USING PRIORITY ON HP 100VG NETWORKS WITH HIGH-PRIORITY TRANSMISSION ON END NODE Please read the "Using Priority on HP 100VG Networks" section of either the HP 10/100VG LAN Adapter or HP AdvanceStack 100 Hub-15 Installation Guides for a thorough understanding of HP 100VG priorities. A key benefit of an HP 100VG LAN is its ability to guarantee access to any end node that requests to transmit, while ensuring priority access to end nodes that require consistent, continuous access for applications such as full-motion video or video conferencing. In the future, network operating systems and applications will be developed that will automatically configure the network to accomodate the consistent, continuous access requirements. Presently, however, few "network-aware" applications are available. This document will describe how to configure the HP 100VG drivers to always transmit packets as high priority. Once an end node has been manually configured for high-priority operation, then all applications on that end node will be constrained to use high-priority access. NOTE: To control the use of high-priority bandwidth, network administrators should require users to obtain authorization before configuring an end node for high priority operation. NOTE: The HP AdvanceStack Hub-15 factory default is to treat all transmit requests from end nodes as normal-priority. Each port on the hub must be configured to "Allow High Priority" to permit the hub to differentiate between normal and high priority requests. 32-BIT OPEN DATA-LINK INTERFACE (ODI) FOR NETWARE SERVERS --------------------------------------------------------- To force high-priority operation, add the keyword "PRIORITY" to the load line of the driver. For example, for the HP J2585A PCI Adapter: LOAD HPFEODIM.LAN PCI PORT=p FRAME=f PRIORITY where, f = NetWare frame type (ie. Ethernet_802.2, etc) p = Base I/O address of the PCI adapter (in hexidecimal) from HPVGSET The driver will transmit all packets at high priority until it is unloaded. 16-BIT OPEN DATA-LINK INTERFACE (ODI) FOR DOS AND WINDOWS WORKSTATIONS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To force high-priority operation, add the line "PRIORITY" to the NET.CFG under the "LINK DRIVER" section for the HP driver. For example: LINK DRIVER HPFEODIM FRAME ETHERNET_802.3 PRIORITY The driver will transmit all packets at high priority until it is unloaded. NOTE: The "LINK DRIVER" line must start on the first column of the line. All subsequent lines for the driver must be indented at least two spaces. 32-BIT NETWORK DRIVER INTERFACE SPECIFICATION (NDIS) 3.0 FOR WINDOWS NT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To control high-priority operation, a "Priority" parameter must be added to the registry for each adapter. Follow the instructions below to add the priority parameter to the registry and force high priority operation: 1. Install and configure the HP NDIS 3.0 driver for NT on each HP 10/100VG adapter in the PC. 2. Run REGEDT32 from a NT Command Prompt window. 3. Select the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" window within the REGEDT32 window. 4. Expand "SYSTEM" from the list by double-clicking on it. 5. Expand "CurrentControlSet" from the list by double-clicking on it. 6. Expand "Services" from the list by double-clicking on it. 7. Expand "Hpfend" from the list by double-clicking on it. Where "" is the instance number of the driver for the adapter that will be using high-priority operation. 8. Highlight the "Parameters" line under the "Hpfend" list by single-clicking on it. 9. Choose "Add Value" from the "Edit" menu. 10. In the "Add Value" dialog box, enter the word "Priority" in the "Value Name" field. Do not type in the double-quotes and the first letter must be capitalized with subsequent letters in lower case. 11. Select "REG_DWORD" for the "Data Type" from the list. 12. Click on the "OK" button. 13. Enter 1 in the "Data" field in the "DWORD Editor" dialog box to enable high-priority operation. 14. Click on the "OK" button. A string "Priority:REG_DWORD:0x1" should appear in the right pane of the "HKEY_LOCALMACHINE" window. 15. To exit the Registry Editor, select "Exit" from the "Registry" menu. 16. The system must be rebooted for this change to take effect. Once the registry is updated with the priority parameter equal to 1, the driver will always configure the adapter for high-priority operation. To disable high-priority operation, set the priority keyword to zero (0): 1. Run REGEDT32 from a NT Command Prompt window. 2. Select the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" window within the REGEDT32 window. 3. Expand "SYSTEM" from the list by double-clicking on it. 4. Expand "CurrentControlSet" from the list by double-clicking on it. 5. Expand "Services" from the list by double-clicking on it. 6. Expand "Hpfend" from the list by double-clicking on it. 7 Where "" is the instance number of the driver for the adapter. 8. Highlight the "Parameters" line under the "Hpfend" list by single-clicking on it. 9. Double-click on the "Priority:REG_DWORD:0x1" line in the right pane of the window. 10. Enter 0 in the "Data" field in the "DWORD Editor" dialog box to disable high-priority operation. 11. Click on the "OK" button. A string "Priority:REG_DWORD:0x0" should appear in the right pane of the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" window. 12. To exit the Registry Editor, select "Exit" from the "Registry" menu. 13. The system must be rebooted for this change to take effect. NOTE: The priority keyword may also be deleted from the registry to disable high-priority option. In step 9 above, single-click on the "Priority:REG_DWORD:0x1" line in the right pane and then choose "Delete" from the "Edit" menu. 16-BIT NDIS 2.01 for DOS and OS/2 --------------------------------- To set the HP LAN card for high priority access with NDIS 2.01 drivers the PRIORITY parameter must be added to the driver section of the PROTOCOL.INI file. Below is an explanation of the PRIORITY parameter in the [HPFEND_NIF] section of the PROTOCOL.INI file for the HP LAN Card. This parameter default value is 'NO'. It need not be present in the PROTOCOL.INI file the default value is satisfactory. PRIORITY units:[n/a] range:[Yes or No] default:[No] If present, this determines whether the priority mode on the card will be turned on or not. When priority mode is turned on, all the packets transmitted from this card will be high-priority packets. This keyword applies to 100VG networks only. It has no effect when used in 10Base-T networks. The default is not to turn on the priority mode on the card. LLI for SCO UNIX ---------------- To set high priority transmission on the HP LAN card with the SCO LLI driver, the driver (HFS) must already be installed as directed by the README file in the HP Support Disk directory /SCO. 1. Bring the system into single-user maintenance state 2. Change directory to /etc/conf/pack.d/hfs0 3. Edit space.c 4. Locate the HP_VG_PRIORITY customer configurable parameter block 5. Change the value of the #define line associated with the desired adapter from 0 to -1 6. Save the changes 7. Change directory to /etc/conf/cf.d 8. Run the command './link_unix -y' 9. Reboot on the new kernel For example, if there are two HP 10/100VG adapters installed (i.e. hfs0 and hfs1) and it is desired to set high-priority on all transmissions on the second adapter (i.e. hfs1). Change the line: #define HP_VG_PRIORITY_1 0 /* Adapter 1 send normal priority */ to #define HP_VG_PRIORITY_1 -1 /* Adapter 1 send high priority */ Save the changes, relink the kernel, and reboot. Adapter 0 (i.e. hfs0) will continue to send packets a normal priority but adapter 1 (i.e. hfs1) will always send packets at high-priority. To restore normal priority transmission, change the value of the HP_VG_PRIORITY_n value back to zero, relink the kernel, and reboot.