Comtrol NS-link Windows NT - Manual (Page 20)

20 Initial NS-Link Installation
Windows XP: NS-Link Installation
22. Select MAC and enter
the address on the
MAC address label (on
the device) or select
the MAC address from
the drop list.
The MAC address
format is:
00 C0 4E xx xx xx.
A space must separate
each pair of digits.
If your site has other
Comtrol network
devices on the
network, their MAC
addresses will display
in the droplist after
initial installation.
23. Verify the Number of
Ports on the device.
24. Optionally, rename the NS-Link default name.
25. Optionally, set a different KeepAlive Timeout Period
You can set the amount of time in seconds that this device waits until it closes
this connection and frees all the ports associated with it.
The KeepAlive feature works in the following ways:
• During normal operation the driver periodically sends a connection check
to the NS-Link device, and the device then returns a response. There are
two timers, one in the driver, and one in the device. These timers are reset
when a connection check signal is received and goes to the next signal. If a
connection is broken, the data is stored in the computer and the device.
Depending on the amount of time that has expired since the connection was
lost, the following happens:
-
When the computer loses its connection to the device but re-establishes
it before the timeout period expires, any data transmitted during this
period is queued and sent when the connection resumes.
- When the computer loses its connection to the NS-Link device and does
not re-establish it before the timeout period expires; the driver then
purges any pending I/O data for ports on that connection and returns
all pending, and future I/O commands, with the exception of the Close
command, to the application with an error indicating the disconnected
status.
This is similar to the processing which occurs when the computer
receives a notification from the device that a port release request, from
FreePort, was processed on a port it owns with the exception that a
different status is returned. When the connection is re-established, the
computer will attempt to re-acquire the ports that were open when the
connection was lost. If the attempt is successful, normal operations
resume for the port. If any port has been acquired, then the computer
will continue to fail all further I/O operations, with the exception of a
Close request. When the Close request is received, the port can then be
re-opened.
- When the computer loses its connection to the NS-Link device, and the
time period expires, the device places the port into a state from which
another computer can establish a connection, locking out the original
driver when the connection is made. The driver will respond to all I/O
commands, with the exception of the Close command, with an error
indicating the disconnect status.
If you need the ability to reconnect with a port that another server is
currently using, Comtrol includes an utility called FreePort (Page 78) and