Arachne and LAN (Local Area Network)

Introduction to network adapters

Arachne uses something called a packet driver interface to get TCP/IP connectivity. In DOS, there are various standards to communicate with a network adapter (e.g., an Ethernet card). For most common network adapters (e.g., 3COM) there are available drivers providing the "packet driver interface" directly; these drivers are usually very small programs and they require much less memory than utilities like Novell Netware client, etc. - typicaly less than 10 KB. The largest packet driver collection is available at www.crynwr.com - the homepage of Crynwr Software, the company which designed the packet driver concept for DOS.

If your card is shipped with an ODI driver (required by a DOS client for Novell Netware) you can use a freeware utility called ODIPKT.COM. Arachne should be able to auto-install an ODIPKT layer, but you must be careful with your NET.CFG (see sample NET.CFG for the 3c509 ODI driver). and STARTNET.BAT files and about ODIPKT command line arguments (usually something like "ODIPKT 0 0x60"). Generally speaking, if you have to use an ODI driver, you should first ask some Novell Netware wizard to help you.

If you are using an NDIS interface, try to find some utility to convert the NDIS interface to a packet driver interface. For example, in Windows 9x DOS, if you are able to assign a second IP address to your PC, try the NDIS3PKT driver available at www.danlan.com or DIS_PKT9 available on SIMTEL.

NCSA Telnet compatibility (packet driver+BOOTP)

Arachne will work on every computer in a LAN where NCSA (or Clarkson University - CUTE) Telnet works. These DOS telnets were often - not always - configured to get their IP addresses to use the BOOTP protocol.

This doesn't mean, that you need Telnet to run Arachne, as one user assumed! Imagine I am telling you that Arachne will work on every computer where game Simcity 2000 works... (which is true, by the way) Set up Arachne to use resident packet driver and configure via BOOTP. If you don't want to use the graphical setup, the syntax for commands in ARACHNE.CFG is

Connection READY
IP_Address BOOTP
TCP_Config LANTCP.CFG

Note: There is an Arachne Package (TELNET.APM) containing a copy of Clarkson University's TELNET and FTP and a sample CONFIG.TEL configuration file for them. If you are already using these programs on your LAN, or if you don't want to use a Telnet client at all, you don't need the TELNET.APM package.

DOSLYNX/WatTcp compatibility

If you are already running DOSLYNX (or other WatTcp applications) and have a working DOSLYNX.CFG, try to update your ARACHNE.CFG with something like this:

Connection READY
IP_Address WATTCP
TCP_Config C:\DOSLYNX\DOSLYNX.CFG (or e.g., C:\WATTCP\WATTCP.CFG)

Server installation

If you want to install Arachne on a server (e.g., drive S:), caching is strongly recommended (e.g., NWCACHE S+). You will need a directory dedicated to each running copy of Arachne. If workstations have local disk space available (e.g., drive C:) and each user has his/her own home directory (e.g., H:), try to set up Arachne local settings like this:

Cache path C:\CACHE\
Mail path H:
Download path A:\
Cache index C:\CACHE\cache.idx
History file H:history.lst
In this case, don't forget to create a C:\CACHE directory! You can put commands such as MKDIR C:\CACHE and the command for loading the packet driver into AUTOEXEC.BAT or into some login script. It's not a good idea to put it into ARACHNE.BAT since it is a recursive batch file (it calls itself when returning from external programs).

If the workstations use different SVGA cards, always run Arachne from the local directory (e.g., C:\ARACHNE) because Arachne always saves video card information (ARACHNE.PCK) in the current directory. But make sure that each ARACHNE.PCK uses the same history file (e.g., C:\ARACHNE\history.lst). On workstations without a hard disk, configure drive C: as a ram disk and use it as the Arachne working directory (executable files are stored on the server - just update the PATH variable in AUTOEXEC.BAT...)

Note: Arachne can understand *.CNM files from Pegasus Mail for DOS (typical on Novell networks) in the mail directory, but the replies must go through an SMTP server.

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