Here is a question for you guys. How hard is to set up networking under DOS? I have done it under win95/98 before, but never DOS. What domyou need? I know there is a "client" you can download and install from Microsoft, but I am cloudy as to what that is going to.
I use Microsoft Network Client 3.0, which works fine for me. Novell also has a network client for DOS but obviously Microsoft's client is easier if you want to share files with a PC running Windows.
First off you'll have to find DOS drivers for your network card. The network client loads these drivers, which open up an interface to the NIC, then load the protocol over which you'll share files through Windows SMB.
There are three main interface types: Packet Driver, ODI, and NDIS, and maybe even more but you'll probably be using one of these. Which interface you get depends on the drivers you use (or better said: can find). I recommend getting a packet driver interface as this is what newer DOS programs (Arachne, IRCjr, etc) and programs ported from *nix (wget, lynx, etc) use. These programs load their own TCP/IP stack (usually WATTCP) directly over the packet driver.
For the protocol I recommend using IPX as this is also what most multiplayer games use. Don't use Microsoft's TCP/IP as it eats all of your 640k and is not very useful unless you want to share files with a Windows Vista/7 PC that does not have IPX support.
I hope that will help you get started 😀
Thus may sound stupid, but what does setting up/installing a dos "client" do for you?
Does this mean you can share filed with a windows machine, where a drive shows up as a letter (and vice-versa)?
that depends on what you're trying to do.
Microsoft's (or compatible) implementations should at least support UNC paths - e.g. the Windows-familiar "\\hostname\directory\" format for shares. Failing that, you can use an FTP client for file transfer, mTCP for instance has that.
wrote:Thus may sound stupid, but what does setting up/installing a dos "client" do for you?
Does this mean you can share filed with a windows machine, where a drive shows up as a letter (and vice-versa)?
That's exactly what it does, yes.
wrote:for TCP/IP, you might want to check this out:
IPX is useful for games, yes, but for networking with a modern(-ish) machine for file transfer / internet / etc. it won't work too well.
Microsofts network client can't use mTCP and WATTCP, it needs its own TCP stack. You can, however, use Novell's IPX drivers with Microsoft's client.
MS TCP/IP uses insane amounts of conventional memory and I know of no other program that makes use of it. All TCP programs I've encountered already have their own TCP stack and only need a packet driver loaded. IPX is much more useful under DOS, and any version of Windows except Vista and 7 can share files over IPX.
The mTCP guy checks in here once in a while. And he is a PCjr expert too. :-)
On a low-spec machine (PC, XT, PCjr) I use mTCP exclusively - it is small enough to run from a floppy and fast on those machines. On my 386-40 and better machines I'll use both MS LANMAN and mTCP. You can't have both running at the same time; I have batch files to load each one as I need them.
Sorry to revive this old topic, but I have additional information that could be of use.
Like jwt27, I also use Microsoft Network Client 3.0 along with the NNET.EXE patch with a 3C905B PCI card, and NetBEUI. It works very well, and NetBEUI has advantages over TCP/IP in terms of setup simplicity and memory usage.
On the server side, NetBEUI was deprecated with Windows XP but can still be found in the VALUEADD\MSFT\NET\NETBEUI folder in the installation CD. The same driver also works with 32-bit Vista and 7, unfortunately there is no 64-bit driver (the latest XP x64 install CD only has the x86 version).
The NDIS2 driver for the 3C905B is from 01r1074.exe (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/3com-10100- … sion-54-servers) available here: http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/pc_servers/ thanks to Kevin Bowling.
Alternatively 3c90x-ethercd_v5.4.zip from http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=914&menustate=0 provides in the second disk NDIS2 driver version 5.2.4 (same as the IBM driver above) and in the first disk NDIS2 driver version 5.2.6.
I recommend ensuring the card has its own IRQ (eg. 9), my experience with the packet driver is that using a shared IRQ such as 11 leads to crashes.
Microsoft Network Client 3.0 and NNET.EXE (which fixes corruption and truncation issues) can be found here: https://www.lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualb … urces/MSCLIENT/ or on archive.org links, see https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Sharing_files_with_DOS
When using Windows 7, it is necessary to alter the security policy to store the LANMAN hash when changing a password: secpol.msc -> Local Policies -> Security, set "Network security: Do not store LAN Manager hash" to Disabled
When using setup.exe, NWLINK (IPX support), can be removed, and NetBEUI added, which saves 13 KB of conventional memory and speeds up session initialization. I would recommend switching the redirector from full to "basic" . It has less memory usage but apparently has a nasty bug when certain software accesses files of 0 length, causing a network storm: https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/122/Q122494/ . I haven't encountered this bug yet.
There is a small issue in that the client doesn't interact well with UMBPCI, this could be due to the 3C509B NDIS driver ("Error 5736: the protocol manager has reported a hardware failure").
I'm glad someone bought up NetBEUI. It's a lot smaller than the MS TCPIP stack Microsoft Network Client 3.0 and most older OS's supported it out of the box. It's non routable and a different network protocol so no problems with it being hacked via the internet.
I also use the mTCP suite of programs.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-23, 16:31:I'm glad someone bought up NetBEUI. It's a lot smaller than the MS TCPIP stack Microsoft Network Client 3.0 and most older OS's supported it out of the box. It's non routable and a different network protocol so no problems with it being hacked via the internet.
I also use the mTCP suite of programs.
Oh, I didn't know it was sold. Who bought it up?
NETBIOS (as API+ a rudimentary protocol)/NETBEUI (as a protocol) are historically interesting,
because they work with software that originally wasn't really meant to be networked.
Like MS-DOS, GEM, GEOS, Windows 1+2 etc.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
Jo22 wrote on 2021-05-23, 16:53:Oh, I didn't know it was sold. Who bought it up? […]
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-23, 16:31:I'm glad someone bought up NetBEUI. It's a lot smaller than the MS TCPIP stack Microsoft Network Client 3.0 and most older OS's supported it out of the box. It's non routable and a different network protocol so no problems with it being hacked via the internet.
I also use the mTCP suite of programs.
Oh, I didn't know it was sold. Who bought it up?
NETBIOS (as API+ a rudimentary protocol)/NETBEUI (as a protocol) are historically interesting,
because they work with software that originally wasn't really meant to be networked.
Like MS-DOS, GEM, GEOS, Windows 1+2 etc
The MS network client using NetBEUI just provides a drive letter in Dos for the network share and any GUI loaded from Dos will pick that drive letter up and use it.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
I see. By coincidence, the latest entry at OS/2 Museum also is about DOS network clients.
Maybe it contains some useful information, too.
https://www.os2museum.com/wp/dos-smb-client-p … ance/#more-5316
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
//My video channel//
That's right Jo22, it was indeed the entry in the OS/2 museum that made me take a look at DOS networking, and SMB in particular. I had some success before with packet drivers and www/ftp/ssh but thought the file sharing aspect using NDIS was too cumbersome. So I was glad to see setting up SMB file sharing over NetBEUI is actually rather straightforward.
