Check FreeDOS if you are ok with that DOS flavor.

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

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

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

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

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

EtherDFS will sort you out:

http://etherdfs.sourceforge.net/
EtherDFS - a network drive for DOS

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

EtherDFS will sort you out:

http://etherdfs.sourceforge.net/
EtherDFS - a network drive for DOS

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

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

Radiance

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!

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

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...

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 😁

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

No probs 😀

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

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.

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

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

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

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.