Dosemu packet driver, IPX

Dosemu packet driver, IPX

[Kara Van Horn]

Over the past several weeks, I have perused the mailing list and have tried
various things mentioned relative to my problem, but as of yet, have not
seen a change.  I am having problems getting the packet driver that is
supposed to be built into Dosemu to work.  Every time I try to run Dosemu
with and without ipx_support turned on (to connect to our Novell Netware 5
and 5.1 servers, Frame type 802.3), I get an error that the packet driver
could not be found anywhere.


I tried using a TCP/IP stack from Clarkson University (CUTCP), and when I
tell it to ping, it says it is searching for a packet driver, but says there
is not one at any "specified location."  When I tried adding WINPKT.COM (as
mentioned in the docs) to my IPX stack (WINPKT replacing PDIPX, followed by
VLM), and specified a packet driver address as 0x60, it said there was not
one at that location.  I tried every location it gave me as an alternative,
and it simply is not to be found.  I also cannot ping my Dosemu session from
the Linux side.  There appear to be some receive/transmit numbers on the
dsn0 device when I do an ifconfig, but those are low and haven't changed for
days--probably since I installed dosnet.o.  I saw in the code that there
appears to be a 0x60 address specified for the dosnet component, but it does
not surface when I try running it.


I at first thought it was because I had a 3com 3c980-TX PCI NIC (a server
card), but if I can't even get socket communication to work on the machine
itself, this should not be relevant.  Besides, Linux is fine with the card
and it works perfectly otherwise.  I have even tried (in vain) to add the
port addresses of the card (0xe800-0xe87f) to the dosemu.conf file, along
with a spurious IRQ or two since I noticed that the "Silly IRQ Generator"
had been included in the Linux kernel code.  Of course, the PCI addresses
are much too high for Dosemu to deal with, but I tried it anyway.


I am running an AMD K-7/750 MHz, 128MB RAM, RedHat 7.2/Linux kernel
2.4.9-31, Dosemu development version 1.1.3, which I compiled and installed,
as well as a 1.0.2 version I started out with (the devel. version still
appears to be running 1.0.2 of the dosemu executable, at least according to
the startup info).  I installed the dosnet.o module into the kernel,
configured the dsn0 interface to have a subnet of 192.168.144.0, and routed
a gateway for that same network out my linux box to eth0.  $_vnet is on in
the config file.  I was unable to determine whether $novell_hack works at
all at this point in the release cycle.  I have tried it both on and off.  I
tried both setuid root on and off the dosnet executable.  I have tried both
Freedos and DOS 6.22, as well as even a DR-DOS image suggested in a message
somewhere.


I also wasn't sure if I could also run the Greg Page suite of IPX tools
(i.e., ipx_configure, ipx_interface, et. al.) in conjunction with any Dosemu
functionality.  I tried it with and without, both to no avail.  I am at
least able to mount the Novell filesystem I wish to access using these tools
onto Linux, but the problem comes when I try to run the application, which
requires a constant IPX connection (through a watchdog TSR).  This is when
the application fails, and I traced it back to this packet driver issue.


I'm attempting to run a product called AREV (Advanced Revelation) that is a
byte-code application similar to Java.  Trouble is, it was never ported to
Linux (because they moved beyond this DOS product), and needs IPX to talk to
the server it runs on.  However, after hitting a brick wall when running it
under Dosemu with the Page tools providing the disk access, I backed up and
tried the above.  My boss wants me to get some kind of Linux solution to
replace Windows, and from what I could glean, Dosemu seems to be it, though
I just saw a clue about marsnwe.  I will probably explore this to some
degree, as well, given my need for the IPX/Netware support.  Anyone have any
advice/warnings about marsnwe?


My main question is, what am I missing??!!  I am including my net.cfg file,
which is perhaps the weakest point in my attack of this problem.  I believe
I already mentioned the salient points in the dosemu.conf file above;
however, if anyone should request it, I can include it.  I would also
appreciate some idea as to the progress of the Dosemu programming effort.
It appears to be somewhat stalled, from what I can tell.  I did not notice
much interaction with the programmers and this list, either, which does not
bode well.  I really hope this is a simple fix, but at this point I can't
tell.


Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.


Best wishes,
Kara


Following is my net.cfg:


; *************************************************************************
;  This sample NET.CFG file is meant to supply some rudimentary
understanding
;  of parameters in NET.CFG and how they affect network operations.
;  For a full description and explanation of the parameters, see the
;  manual for the ODI shell for DOS, which ships with the NetWare package
;  or is available from Novell part # 100-000871-001.
;
;  Please pay attention to column spacing for the lines.  The section header
;  line MUST start in column 0 with subsequent lines in that section being
;  indented. Comments are designated by semi-colons (;).  The NET.CFG is not
;  caps-sensitive.
;
; *************************************************************************
;
Link Support
        Buffers 4 1514



;Link Driver 3C90X
;Link Driver PDEther
Link Driver PDIPX
;Link Driver WINPKT
        INT 60
;       FRAME Ethernet_802.3  ; Not necessary


;
; When using two or more adapters in a single machine, it is necessary to
; specifiy which adapter should be used. The following two parameters are
; used for this purpose:
;
;  SLOT NN, where NN is the specific PCI BIOS identification number of the
;               3C90X PCI adapter.
; 
;  BUS  NN, Where NN is the Bus number.
;
; The next few lines specify the frame type.  3C90X.COM is a 4.10 DOS ODI
; driver. The default frame type is 802.2. To connect to a 3.11 server
; the frame type needs to be changed to 802.3.  The following two lines
; perform that change.
;
        FRAME ETHERNET_802.3
;        FRAME 802.3
        PROTOCOL IPX 0 ETHERNET_802.3   (binds IPX protocol to frame)
;        PROTOCOL IPX 0 802.3   (binds IPX protocol to frame)
;
;
; This is the driver default
;
;       FRAME ETHERNET_802.2
;       PROTOCOL IPX E0 ETHERNET_802.2
;
;
;
;  %VER NET.CFG - sample Netware DOS ODI configuration file V1.0   8.12.99
NetWare DOS Requester
        FIRST NETWORK DRIVE = F
        PREFERRED SERVER = FS8
        PB BUFFERS = 0
        

Re: Dosemu packet driver, IPX

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Kara Van Horn wrote:
> When I tried adding WINPKT.COM (as
> mentioned in the docs) to my IPX stack (WINPKT replacing PDIPX, 
> followed by
> VLM), and specified a packet driver address as 0x60, it said there was 
> not one at that location.
Make sure that $_vnet is *off* and then:

E:\TEMP\PKTDRV>winpkt.com 0x60
Virtual packet driver for Windows 3.x, version 11.2
Portions Copyright 1991 Roger F. James
Packet driver skeleton copyright 1988-90, Russell Nelson.
This program is free software; see the file COPYING for details.
NO WARRANTY; see the file COPYING for details.

And never forget about logging.
-D9+Pn will help you in that quest.

> I installed the dosnet.o module into the kernel,
> configured the dsn0 interface to have a subnet of 192.168.144.0, and 
> routed
> a gateway for that same network out my linux box to eth0.  $_vnet is on 
In case you want to have dosnet, you have
to give root permissions to dosemu.

> I tried both setuid root on and off the dosnet executable.
dosnet.o is not an executable, it is a
kernel module.

> I also wasn't sure if I could also run the Greg Page suite of IPX tools
> (i.e., ipx_configure, ipx_interface, et. al.) in conjunction with any 
> Dosemu
> functionality.
For this you have to configure IPX under
linux and turn $_ipxsupport on. This seem
to be possible. You have to disable dosnet
in that case, I think.
And if you turn IPX on, you don't need
pdipx any more.
If you have $_ipxsupport disabled, you can't
use IPX tools.

> requires a constant IPX connection (through a watchdog TSR).  This is 
> when
> the application fails, and I traced it back to this packet driver 
> issue.
Dosemu's internal IPX support seems to be
independant from dosemu's packet driver
because it utilises linux kernel IPX
functionality. So I don't think you have
tracked your problem correctly.

> I would also
> appreciate some idea as to the progress of the Dosemu programming 
> effort.
No (active) developers. If you need 
some functionality, you have to
contribute yourself:(
IPX is out of maintenance since 1997.

> It appears to be somewhat stalled, from what I can tell.
I agree. But you can always have a look
into the ChangeLog for details.

> I did not notice
> much interaction with the programmers and this list, either, which does 
> not bode well.
Dosemu have large enough user base
(just see the sourceforge stats to
get a clue of how large is it), but
no developers to support. Hence the
lack of the interraction and progress.
I really think that the users have to
contribute a little more in development
process if they want to have a fully
functional product.


PS: Everything I told about IPX is
based only on a single look at an
IPX code I made yesterday to find
out why doom's ipxsetup crashes.
So my info may be incorrect. I have
never used this functionality myself.
And even a single look to that code
was enough to find some bugs in it:(