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Diskless DOS via PXE (netboot) - need help (Users)

posted by mcluskyism E-mail, italy, 07.07.2021, 11:03

Hello everyone, sorry for the silence but now I'm on vacation and in the meantime I have finished my tests.
Preamble: Inspired by this post, and especially by https://legroom.net/howto/msdos#network (IMHO one of the best tutorials ever), I started with this approach: basically, on server side a native Windows Samba 1.0, on my floppy the Microsoft Network Client with real mode NDIS driver, above NDIS I would have liked to use a shim Packet Driver to have both SMB and NFS in a single box.
Sounds gorgeous, right? :-D

So, first attempt was with XFS by Robert Juhasz ... epic fail, regardless of my every attempt to glue it all together, on server I can see haneWIN meekly accommodate the exported folder, but when I try to use that drive letter in DOS, that drive letter is always non-existent, I can't explain myself why.
In the end, I get only the SMB drive letter mounted as expected, but no NFS. :confused:

Then, second attempt, this time with Tsoft's NFS Client, as Mr. Mike Durkin was kind enough to send me a time limited evaluation license.
I must admit, this is the only fully working solution, I get a drive letter for NFS, I get a drive letter for SMB too, unfortunately this approach left me with too little conventional DOS memory to spare, well below 300 kB, so it's impossible to launch Partition-Saving (http://www.partition-saving.com/).
But if you want both SMB and NFS, this is the way to go. :ok:

Third, and last, the monster of all abandonware, PC/TCP 4.1 suite and InterDrive.
Although the informations to write a decent PCTCP.INI are almost impossible to find (https://web.archive.org/web/19980119115739/http://www.ftp.com/techsup/quick-help/docs/param.html), IMHO this is the best DOS NFS client so far: it uses a faster TCP instead of UDP for NFS connections, if you instruct your EMM driver with a true FRAME= and if you use real EMS memory and loadhigh= (via PCTCP.INI) both the kernel and the client, you can get a lot of DOS conventional memory to launch any other program.
As an unpleasant side note, it totally kills SMB (ouch!) ... without PC/TCP the command NET USE <yourlastdrive>: \\<nameyourserver>\<yoursharedfolder> works as expected, with PC/TCP the same command finds nothing and mounts nothing, I tried all the possible combination I think, with or without DHCP, with or without DNS, with or without HOSTS and LMHOSTS ... nothing! :no:

So, in the end, I use a real Packet Driver for my eth card, with just PC/TCP and I totally dropped the Microsoft Network Client and the NDIS part.

Stay safe, have your fun, and thanks to dggionco for the link.

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