With the thread revived, I might throw my setup here....
Typically I use mTCP, as the backbone with a Packet Driver. Typically I set it up like this...
First, almost all of my pure DOS machines and most of my Windows 3.x/9x machines have a multi-boot configuration, so I'm almost always using 6.22 or higher when it comes to MS-DOS. FreeDOS is another story. As of late I have experimented with loading/unloading networking entirely from Batch files for the individual network programs, but I find it slows down the process too much for my liking.
Next I put mTCP on there, I have a floppy with it on it and Just md c:\mtcp, and then copy the contents over including the samples subdir with xcopy. Then I edit the sample.cfg file in the c:\mtcp\samples folder, typically what I do there is change my ircjr handles, set the hostname of the computer, and tune a few other settings, mostly for FTP, then save as MTCP.CFG in c:\mtcp.
I point the MTCP.CFG file to c:\mtcp\samples\ftppass.txt for the FTP Server, this is VITAL. The #1 thing I use this for is moving files to my old machines over FTP when needed. I just set it up to allow my login and have no actual assigned data folders or anything since I prefer just to copy things over as ZIP files and unzip the entire directory structure on the computer when done.
After all that is setup, I set my config.sys and autoexec.bat under the NET configuration to load the packet driver to 0x60, run DHCP.EXE in c:\mtcp, and sometimes, particularly on 8088's like my Tandy 1000 that don't have an RTC, pull the current date and time from a time server.
Once all that is done, FTPSrv is installed, and Links Browser, and maybe FLMail are xferred over to the computer. Then they are unzipped, run, and configured.
My typical use case is this....
FTPSRV - xfer files I already have saved on my linux computers
LINKS/ARACHNE - Download files from websites on the internet that I don't have
FLMAIL - Periodically e-mail for giggles, I almost wish I could see their face that this mail was sent from a 486
IRCJR - used for Inernet Relay Chat, usually the VCFED chat
TELNET - I use this to hit up BBSes periodically, especially fun on the old Tandy (CGA makes ASCII art look amazing)
And of course, security is built in in that I only have networking enabled when I need it and it's off when I don't. Plus the services are only enabled when it's working. To me, it seems to be the most secure way to connect these old machines to the internet. And Links, being able to run TLS 1.2 out of the box and surf modern sites, is great. Only downside is Links needs a 386+ to run. Arachne is for my 286, and I might be trying it on my Tandy 1000 before too long.
Prior to this I was using Microsoft Network Client or Network Manager but I really hated how flaky it was and how much memory it used. mTCP has really changed things for me on this end. In some ways it makes DOS more modern than Windows 3.11 for Workgroups with NDIS drivers happens to be.
