Summary and request for more info: NetBIOS client software for UNIX

Thu Apr 4 06:30:30 AEST 1991

To my disappointment I received few replies to my query.  What I got is
appended below, following a copy of my original posting.

I welcome more replies, surely, this must be a 'hot' topic?

Regards, Robert.
----------------

>From ra Thu Mar  7 21:47:36 1991
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.dcom.lans
Subject: NetBIOS client software for UNIX
Keywords: NetBIOS, Lantastic, printer client, file system

We have an investment already in a PC network using 10 MB/s thin Ethernet
cabling and Artisoft Lantastic software.

Now, we have this UNIX box sitting in a corner with users wanting to access
files on the MS-DOS fileserver and print on printers on the PC net.

Does a NetBIOS device driver and API sitting on top of the raw Ethernet
device driver exist for any 386/486 UNIX?  What about a file system type
sitting on top of that again, allowing you to mount the MS-DOS filesystem
under UNIX.  What about printer services?

From: saddison at novell.com (Skip Addison)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 06:58:41 PST

I make no claims to being an Lantastic expert, but I doubt you can or will
ever be able to do that with Lantastic.  It is designed to be a low-end
solution.

You might consider upgrading to NetWare (3.11 or higher) which provides 
that capability.  It will be more expensive.

From: cirpka at idca.tds.philips.nl (Jan R. Cirpka)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 18:56:41 MET

I do not know which protocol is talked by Lantastic, so I can give you
only some general comments on the PC Connectivity Platform Philips
Information Systems is using.

> Now, we have this UNIX box sitting in a corner with users wanting to access
> files on the MS-DOS fileserver and print on printers on the PC net.

That is excactly the environment we are in. Using UNIX systems based
on Intel 386/486 and UNIX V.3.2 and MS-DOS PCs

> Does a NetBIOS device driver and API sitting on top of the raw Ethernet
> device driver exist for any 386/486 UNIX? 

As API X/Open recently defined a mapping of NetBIOS to XTI (the X/Open
Transport Interface that is very much alike TLI). We are using TLI with
the XTI naming conventions and as "Transport" either OSI TRANSPORT CLass
4 with TOP/NetBIOS or TCP/IP with RFC 1001/1002 NetBIOS.

> What about a file system type sitting on top of that again, allowing
> you to mount the MS-DOS filesystem under UNIX.

We do not offer this (only the UNIX disk as shared resource for PCs using
SMB protocols). If you receive any information, please let me know.

> What about printer services?

Printer services on UNIX are supported via the SMB protocol. Information
for using the PC printer is very muich welcomed.

From: dionj at netcom.com (Dion Johnson)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 20:04 PST

SCO has Microsoft Lan Manager available in several flavors.
(Server coming soon)
The LM client support is in our Open Desktop operating system.
You can get more info by contacting our London (European) office,
or you nearest SCO distributor, or see it at Cebit show.

From: martino at logitek.co.uk (Martin O'Nions)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:09:19 GMT

I don't know quite how one would integrate it with Lantastic, but there has been
quite a lot of work done on NetBIOS over TCP/IP for both Unix and DOS machines.

RFCs 1001 and 1002 detail the implementation of this, and are used as the
foundation for commercially available LAN Manager/X (LM/X) systems. SCO, HP,
AT&T and various others have either implemented LM/X (and consequently Unix
NetBIOS services) or will have it shipping later this year. Full integration
would mean moving to LM on your PC LAN, but you may be able to do something
via this route.

There's been quite a lot of LM/X orientated postings lately, and you may
find it useful to watch for these (they're scattered over half a dozen groups
unfortunately). If you want more info, mail me and I will put something
together, or alternatively check out chapter 8 of 'Unix Networking' (Kochan
and Wood/Hayden Books) which details the ESMB protocol for LM, and the two
RFCs above.

From: cpspm at groper.jcu.edu.au (Siva Prasaad Misra)
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 19:09:33 +1000

	I shall give a picture of what I had in my previous lab.
I had about 30 PCs on a thick LAN and a big file server. The file
server was a UNIX system(Intel 320, a multibus-1), with Intel
OpenNet software. All of the PCs had same Intel PC-LINK cards,
with the lower four OSI layers implemented on the card(about 256Kbytes
memory and a 80186 is awailable on the card.) All the systems
including the UNIX machine, understand NetBIOS calls and we had
developed many applications using NetBIOS calls. 
	Since, Ihave no idea as to what computer is your UNIX machine,
and what LAN cards you have on your PCs, I may not be able to give you
specific place where you can get the software. Hope this will help
you in some way. For more details on INtel OpenNET software,
may be you can contact Intel in US.
-- 
Robert Andersson       Voice +47 2 371055       International Systems A/S
ra at intsys.no           Fax   +47 2 356448       P.O. Box 3356
...!{uunet,mcsun,nuug}!intsys.no!ra             0405 Oslo 4, NORWAY