MintNet FAQ v 1.0
MintNet FAQ v 1.0
November 24 1994
Written by Christer Gustavsson
Why this FAQ?
MintNet is a package that offers networking capabilities to the Atari ST range of computers. The package makes it possible to connect your computer over a SLIP, PPP or PLIP line to other computers. This is necessary to use it as a World Wide Web client, use local ftp, etc. Setting up MintNet has showed not to be a trivial quest and there are a lot of fallacies and pitfalls. This faq is meant to help the persons that want to use MintNet but for some reason have problems getting started. This faq has been written to describe how to set up MintNet 0.5 pl 5. Because of this there are some details that won't work with earlier versions of MintNet described. The slattach command hasn't, for instance, in earlier versions of MintNet the option -l.
What is needed and where to get it.
First of all Mint version 1.08 h8 or higher is needed.
Previous versions lack of a few calls that are necessary for networking. Mint 1.12 is available to the public in a binary version and I recommend to use this version or later versions. Secondly you will need the MintNet package. The latest version today is 0.5 pl6. This FAQ is written with MintNet 0.5 pl5 in mind and some of this info isn't correct for versions before 0.5 pl5. You will also need a shell and if you choose sh this will work with the files distributed with MintNet. If all you want to do is to connect to another network this is all you need. If you want to, for instance, run your machine as a ftp server you will need a few daemon programs. For now I will only describe how to get clients to run on your machine. I also recommend that you get the following client programs in order to have something to test with. Udpprobe and ping are programs to test if other host respond to the packets you send. With telnet you can log on other machines. With ftp and ncftp you can fetch files off ftp sites. Lynx is a WWW text browser. The latest version of MiNT can be found at atari.archive.umich.edu in the Mint folder, sh in the Mint/Shells folder, the MintNet package, telnet, udpprobe, ping and ncftp in the Mint/Network/MintNet folder and lynx in the Mint/Network/Www folder.
Where to put the programs and files.
MiNT:
First put mint.prg in your auto folder of your boot disk. You also need a file mint.cnf that should be in the root folder, mint folder or multitos folder of the boot disk.
MintNet:
Put sockdev.xdd in the same folder as mint.cnf. You also need protocol drivers. If you intend to use SLIP/PPP then put slip.xif in the same folder as sockdev.xdd. Make a folder called mintnet on your boot disk. In this you shold have the following files:
etc\:
netstat, ifconfig, iflink, route, slattach, host.conf (0.5 pl6 and higher), hostname, hosts, networks, protocols, rc.net, resolv.conf and services.
usr\ucb\:
Here you can put your client software ie, ping, udpprobe, telnet, lynx, ncftp etc.
Sh:
Make a folder called bin in your mintnet folder. Put sh there.
How to set things up.
You should have the following in your mint.cnf:
#Set the path so that your programs can be found when you run
a shell
setenv PATH u:\bin,u:\etc,u:\usr\ucb
#Make symbolic links to your unified file system
sln c:\mintnet\bin u:\bin
sln c:\mintnet\etc u:\etc
sln c:\mintnet\usr u:\usr
cd u:
#Setup the loopback interface
exec \bin\sh \etc\rc.net#Note that since the working directory is changed to u: no programs after mint.prg in the auto folder is run. Mint should therefore be the last program in your auto folder.
You also need to have some info about the site you want to connect to. You should know which address your own machine will have and which address the machine that you are going to connect to has. It is also a good idea to have the address to a name server. If the name server is on the other side of the connection the addresses must be ip numbers.
To make setting up a little easier a list of the setup files and what's supposed to be in them follows.
/etc/host.conf (MintNet 0.5 pl6 and later):
Contains info on how the namesearching should be done.
/etc/hostname:
This file contains the name of your machine. If your machine has the address dumdum.idioti.iq /etc/host should contain the
line:
dumdum.idioti.iq
/etc/hosts:
This file contains a list of hosts with matching ip numbers and shortcuts. If you want to add the machine with the address dumdum.idioti.iq and ip number 123.45.67.89 and want this host to have the shortcut dd you simply write:
dumdum.idioti.iq 123.45.67.89 ddEach line has the form <host> <ip number> <shortcut>. There should be no more than one entry on the same line.
/etc/networks:
This contains a list of the networks that can be reached.
/etc/protocols:
This file contains a list of protocols that the machine can handle. It is usually not necessary to edit this file.
/etc/rc.net:
This file starts the available network daemons and the loopback interface. The loopback interface should be started with:
/etc/ifconfig lo0 addr 127.0.0.1 up
/etc/route add 127.0.0.0 lo0These lines are the only ones that are needed if you only intend to use MintNet for ie www and ftp.
/etc/resolv.conf:
This file contains entries regarding the domain and nameserver. If your domain is idioti.iq you should have the line:
domain idioti.iqin this file, and if your nameserver has the ip number 123.45.67.89 you should have the line:
nameserver 123.45.67.89too.
/etc/services:
Contains a list of services that is offered by the machine.
This file should usually not be changed.
How to make the connection.
To make a connection to a remote host you can use an ordinary communication program. When connected you have to set the line to slip mode. Your local operator can tell you how to do this. When you have made the physical connection you must attach a slip/ppp channel to it. This can be done with the slattach command. If you want to attach the modem1 port, your remote host is called bjorne.idioti.iq and your local machine is called dumdum.idioti.iq
you can write:
/etc/slattach -l dumdum.idioti.iq -r bjorne.idioti.iq -t
/dev/modem1to achieve the connection. Note that you have to use ip numbers if the nameserver you intend to use is on the other side of the connection! The -l flag stands for local host, -r flag remote host and -t tty. After this you can test the connection with ping or udpprobe. The command:
ping bjorne.idioti.iqtests if your remote host responds to the packets you send.
The command:
udpprobe bjorne.idioti.iq echo "Yeah!" should echo Yeah! on your terminal. If this works other stuff, like www browsers and ftp clients should work too.
Where to report errors in this FAQ.
If you find something that isn't that clear or not correct in this document please report directly to me and I will correct it.
My email address is: d2cg@dtek.chalmers.se.
