Serial Networking: Connecting Two RISC OS Computers
CONTENTS
* Introduction Page
* Contact Details
* Useful Website Links
* Website Update Log

General:

* Serial Cable Networking: Pros and Cons
* Hardware & Software Requirements
* Serial Cable Information
* Network Security Issues

RISC OS TCP/IP Configuration:

* Configuring !Internet v4
* Configuring !Internet v5

Connection Instructions:

* Connecting to another RISC OS Computer
* Connecting to a Linux Computer
* Connecting to a Windows 9x Computer
* Connecting to a Windows 2000/XP Computer

Alternative Uses of The Link:

* Using a Linux PC As An Internet Router
* VNC
* Using your RISC OS Computer as a Time Server

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This guide will take you through the setup of a serial link between two RISC OS computers. The programs used to share hard drives will be Samba Server and Omniclient. For those who are unfamiliar with this software, Samba Server is used to provide access to any disk drives in the computer it is running on. Omniclient is used by the other computer on the network to access these shared drives. (If you want to see long filenames on the shared drive, you will need to use LanMan98, from Warm Silence Software: http://www.wss.co.uk/, instead of Omniclient.) It should be possible to have Samba Server and Omniclient running on both computers, allowing viewing of shared drives on both machines. However, I've been unable to get Samba running on my RISC OS 3.11 A3010, so this guide will use the A3010 as a client and my RiscPC as the server. NB. You will need 8Mb+ to run both Samba Server and Omniclient on a computer. Samba will just fit into a 4MB machine, with no other programs running and modules cut to the bone.

1) I'm going to assume that one of your RISC OS machine's has already been setup with the following parameters, as per the instructions on this website:

Host name: riscpc
IP address: 192.168.1.1

Now repeat that process for the other computer, but with the following alterations:

Host name: a3010
IP Adress: 192.168.1.3

2) In the Hosts file of the computer with the riscpc host name add the following line:

192.168.1.3 a3010.my.home a3010

In the Hosts file of the computer with the a3010 host name add the following line:

192.168.1.1 riscpc.my.home riscpc

3) Next we need to setup the PPP connection. On the riscpc computer create an obey file, in your favourite text editor, with the following line:

pppconnect 115200 idle-disconnect 0 riscpc:a3010

On the a3010 computer, create an obey file with the following line:

pppconnect 115200 idle-disconnect 0 a3010:riscpc

NB. If you have an older machine, your serial port will not be able to cope with the 115200 bps connection. For an ARM 2 machine the realistic maximum is 19200, on an ARM 3 machine you may get upto 38400. If this is the case, substitute the correct value into both pppconnect obey files.

4) Now run both Obey files, and you should have a working network connection. To check this press F12 to go to the command line on the riscpc computer, and type the following command:

ping -c 5 a3010

You should see five lines appear, detailing a3010's IP address and the time taken to ping that machine. If you don't see this, then recheck the Internet configuration of both computers.

5) Assuming we now have a working network connection, we can now use Samba Server and Omniclient to share the hard drives of both computers.

Samba Server: Follow the HTML guide included with the program to configure Samba. You may want to change which directory you want to share, and the name of that share. I've set Samba to share the whole of my RiscPC's hard drive, and I've called the share HD4 for the purposes of this guide. Once you have finished the configuration, run Samba.

OmniClient: First of all we need to configure Omnicilent to use the TCP/IP protocol.

acornlink125 (i) Run the OmniSetup application, and configure the resulting window as follows:

Filing systems: Tick 'Lan Manager (Windows)' and 'TCP/IP' tick boxes.
Other Options: These options do not really matter in this case. I'll leave the configuration to you.

Acornlink225

(ii) Run OmniClient, and on the resulting iconbar icon click the middle mouse button. Follow the following menu tree: Mounts -> Protocols -> LAN Manager

Click on the LAN Manager option, and you should see a window labelled Mount 'LAN Manager' server. Fill it in as follows:

Name: riscpc1 (This could be anything you want)
Server name: riscpc
Directory path: HD4
 Tick the Open tick box.

Acornlink325 (iii) Click on the Connect button, and you should be presented with a window showing the contents of the other computer's hard drive.
Note that in the screenshot the filenames are mangled. This is due to the inability of Omniclient to process them. If long filenames are a priority, then you will need to get LanMan98 from Warm Silence Software.

You should now have an operational network between your two RISC OS computers.


RISC OS Peer To Peer Networking: FTP

This ammendment is for those RISC OS user's who don't have access to Omniclient/LanMan98, or for those user's with 4MB or less of system memory. Instead, we will use FTP servers and clients to perform the file sharing. NB. This method does not allow for printer sharing, but does allow for proper long filename display.

Requirements:

1) An FTP Server. I will use Chris Poole's DeltaNet suite, which is simple to configure and memory efficient compared to Navaho.

http://www.mirror.ac.uk/collections/hensa-micros/local/riscos/internet/deltanet.arc

2) An FTP Client. I recommend Colin Granville's excellent !FTPc:

http://www.ftpc.iconbar.com/


Instructions:

I will assume that the Internet application has been setup correctly on both the riscpc and a3010 computers. I will also assume that the pppconnect Obey files have also been created.

1) DeltaNet Configuration:

a) Once you have installed DeltaNet into the required directory on both the computer's, hold down Shift and double click on its icon. In the resulting directory there should be a file called !Configure. Open this file and carry out the following alterations:

(i) Comment out the following line by placing a | at the start: Error Please edit the !Configure file before running DeltaNet

(ii) Change the Set DeltaNet$DefaultUser line, by replacing username with the host name of that computer, ie. riscpc or a3010.

(iii) Change the Set DeltaNet$HostName line, by replacing full.host.name with the full host name of that computer, ie. riscpc.my.home or a3010.my.home.

b) Now run the DeltaSuite application. Middle click on the resulting icon bar entry and click on the Edit user list entry.

Acornlink425 A window labelled User Setup should appear. Complete it as follows to create a user profile for the riscpc computer:

User ID: riscpc
Tick the Password: tick box, and enter riscpc as the password.
Name: riscpc
FTP dir: The name of the a3010 computer's root directory.

Now click on the New user and repeat the above process to createa profile for the a3010 computer, replacing instances of riscpc with a3010 and entering the name of the riscpc computer's root directory as the FTP dir.

That completes the DeltaNet configuration.

2) Initiating the link:

a) Run the pppconnect Obey files on both computers, to initiate the serial link. Make sure DeltaNet is correctly configured and running on both computers.

Acornlink525 b) Now run FTPc on both computers and click on the resulting icon bar entry. Fill out the resulting window as follows:

Host: Enter the host name of the other computer, eg. On the riscpc computer enter a3010, and vice versa.
User: Enter the host name belonging to that computer.
Password: Enter the host name belonging to that computer as the password.

Now click on the Connect button, and you should be presented with the contents of the other computer's hard drive.

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Designed by Matthew C Lee using RISC OS hardware.