• FrontDoor and DOS networking issues.

    From Spectre@21:1/101 to All on Thu May 9 01:31:58 2019
    Hi guys n gals,

    I'm attempting to get FrontDoor up and polling. However I've come across a couple of stumbling blocks that at this point I can't get past. Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful

    My baseline is running FrontDoor/SuperBBS in an MS-DOS6 VM.
    I'm not trying to do any serial emulation per se. I have rlfossil, and
    XFS191 in place for serial/packet communications and NFS client for file sharing.

    The BBS configs are out on an NFS drive mounted by each node and run from there. This works fine for the BBS itself, but somehow breaks FrontDoor. So
    I need to find a way to get NFS working with FrontDoor, or an alternate file sharing system. Lanmanager may work, but I've never had any joy doing that under msdos, over tcp. It'll have to talk to SAMBA 4.x

    The second issue I have is, if I take all the NFS gear out the way I can
    have FrontDoor up and running, answering and generally doing its thing. I've looked at route.fd and the nodelist compiles alright, but the system refuses
    to poll. The only thing of note that I've found is that the Terminal in FrontDoor believes all the listed systems in the nodelist are PVT and so
    won't try to dial them from there. Does anyone else have this issue? And
    just out of interest how do you ensure FD dials an IP address instead of looking for a Ph number.

    Thanks for your time reading all this.

    regards,
    Me

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Spectre on Thu May 9 00:32:59 2019
    If you had run any kind of Windows after XP you could have installed a NFS client. I run Frontdoor in Windows XP and later Windows 7 under VMware and it works fine. With MS DOS you need to use Lan Manager or something to that effect.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Spectre@21:1/101 to Joacim Melin on Thu May 9 16:26:31 2019
    I stuck with MS-SOD rather than win, but as I say I never had any joy with lanmanager over tcp.... does anyone have a driver load sequence they might share for that?

    Spec

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Crew@21:1/103 to Spectre on Thu May 9 22:57:06 2019

    On 08 May 2019, Spectre said the following ...
    The BBS configs are out on an NFS drive mounted by each node and run
    from there. This works fine for the BBS itself, but somehow breaks FrontDoor. So I need to find a way to get NFS working with FrontDoor,
    or an alternate file sharing system. Lanmanager may work, but I've
    never had any joy doing that under msdos, over tcp. It'll have to talk
    to SAMBA 4.x

    I can't be of help here I am running FrontDoor, Remoteaccess and Fmail under Win 7 with Netserial.

    The second issue I have is, if I take all the NFS gear out the way I can have FrontDoor up and running, answering and generally doing its thing. I've looked at route.fd and the nodelist compiles alright, but the
    system refuses to poll. The only thing of note that I've found is that the Terminal in FrontDoor believes all the listed systems in the
    nodelist are PVT and so won't try to dial them from there. Does anyone else have this issue? And just out of interest how do you ensure FD
    dials an IP address instead of looking for a Ph number.


    I have had the same problem and could not find the correct way to make FD
    look for the IP so I just pasted the ip and port number into the area where
    the phone number is and it called out once a preset event was triggered.
    I know this is not the correct way to do it but it got me connecting to the 21:3/100 HUB and I have not really looked at it since.

    Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise in FD will be able to comment and we can both figure this out :^)

    Cheers
    Lloyd

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: - Micro Link BBS - QLD, OZ (21:1/103)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Crew on Thu May 9 15:44:34 2019
    Re: Re: FrontDoor and DOS networking issues.
    By: Crew to Spectre on Thu May 09 2019 06:57 pm

    I can't be of help here I am running FrontDoor, Remoteaccess and Fmail under Win 7 with Netserial.

    That's cool. Back in the 90s, I also used FrontDoor, RemoteAccess, and FMail for my BBS setup.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.07-Win32
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Spectre@21:1/101 to Crew on Fri May 10 17:44:23 2019
    I have had the same problem and could not find the correct way to make FD look for the IP so I just pasted the ip and port number into the area where the phone number is and it called out once a preset event was triggered. I know this is not the correct way to do it but it got me connecting to the 21:3/100 HUB and I have not really looked at it since.

    I stumbled onto the same solution. As soon as FD sees -unlisted- it seems to assume private and undiallable. I couldn't bypass that with a PVT number listing, but did get a result with putting the FQDN in the phone number space.

    Ta

    Spec

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Spectre on Fri May 10 11:45:52 2019
    I stuck with MS-SOD rather than win, but as I say I never had any joy
    with
    lanmanager over tcp.... does anyone have a driver load sequence they
    might
    share for that?

    Spec

    I'll check later tonight if I still have my old MS-DOS VM's saved in my cluster
    somewhere. I think I managed to get that working but I'm unsure. Also there's the issue of SMB protocols and the like from old software like that - what file
    server are you going to connect to?


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Crew on Fri May 10 11:48:51 2019

    Hi,

    On 08 May 2019, Spectre said the following ...
    The BBS configs are out on an NFS drive mounted by each node and run
    from there. This works fine for the BBS itself, but somehow breaks
    FrontDoor. So I need to find a way to get NFS working with FrontDoor,
    or an alternate file sharing system. Lanmanager may work, but I've
    never had any joy doing that under msdos, over tcp. It'll have to talk
    to SAMBA 4.x

    I can't be of help here I am running FrontDoor, Remoteaccess and Fmail under
    Win 7 with Netserial.

    The second issue I have is, if I take all the NFS gear out the way I can

    have FrontDoor up and running, answering and generally doing its thing.
    I've looked at route.fd and the nodelist compiles alright, but the
    system refuses to poll. The only thing of note that I've found is that
    the Terminal in FrontDoor believes all the listed systems in the
    nodelist are PVT and so won't try to dial them from there. Does anyone
    else have this issue? And just out of interest how do you ensure FD
    dials an IP address instead of looking for a Ph number.


    I have had the same problem and could not find the correct way to make
    FD
    look for the IP so I just pasted the ip and port number into the area
    where
    the phone number is and it called out once a preset event was
    triggered.
    I know this is not the correct way to do it but it got me connecting
    to the
    21:3/100 HUB and I have not really looked at it since.

    Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise in FD will be able to
    comment and
    we can both figure this out :^)

    I'll check my Frontdoor setup tonight. I got it working with Netserial just fine but it requires some fair amount of voodoo in route.fd.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Nightfox on Fri May 10 11:49:58 2019
    Re: Re: FrontDoor and DOS networking issues.
    By: Crew to Spectre on Thu May 09 2019 06:57 pm

    I can't be of help here I am running FrontDoor, Remoteaccess and Fmail
    under Win 7 with Netserial.

    That's cool. Back in the 90s, I also used FrontDoor, RemoteAccess,
    and FMail
    for my BBS setup.

    I would love to setup a multi-node RA again but the PD version still only supports two nodes and the PRO version never was released as free (and the current owner never replies to email so you can't really buy it either I suppose...).


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Joacim Melin on Fri May 10 21:50:00 2019
    On 05-10-19 07:49, Joacim Melin wrote to Nightfox <=-

    I would love to setup a multi-node RA again but the PD version still
    only supports two nodes and the PRO version never was released as free (and the current owner never replies to email so you can't really buy
    it either I suppose...).

    It's a pity, would be nice to have RA back up and running under a DOS VM. I like the idea of a Qemu VM running DOS. I can use tcpser and tty0tty for telnet access, and use the good old tosser, etc. Only difference is I'd not have to run a mailer, and simply have binkd running on the host OS, and communicating via semaphores. My old systems used BinkleyTerm, so I know how to use BSO with that generation software. What would be a bigger issue is scheduling mail sessions, I don't know how well the old software shares the messagebase with RA. My old system was single line, so it never had to worry about this, but the reincarnation would need to be able to handle tossing and BBS use at the same time.

    Hardware could be an old netbook. :)


    ... Can bankers count? Eight windows and only two tellers?
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Spectre on Fri May 10 21:51:00 2019
    On 05-10-19 13:44, Spectre wrote to Crew <=-

    I stumbled onto the same solution. As soon as FD sees -unlisted- it
    seems to assume private and undiallable. I couldn't bypass that with a PVT number listing, but did get a result with putting the FQDN in the phone number space.

    You could probably massage the nodelist with a Perl script or similar. :)


    ... It's best to be judged by twelve than carried by six.
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Vk3jed on Fri May 10 14:03:12 2019
    On 05-10-19 07:49, Joacim Melin wrote to Nightfox <=-

    I would love to setup a multi-node RA again but the PD version still
    only supports two nodes and the PRO version never was released as free
    (and the current owner never replies to email so you can't really buy
    it either I suppose...).

    It's a pity, would be nice to have RA back up and running under a DOS
    VM. I
    like the idea of a Qemu VM running DOS. I can use tcpser and tty0tty
    for
    telnet access, and use the good old tosser, etc. Only difference is
    I'd not
    have to run a mailer, and simply have binkd running on the host OS,
    and
    communicating via semaphores. My old systems used BinkleyTerm, so I
    know how
    to use BSO with that generation software. What would be a bigger
    issue is
    scheduling mail sessions, I don't know how well the old software
    shares the
    messagebase with RA. My old system was single line, so it never had
    to worry
    about this, but the reincarnation would need to be able to handle
    tossing and
    BBS use at the same time.

    Hardware could be an old netbook. :)

    AFAIK Frontdoor can write to and read from JAM messagebases that RA also can use and it works fine with several nodes.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Joacim Melin on Fri May 10 23:38:00 2019
    On 05-10-19 10:03, Joacim Melin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    AFAIK Frontdoor can write to and read from JAM messagebases that RA
    also can use and it works fine with several nodes.

    Hmm, thought FD was a mailer, not a tosser. :) Besides, as I said, I would be using binkd (in the host OS), so I can run binkp sessions.


    ... If silly had wings, this place would be an airport!
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Spectre@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Sat May 11 02:27:05 2019
    You could probably massage the nodelist with a Perl script or similar. :)

    Ahh no not me, maybe a bad bash script.. :P

    A

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:1/101 to Joacim Melin on Sat May 11 02:30:09 2019
    Also there's the issue of SMB protocols and the like from old software like that - what file server are you going to connect to?

    At this stage Ubuntu 14.04, so that'll be samba 4.x.... if I have to I can downgrade it.. or cripple it... or maybe even relay it through a second
    server :) Where theres a willy theres a wendy... erm whoops wrong saying.

    Spec

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Spectre on Sat May 11 00:36:00 2019
    On 05-10-19 22:27, Spectre wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    You could probably massage the nodelist with a Perl script or similar. :)

    Ahh no not me, maybe a bad bash script.. :P

    Actually, shouldn't be too hard to do in bash. The nodelist, being comma delimited, should be easy to work with.


    ... Optimist (adj) - One lacking sufficient experience.
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Vk3jed on Fri May 10 15:55:08 2019
    On 05-10-19 10:03, Joacim Melin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    AFAIK Frontdoor can write to and read from JAM messagebases that RA
    also can use and it works fine with several nodes.

    Hmm, thought FD was a mailer, not a tosser. :) Besides, as I said, I
    would be
    using binkd (in the host OS), so I can run binkp sessions.

    Yeah, well FD can do a lot of things. Also it's cooler than Binkd because it's SWEEEEEDISH.

    Regards,

    Team Sweden


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Crew@21:1/103 to Joacim Melin on Sat May 11 00:58:15 2019
    I have had the same problem and could not find the correct way to make FD
    look for the IP so I just pasted the ip and port number into the area where
    the phone number is and it called out once a preset event was triggered.
    I know this is not the correct way to do it but it got me connecting to the
    21:3/100 HUB and I have not really looked at it since.

    Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise in FD will be able to comment and
    we can both figure this out :^)

    I'll check my Frontdoor setup tonight. I got it working with Netserial just fine but it requires some fair amount of voodoo in route.fd.


    That would be great!

    Cheers
    Lloyd

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: - Micro Link BBS - QLD, OZ (21:1/103)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Spectre on Fri May 10 16:23:21 2019
    Also there's the issue of SMB protocols and the like from old software
    like that - what file server are you going to connect to?

    At this stage Ubuntu 14.04, so that'll be samba 4.x.... if I have to I
    can
    downgrade it.. or cripple it... or maybe even relay it through a
    second
    server :) Where theres a willy theres a wendy... erm whoops wrong
    saying.

    I say do it properly retro: Windows NT 4.0 Server. :)


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Crew on Fri May 10 21:32:10 2019
    My route.fd. It contains my old Fidonet hubs I used to connect to.

    Forward-For *
    Forward-To *
    Route-To 2:221/0 2:221/0
    Route-To 2:201/0 1:* 2:* 3:* 4:* 5:* 6:*

    SCHEDULE A *
    Poll 2:201/0

    SCHEDULE B *
    Poll 2:221/0


    Setup Schedule A and B accordingly via FDsetup to poll regurarely.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Joacim Melin on Sat May 11 01:28:00 2019
    On 05-10-19 11:55, Joacim Melin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Yeah, well FD can do a lot of things. Also it's cooler than Binkd
    because it's SWEEEEEDISH.

    But it doesn't do binkp. :P


    ... !edis gnorw eht morf siht ta gnikool era uoY
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Joacim Melin on Fri May 10 10:34:00 2019
    Joacim Melin wrote to Spectre <=-

    I say do it properly retro: Windows NT 4.0 Server. :)

    A friend of mine has a DEC Alpha box running NT 3.51, why not go all
    the way?



    ... Do you know where you are?
    --- MultiMail/XT v0.52
    * Origin: http://realitycheckbbs.org (21:4/122)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Vk3jed on Mon May 13 10:14:16 2019
    On 05-10-19 11:55, Joacim Melin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Yeah, well FD can do a lot of things. Also it's cooler than Binkd
    because it's SWEEEEEDISH.

    But it doesn't do binkp. :P

    Well, that may change sometime in the future.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon May 13 10:16:24 2019
    Joacim Melin wrote to Spectre <=-

    I say do it properly retro: Windows NT 4.0 Server. :)

    A friend of mine has a DEC Alpha box running NT 3.51, why not go all
    the way?

    Do it!

    I had a Deskstation Raptor at one point in my life. It refused to run Linux or VMS but it would happily run NT 3.51 for Alpha. At one point it was used as a rendering workstation since it ran the Windows software faster through emulation than the Pentium II:s or whatever they had at the time.


    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Joacim Melin on Tue May 14 23:13:00 2019
    On 05-13-19 06:14, Joacim Melin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    But it doesn't do binkp. :P

    Well, that may change sometime in the future.

    Time will tell. :D


    ... You can have my sword when you pry it from my dead hands!
    === MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    --- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Joacim Melin on Thu May 23 13:14:28 2019
    Re: Re: FrontDood DOd DOS networking issues.
    By: Joacim Melin to Nightfox on Fri May 10 2019 07:49 am

    I would love to setup a multi-node RA again but the PD version still only supports two nodes and the PRO version never was released as free (and the current owner never replies to email so you can't really buy it either I suppose...).

    Yeah, it sucks that the new owner (Bruce Morse?) bought it and never really did much with RA except for releasing a version with a Y2K fix.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.07-Win32
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Crew on Mon Jun 24 19:23:02 2019
    I have had the same problem and could not find the correct way to mak
    Cä> e
    FD
    look for the IP so I just pasted the ip and port number into the area

    where
    the phone number is and it called out once a preset event was
    triggered.
    I know this is not the correct way to do it but it got me connecting
    to the
    21:3/100 HUB and I have not really looked at it since.

    Hopefully someone with a bit more expertise in FD will be able to
    comment and
    we can both figure this out :^)

    I'll check my Frontdoor setup tonight. I got it working with Netserial
    just fine but it requires some fair amount of voodoo in route.fd.


    Cä> That would be great!

    So making FD "dial" a hostname is done via fdroute.ctl. Mine looks like this:


    C:\fd\nodelist>more fdnode.ctl
    Phone 2:221/360 rbb.fidonet.fi:32 ;IBN Phone 2:221/1 rbb.bbs.fi:32 ;IBN Phone 21:3/100 ipv4.agency.bbs.nz:24558 ;IBN


    You then need to compile fdnode.ctl via fdnc.



    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Spectre@21:1/101 to Joacim Melin on Tue Jun 25 17:18:16 2019
    Yumping yimminy that looks compilcated.... much easier to substitue the IP
    for the phone number :) Actually in real terms it probably doesn't make a
    lot of difference.

    Either way only gets you one system thats dialable. Ideally some way to read the whole nodelist like that would be better. Don't know if that exist or
    not.

    Spec

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Joacim Melin@21:2/130 to Spectre on Wed Jun 26 17:58:25 2019
    It messed up the formatting a bit I think.

    It's actually quite easy:

    Phone <nodenumber as it exists in the nodelist> IP/hostname:port ;IBN



    --- NiKom v2.5.0
    * Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (21:2/130.0)
  • From Spectre@21:3/105 to Joacim Melin on Mon Jul 1 04:20:00 2019

    It messed up the formatting a bit I think.
    It's actually quite easy:

    Phone <nodenumber as it exists in the nodelist> IP/hostname:port
    ;IBN

    That seems relatively straight forward, but still pretty "manual" if you wanted
    the whole nodelist it'd be pretty intensive, although I s'pose you could write
    a script to convert the lot in one go. Otherwise manually editing the nodelist
    still seems just as easy. :)

    Spec

    Spectre


    ---
    * Origin: -= post from The Lower Planes =- tlp.zapto.org (21:3/105)
  • From Crew@21:1/103 to Joacim Melin on Sat Jul 6 22:23:19 2019

    So making FD "dial" a hostname is done via fdroute.ctl. Mine looks like
    this:

    C:\fd\nodelist>more fdnode.ctl
    Phone 2:221/360 rbb.fidonet.fi:32 ;IBN Phone 2:221/1 rbb.bbs.fi:32 ;IBN Phone 21:3/100 ipv4.agency.bbs.nz:24558 ;IBN


    You then need to compile fdnode.ctl via fdnc.


    Cheers for this example, hopefully be able to put this into effect shortly.

    Many thanks
    Lloyd

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: - Micro Link BBS - QLD, OZ (21:1/103)
  • From Spectre@21:3/105 to Joacim Melin on Mon Jul 1 04:20:00 2019
    It's actually quite easy:

    Phone <nodenumber as it exists in the nodelist> IP/hostname:port
    ;IBN

    That seems relatively straight forward, but still pretty "manual" if you wanted
    the whole nodelist it'd be pretty intensive, although I s'pose you could write
    a script to convert the lot in one go. Otherwise manually editing the nodelist
    still seems just as easy. :)

    Spec

    Spectre


    ---
    * Origin: -= post from The Lower Planes =- tlp.zapto.org (21:3/105)