I found this website after a basic search. I don't know if it's quit what you're looking for, but it might be a step in the right direction.

http://www.doom2.net/doom2/network.html

Try Kali or Kahn ^^

They were made in the 90's and do exactly what you want

For some DOOM engine based games there is native TCP/IP "drivers" - tcpsetup, idoom, ifrag.
Kali service seems to be defunct now, but software itself works without master server - one person acts as server, all other connects to him.

For dosbox instances, unless I completely misunderstood something, it's available out of the box
-You enable IPX in the .conf
-On the server PC you run ipxnet startserver <UDP port>
-You forward that port to the LAN IP
-The clients only need to know your external IP and they can connect by ipxnet connect <server external ip> <udp port>
This is even easier for PCs within the same LAN, you only use the LAN ips and no need to open ports

Is this what you were looking for?

keenmaster486 wrote on 2019-02-21, 01:21:

Has anyone tried this?

I want to run a kahn server, but I can't find a proper manual for that. I've tried the Linux version under Debian 2.2 without any success. Did you have any success?

Actually I'm rebuilding a kahn network (including tracker server, IRC chat, etc). Once all of this is set up, I'll put links to download updated versions of the client/server software with my tracker server's IP address 😁 (and thus you'll be able to make your own server too). I backed up a website named "kahncentral" as well which is now totally dead. I will bring this archive back to life as well 😀

Deksor wrote on 2020-06-15, 01:48:

Actually I'm rebuilding a kahn network (including tracker server, IRC chat, etc). Once all of this is set up, I'll put links to download updated versions of the client/server software with my tracker server's IP address 😁 (and thus you'll be able to make your own server too). I backed up a website named "kahncentral" as well which is now totally dead. I will bring this archive back to life as well 😀

I like your kahn-do attitude . 😉

Deksor wrote on 2020-06-15, 01:48:

Actually I'm rebuilding a kahn network (including tracker server, IRC chat, etc). Once all of this is set up, I'll put links to download updated versions of the client/server software with my tracker server's IP address 😁 (and thus you'll be able to make your own server too). I backed up a website named "kahncentral" as well which is now totally dead. I will bring this archive back to life as well 😀

Holy shit, that's awesome! Guess that might solve another problem of mine — finding people who want to play games on original hardware as opposed to sourceports 😀

I like this idea. I am excitedly waiting for updates.

Just a question, If your wanting to play games over the local network on physical PC's why not simply install IPX? It'll sit beside TCP quite happily.
This obviously isn't an option for over the internet and have no idea about dosbox

chinny22 wrote on 2020-06-16, 12:18:

Just a question, If your wanting to play games over the local network on physical PC's why not simply install IPX? It'll sit beside TCP quite happily.
This obviously isn't an option for over the internet and have no idea about dosbox

Kahn and Kali were specifically made for tunnelling IPX over TCP/IP for Internet multiplayer. So yeah, it's not for LAN networks.

I long wanted to make a LAN party with some like-minded friends, but obviously that all went to hell because of COVID and other issues. Because of that I started researching options for Internet multiplayer under DOS/Win9x. Ideally I wanted to play both late DOS shooters and early Win9x titles like Quake 1-3, Forsaken and Unreal.

I started with building a dual Pentium 2 server running Debian (because Kahn is available for either Win95 or Linux) and actually had a lot of fun messing with the OS. I also managed to get Quake 3 to work. Running Kahn was a different issue, because it needs a tracker (and I assume it must be run on a different host). Without proper documentation or a guide I'm stuck at the moment, browsing lots of Archive.org to find any info on running a private Kahn server.

Then there is Kali, you can still get older binaries for the client, but I don't think you can get server binaries.

There is/was ipxtunnel, but that is more like an IPX over TCP point-to-point bridge between two networks .
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IPX-HOWTO-15.html

There is also the option of running IPX over a layer 2 VPN (over IP).

EDIT: Option 2 would still require something to connect the L2 VPN client network to the legacy IPX-only machine.

EDIT2: See also this https://www.softether.org/4-docs/1-manu ... L2_Bridge)

I was successful in getting a Kahn server online and working if anyone is interested in doing some IPX multiplayer. It seems to work very well at least with Blizzard games like Warcraft and Diablo so far. But Doom, Duke3d etc need some debugging. At least in Windows 98 so far when Kahn is running in the background (not even connected to ethernet) it creates some type of loopback with Doom and Duke3d. It seems like this was a bug back in the day that could be fixed. I have yet to try it out on Windows 95 to see if it works any different but I might try that out soon. Other games may also work fine, but I haven't gotten around to testing all of them yet. Over all its pretty easy to use and connect so if anyone wants to test around with it let me know.

Deksor wrote on 2020-06-15, 01:48:

Actually I'm rebuilding a kahn network (including tracker server, IRC chat, etc). Once all of this is set up, I'll put links to download updated versions of the client/server software with my tracker server's IP address 😁 (and thus you'll be able to make your own server too). I backed up a website named "kahncentral" as well which is now totally dead. I will bring this archive back to life as well 😀

Did you ever get this running and play around with it?

I almost got it working but I ran out time, it should happen someday though

Following OP's hint I was able to find a version of git that runs on my Windows 98. Have no connection to another machines to actually test how well it works, but at least it does listen on the advertized port (tested with telnet) and does pick up Doom's IPX traffic with WinPCap, so chances are it will in fact forward to ther machines.

Anyone had luck with playing deathmatch with this tool?

It's been a while since I started this thread. Since then I've found two tools that accomplish my original goal: IPXBox and Dali.

Using these two tools you can connect as many DOSBox instances and real DOS computers as you want using IPX tunneled over TCP/IP.

There is also ipxgw, which should accomplish the same thing.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-08-09, 18:01:

It's been a while since I started this thread. Since then I've found two tools that accomplish my original goal: IPXBox and Dali.

Using these two tools you can connect as many DOSBox instances and real DOS computers as you want using IPX tunneled over TCP/IP.

There is also ipxgw, which should accomplish the same thing.

Yah Dali and IPXBox are awesome. Do you get memory freezes / instability when using Dali?

Delphius wrote on 2023-08-24, 15:28:

Yah Dali and IPXBox are awesome. Do you get memory freezes / instability when using Dali?

Yes. At least with the latest released version. The author has made some changes since then, but I would have to compile it myself. May work on that soon.