From: don@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Don Stokes)
Subject: Re: Is there a substitute for Lifeline ?
Organization: Victoria University of Wellington CSC
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 04:17:53 GMT

kelly@searchtech.com (Kelly Thompson) writes:
> I would like to find a substitute for Lifeline, hopefully 
> Windows compatible.  I am running PCNFS 4.0 and am connected
> to a Sun server that handles delivering the mail.

We're using PC-NFS over packet drivers, and using PKTMUX/PKTDRV to allow
POPMAIL to run.  (We are also using NCSA Telnet with PC-NFS, since PC-NFS's
Telnet is too broken to use the DNS and we don't run NIS on our machines.)

CONFIG.SYS looks something like:

	SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /e:1024 /p
	LASTDRIVE=Z
	DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
	DEVICE=C:\NFS\PCNFS.SYS /m
	DEVICE=C:\NFS\SOCKDRV.SYS
	DEVICE=C:\PKTSTUFF\PKTD.SYS

AUTOEXEC.BAT:

	REM Environment stuff

	PATH C:\DOS;C:\NCSA;C:\POPMAIL;C:\NFS
	SET CONFIGTEL=C:\NCSA\CONFIG.TEL

	REM Load packet drivers

	C:\PKTSTUFF\WD8003E 96 5 0x280 0xD400
	C:\PKTSTUFF\PKTMUX 2
	C:\PKTSTUFF\PKTDRV
	C:\PKTSTUFF\PKTDRV

	REM Load PC-NFS

	SET NFSDRIVE=C
	SET TZ=NZT-12NDT
	PRT *
	NFSRUN

The stuff in C:\PKTSTUFF\....

PKTD.SYS allows PC-NFS to run using packet drivers with cards that aren't
directly supported.  In this case, the WD8003E card is supported, but we
need a packet driver for PKTMUX to work.

PKTMUX & PKTDRV are TSRs that allow multiple access to a packet driver. 
Basically, PKTMUX hooks to the packet driver and provides common code for
multiple PKTDRVs.  PKTDRV is a virtual packet driver; you load as many of
them as you need (I had to work hard to cram more than two packet-driver
users into memory at once!); they talk to PKTMUX that in turn talk to 
a packet driver.  PKTMUX has smarts that let it snoop into incoming packets
and figure out from the protocol type, IP, TCP & UDP headers where to 
send them.  For many things it just works; for some applications it needs
to be given more information.

WD8003E is the packet driver, which actually talks to the ethernet card.
There are packet drivers (known as the Crynwr packet driver collection) for
pretty much every type of card on the planet.


FTP sites for this stuff are:

POPMAIL:
Host wuarchive.wustl.edu   (128.252.135.4)
Last updated 06:27 23 Nov 1992

    Location: /systems/novell/email
      FILE      rwxrwxr-x    112164  Jan 22  1991   popmail.zip

Host boombox.micro.umn.edu   (134.84.132.2)
Last updated 06:40 23 Nov 1992

    Location: /pub/pc/popmail-3.0/program
      FILE      rw-r--r--    337542  Oct 27 20:18   popmail.exe


PKTD.SYS:
Host wuarchive.wustl.edu   (128.252.135.4)
Last updated 06:27 23 Nov 1992

    Location: /mirrors2/cutcp
      FILE      rw-rw-r--      4928  Feb 19  1990   pktd.sys

Host sun.soe.clarkson.edu   (128.153.12.3)
Last updated 06:17 16 Nov 1992

    Location: /pub/ka9q
      FILE      rw-r--r--      4949  May 16  1991   pnfspktd.35


PKTMUX/PKTDRV:

Host ftp.uu.net   (137.39.1.9)
Last updated 06:27 30 Nov 1992

    Location: /systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/pktdrvr
      FILE      rw-r--r--     50991  Aug 12 16:00   pktmux11.zip

Host wuarchive.wustl.edu   (128.252.135.4)
Last updated 06:27 23 Nov 1992

    Location: /mirrors/msdos/pktdrvr
      FILE      rw-r--r--     50991  Aug 12 19:00   pktmux11.zip


Packet drivers can be obtained from damn near anywhere; they should be
in the sorts of places listed above.


--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                      don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre          don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.           +64-4-495-5052