[rescue] Configuring SLIP, both (Unix) server and client ends (Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix)

[Jerry Kemp]

Its sad to admit, especially in a public forum, but I somehow made it thru the whole .COM thing without ever using or configuring
SLIP or CSLIP. PPP was always there for me, or something else.

Anyway, I'm burning some time at the "Virtually Fun" web site when an article for Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix crosses my path again.

I've observed Dell do so many stupid things over the course of my IT career, that I never thought I would ever want to touch
anything associated with that company, but, low and behold, I have Dell Unix up and running in a VirtualBox VM, and, its pretty fun.

Read more here:

<https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2012/03/20/dell-unix-lives-again/>

anyway, the kicker, and the reason for this request is complete lack of any usable network drivers. If you look at the article, it
appears that, at least for now, SLIP is the only way to go. I would like to be able to get data into and out of this VM.

I'm currently using Mac OS X for a host, but ultimately, I would plan to move this VM over to a Solaris (or Solaris based distro).

I'm just not sure where to start with SLIP, and my Internet searches just really aren't turning up anything valuable, at least not
anything that would get a SLIP server operational on Mac OS X after a compile and some configuration.

If your searches turn out better than mine, or have some pointers (or URL's) to share, or even if you just have some good notes you
saved from "back in the day", I would sure appreciate anything you might share.

TIA,

Jerry
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[Patrick Giagnocavo]

Did you check this?
http://www.sunhelp.org/unix-serial-port-resources/serial-ppp-slip/

In terms of starting it, in general PPP does both the dialing and the link
negotiation together; in SLIP, you have to dial manually, then spawn the
SLIP part separately to take up the connection after that.

You could try running Kermit on both the host and Dell VM over a serial
port - this might be faster/easier...?

Cheers

Patrick

Post by Jerry Kemp
Its sad to admit, especially in a public forum, but I somehow made it thru
the whole .COM thing without ever using or configuring SLIP or CSLIP. PPP
was always there for me, or something else.
Anyway, I'm burning some time at the "Virtually Fun" web site when an
article for Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix crosses my path again.
I've observed Dell do so many stupid things over the course of my IT
career, that I never thought I would ever want to touch anything associated
with that company, but, low and behold, I have Dell Unix up and running in
a VirtualBox VM, and, its pretty fun.
<https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2012/03/20/dell-unix-lives-again/>
anyway, the kicker, and the reason for this request is complete lack of
any usable network drivers. If you look at the article, it appears that,
at least for now, SLIP is the only way to go. I would like to be able to
get data into and out of this VM.
I'm currently using Mac OS X for a host, but ultimately, I would plan to
move this VM over to a Solaris (or Solaris based distro).
I'm just not sure where to start with SLIP, and my Internet searches just
really aren't turning up anything valuable, at least not anything that
would get a SLIP server operational on Mac OS X after a compile and some
configuration.
If your searches turn out better than mine, or have some pointers (or
URL's) to share, or even if you just have some good notes you saved from
"back in the day", I would sure appreciate anything you might share.
TIA,
Jerry
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Doug McIntyre]

Post by Jerry Kemp
Its sad to admit, especially in a public forum, but I somehow made it thru the whole .COM thing without ever using or configuring
SLIP or CSLIP. PPP was always there for me, or something else.

You didn't miss much. SL/IP was a pain. Writing modem scripts to drive
the serial links first before hopefully at the right time, the two
ends are ready to just try sending encapsulated IP datagrams without
any negotiation, and if everything is happy, things mostly kinda
worked. PPP added negotiation and handshaking.

Post by Jerry Kemp
Anyway, I'm burning some time at the "Virtually Fun" web site when an article for Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix crosses my path again.
anyway, the kicker, and the reason for this request is complete lack of any usable network drivers. If you look at the article, it
appears that, at least for now, SLIP is the only way to go. I would like to be able to get data into and out of this VM.

If you just want data transfer, it would probably be better to go more
low level, like serial communications, xmodem/zmodem/kermit over
serial links. Or tar data to a file/floppy image, and mounting the
floppy back and forth. Kermit was awesome (and while I don't use its
data transfer capabilities, I still use it as a terminal command line
on my current OSX desktops/laptops.

Forget networking unless you want an excercise in just getting the
system online and talking on a network. There have to be way easier
ways to transfer data like above. Or even writing the basics of a file
system level FUSE driver seems easier than trying to get anything modern
to talk SL/IP

Post by Jerry Kemp
I'm currently using Mac OS X for a host, but ultimately, I would

plan to move this VM over to a Solaris (or Solaris based distro).

Its highly doubtful you'll find anything in OSX or Solaris. By the time OSX
came out, PPP was an old man and well used. Think more like OS6 for
MacTCP 1.0 and SL/IP. Of course, you had to obtain MacTCP in the first
place. We usually sent customers to the book store to find
such-and-such book that had a floppy with it on it with MacTCP in it.
cslip was only written for SunOS 3 + 4. Again by the time Solaris was
written/actually usable, PPP had long taken over.

If you want a whole long history of Mac Networking http://www.applefool.com/se30/

If you want to get Cslip for SunOS 4.1.4, they still have a FTP site
ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/cslip-2.7.tar.Z

It looks like WindowsXP may still have had SL/IP in it?
http://www.pumpkininc.com/content/doc/appnote/an-32.pdf

If you had a Cisco router (virtual? hardware?), and connect up some
serial ports, a classic IOS version may let you do SL/IP.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios/12_2/dial/configuration/guide/fdial_c/dafasppp.html

I found better search strings including both slip and tcp in the query.
Once PPP was usable, it took over in a flash.
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[Mouse]

[...] I somehow made it thru the whole .COM thing without ever using
or configuring SLIP or CSLIP.

You didn't miss much. SL/IP was a pain.

It could be a pain. Occasionally it was (and is - see below) a
lifesaver.

In particular, I have run into situations where negotiation and such
are impediments, not assets. If I just have two machines on the bench
and want them to talk, SLIP is a *lot* less pain to set up than PPP:
connect the wire, slattach and ifconfig each end, and boom! working.
PPP, at least in the implementations I have access to, requires
designating one end as a server, setting up a bunch of configuration
files, and a good deal of diagnostic work to figure out why it's not
working.

Most recently, I was - less than a year ago - trying to get a machine
networked when the OS I had didn't understand either the Ethernet or
the USB hardware. But the machine had six serial ports. It would boot
off a USB thumb drive, but the kernel didn't understand the USB
hardware, so it was unusable after boot.

I took half an afternoon to hack in support for automatically bringing
up SLIP at boot time and it Just Worked. Based on past experience
trying to set up PPP, it would have taken at least twice that long,
probably more - and the SLIP version included writing the in-kernel
code to make it all happen at boot time.

Or even writing the basics of a file system level FUSE driver seems
easier than trying to get anything modern to talk SL/IP

Then you need better "modern" systems.

If you have anything like NetBSD's or Linux's tun driver in your kernel
(and IMO there is no excuse for anything claiming to be modern to lack
it), you can even do the rest of it in userland. SLIP encapsulation
borders on trivial; even if you use my hacks to support non-IPv4
packets (which you may want to do if you have tap but not tun), it's
only marginally less trivial.

Once PPP was usable, it took over in a flash.

For client-to-server connectivity, perhaps. I still find it more of a
liability than an asset for "two machines on the bench, just want 'em
to talk" connectivity.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
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[Jerry Kemp]

Thanks for everyone's comments so far on this. Regarding SLIP, I didn't realize that is was so OS specific.

Someone mentioned the CSLIP source code. I did find that, plus

slip_beta 0.3
SLIP 3.x
SLIP 4.x

There was at least one mention of using zmodem (sz/rz) to move data back and forth to the VM. I may do that.

Initially, I had SLIP blinders on as the Dell Unix VM came with SLIP.

Wondering out loud here, say that I'm able to use zmodem to move, then successfully compile PPP code.

If I could do that, and get PPP working, it would go a long ways to providing seamless network connectivity.

In a similar light, I'm a very big fan of Seth 3b2 emulator work, and I have had hours of fun playing with it. That said, some type
of network connectivity goes a long ways to taking the fun to the next level.

Again, thanks for all the comments.

Jerry
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[Mike Spooner]

How about UUCP (over serial null-modem)? Should be already part of Dell
SVR4, although it can be a little onerous to configure.

-- Mike Spooner

--------- Original Message ---------
From: Jerry Kemp
To: The Rescue List
Date: Mon Jul 02 19:56:40 GMT+01:00 2018
Subject: Re: [rescue] Configuring SLIP, both (Unix) server and client
ends (Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix)
Thanks for everyone's comments so far on this. Regarding SLIP, I didn't
realize that is was so OS specific.

Someone mentioned the CSLIP source code. I did find that, plus

slip_beta 0.3
SLIP 3.x
SLIP 4.x

There was at least one mention of using zmodem (sz/rz) to move data back
and forth to the VM. I may do that.

Initially, I had SLIP blinders on as the Dell Unix VM came with SLIP.

Wondering out loud here, say that I'm able to use zmodem to move, then
successfully compile PPP code.

If I could do that, and get PPP working, it would go a long ways to
providing seamless network connectivity.

In a similar light, I'm a very big fan of Seth 3b2 emulator work, and I
have had hours of fun playing with it. That said, some type
of network connectivity goes a long ways to taking the fun to the next
level.

Again, thanks for all the comments.

Jerry
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Andrew Jones]

Post by Jerry Kemp
Anyway, I'm burning some time at the "Virtually Fun" web site when an
article for Dell Sys V rel 4 Unix crosses my path again.
I've observed Dell do so many stupid things over the course of my IT
career, that I never thought I would ever want to touch anything
associated with that company, but, low and behold, I have Dell Unix up
and running in a VirtualBox VM, and, its pretty fun.
<https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2012/03/20/dell-unix-lives-again/>

The cool thing about Dell UNIX was not the software, it was the hardware.

If you ran Dell UNIX on Dell EISA hardware, it could auto-configure all
of the fiddly ISA bits at boot time, which was pretty darn cool by early
1990s standards.
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