Integrating DOS & Unix (Was Re: Unix/Novell interface)

[Martin O'Nions]

dag at fciva.FRANKCAP.COM (Daniel A. Graifer) writes:

>>I personally favour the LM/X approach to data sharing, but it won't help
>>NetWare users until the fabled (imaginary?) NetBEUI/ESMB stacks for NetWare
>>386 appear, and allow the Unix box to talk out on to the PC lan.

>This is a MS-DOS/Unix integration option I'm not well versed on.  Would you
>mind expanding on this a bit?

>Thanks in advance,
>Dan

LM/X (yes I missed the / out, so a black mark for spelling on my earlier
posting) is Microsoft's offering for Unix(tm) to PC connectivity, which
escaped and became poularised as LAN Manager for OS/2...

In short, Microsoft created an upper level protocol (equivalent to NetWare's
NetWare Core Protocol (NCP)) known as the Server Message Block or SMB scheme
for the original PC only MS-Net. This sat on top of NetBIOS, and provided a
mechanism whereby PCs could make open/close/read/write etc. requests of a
server. This was extended when Microsoft decided to provide networking for
Xenix (imaginatively christened Xenix-net), with new features added to the
protocol. This became the Extended Server Message Block protocol, or ESMB
to its friends (who at this stage were few).

The introduction of OS/2 into the Microsoft line revitalised the ESMB protocol,
as a result of its adoption by IBM for the LAN Server product. This joint
development by Microsoft,IBM and 3Com became LAN Manager, and failed to
topple Novell from its position as PC LAN top dog through a mixture of
unintelligable MS-Windows like configuration files, and non-intuitive
SAA compliant menus (if you had an OS/2 machine to run them from).

It did however grab enough market share, and Names (IBM, Microsoft and
3Com) to allow the revitalisation of the Xenix-net idea. Unix-net not being
a solution to the problem of what to call it, the nomenclature LAN Manager/X
(where X is the unknown operating system) was born. This soon found favour
with a variety of big vendors, most notably Hewlett-Packard, Data General,
SCO, NCR and everyone else who were simultaneously pledging allegiance to
Portable NetWare, with the result that most of the major Unix players
signed up to produce ESMB clients/servers.

Given that Microsoft had none of Novell's scruples about getting people to
hack the O/S kernel to add proper cient services (yes, you can NET USE
from Unix!), it addresses the issues of Unix/Existing PC LAN integration,
putting it one up on the current implementations of PNW (for my money).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Novell had started to make soothing noises
to those customers who said that now there was a True Blue solution to
their network woes, why should they continue to source from Provo. NetWare
386, it was rumoured, would soon support all manner of protocol stacks,
including ESMB (shock, horror!) and DLC/NetBEUI (IBM's preferred transport/
internetwork stack). This may not be true, but it was the right noise at the
time.

Given that this may occur, using an LM/X client on a Unix machine, talking
to the LM emulating NetWare386 would give most of the people most of what
they wanted, most of the time (in theory, but I have been wrong before - 
you should see my collection of flames).

Q.E.D.

(Next week, we embark upon an illustrated history of SNA, entitled "The
Beginners Guide to Wasting CPU Cycles).

Martin

P.S. (Please address flames to me directly, unless they are really amusing
and are likely to brighten the day of other readers. Thank you.)


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DISCLAIMER: All My Own Work (Unless stated otherwise)
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Martin O'Nions            Logitek Group Support      martino at logitek.co.uk
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