VOGONS


First post, by radiance32

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Hi all,

I'm doing some research, and I've got a CompactFlash NE2000 compatible RJ-45 10Mbits ethernet card.
I installed it in my HP200LX Palmtop, ran the required LXCIC enabler, and installed the packet driver at 0x66.

Then, I installed the complete mTCP package, made a custom .cfg file that uses my packet driver,
and everything works fine. I can telnet, FTP, etc... and also browse the web with the MICROWEB.EXE DOS webbrowser
that uses the mTCP stack for networking so all is working fine.

My question is, what would be the simplest / easiest to obtain, install / configure and works dependable and in a stable fashion software for mounting an SMB/CIFS share from a Linux server running SAMBA,
with simple username/password based authentication (eg no domain controller etc...)
It should be small (as I have to install it on my C: RAM drive, as the PCMCIA card slot is taken by the CF to PCMCIA adapter with the CF NIC in it),
so the whole installation should be less than 3MB preferably...
All I want to do is mount one share onto an MS-DOS drive letter, with the smallest possible software on my 3MB remaining RAM drive.
And, it should work on top of my packet driver for my NIC at 0x66,
and work together with mTCP, so I can for example mount a large volume of data on drive X:,
and then, if I need a file or something, I can FTP into the machine using mTCP's included ftpserv server,
which can serve a specified directory on that X: drive.

So, of all the different possibilities, what DOS software would you recommend I try for this ?
I've heard of lantastic, lan manager, and other products from the early 90's...

I would like for it to be as small as possible, and easy to install, as I plan on making a tutorial video about it for other viewers/users to replicate,
people with different levels of technical knowledge about DOS networking,
so ease of use and setup/configuration are important...

Thanks for your time! 😀
Cheers,
Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 1 of 22, by pshipkov

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Check FreeDOS if you are ok with that DOS flavor.

retro bits and bytes

Reply 2 of 22, by radiance32

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pshipkov wrote on 2022-01-11, 05:53:

Check FreeDOS if you are ok with that DOS flavor.

Unfortunately my HP200LX has MS-DOS 5.0 backed into ROM so I have no choice over replacing the version of MS-DOS...
I really need an MS-DOS 5.0 compatible software solution...

Thanks for your reply/time,
Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 3 of 22, by Grzyb

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http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Networ … DOS_-_MS_Client

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 4 of 22, by radiance32

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Grzyb wrote on 2022-01-11, 06:17:

Thanks for the link,
so is there any of the 2 packages on that web page you'd recommend ? ("LAN Manager" and "MS Client 3.0")

And, if anyone knows of any other software, please post here, I'd love to try out different solutions in case it does'nt work.
I guess the biggest issue is having a modern SMB/CIFS server serve a share to an antique version of an SMB/CIFS client like these 2 packages...
I'll just have to give it a go i guess...

Thanks!,
Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 6 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-11, 06:45:

Thanks, this looks very promising 😀
I'm downloading it too and will see if I can get it to work.
Do you think I can run it as a client and have a share available as a drive in DOS,
while at the same time being able to use mTCP applications ?

Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 7 of 22, by radiance32

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What i basically mean is, can 2 different applications use one packet driver at the same time ? (eg mTCP and EtherDFS for example)

Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 8 of 22, by Pierre32

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On my DOS machine I load the packet driver, then have mTCP assign the IP, then run EtherDFS to map the network drive. What I haven't attempted is subsequently using an mTCP application such as FTP. Curious now, so I'll try it!

Reply 9 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-11, 07:08:

On my DOS machine I load the packet driver, then have mTCP assign the IP, then run EtherDFS to map the network drive. What I haven't attempted is subsequently using an mTCP application such as FTP. Curious now, so I'll try it!

Could you ? (try it) I'm extremely interested to find out if they both work together...
Eg, you could ftp something onto a share from your linux box with the mCTP ftp command on the mapped drive in DOS...

Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 10 of 22, by Pierre32

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Ok, spanner in the works and I need to revise a statement. Previously I had the DOS machine on my regular LAN, and would use mTCP's FTPSRV so I could manage the DOS box from Win10 with Filezilla. I have a batch file that loads the packet driver and runs mTCP's DHCP.

But I've recently set up a new server which provides Samba shares to my Windows machines, and EtherDFS to the DOS machine. The server has separate NICs to keep my retros isolated from my Win10 & internet. I added the EtherDFS client startup to my batch file, but now realise that I commented out the mTCP stuff so I could test EtherDFS in isolation. So no, I have not been using these tools together.

I'm now attempting to run DHCP but unlike before, I need to assign a static IP to the DOS box as there is no DHCP server available. The mTCP docs provide instructions on setting a static IP, but they don't seem to be working; it's trying to contact a DHCP server and failing. This is an mTCP support issue that I need to resolve.

So I can't say they won't work together, but I can't yet say that they do. Stay tuned...

Reply 11 of 22, by Pierre32

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Result.

1. Turns out I'm having trouble with one of the NICs on the server. I've migrated to the other one and things are working.
2. I'm an idiot. When you're setting a static IP in mTCP, you don't need to run DHCP.exe. You just enter your addresses in config.txt and the other mTCP utils will pick them up. D'oh!

With that sorted, I just did the following:

- Installed packet driver
- Initialised EtherDFS and accessed my shared network drive
- Ran FTP.exe, accessed my FTP server, and did a test transfer to both my C: drive and my H: drive (the mapped EtherDFS drive)
- Quit the FTP client and confirmed the transferred file is in both locations

So that's a success and I have learned things in the process 😁

Reply 12 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-11, 09:01:
Result. […]
Show full quote

Result.

1. Turns out I'm having trouble with one of the NICs on the server. I've migrated to the other one and things are working.
2. I'm an idiot. When you're setting a static IP in mTCP, you don't need to run DHCP.exe. You just enter your addresses in config.txt and the other mTCP utils will pick them up. D'oh!

With that sorted, I just did the following:

- Installed packet driver
- Initialised EtherDFS and accessed my shared network drive
- Ran FTP.exe, accessed my FTP server, and did a test transfer to both my C: drive and my H: drive (the mapped EtherDFS drive)
- Quit the FTP client and confirmed the transferred file is in both locations

So that's a success and I have learned things in the process 😁

So it works ??? Awesome 😀
It's late here but i'l try it out tomorrow 😀

Thanks a LOT for yout time/help, it's highly appreciated 😀
Cheers,
Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 13 of 22, by Pierre32

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No probs 😀

Reply 14 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-11, 10:04:

No probs 😀

I'm running it and it works great 😀
mTCP works fine ontop of a mapped drive from a linux host 😀

I am having some issues with dos file names and permissions etc,
but i just need to sort all that out...

Thanks for recommending this, it's exactly what I wanted 😀
Cheers,
Terrence

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 15 of 22, by Pierre32

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Good stuff! And yeah, EtherDFS is very fussy with filename compliance. Where DOS itself will just truncate long filenames with ~1, EtherDFS won't tolerate them at all. I had to spend a bit of time sanitising the DOS share on my server this week.

Reply 16 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-12, 05:34:

Good stuff! And yeah, EtherDFS is very fussy with filename compliance. Where DOS itself will just truncate long filenames with ~1, EtherDFS won't tolerate them at all. I had to spend a bit of time sanitising the DOS share on my server this week.

BTW, I created a 2GB "msdos" type filesystem in a file, mounted it on my linux box in a directory and run the dfs server on it.
Is it possible to share larger filesystems to a DOS machine ?
Eg an 8GB volume for example ?

Terrence

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Reply 17 of 22, by Pierre32

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Yep, you can do that. EtherDFS will report a ~2GB volume size to DOS for obvious reasons. But my shared drive is 120GB!

Reply 18 of 22, by radiance32

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Pierre32 wrote on 2022-01-12, 07:05:

Yep, you can do that. EtherDFS will report a ~2GB volume size to DOS for obvious reasons. But my shared drive is 120GB!

ok, but, on the linux box, what type of filesystem do I format as ?
msdos (eg fat16) has a max of 2GB size.
The etherDFS documentation recommends using msdos/fat16 for the filename stuff to all work flawlessly etc...
What kind of filesystem should I format my 8GB file with instead, before mounting and sharing it with etherDFS ?
And are there any caveats or things I should know about regarding the filenames etc... ?

Radiance

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Reply 19 of 22, by Pierre32

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Mine is formatted as vfat.

With filenames, just make sure everything is in the 8.3 format. EtherDFS simply can't read beyond 8 characters, and if you're copying folders with such files in them, the process will error out when it gets to them.