DOS and Windows 3.11 Networking Setup

[Salvo B]

Hi everyone...

I've got a nice HP Vectra (486dx / 16 MB ram) that I use for retrogaming....

I would like to setup basic networking support under MS-DOS for sharing files to/from the other computers of my hybrid network (PC/Mac with Linux/Windows/MacOS9) and browsing the web / bbs / shell on remote servers, but i would like also to extend the networking support to a Windows 3.11 installation on the same partition to have some basic multitasking for certain things.

Well, I think that is nothing so impossible, but I'm just a bit confused at this time.
I'm totally new to the network setup under DOS, and I've found some solutions but everything sounds a little confused to me.
Wich TCP/IP Stack should I use under DOS to be able to share the configuration with most applications? I've read of several implementation like mTCP, or the MS Network Client, but wich one should I use? Is The MS Network Client a really TCP/IP stack or it just provides a way to connect computers in a generic protocol indipendent way? What should I install to use many applications that shares the same stack? And what happens when i start WIN ? Does the stack stay in memory causing interrupt conflicts?

I got a NE2000 compatible NIC that was already working on the old Windows95 installation on the same machine, now for a damage on the drive, I've choosen to setup a fresh install on a new disk starting from MS-DOS 6.22 and not using W95 anymore but rolling back to 3.11 for workgroups instead.

After the MS-DOS setup the first thing i've tried is to download and setup MS Network Client 3.0, it seems to works properly, after rebooting it starts some Network services but it hangs on the last lines of the autoexec.bat commands giving a sort of unavaible memory error (maybe it's for the 620k limitation? How to solve this? QEMM?)
I've tried to ping my router but the output from the ping command is quite different from the one that i know under modern windows or linux, it doesn't keep pinging, it just gives one or N tries and gives back the stats but even if I'm not sure it seems to works.

The problem is when I go forward setting up Windows 3.11, after the installation it asks me to install the Network support, after doing that at the reboot the MSDOS networking commands doesn't works anymore...

For now i've just done this basic operations without being able to do further testing for lack of time, but this weekend would be fine to get everything working...

My questions are simple, am I doing everything rightly? Will I be able to use the MS Network Client under DOS for giving networking supports to other applications than the simple net command? For instance Arachne will work with this setup? Or I should restart everything from scratch and using the setup wizard incuded in Arachne?
And after that, could I use the same setup of Arachne / MS Net with other applications? Like FTP / Telnet / EveryProtocolILike clients? And what about Windows? Could the setup from DOS cause conflicts with Windows?

I hope that I've been clear, because I'm so confused at the moment... I would just find a nice reading that explains how to setup all of this... I've found several articles online but they covers single setup (i.e. DOS or Windows or Arachne), I would like to know how merge everything (if needed) to work togheter with a single setup.

Thanks in advance!

 

[mbbrutman]

mTCP specific notes:

If you use mTCP as is, what you get are 10 or 11 programs that do things like FTP, Telnet, Ping, DHCP, etc. All of the programs include the parts of TCP/IP that they need to function. There is no 'stack' that sticks around that the programs share; the TCP/IP function is only present while the program is running.

(If you were interested in writing code, then you would be able to use the TCP/IP code that comes with the programs. But it still is designed to be embedded in your program.)

Contrast that to Trumpet's NTCPDRV, which is a TSR that adds a TCP/IP stack to DOS. Programs designed to use that don't include their own TCP/IP code - they just use the loaded TSR. The TSR can respond to Ping requests in the background, even if a non-TCP/IP program is running.


I generally avoid the MS networking unless I want drive and printer sharing. For everything else, I prefer the Unix style TCP/IP applications - FTP, Telnet, Ping, Netcat, etc. mTCP provides those.

 

[Salvo B]

mTCP specific notes:

If you use mTCP as is, what you get are 10 or 11 programs that do things like FTP, Telnet, Ping, DHCP, etc. All of the programs include the parts of TCP/IP that they need to function. There is no 'stack' that sticks around that the programs share; the TCP/IP function is only present while the program is running.

OK, thanks, there's an IRC client too??

Contrast that to Trumpet's NTCPDRV, which is a TSR that adds a TCP/IP stack to DOS. Programs designed to use that don't include their own TCP/IP code - they just use the loaded TSR. The TSR can respond to Ping requests in the background, even if a non-TCP/IP program is running.

This looks like nearest my needs, but what software supports those stack in the TSR? Arachne? What FTP/Telnet/IRC clients could I use?

I generally avoid the MS networking unless I want drive and printer sharing. For everything else, I prefer the Unix style TCP/IP applications - FTP, Telnet, Ping, Netcat, etc. mTCP provides those.

I generally avoid everything from Microsoft :D
mTCP looks very interesting, but what about Arachne and IRC ?

And last but not least, what about Windows 3.11 ? Looks that when installing, it mess up the DOS network configuration. If I install and configure mTCP or Trumpet's NTCPDRV will they clash with WIN311?

I found this topic
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?19119-DOS-networking-newbie-needs-help

Seems to explain pretty much everything especially in the links included, but what about WIN 3.11 cohabitation?

 

[Stone]

I generally avoid everything from Microsoft :D

...And last but not least, what about Windows 3.11 ? Looks that when installing, it mess up the DOS network configuration. If I install and configure mTCP or Trumpet's NTCPDRV will they clash with WIN311?
.....
Seems to explain pretty much everything especially in the links included, but what about WIN 3.11 cohabitation?

No comment.

Your own words say enough.

 

[mbbrutman]

mTCP has a DHCP client, a Telnet client, an FTP client, an FTP server, an IRC client, Ping, SNTP, an HTTP server, an HTTP file fetcher, and a packet sniffer. And overview can be found here: http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/ . Docs can be found here: http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP_2015-07-05.pdf

I don't use NTCPDRV because it was slow, limited, and my machine crashed often. I don't know if it was NTCPDRV or the programs that were using it that caused the crashes.

Arachne uses the WATTCP library, which is very similar in design to mTCP. So that is not a TSR - you only have TCP/IP running while Arachne is running.

For Windows, plan on swapping config.sys files, autoexec.bat files, or whatever it uses. I never ran Win 3.x at home.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I ran Win 3.x quite a bit until the need for networking arose. Rather than wresting with installing neworking with that platform, I migrated to WFWG 3.11. Much easier to deal with.

 

[Salvo B]

No comment.

Your own words say enough.

So are you saying that i should avoid MS Client at all?

Anyway, i've forgot to mention that my tries was with Windows For Workgroups 3.11, Tomorrow I'll try mTCP that looks a very complete solution for my needs, I hope that W3.11 will works too