Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB - licensing

[Frantisek Rysanek]

On 15 May 2021 at 13:56, Eric Auer wrote:
> 
> Hi Bryan & Frank,
> 
> > As you had suggested, on the FreeDOS PC, in C:\MSNET\ I entered "start".
> > Then I could ping from that PC to my printer, Ubuntu PC and Ubuntu laptop.
> 
> Cool! Thanks for creating the network zip :-) What is
> in that start bat file and which packages with which
> licenses are required to make this become a reality?
>
I haven't bothered to investigate in detail. Licensing is likely a 
can of worms in that ZIP of mine.
Hence my offer to withdraw that zip if anyone happens to object.

The MS Network client (containing a flock of binaries) has some 
license of its own, I'm almost sure I am not allowed to re-distribute 
this.
The config files for the MS Network client borrow heavily from the 
NetBootDisk.com project.
Then there's the mTCP package.
And the dis_pkt.com (v11).
And probably some binaries coming from FreeDOS.

The top-level README contains a list of URLs to where I got all the 
bits and pieces (at least I'm trying to give credit where credit is 
due).

I'm not all that excited about the zip I have created.
It's very bare bones, and it contains HW support for just one 
specific NIC (a family of Intel PRO 1000 within some timespan of 
their evolution). It is meant to be simple and to show the very 
basics. I meant this as a starting point.

Frank


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Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Frantisek Rysanek]

On 15 May 2021 at 10:40, Ralf Quint wrote:
>
> On 5/15/2021 4:56 AM, Eric Auer wrote:
> >
> >> I had worried that the DOS machine on my network, would
> >> give easy access from the Internet for gremlins!
> > Because DOS normally does not run any servers, there is
> > not much which the gremlins could access. So it depends
> > on which servers you manually start on DOS: I guess the
> > plans to talk to your printer will not require anything
> > server-style to run on DOS, so you should be safe :-)
> 
> If a DOS machine on a local network gets "accessed by gremlins from the 
> Internet", you are already in rather deep sh!t. That DOS machine would 
> be the last of your worries at that point...
> 
> Ralf
> 
I second that. In more detail:

As for DOS in the hypothetical role of an "entry point" (security 
hole): DOS is such an ancient and nowadays exotic platform, and 
relatively uncomfortable to program networking pranks for, that 
hardly anyone would waste the programming effort required to write 
modern malware for it. In its heyday, there were certainly viruses 
for DOS, but I don't recall any notable DOS virus that would spread 
specifically in a network environment (which one, in DOS at that time 
Novell was much more popular than MS Networking etc.) I can imagine 
"social engineering malware" spreading by just copying its funny 
executable binary to any network volumes it can find, and thus infect 
more modern platoforms... but again, making this kind of sotware 
compatible with DOS would nowadays mean pretty much unnecessary 
baggage :-)

And, yes, as the DOS machine is client only, it can hardly be 
attacked via the network (by feeding a crafted buffer overflow attack 
to some network service interface, or SQL injection, or some such).
It's just much too dumb to be eligible as a victim of a sophisticated 
network-borne attack.

As for the MS Network Client for DOS, it is true that it requires 
ancient authentication methods with weak ciphers and whatnot, which 
might make it easier for an attacker to glean passwords from the 
traffic or some such (and then maybe log in to the server and try 
pulling off further mischief). But, for that, the attacker would have 
to be present in your local network already = you'd have a more 
serious problem in the first place :-)

I do believe that your DOS machine on the LAN is really a non-target 
nowadays.

I'll try to provide you with a rudimentary Samba config in a private 
e-mail.

Frank



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Re: [Freedos-user] Forwarding and commenting a FreeDOS 1.3rc3 critical review

[Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-user]

OH! I guess I should've read the entire email, eh? lol


Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Saturday, May 15, 2021 3:22 PM, Robert Riebisch  
wrote:

> Hi Mercury,
>
> > > ...
> > > MSD?
> > > ...
> >
> > Microsoft System Diagnostics
> > A pretty handy little system evaluation tool Microsoft made back in the day.
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Diagnostics
>
> Thanks, but I know MSD, as you can see in my posting you replied to now.
>
> ###
>
> 2.  Here's a screenshot of the main window:
> https://winuxinfocenter.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/msd1.png
>
>
> ###
>
> I wrote "MSD?" (with a question mark), because I wasn't sure, if Eric
> referred to MSD or SPEEDSYS with his "it" in "Which features does it
> have which COMPINFO is lacking?".
>
> Cheers,
> Robert
>
> ---
>
>   +++ BTTR Software +++
>  Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
>
>
> DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/
>
> Freedos-user mailing list
> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user




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Re: [Freedos-user] Forwarding and commenting a FreeDOS 1.3rc3 critical review

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Mercury,

>> ...
>> MSD?
>> ...
> 
> Microsoft System Diagnostics
> 
> A pretty handy little system evaluation tool Microsoft made back in the day.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Diagnostics

Thanks, but I know MSD, as you can see in my posting you replied to now.

###
2) Here's a screenshot of the main window:
https://winuxinfocenter.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/msd1.png
###

I wrote "MSD?" (with a question mark), because I wasn't sure, if Eric
referred to MSD or SPEEDSYS with his "it" in "Which features does it
have which COMPINFO is lacking?".

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] Forwarding and commenting a FreeDOS 1.3rc3 critical review

[Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-user]

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Saturday, May 15, 2021 2:04 PM, Robert Riebisch  
wrote:

> ...
> MSD?
> ...

Microsoft System Diagnostics

A pretty handy little system evaluation tool Microsoft made back in the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Diagnostics


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Re: [Freedos-user] Forwarding and commenting a FreeDOS 1.3rc3 critical review

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Eric,

>> Once I received source code for
>> 
>> under "do whatever you want this it, but don't bug me".
>> 
>> I think, it's a 1.75 WIP version, so I'm not sure, it works or even
>> builds. (Requires TASM to build.)
>> 386+ required.
> 
> How well does it work? I think TASM is what that NoMySo (not my

I ran it in 2006 last time. See
 for an example.
(Change the encoding in your browser from Unicode to Western to avoid
"artifacts".)

As you can see, SPEEDSYS' output is more about hardware. It doesn't
report, e.g., country settings, environment variables, ...

> source) script can use as input to translate to free assemblers?

Yes, but I didn't try. Perl is not my thing.

>>> I remember that MS DOS came with MSD (and MEMMAKER, a wizard to
>> 
>> MSD is really nice for early hardware and easy to use.
> 
> Which features does it have which COMPINFO is lacking?

MSD?

1) It doesn't barf on Windows XP. COMPINFO always gives me RTE 205.
2) Here's a screenshot of the main window:
https://winuxinfocenter.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/msd1.png

>>> As you can guess, FreeDOS is missing cool apps here. How about
>>>
>>> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/system/compinfo/
>>>
>>> Would COMPINFO be sufficient?
>> 
>> Pros:
>> - FOSS (GNU GPL & GNU LGPL)
>> - it's already there
>> 
>> Cons:
>> - no docs
>> - C and Pascal versions avaiable
>> - "unfree" toolchain (Turbo Pascal)
> 
> I would not worry too much about the toolchain. How much
> work would it be to write documentation?

I dunno. I also couldn't get it to work in MS Virtual PC. Same RTE 205.

>> Also "unfree" toolchain (TP+ASM):
>> INFOPLUS by Andrew Rossmann, last updated in 1993.
>> License is public domain.
>> https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysinfo/ifp1p158.zip
>> (binary)
>> https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysinfo/ifp1s158.zip
>> (sources)
> 
> Nice license! How does it compare to MSD etc. feature-wise?

It's very complete for it's time and is very similar to MSD.

But because of it's age, it doesn't show anything about PnP, PCI, and
other newer stuff.

I prepared some screenshots: https://www.bttr-software.de/tmp/infoplus/

>> FM:
>> - DOSZIP
> 
> DOSZIP sounds like something to agree upon?

Yes. It's small, fast, FLOSS.

>> - DN OSP
> 
> DOS Navigator, open source variant: Pros/Cons versus DOSZIP?

More features:
* SmartPad editor
* (Text) screen grabber
* Memory and (tiny) system info
* Calculator
* Calendar
* ASCII table
* Phone book
* Spreadsheet
* CD player
* Terminal program (Xmodem, Kermit and similar)
* Navigator Link
* (Disk editor?)
* and: Tetris ;-)

>> PE:
>> - Ranish?
> 
> Maybe a bit too different? How about the classic XFDISK, SPFDISK,

You asked for. ;-)

> AEFDISK? I guess AEFDISK is more for scripts and SPFDISK is not
> part of the distro? How would you people like XFDISK then, in
> comparison to Ranish? I think XFDISK deserves an upgrade from
> being only on the Bonus CD. Ranish is not in the distro now?

Just ignore my previous vote. I didn't use any partitioning tools for a
long time.

> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/
> 
> has Ranish, XFDISK, SPFDISK and FDISK, even FIPS and file managers,
> apparently incl. DOS Navigator (1.51, 2.14, no NDN any more?) while
> 
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/file/
> 
> is where file managers should be and DOSZIP actually is, alone, now?

Not sure what "disk" and "file" mean from the content that's currently in.

For managing your *disk*'s content, you could use a file manager.
For managing *files*, one could use a file manager, of course.

But looking at
 it
seems, that "file" should be understood as "handling, i.e., viewing or
creating, files of different formats". We have 7zip, bzip2, dos2unix,
dospdf, info-zip, mupdf, sqlite, a WordStar converter, ...

It also has DUPLICIT ("Finds duplicite files on your disks"), locate,
search. These belong to file management like DN or DZ.

Either we need a third folder, or we move DUPLICIT, locate, search, DZ
to https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/file/
for the easy way.

By the way:
1)
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/file/linklib.zip
should go to
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/

2) There is an UNSHIELD (InstallShield) in

, but a different one in


3)

should be moved to
.

4)

Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Ralf Quint]

On 5/15/2021 4:56 AM, Eric Auer wrote:



I had worried that the DOS machine on my network, would
give easy access from the Internet for gremlins!

Because DOS normally does not run any servers, there is
not much which the gremlins could access. So it depends
on which servers you manually start on DOS: I guess the
plans to talk to your printer will not require anything
server-style to run on DOS, so you should be safe :-)


If a DOS machine on a local network gets "accessed by gremlins from the 
Internet", you are already in rather deep sh!t. That DOS machine would 
be the last of your worries at that point...


Ralf



--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Why do you use DOS

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Darrin,

> How is EIDL (claims to mimic IDLE.COM ) different from
> FDAPM (which is basically POWER.EXE)?

Exactly in that way! (EIDL doesn't mimic MS POWER.EXE.)

Quoting myself from
:
###
Recently I wanted to know, how IDLE.COM in Microsoft Virtual PC works. I
can say, it is a rather simple tool and contains lots of garbage in its
only 128 bytes. -- IDLE works by hooking the DOS idle interrupt 28h and
executing a HLT instruction every time.

At the end I put together a tool, that does the same. I named it EIDL,
but you pronounce it "idle". (A little play with the German language.)
It's 80 bytes only, but comes with source code for NASM.

See it as little ASM example, because it is not as advanced as all the
other DOS idlers including Eric Auer's FDAPM.
###

FDAPM has commands to control APM functions, to reboot the machine, to
power off, to flush disk caches. (see DOC\FDAPM\FDAPM.TXT)

EIDL.COM takes 80 bytes on disk. (Comppressed) FDAPM.COM takes 7,434 bytes.
(Ignoring cluster sizes on disks.)

> I'm curious to know the differences between all of the solutions really.

Feel free to try all the solutions to find the one, that fits your needs
best.

> But I'm mostly curious why (freedos related) FDAPM didn't work for you?
> (worked great for me!)

I never said, it didn't work.

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] ibiblio.org

[Jerome Shidel]

> On May 15, 2021, at 9:43 AM, Dale E Sterner  wrote:
> 
> You don't have an old computer then.

What is old anymore?

I remember a time that a 2 year old PC was ancient and slow. Using that as the 
unit of measure, this computer is down right pre-historic.

:-)

They may have updated their protocol support list.

You should still  be able connect via HTTP. 

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Re: [Freedos-user] ibiblio.org

[Dale E Sterner]

I copied a link, it was correct.
They made a security upgrade, keeps the old stuff out.

cheers
DS




On Thu, 13 May 2021 18:39:15 -0500 Jim Hall  writes:
> On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 3:20 PM Dale E Sterner  
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > What happened to ibilbio.org web site.
> > It won't let me in (unable to complete secure
> > tranaction - message.)
> >
> 
> 
> Hi Dale
> 
> If that's the URL you went to, then you have a typo. You wrote:
> 
> ibilbio.org
> 
> ..and you should have written:
> 
> ibiblio.org
> 
> 
> The direct link to the FreeDOS files archive is at
> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> ___
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> 


**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***


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Re: [Freedos-user] ibiblio.org

[Dale E Sterner]

You don't have an old computer then.

cheers
DS

On Thu, 13 May 2021 19:15:54 -0400 Jerome Shidel 
writes:
> Hi,
> 
> > On May 13, 2021, at 4:20 PM, Dale E Sterner  
> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > What happened to ibilbio.org web site.
> > It won't let me in (unable to complete secure
> > tranaction - message.)
> > 
> > 
> > cheers
> > DS
> > 
> > 
> 
> I just went to 
>
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/lat
est/pkg-html/
> 
> Seems fine to me. No problem here.
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > **
> > From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
> > http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
> > ***
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Choose to be safer online.
> > Opt-in to Cyber Safety with NortonLifeLock.
> > Get Norton 360 with LifeLock starting at $9.95/month.*
> > 
>
https://store.netzero.net/account/showService.do?serviceId=nz-nLifeLock
tm_source=mktg_medium=taglines_campaign=nzlifelk_launch_conte
nt=tag995=A23457
> > 
> > 
> > ___
> > Freedos-user mailing list
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**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***



Choose to be safer online.
Opt-in to Cyber Safety with NortonLifeLock.
Get Norton 360 with LifeLock starting at $9.95/month.*
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Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Eric:


As you had suggested, on the FreeDOS PC, in C:\MSNET\ I entered "start".
Then I could ping from that PC to my printer, Ubuntu PC and Ubuntu laptop.


Cool! Thanks for creating the network zip :-) What is
in that start bat file and which packages with which
licenses are required to make this become a reality?


{REM set PATH=C:\MSNET;%PATH%

REM   Uncomment the following line if you want mTCP enabled as well,
REM   under the MS Network Client environment. See also system.ini,
REM   one line there is relevant as well (to load the packet driver shim.)
REM set MTCPCFG=C:\mtcpapps\mtcp.cfg
REM   Then, either CD into C:\mtcpapps, or add that directory to your path.
REM   And, you probably need to run the DHCP.EXE to initialize mTCP.

devload /H IFSHLP.SYS
REM pause

net initialize
REM pause

NETBIND.COM
REM pause

umb.com
REM pause

LH tcptsr.exe
REM pause

tinyrfc.exe
REM pause

nmtsr.exe
REM pause

emsbfr.exe
REM pause

dnr.exe
REM pause}
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Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Eric Auer]

Hi Bryan & Frank,

> As you had suggested, on the FreeDOS PC, in C:\MSNET\ I entered "start".
> Then I could ping from that PC to my printer, Ubuntu PC and Ubuntu laptop.

Cool! Thanks for creating the network zip :-) What is
in that start bat file and which packages with which
licenses are required to make this become a reality?

> I had worried that the DOS machine on my network, would 
> give easy access from the Internet for gremlins!

Because DOS normally does not run any servers, there is
not much which the gremlins could access. So it depends
on which servers you manually start on DOS: I guess the
plans to talk to your printer will not require anything
server-style to run on DOS, so you should be safe :-)

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Thanks again, Frank:


As I've already written, I myself have investigated the dark rabbit
hole of MS-DOS networking for you:
http://frantisek.rysanek.sweb.cz/FD_NET.zip
Unzip the three directories to your DOS hard drive, take a look at
the config.sys suggested, and see if you can get your DOS box to take
a breath of your LAN.


As you had suggested, on the FreeDOS PC, in C:\MSNET\ I entered "start".


Get an IP address from DHCP and ping something
on the LAN.


Then I could ping from that PC to my printer, Ubuntu PC and Ubuntu laptop.


Chances are that this part will work right off the bat.


It worked fine. I haven't yet tried to do the same from C:\PKTDRV>. And 
I don't know what MTCPAPPS is for.



I'm fairly confident about the follow-up technologies in Linux (for
your printing intermediate box). It doesn't look like a headache to
set up, but it may require some tinkering and back-n-forth e-mail
communication.

If you have time and you're still curious about stuff, you might
actually find that tech entertaining.


I appreciate learning basics as I go.


It's not gonna clog your Linux
printing setup or swamp your network or anything.


I had worried that the DOS machine on my network, would give easy access 
from the Internet for gremlins!

--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Thanks, Eric:


Which changes have
you applied to load the network things?


Upon Frank's following package, I used Ubuntu's Archive Manager to 
extract the contents. Then I used a USB stick to transfer the 
directories to my FreeDOS PC. So in the latter's C: directory, are 
MSNET, MTCPAPPS, and PKTDRV.


http://frantisek.rysanek.sweb.cz/FD_NET.zip

Following Frank's later advice, on my FreeDOS PC, I dropped the cursor 
to C:\MSNET>, and typed "start". After seeing a couple of screens of 
stuff fly past, I was able to ping my router! Similarly I have been able 
to ping devices from each other. Thus my FreeDOS PC can minimally 
communicate with the printer.

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