This is the first version of NetMount that has passed my new tests:
- copying large amounts of data to and from a network drive
- running and using programs from the network drive (e.g. DN2 - DOS Navigator, the game BOOM - a modified port of the released DOOM source)
The release includes the complete NetMount source code (server and DOS client) and 2 builds of the DOS client.
The DOS client is built for 8086 and 80286 CPUs.
I removed the previous releases because they contained serious bugs. Please do not use older versions.
Note:
File and directory names on the server must be lowercase or use a case insensitive file system. Shortening file names to DOS 8.3 format is silly for now. Names are being truncated. It is best to use the "msdos" filesystem on a Linux server. In that case, the DOS (FAT) attributes are also stored.
The goal of the first phase was to create a version that is stable and meets my requirements. I need a network drive for a lab instrument that only has an RS232 serial port and the program in it uses only 8.3 file names.
The next phase will be to tweak the support for different networks (e.g. sending ARP queries on Ethernet, now only responses to ARP queries are sent), better handling of file names, support for multiple operating systems in the server, optimization, ...
Client uses DOS Packet Driver class 1 ethernet to access the network card. For communication over RS232 serial interface I use Packet Driver "ethersl.com" from Crynwr package. It implements SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) on the serial side.
Example of communication configuration via RS232 serial port:
Linux server setup:
slattach -v -L -p slip -s 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0
ifconfig sl0 192.168.200.1 pointopoint 192.168.200.10 mtu 1500 up
netmount-server C=/shared_dir
DOS client setup:
A:\DRIVERS\ETHERSL 0x60 3 0x2F8 115200
A:\NETMOUNT install /IP:192.168.200.10
A:\NETMOUNT mount 192.168.200.1/C C