native support for firewire networking. Win2K probably supports it with latest SPs.

F-Wire card will be detected automatically upon insertion, and TCP/IP over F-Wire protocol will be configured so that it acts as a normal network card.

I've been using it for just over two years, and it has been extremely stable and fast (average thruoutput is around 25-30 MB/s real world transfer) - the only problem is connecting more than 2-3 systems in the network - best way of doing it is in a chain.

If you have Ethernet (any kind) and F-Wire present, and run WinXP or above, you can bridge them to make one network address, so that you can use one computer as a router if necessary, or to connect two networks together, on the same address range. It can be done on Linux, too, although it needs bit of configuring. (I have this solution at home - main firewall/ICS/DNS/router system is connected via ethernet to one of the other systems that talk to each other via F-Wire).

Linux, Mac, and WinXP can talk to each other over F-Wire network, as they are completely compatible.

Beware that FireNet for Win98 (driver that allows two Win98 computers to have firewire network connection between them) is not compatible with WinXP, last time I checked, few months ago. Not sure if the company that produces it have made some changes recently.

Otherwise, all operations on the network that are available for ethernet, are available for f-Wire network, too. Regard it as a fast and cheap (nowadays) solution if you don't want to go with 1000 ethernet, and it doesn't need any hubs. There is a limit, though, in how long the cables can be - it is only 4.5 m between two points.

Any more questions, just ask.

[NitzGuy]

Awsome, I run Gentoo with 2.6 kern and Windows XP on all my home machines, makes me almost want to do that sort of router config, but my last computer is about 60ft of cat 5e away from my central router, so blah [img]tongue.gif[/img] Thanks a bunch for the help, want to do this to see faster comp to comp transfers, and this looks like a good solutioin :D

[iggy]

If you need fast access to far away system(s), you can always go for 1000 Ethernet, otherwise just use 10/100 and cat5e cable. All systems that are near to each other can be connected into F-Wire network.

As for Gentoo and Kernell 2.6.x, be sure to enable F-Wire (1394), and TCP/IP over F-Wire (or similar) and COMPILE them into kernel, not as external modules, because it won't work, not even with modprobe, or insmod. As well, generally, DHCP(d) over F-Wire doesn't seem to work OK with Linux, but if you manually assign an IP for it, it will work OK.

F-Wire is fantastic and cheap solution to make clusters! ;)

[iggy]

Private message received from dtsunke, however, (s)he has disabed private messaging, so here is my response:

I'm a chinese student. Recently, I have some problems about FireNet. The problem is how to bridge Ethernet and F-Wire on Linux. And I saw a page which is talking about it(http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=21619), on the page, you said you have a solution.
Could you be so kind to tell me the details about it? Thanks.

I haven't been actively using Linux in the last year or so. As there have been many new developments in Linux world, I am not sure if anything has changed in the way bridging has been implemented. As well, I have moved to 1GBit ethernet,as it is widely accepted/supported, much easier to implement, provides higher speed, and the hardware has become pretty cheap.

To give you a general idea:

Linux Kernel has to be compiled with 1394 networking and bridging enabled. Once the computer has booted with newly reconfigured kernel, a bridging program has to be started (it can be added to startup options), and configured to bridge ethernet and firewire(1394) networks.

How is it exactly achieved will depend on the distro you're working with.

Please note that Microsoft has completely abandoned 1394 networking in Windows Vista.

There are many formus/help available on the net about these topics - my advice to you is to ask on the forum relevant to the distro you'll be using.

Best regards,

Iggy.

[bluetooth]

Have you got it resolve?