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| PLIP |
| IP-masquerading |
On this page some commands and scripts to establish a PLIP-connection between two Ataris running MiNT+Net. Also information on how to set up IP-masquerading with MiNTNet 1.04 can be found here. See the apps page for information on some nice internet related GEM applications.
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The information below hopefully will be helpful to you if you wish to set up a PLIP networking connection between your Ataris or if you want to use IP-masquerading. In a PLIP connection two computers are connected to each other by means of a cable between the printer ports, a direct parallel connection. PLIP is much faster than the more common SLIP: the direct serial connection or "nullmodem connection". Until now, PLIP to a Linux box is not yet possible because the Atari printer port is nonstandard.
With IP-masquerading you can reach the internet from every computer in your network by means of one computer that acts as a gateway.
To use PLIP, you first need a PLIP cable :). Just build one yourself according to PLIP.txt (which is included in latest MintNet distribution). Connect both machines with your new cable through their printer (parallel) ports.
Make sure you have MiNTNet with PLIP installed on both sides. This means at least a SOCKDEV.XDD and a PLIP.XIF should be lying around in your c:\multitos\ (or c:\mint\) folder. Also check if programs like ping, ifconfig and route are in your $PATH variable. These network configuration programs are part of the KGMD distribution, or can be found in the freemint-1.15.12-tools.tgz package (available here). On a command prompt, e.g. tcsh or bash, you can see what your path is with the command echo $PATH.
Now, configure your hosts database /etc/hosts (should be the same on both computers). Put in it the IP adresses of the computers between which you put the PLIP cable. For example, choose 192.168.0.10 for the first one and 192.168.0.11 for the other one. Watch out that you can only take numbers between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.254.254 for the computers in your internal network. Your hosts file now may look like this:
192.168.0.10 myfirstatari 192.168.0.11 mysecondatari
where the names after the IP numbers are aliases that you may use instead of the numbers.
Make sure that the network startup file /etc/rc.net is read at boot-time. If you use INIT.PRG from KGMD MiNT package it will be automatically called from /etc/rc. Otherwise you may need to call it from your mint.cnf file by adding the line:
exec u:\your_path_to_sh\sh u:/etc/rc.net
Your /etc/rc.net file on the 192.168.0.11 machine should contain something like this:
#
# Setup the loopback interface and add a route to loopback net
#
ifconfig lo0 addr 127.0.0.1 up
#
# Setup network interfaces and routes
#
# (PLIP connection)
ifconfig pl0 addr 192.168.0.11 dstaddr 192.168 -
.0.10 netmask 255.255.0.0 up
route add default pl0 gw 192.168.0.10
The minus (-) sign denotes a line break that should NOT be put in your /etc/rc.net, I just put it in here because otherwise the line did not fit on the screen which you are looking at right now :). On the 192.168.0.10 machine the ifconfig and route line should be this:
ifconfig pl0 addr 192.168.0.10 dstaddr 192.168 -
.0.11 netmask 255.255.0.0 up
route add 192.168.0.11 pl0
You may find an example rc.net file here. To check the ifconfig and route commands you have just added to the /etc/rc.net files on both computers, you could now try the commands on the prompt of both machines first. If you're unlucky, you might find that your versions of the program route are different from mine, which may require a different order of input arguments than given here :(. Refer to the self documentation of the command (route --help) in case of problems. If ifconfig complains "pl0: no such interface", you should check your MintNet PLIP.XIF installation again.
On the command prompt, you should be able to ping to the other machine now. Ping sends a little packet of data (64 bytes) to the other machine and back and tracks the time in milliseconds that the packet needs for this long journey ;). On the 192.168.0.10 machine ping may give something like:
>ping 192.168.0.11 PING 192.168.0.11 (192.168.0.11): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=40 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=35 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=25 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=60 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=25 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.0.11: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=35 ms --- 192.168.0.11 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 25/36/60 ms
If you do a route you should see the connection "pl0", here on 192.168.0.11:
>route Destination Gateway Flags Ref Use Metric Iface default 192.168.0.10 UGD 1 15 0 pl0 192.168.0.11 * UH 1 15 0 lo0 127.0.0.0 * U 1 0 0 lo0 127.0.0.1 * UH 1 0 0 lo0
A short explanation of this output: the default destination for IP packets ("data") on th 192.168.0.11 machine is 192.168.0.10, by means of the interface pl0 (:the first PLIP interface, i.e. your PLIP cable!). Destinations 192.168.0.11, 127.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1 are the machine itself, through the so called loopback interface "lo0".
Now you should be able to FTP with the other machine and transfer files :)))). It's like magic! If not please read on :(.
Make sure you put the path to sh correctly into mint.cnf Also, some versions of sh do not accept / (only \) , try to start rc.net on a prompt first to find out what command your sh needs. So try >sh u:\etc\rc.net and look if that works ...
Does a ftp and talk deamon run on the remote side? Most time all network deamons are handled by inetd, run this program on the other side (if you may :) ).
A better plip.xif than the one included in the MintNet distribution can be downloaded from AssemSoft. I tried plip000.xif (for Atari with MC68000 processor) and plip030.xif (for Atari with MC68030), both did an excellent job.
I would like to thank Janez of YesCREW for his help getting me PLIPed!
IP Masquerading is a great thing: it enables you to connect to the internet from every computer in your personal network, by means of one computer in the network that acts as a gateway, a door to the internet for the other machines. The computer that acts as a gateway must have a direct connection to the internet, for example it may be connected to the internet by means of a modem.
You will need to install the newest MiNTNet SOCKDEV.XDD (from version 1.04), because IP-masquerading is only implemented there. It is best to use the fastest machine in the network to connect to the internet. Suppose you have two Ataris networked together by means of e.g. a PLIP connection, with the fastest, called myfirstatari, connected to the internet by a modem. Hey, this is the situation described in the text above ;) read there how to set up the direct PLIP connection between the two machines (setting up a direct SLIP nullmodem connection is very similar). Don't forget to give both computers IP addresses again by putting in the file /etc/hosts (should be the same on both computers) e.g. the following lines:
192.168.0.10 myfirstatari 192.168.0.11 mysecondatari
Where, again, any number between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.254.254 could have been used for numbering the machines in your personal network.
The machine with a direct connection to the internet (192.168.0.10, myfirstatari) will act as the gateway, i.e. the door to the internet for the other computers in your network, in this case the mysecondatari (192.168.0.11).
On the gateway machine only, the program masqconf must now be installed in one of the directories included in the PATH (the PATH is set in the MiNT configuration file mint.cnf). The program masqconf can be found in the freemint-1.15.12-tools.tgz package (available here), it is one of the net-tools. Put the following lines in the /etc/rc.net network configuration file on the gateway machine 192.168.0.10, somewhere below the ifconfig and route lines which should already be there for setting up the direct connection between both machines (or first try the masqconf command from a command line):
# Setup TCP/IP masquerading # Only needed on gateway machine. masqconf address 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 set ENABLED
In the above, 192.168.0.0 is your personal network IP address. Your /etc/rc.net file on the 192.168.0.11 machine should already contain something like this, needed for the direct connection between both computers:
#
# Setup network interfaces and routes
#
# (PLIP connection)
ifconfig pl0 addr 192.168.0.11 dstaddr 192.168 -
.0.10 netmask 255.255.0.0 up
route add default pl0 gw 192.168.0.10
The first line sets up a direct connection between both machines, in this case a PLIP connection (read all about it in the text above), but it might aswell have been a SLIP (nullmodem) connection or Ethernet (LAN). The second line tells that machine 192.168.0.10 should be used as gateway (gw) to the internet! Make sure that the /etc/rc.net files are processed by restarting both machines. If now on the 192.168.0.11 machine a connection to the internet is requested by some internet app (and the computer that acts as gateway is connected to the internet :), data flows from the internet to the gateway machine and is passed on right away through the direct connection to the 192.168.0.11 machine. It too is fully connected to the internet now!