Speaking to myself here it seems not much interest in this.

I got a preliminary version of working. I can now specify tunnel mode in the dosbox-x config, allowing to skip using any of the pcap libraries to talk to the host nic, and instead establish a udp tunnel to a remote server. I wrote a simple server which functions as a basic Ethernet switch to accept multiple udp tunnels and forward frames appropriately. I am now able to connect to netware servers and execute games and programms off a shared drive among other things.

I have some more cleanup work to do on this, and I am contemplating if implementing bootrom support in this ne2000 emulated card is even possible. I was looking through the pcjr code for executing from rom cartridges to see if I can understand/re-purpose anything there.

for now, I have a tiny boot disk with lsl/ne2000/ipxodi/netx which is enough to boot and connect to the netware server.

Are you running that netware server on physical hardware or also in some sort of virtualization?

I am doing both. I am in the process of collecting old equipment to replace things I threw out over the years, I only kept hard drives and floppy discs.

For virtual I am currently using Virtualbox to run Netware 3.12 w/ IBM Classroom Lan Manager. I use the UDP Tunnel available in the VirtualBox to join its virtual switch it to my virtual switch where I can accept the various native dosbox IPX tunnel, my modified ne2000 tunnel, and slip connections with the shim drivers. I then run an additional VM with linux that is acting as a bridge to bring a physical 10baset segment into the mix where i have some old computers.

If your looking for other ways to connect to the network, such as in the case of WIFI which does not work with PCAP, you may also want to have a look at using libvirt to create a virtual network switch, which you can then connect to your real network adapter with NAT or routing. It should be possible to connect to this virtual switch with DOSBox-X NE2000 support, although I did not have the time yet to work out the exact steps of getting it working.

@yyzkevin this is really interesting and I would love to have it 😜
the pcap method is too complicated