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Microsoft LAN Client on XT (8088)

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David_M

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Does anyone have this working on an 8088 or V20?

I've tried an RTL8019 based card in an 8 bit slot and got nowhere.
I closest I have come is with an Intel EtherExpress PRO/10. The driver will load but tcptsr fails complaining it needs an 80286.

So to get around that problem I followed the instructions here and can ping local and remote machines. Any attempt to access network shares fail.
My 286 can access the shares fine. When I look at the switch statistics it sees no bad packets, however look at the actual packets they have corrupt data. The packets either have a bad netbios name or if that is correct a bad broadcast address.
Because the switch sees no errors I am fairly certain the packets are being corrupted in the protocol stack.

I have bought an etherlink II because I have read that it will work in 8 bit mode in an XT.
I'd really like to get networking to work properly. I had xfs on a packet driver able to access my NAS via an NFS share but the name mangling of even 8.3 filenames makes it unworkable.

Please somebody tell me they have it working... If I wasn't already bald I'd be tearing my hair out.
 
What networking intentions do you have in mind for this XT?

There are several networking options that work quite well by using the parallel ports of two machines.

And there's LapLink for file transfer, etc.
 
David_M said:
Please somebody tell me they have it working... If I wasn't already bald I'd be tearing my hair out.
Click to expand...

While I haven't done this myself, others have gotten it to work: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...i-got-MS-Network-Client-3-0-amp-TCPIP-to-work

The tricks for 808x systems is that you need a special build of mslanman that didn't use 286 instructions, and I believe the link I provided has another link to a page where everything is described. The takeaway here is that if you're using a distribution that says you need a 286, you have the wrong distribution.
 
I've got MS LanMan working just fine on my 8088's. I can't remember the version I used off the top of my head; however it never complained about requiring a 286.

The network adaptors I use are Western Digital WD8003's. They are quite an ancient card from the 8088 era so there are no problems with driver compatibility. They have an AUI port too so you can run a AUI to twisted pair transceiver.

All major functions work; I can map a drive to a netbeui share on another PC. TCP/IP also works fine (even with DHCP). The only caveat is that it uses a lot of RAM; hence I don't load it on boot unless I plan to copy files.
 
It looks like it may be a driver problem when the intel card is used in 8 bit mode. I get malformed packets such a netbios name that begins with an illegal character, looking inside the packet the name data is correct but offset by one byte.

It looks like i need to hunt for a bug free version of the intel driver or an 8 bit card that has ndis drivers.


Edit:

Problem solved.
I went back to trying the rtl8019 card and this time used the ne1000 driver instead of the realtek driver.
DHCP doesnt work. With the default netmask of "255 0 0 0" it sent good packets but got no response from the NAS.
Changing the netmask to "255 255 255 0" and it now seems to be working.

So in summary install MS Lan Client 3.0 with the ne1000 driver.
To overcome the 286 limitation of TCPDRV.DOS and TCPTSR.EXE, replace them with the version from MS LAN Manager Client Ver 2.2c
Disable DHCP and assign an ip to the card, set the netmask to the full "255 255 255 0" mask.
I left the nwlink protocol install because apparently it overcomes a bug, I haven't tested it myself.

My QNap NAS had previously been tweaked to allow lanman level password encrypted clients to connect. That was a whole other nightmare because their FAQ is wrong.
 
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MS Client 3.0 is not really worth your time. It only works with Samba Classic Domains these days, and only after you enable some of the most insecure settings Samba offers. It will also consume most RAM on the machine. A Better option is XFS191. It connects to a Linux NFS File Server just fine, cooperates with the WATTCP and NTCP Stack (Packet Drivers.)

Another option is Mars_NWE For Linux which can interact with the DOS Client for Novell Netware.
 
Zombie said:
MS Client 3.0 is not really worth your time. It only works with Samba Classic Domains these days, and only after you enable some of the most insecure settings Samba offers. It will also consume most RAM on the machine. A Better option is XFS191. It connects to a Linux NFS File Server just fine, cooperates with the WATTCP and NTCP Stack (Packet Drivers.)

Another option is Mars_NWE For Linux which can interact with the DOS Client for Novell Netware.
Click to expand...

I tried XFS and it was a pain in the ass, it kept name mangling files that didnt have a long filename. If the file was created on the NAS from a machine that supported long filenames XFS screwed them up on the DOS machine. MS LAN client read them correctly with only name mangling of files that fell outside of the 8.3 limits.

Security isn't an issue, the NAS these machines connect to has no critical or confidential files, it's where i save all my movies. As for memory usage, I only start the lan client when I want to transfer files so it isnt an issue.
 
David_M said:
I tried XFS and it was a pain in the ass, it kept name mangling files that didnt have a long filename. If the file was created on the NAS from a machine that supported long filenames XFS screwed them up on the DOS machine. MS LAN client read them correctly with only name mangling of files that fell outside of the 8.3 limits.

Security isn't an issue, the NAS these machines connect to has no critical or confidential files, it's where i save all my movies. As for memory usage, I only start the lan client when I want to transfer files so it isnt an issue.
Click to expand...

That's actually a combination of DOS and PCNFSD. The issue is, DOS can only parse the filename correctly if it is in lower case. PCNFSD is failing to lower case the characters, and mangling the files as a result. So even if a File was in the 8.3 limit, it would get mangled if a capital letter was present. PCNFSD is unmaintained, it really needs a patch to fix this.

Mars_NWE Would only work in the event the client did not cross a Wireless LAN. IPX Could not tolerate crossing an 802.11 Connection for some reason.

With Samba, you either have to create a Samba Classic Domain, and enable a whole bunch of legacy protocols for lanman, or in the event of using an Active Directory, use Mixed mode with the same lanman auth = yes stuff.

Other things:
PC-Pine 3.96 will talk IMAP to DoveCot

I have a Calendaring application (for MS-DOS) that uses a DBF File that LibreOffice, and PHP::DBF Understands. Possibly, Forseeably, it might be possible to write a small PHP Program that can extract information from CalDAV Resources and deposit them in feilds on this Application.

Want your DOS PC to talk to Instant Messenger Programs like AIM, Skype, Discord, Yahoo, or XMPP? Well. There's Aracheo IRC. The Linux PC can act as a 'bitlbee gateway to modern IM Protocols.
 
Zombie said:
That's actually a combination of DOS and PCNFSD. The issue is, DOS can only parse the filename correctly if it is in lower case. PCNFSD is failing to lower case the characters, and mangling the files as a result. So even if a File was in the 8.3 limit, it would get mangled if a capital letter was present. PCNFSD is unmaintained, it really needs a patch to fix this.

Mars_NWE Would only work in the event the client did not cross a Wireless LAN. IPX Could not tolerate crossing an 802.11 Connection for some reason.

With Samba, you either have to create a Samba Classic Domain, and enable a whole bunch of legacy protocols for lanman, or in the event of using an Active Directory, use Mixed mode with the same lanman auth = yes stuff.

Other things:
PC-Pine 3.96 will talk IMAP to DoveCot

I have a Calendaring application (for MS-DOS) that uses a DBF File that LibreOffice, and PHP::DBF Understands. Possibly, Forseeably, it might be possible to write a small PHP Program that can extract information from CalDAV Resources and deposit them in feilds on this Application.

Want your DOS PC to talk to Instant Messenger Programs like AIM, Skype, Discord, Yahoo, or XMPP? Well. There's Aracheo IRC. The Linux PC can act as a 'bitlbee gateway to modern IM Protocols.
Click to expand...

I ditched the dedicated linux server I've been running (with various distros) since the early days of slackware when I used to have to build a custom kernel every time I updated either the version or the hardware it ran on. I've used linux for 20+ years so I am well aware of what it offers. I now use 2 NAS units, one Qnap and one Synology (both run linux as does my router) and between them they run all the services that used to run on the old power hungry server. Before using samba on linux I used lantastic and netware lite to make it easier to maintain my BBS file areas while users were actively online, at one point I even ran a full netware server. So I do have a little experience with networks.

I dont need a "Samba classic domain", simple user level share access is all I need and the NAS provides that. I am fully aware of the security level reduction which as I said is not an issue because the NAS with reduced security is only used for non sensitive media files and sharing of old legacy applications, its firewalled and its internet access is via that doesn't accept external inbound connections. The decision to go with the MS client was not made in ignorance, it is a choice I made because it best fits my need. My only issue was getting the right 16 bit card that would work correctly in an 8 bit slot with an ndis driver that is happy to run on an 8088. I found the right card/driver combination and I'm happy with how its working.

Since 1980 I've worked doing component level repairs on microcomputers to field service on mainframes and as a contract programmer on everything from assembler to OO languages so take my word for it that I do have just a little bit of an idea on what I need.
 
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