Creating a network between an OpenSuse 11.2 host and a DOS 6_22 guest

English Network/Internet
#1

Hi everyone.
I’m a newbye in Linux and, according to the subject of the thread, I’d like to help a friend of mine to use a DOS program creating a DOS 6_22 virtual machine on VirtualBox 3.06_OSE installed in OpenSuse 11.2 (please don’t ask me why I chose this solution). The program needs to print documents, so I decided to create a samba network between the OpenSuse 11.2 host and the linux guest.

Unfortunately I can’t use samba, and it seems to me too difficult to configure in the smb.conf file.
On the guest side (DOS 6_22), I installed MS Client 3.0 and set a TCP/IP protocol; moreover I connect to the host using host only mode and “vboxnet0” virtual network interface. The latter has IP address 192.168.56.1, so in DOS I set up a static IP address 192.168.56.2 (I hope this is right).

Here is my smb.conf file

smb.conf is the main Samba configuration file. You find a full commented

version at /usr/share/doc/packages/samba/examples/smb.conf.SUSE if the

samba-doc package is installed.

Date: 2009-10-27

[global]
printcap name = cups
cups options = raw
map to guest = Bad User
include = /etc/samba/dhcp.conf
logon path = \%25L\profiles.msprofile
logon home = \%25L%25U.9xprofile
logon drive = P:
usershare allow guests = Yes
netbios name = rocco
restrict anonymous = no
domain master = no
netbios aliases = rocco

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
valid users = %S, %D%w%S
browseable = No
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes

[profiles]
comment = Network Profiles Service
path = %H
read only = No
store dos attributes = Yes
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700

[users]
comment = All users
path = /home
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes
veto files = /aquota.user/groups/shares/

[groups]
comment = All groups
path = /home/groups
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/tmp
printable = Yes
create mask = 0600
browseable = No

[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/drivers
write list = @ntadmin root
force group = ntadmin
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

Is there something wrong and/or have I to add any voice to allow DOS guest to connect?
Have I to add a user to the net (the DOS one, which I called Paolo)?
I’d like to mount the network printer in DOS with the command:

“net use lpt1 \host_name\printer”;
where did I find hostname?

Finally, I first disabled Firewall, because I don’t necessarily need it, but how can I add exceptions to it to make run samba with it?

Thanks for any reply

#2

i don’t have any idea how to answer you, but i do want you to know
that i’m impressed at the different places you found to ask…

and now i ask what kind of printer and/or document type do you have
that needs DOS6_22 driving the train…

what are they, point of sale invoices? and what kind of how old
computer/program is generating the image which is so difficult to send
to a printer with a modern OS?

just curious

–
palladium

#3

Frankly - that sounds ugly.

Why don’t you ask your friend what he want’s to achieve? Just aks him why he decided to go this way and which problem he has to solve.

In general there are various ways to solve a problem :wink:

#4

Have you considered running DOS in dosemu? That way you don’t need a whole VM and to set up networking for printing. What is it you need to run under DOS anyway?

(There’s one sysctl you need to relax if you run dosemu, but worry about that later.)

#5

On 20th March, Palladium wrote

and now i ask what kind of printer and/or document type do you have
that needs DOS6_22 driving the train…

what are they, point of sale invoices? and what kind of how old
computer/program is generating the image which is so difficult to send
to a printer with a modern OS?

Yes they are exactly sale invoices, and the program is written in gwbasic.

#6

On 20th March, at 22:37 ken_yap wrote:

Have you considered running DOS in dosemu? That way you don’t need a whole VM and to set up networking for printing. What is it you need to run under DOS anyway?

(There’s one sysctl you need to relax if you run dosemu, but worry about that later.)

I don’t know if it could be a good solution. Infact I had tried to solve the problem using DosBox in my netbook running win xp, and I had managed to print the documents from the program! However, there was still a few seconds I had to wait before the print started, and in a situation of work as the one where the program needs to be run, that not sounded good.

I don’t know very much about Dosemu, but I think a similar problem would occur, wouldn’t ?. If you could suggest me hot to get the program run under Dosemu, I would really appreciate it. I had tried to run the program in it too, but didn’t manage to get the DOS command.com properly and to start correctly DOS autoexec.bat imported instructions…

#7

Just install the dosemu package, relax the sysctl mentioned in various bug reports about dosemu and you will get a FreeDOS command prompt when you start dosemu. Then you can start to customise dosemu.

This is the workaround. You put that sysctl setting in /etc/sysctl.conf to make it effective every boot.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dosemu/+bug/216398

#8

framp wrote:
> In general there are various ways to solve a problem :wink:

and various ways to ask for more info…sorry, you didn’t like my way…

–
palladium

#9

Forget all attempts on M$ products. Since DOS is abandonned from Vista and 7, you may have an invoicing program with no legal OS to run it on (I work for an organization which has some similar problem).
Good help for your friend would be to tell him to look for other, more realistic solutions. Take a look at osFinancials, I think it provides a much better solution for invoicing than GWBASIC and DOS. Runs superfast with wine and a linux native firebird database. Single- and multiuser, stable and open source.

#10

Knurpht wrote:

>
> Forget all attempts on M$ products. Since DOS is abandonned from Vista
> and 7, you may have an invoicing program with no legal OS to run it on
> (I work for an organization which has some similar problem).
> Good help for your friend would be to tell him to look for other, more
> realistic solutions. Take a look at ‘Buy cialis in united kingdom.
> Prescription drugs without a prescription!’ (http://osfinancials.org), I
> think it provides a much better solution for invoicing than GWBASIC and
> DOS. Runs superfast with wine and a linux native firebird database.
> Single- and multiuser, stable and open source.
>
>
Of course it is better to look for a more modern solution instead of
sticking to an old outdated program. If there is really no other way and if
dosemu is not good enough you can try to run a full freedos within your
virtual machine (especially from the legal point of view).
I have no experience with it but I thought bwbasic (which you can use on
linux) is compatible with gwbasic, is that an option to run your basic
program directly in the bwbasic interpreter to avoid virtualization or does
it contain too many dos specific hardcoded things?

#11

Looks like that osfinancials.org site got hit by a spammer. I wouldn’t trust a company that couldn’t keep a website safe.

#12

Cheers Ken, I adjusted the original post. Informed them as well, they had already taken measures. I’ll edit yours as well to remove the ugly stuff

#13

Knurpht wrote:

Forget all attempts on M$ products. Since DOS is abandonned from Vista and 7, you may have an invoicing program with no legal OS to run it on

So using DOS would be not legal? Could I use FreeDOS? I mean, is this legal? Can I run gwbasic on it? Have I to load DOS command.com in FreeDOS? How can I run some .sys and .exe file the program calls?
Excuse me for the questions, but I had already tried and didn’t manage to do this. In particular some of the commands in the autoexec file or in the config.sys one are not accepted, giving as a result that DOS version is incorrect; I believe this start from the command “DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE” in the config.sys file.

I would be grateful if someone (ken_yap? :D) could give me more hints…

#14

Could I use FreeDOS?

Excuse me, not necessarily FreeDOS, but also Dosemu…

#15

FreeDOS is a MSDOS replacement so you are running its command.exe already. As for the contents of config.sys and autoexec.bat, you may have to do some tweaking. I haven’t touched DOS for years and the last thing I used on DOS didn’t need much in the way of setup, just an EXE so it just worked.

You might want to try the FreeDOS forums for help.

DOSEMU is a separate product. In principle you could run MSDOS instead on top of DOSEMU but I couldn’t tell you how off the top of my head.

Both DOSEMU and FreeDOS are non-proprietary and free to use without charge. MSDOS is of course proprietary, but orphaned.

PS: Make sure that any files you use in FreeDOS, even if they live on a Linux filesystem, have DOS line endings, i.e. CR + LF.

#16

davidee86 wrote:
> I would be grateful if someone (ken_yap? :D) could give me more
> hints…

ken_yap is a master technical hint giver…i’m not, but i do have a
few hints for you:

Redmond is in the business of maximizing profits–now, there is
NOTHING wrong with that, nothing at all…

except there are anti-monopoly which they broke several time (and were
convicted of )…

the not-yet-rising-to-criminal thing they continue to do is FORCE
people like you to go to more and more convoluted ways to get their
OLD programs to work today…

now why would they abandon and cease making it easy for you to print
your invoices AND not break the law AND not have to stand on your head
while doing it?

HINT: cut the umbilical cord as soon as possible so that you can
forever be free from the anti-competitive, consumer-lock-in ways of
the billion and millionaires of Redmond…

have you seen an aerial photo of Mr. Bill’s home?

http://www.google.com/search?q=Bill+Gates+home+images

how much longer do you really wanna contribute to his monthly utility
bill??

HINT: the best answer is: let me out now! (and go ahead and find and
use an end-to-end open source way to format, print, archive, book
keep, etc your sales invoices)

–
palladium