PC

PC

[Christopher.Vance]

I'm booting the floppy-based PC version on a 486.  The machine has a hard 
disk, but I'm not using it for file storage, except for b.com and 9dos.  
My root file system is a floppy, the released one with some changes.  The 
machine is usually used with a Novell file server as a MS-DOS machine, 
using a 3C509 ethernet card.  I have u9fs compiled and running on a Sun, 
but have no idea if it works.

By comparing the CD-ROM and floppy versions of /lib/namespace 
/lib/ndb/local and /rc/bin/termrc, I've found some things which I thought 
needed change.

I've added #a to /lib/namespace with the aim of getting arp working.

I've added the machine's name, IP address and ether address to 
/lib/ndb/local,
as well as entries for relevant subnetting.  It does detect the ether 
card, and correctly deduces its IP address and subnet mask.

I've added ipconfig and 'echo add tcp udp il > /net/cs' to /rc/bin/termrc.

But when I try to telnet to a machine on the same subnet, telnet times 
out, and a packet snooper on the same subnet sees no ether traffic to or 
from the PC, other than a periodic ping from a network monitor elsewhere.

And when I ping from elsewhere, there is no reply.  (The machine mentioned 
above already knows the ethernet address, and gets no ICMP echo reply.  
Other machines which don't have ARP records for the IP/ether mapping get 
no ARP reply.)

/net/arp/stats claims to have only misses.  Arpd debugging doesn't say 
anything other than that it sees misses.  I can't compile something more 
verbose without a working network and file server...

/net/ether/*/stats claims to have received some packets, but sent none.

I'm probably missing something dumb, and will kick myself if appropriate.

What I really want is to boot the PC so it thinks it's a terminal with a 
tcp/ether connection to the u9fs server, and with little or no local disk. 
 Does somebody have a PC disk image available (preferably diffs from the 
version on the CD-ROM) which actually works in such a configuration?  I'm 
particularly interested in what you have as the contents of the files I've 
mentioned, together with any others which are relevant but which I didn't 
mention because I don't yet know they're relevant...

My fallback plan is to read more of the sources on the CD-ROM to see what 
I can discover about the dependencies required to get ethernet, IP, TCP, 
ARP, all working.  Or I might have to wait for the new release.

For the AT&T people: With the new release becoming available commercially, 
do Universities come under the same conditions as the average individual?  
What about price for current licencees?

-- Christopher