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Apple Releases Preview of IP over FireWire
A user writes, "Apple has finally released IP over FireWire drivers for Mac OS X. It is now possible to connect two or more Macs together with FireWire cables and if needed, FireWire hubs."
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Way to go with your innovate thinking. Apple is one of the major companies behind firewire, and they have been working on the standard for years. I seem to recall finding early references to firewire going back to 1995. So if Apple comes up with a standard, which Microsoft then implements before them, thats Microsoft innovating?
I can't make up my mind as to whether you are trolling, or just poorly informed.
I've been using IP on 1394 from my desktop box to my Sony laptop. I just bridge my ethernet and firewire NICs on my desktop PC, and the Sony has an Internet connection over Firewire (which they call "i.Link"). It works great. Theoretically, I should be seeing four times the bandwidth on the 1394 link than I see with 100 Ethernet, but in reality it's not that big of a difference. As people are saying about gig-ethernet, other things, like the PCI bus, start to be limiting factors.
FireWire supports daisy chain so all you need is a bunch of 6 pin to 6 pin and utilize the two ports on the back of your towers.
I oversimplified, you're right.
This link from Apple's support page tells which Macs do and do not need a crossover cable today.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
http://www.sweetwater.com/insync/word/firewire
/. i love thee my top level posting pointing out that windows xp has had this for sometime gets flames= 46825&ci d=4811055
A subset of the SCSI-3 standard, also known as IEEE 1394, Firewire is a new high speed data exchange protocol developed at Apple. Occasionally it is referred to as "serial SCSI" because it is a serial protocol and conforms to SCSI standards as well. It is now a common interface on new digital video equipment and is beginning to be used in audio as well. FireWire is fast: it starts at 100 Megabits per second and goes on up past 400 Mbs, easily handling the bandwidth required for a 30 frame-per-second 640x480 pixel datastream from a prosumer video camera. FireWire supports asynchronous (see WFTD archive asynchronous) transfers, as well as isochronous (see WFTD archive isochronous) transfers so that a stream of video from a video camera can co-exist on the same FireWire bus with another sending device, yet the bus will still carry the video images continuously without discontinuities. Another benefit of FireWire is that it is a hot swappable technology (see WFTD archive hot swap) and allows 63 devices on a buss with auto termination and identification
a subset would be missing some features, a superset would have all those features plus more, it's kind of a combination
ahh
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid
this one gets modded up for interesting
Asante sells decent Mac-compatible gigabit NICs for older Macs or for a second NIC in a newer Mac.
The advantage Firewire has is not in networking computers, but in networking peripherals. You can plug a Firewire printer(try finding one, though), a Firewire camera, a Firewire RAID, a Firewire-administrable server or appliance, and a Firewire Zip drive, then you can take that whole set of peripherals and plug the whole mess into a Firewire hub with a workgroup or two on it. All computers in those workgroups will be able to treat all of those peripherals as if they were plugged in locally.
You could print, capture pics, scan photos, save files, and login to and reconfigure a server through a serial connection(Firewire is just a really fast serial interface) all at the same time, and at the same time as all the other people in your workgroup are using the same peripherals. And no toggle switches required! Woohoo!
Add to this the convenience of file transfers at 4x the speed of 100Mbps Ethernet, without all the hassle of setting network options, and you have a Mac workgroup admin's wildest wet dream(except without the hot blonde chicks).
They stated that in a fashion that is, at best, a bit confusing. This draft specification for the SCSI architectural model shows on page 10 a diagram showing that there are several interconnect layers for SCSI, including the classic parallel SCSI bus (SPI), and three count 'em three serial layers, namely Fibre Channel (FC-PH), FireWire ("IEEE 1394 High Performance Serial Bus"), and IBM SSA (SSA-PH), with each interconnect layer having a protocol used to implement SCSI on that layer.
Then there are the SCSI commands, which are mostly if not entirely independent of the interconnect layer and protocol. They can be sent over parallel SCSI, Fibre Channel+FCP, FireWire+SBP, SSA-PH+SSP, {pick your link layer}+IP+TCP+iSCSI, Ethernet+HyperSCSI, or the Serial ATA link layer+serial attached SCSI, and, apparently USB+some way of sending SCSI commands over USB. (There certainly don't seem to be many bit-serial links over which you can send SCSI commands and replies.... :-))
FireWire isn't "SCSI", it's an interconnect over which you can send SCSI commands and replies. It's also an interconnect over which you can send stuff that has nothing to do with SCSI, e.g. IP datagrams (we ignore here the possiblity of IP datagrams containing TCP segments that make up iSCSI PDUs :-)), just as Fibre Channel is an interconnect over which you can send SCSI commands and replies, as well as stuff that has nothing to do with SCSI, e.g. IP datagrams, and just as USB is an interconnect over which you can send SCSI commands and replies, as well as stuff that has nothing to do with SCSI, including network packets.
I've been testing the FireWire networking software solution from ...it supports other protocols as well. I'm looking forward to
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UniBrain. Unibrain's solution, by the way, provides for more than just
I.P.
having Firewire networking built into OS X. More choices are good. I'm
wondering if this indicates a move towards next generation 800mbps
Firewire, by Apple, as well.
On my Mac, Firewire networking software provides two more ports similar
to built-in ethernet, and treats them the same in the network panel in
OS X. They show up as two additional ethernet adapters. What I'm really
looking for is the same capability under Linux, so I can connect two
computers using firewire networking...OS X and Mandrake Linux 9.0. So
far, only custom Linux kernals built for clustering offer this ability.
[
http://kenlinux.no-ip.org/gallery/vi
01&id=net01 ]
Theoretically, I can dual mode the two firewire channels in my
computers to run at 800Mbps (channel bonding). Of course, gigabit
ethernet would provide increased speed, but it would also involve
buying more hardware, at least in my case. Like we say "...run what ya
'brung..." If your hardware provides gigabit ethernet, use it
Distance between nodes is a problem for Firewire networking. Maximum
distance is about 15 feet without repeaters, etc. At this time,
Firewire hubs cost approx. the same as ethernet hubs. Note I don't
think that all Firewire hubs offer similar capability/compatibility.
Test before you buy.
Don't forget Apple's Firewire target disc mode if you simply want to
pass files between two computers in a hurry.
Here is a quick little generic Firewire networking guide:
[ http://www.homenethelp.com/network/firewire.asp ]
Unibrain:
[ http://www.unibrain.com/products/ieee-1394/firene
(If you don't qualify as an Apple Developer, but you still wish to take
a look at OS X Firewire networking, Unibrain has a timed demo available
for testing)
Also note that firewire networking is currently a part of Windows XP.
OS X is playing ketchup.
aha.. macfixit.com has the solution. It turns out that for some reason /var/db/SystemConfiguration/preferences.xml is renamed to preferences.xml-old .. so just move it back:
/var/db/SystemConfiguration/
cd
mv preferences.xml-old preferences.xml
-- Tim Buchheim