Network Boot Disk

[hit]

found this while surfing another board. might be of interest for some:
http://jpv.wmhost.com/NetworkBootDisk/

[Charlie]

Now that IS interesting, thank you.

[alexh]

Interesting..... what are the CPU & memory requirements? 020+? 2Mbytes? 4Mbytes?

[hit]

havnt tested it by myself, but look at "Tested on":
- A600/KS2.05 (unexpanded) with 3COM driver

[brett71]

I hate to dredge up a really old thread like this, but when I was looking for a way to get my A1200 onto the network with a PCMCIA wired network adapter, I found this thread and downloaded the NetworkBootDisk.

It works pretty good and offers some basic connectivity, however, I ran into some issues using it. I can't find an FTP program on my PC which will properly connect to it and navigate the folder structure. FileZilla has issues, as well as WinSCP. The only thing that seems to work well is Windows' command-line ftp program, but it's not exactly easy to use.

It looks like this was last updated in 2019, but still using AmiTCP 3 as its base. Ideally, I'd like to get Amiga Explorer running on it to make it trivial to copy or extract archives onto my A1200, but that seems to require at least AmiTCP 4.

Is there any chance that something like this boot disk exists, but using a more recent TCP/IP stack tghat is compatible with Amiga Explorer? Or someone could make a suggestion of a good FTP client for Windows that works well with this?

I know some people will suggest just installing a full TCP/IP stack on my A1200's hard disk, like Roadshow (which I do have a license for), but I'd like to run my A1200's FAST RAM expansion at the full 8MB, which means it's either: network but with only 4MB, or 8MB and no network. I figure I just need the network long enough to transfer files, so I don't mind plugging in my network card and running this disk only when I have stuff to transfer.

Thanks!

[nogginthenog]

Have you tried enabling passive mode?

[brett71]

I can try that, but from what I've seen using Filezilla, the issue isn't to do with connectivity or ports, but has issues interpreting the file structure on the Amiga. It's not able to understand that "Work:", for example, is a valid path and it expects ""'s in certain places.

[amigappc]

Does it boot on 3.1.4 without complaining?

[brett71]

Originally Posted by amigappc

Does it boot on 3.1.4 without complaining?

Yes, the disk boots just fine and grabs an address with DHCP, so no complaints there.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by brett71

I can try that, but from what I've seen using Filezilla, the issue isn't to do with connectivity or ports, but has issues interpreting the file structure on the Amiga. It's not able to understand that "Work:", for example, is a valid path and it expects ""'s in certain places.

I can't check just now, but was there a "host type" setting in Filezilla? At least in older times many PC FTP clients needed that setting to be "unix standard" to be able to work with Amiga ftp-servers.

Another thing is that it would be best to share a certain directory with ftp and not trying to access directories outside it. If you want to share the whole Work: partition, edit the AmiTCP/db/passwd file and change "ram:" to "Work:" at the end of the "amiga_user" line. Or if you create a dedicated dir, it could be something like "Work:FTP" etc...

[brett71]

Originally Posted by jPV

I can't check just now, but was there a "host type" setting in Filezilla? At least in older times many PC FTP clients needed that setting to be "unix standard" to be able to work with Amiga ftp-servers.

Another thing is that it would be best to share a certain directory with ftp and not trying to access directories outside it. If you want to share the whole Work: partition, edit the AmiTCP/db/passwd file and change "ram:" to "Work:" at the end of the "amiga_user" line. Or if you create a dedicated dir, it could be something like "Work:FTP" etc...

I did try all of the host types available in Filezilla, and none of them really worked without some jankiness. It always seemed to have problems parsing the directories and dealing with the structure. However, I may try again using your suggestion of editing the AmiTCP/db/passwd file.

Ideally, though, I'd like to get Amiga Explorer working so I can simply drag & drop files or possibly extract LHA's from my PC directly into the Amiga. I need to test if this can even be done, though.

[matt3k]

Try the latest smbfs see if that works if you can instead of ftp.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by brett71

possibly extract LHA's from my PC directly into the Amiga

But do remember, that extracting on PC will not preserve Amiga's file attributes and not all characters are allowed on PC that you might find some Amiga archives, and that might affect with some programs. The safest bet is always to extract on Amiga or on Amiga emulator, but I wouldn't use extracting programs on an alien system.

Originally Posted by matt3k

Try the latest smbfs see if that works if you can instead of ftp.

He is trying to transfer files in other way, from PC to Amiga where Amiga is acting as a server.

[Twiggy]

The original link doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have the files handy?

[jPV]

Works here.

[Twiggy]

How strange, I still get a "404 Page Not Found / Sivua ei löytynyt" message

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by twiggy

How strange, I still get a "404 Page Not Found / Sivua ei löytynyt" message

Uploaded to The Zone for you - it's a zip archive with the .lha, .dms and .adf files.

Access The Zone: http://eab.abime.net/zone.php?

[Twiggy]

Greatly appreciated lesta_smsc! Thank you

[brett71]

Originally Posted by jPV

But do remember, that extracting on PC will not preserve Amiga's file attributes and not all characters are allowed on PC that you might find some Amiga archives, and that might affect with some programs. The safest bet is always to extract on Amiga or on Amiga emulator, but I wouldn't use extracting programs on an alien system.

Yeah, I can understand how this makes sense. Trouble is, what I'm trying to extract are a bunch of WHDLoad archives for a lot of games, and the source files typically have filenames too long for the Amiga, so just copying them across clobbers the filenames and the files won't extract. So, before transferring them over, I need to rename them. If you're talking about 10 or 15, then that's not a big deal to rename, but when you're talking 100 or more, it becomes quite tedious. In situations like that, it'd be nice to be able to just extract is through Amiga Explorer right to the drive and folder that would be their final resting place.

I still need to test this out to see if it's feasible. If it is, then I'd like to circle back to my original post to see if someone can update or recreate this network boot disk with a newer version of AmiTCP that Amiga Explorer would be compatible with.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by brett71

Yeah, I can understand how this makes sense. Trouble is, what I'm trying to extract are a bunch of WHDLoad archives for a lot of games, and the source files typically have filenames too long for the Amiga, so just copying them across clobbers the filenames and the files won't extract. So, before transferring them over, I need to rename them. If you're talking about 10 or 15, then that's not a big deal to rename, but when you're talking 100 or more, it becomes quite tedious. In situations like that, it'd be nice to be able to just extract is through Amiga Explorer right to the drive and folder that would be their final resting place.

Yeah, it's unlikely that WHDLoad games would suffer from file properties, because they rarely do have scripts or pure flags etc, and they have quite standard names, so it would probably work just fine for them. Or you could just change the flags for all files recursively on the Amiga side if they're missing one of the RWED bits or so.

I still need to test this out to see if it's feasible. If it is, then I'd like to circle back to my original post to see if someone can update or recreate this network boot disk with a newer version of AmiTCP that Amiga Explorer would be compatible with.

The problem with newer AmiTCPs is that they aren't free, so there won't be an official update regarding that to the Network Boot Disk at least. Amiga Explorer wasn't completely free either IIRC and there might be a disk space issue to add much more.