ROUTE.SYS in the OS/2 2.11 Netware Requester

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Last update: 6th November, 1995

Symptoms
TCP/IP not working correctly on Token Ring when using the Netware 2.11 requester and ODI drivers. Able to ping IP addresses on the local ring but not able to ping outside of the ring.

Hardware
Any Token Ring card in a source-routed environment

Problem
The ROUTE.SYS (dated 10-20-94 5:52p with a size of 47488 bytes) in the 2.11 requester has a rather large bug. It will not set the source-routing bit the second frame type - usually token-ring_snap.

While you are using ODI drivers, you depend on the Netware code to mark the token-ring_snap frames as source-routable. This means that if you are using IBM's TCP/IP but not the NDIS drivers you are vulnerable. You are also vulnerable if you are using LAN Workplace for OS/2 with either NDIS or ODI adapter drivers.

TCP/IP on Token Ring defaults to the token-ring_snap frame type and if the frames are not marked source-routable, the frame won't get past the closest Token Ring bridge.

Procedure
There are a couple of workarounds:
 * 1) Use the NDIS drivers and ODI2NDI. If you only have the TCP/IP version of LAPS get the NTS/2 7045 CSD which contains ODI2NDI.OS2. the 7045 CSD is available from IBM. You can get this at: ftp://software.watson.ibm.com/pub/os2/lanserv All licensed users of LAPS (including IBM TCP/IP 2.0 users) qualify for this CSD.
 * 2) Use a route.sys from an older version of the Netware Requester for OS/2. I have used a route.sys dated 8-12-93  10:58a  with a size of 45440 bytes successfully.