experiences networking *nix and dos

[kai at uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu]

> /* Written by mackenzi at thor.acc.stolaf.edu */
> /* ---------- "experiences networking *nix and dos" ---------- */
> 
> My organization is planning to get some *nix 386's and we would like
> to have them share files, printers and modems with dos pc's.  Does anyone
> out there have experience with Xenix-net?  Are there any other products out
> there that will do this, under Xenix or 386/ix?

I installed 3COM 3C501 ethernet cards and Sun Microsystems PC/NFS software in
our PC's to provide the PC users with transparent access to the UNIX printer
queues (primarily the PostScript laser printer, but also the matrix and line
printers).  They also have transparent *fast* access to virtual disks, which
are actually files on a UNIX disk.  Much larger, and only the UNIX systems need
to be backed up, since no critical data is stored on a PC's hard disk.

The problem with sharing text files between UNIX and MS/DOS is that UNIX
separates lines with only line-feed characters, while MS/DOS uses a
carriage-return/line-feed combination.  This makes simultanious access by both
systems a little more complicated.  PC/NFS provides a pair of programs that
convert text file formats (UNIX2DOS and DOS2UNIX).

As for modem sharing, the best PC/NFS provides is a "telnet" program, that you
can use to login to one of our UNIX hosts.  On our network, all of the dialout
modems are connected to one host, and we use C-Kermit to communicate with
them.

There is an optional RPC programming toolkit available for writing network
applications, but we don't have that.  With it, you would be able to write
programs to run on the PC that execute subroutines and access data on both the
PC and UNIX hosts.

Patrick Wolfe  (pat at kai.com,  {uunet,uiucuxc}!kailand!pat)
System Manager, Kuck & Associates, Inc.