




Jim Gets His Dream Machine!

                       PC-NFS and Win 95 Copyright 1995 by Jim Plumb

 Some background At work I recently received shipment of a new
 Pentium-based PC bundled with Windows 95.

 The Network: Sun machines running Solaris 2.4, a Unix operating system
 from Sun Microsystems, as file/print servers.  The production environment
 includes Macs, PCs and Suns; the printers - various laser printers and
 imagesetters

 On the PC side we need Network File System (NFS)software or client to
 access file and print services on the Suns which is not included in
 Windows 95.  Solaris has a built-in NFS server which handles the sharing
 of network resources.  Also running is pcnfsd, a daemon, similar to a DOS
 TSR,  to allow for user login authentication, and file and printer
 browsing.  This piece of software is now in the public domain and many of
 the PC-NFS clients use it.  Also needed on the PC side is a TCP/IP  stack,
 which is basically the underlying communications protocol between the PC
 and the Sun allowing the user to run software like FTP and Telnet.  As you
 may or may not know, this IS included in Windows 95.

 Our PCs have been running various versions of Sun's PC-NFS and PC-NFS Pro.
 PC-NFS is DOS-based using TSRs  while PC-NFS Pro is Windows-based, that
 is, the drivers load when Windows loads. PC-NFS uses its own TCP/IP stack,
 however Win95 already has its own TCP/IP stack.

 On the Sun, you specify which resources (file systems) are available to
 network users. Depending on your version of Unix, this is called exporting
 or sharing. Your NFS client lets you mount or map exported network file
 systems as local drive letters and maps network printers to LPT ports.
 Currently there are several vendors with mature NFS clients that run on
 Win 3.xx platforms and specialize in PC/Unix connectivity. On the other
 hand NFS support for Win 95 is in its infancy, as I found out.  I figured
 that PC-NFS Pro, with its purely MS-Windows inter-face would work very
 well with Win95.  I figured wrong.

 Too Many Trials and Tribulations

 After I got my new Pentium box up and running, I decided to get it onto
 our corporate network using Sun PC/NFS-Pro. Unfortunately, when you get
 bundled software (Win 95) you don't get much in the way of documentation.
 What you do get is practically useless beyond the most simple usage
 directions and, of course, nothing about setting up network connections.

 Eventually I discovered the network setup was in the control panel.  I also
 learned that Win95 had discovered my network card and had installed the
 basic Microsoft network: the Microsoft Client and the IPX/SPX Protocol and
 the NetBeui Protocol. I didn't think I'd need them, so I deleted them and
 looked around for something familiar. Under the Add button, under Client I
 did find Sun PC-NFS Client but not the Pro client.  I installed the PC-NFS
 client, said okay and exited. The Network setup box asked for the PC-NFS
 disk to install. Which one I wondered. I tried them all, but none had the
 *.inf  files Win95 was looking for. I hoped that maybe I didn't need to
 load it and looked around for other mischief to get into. Aha! Under Add ,
 Protocol and Microsoft I found TCP/IP Protocol. I know how that works. So
 I proceeded to set that up and filled in all the addresses, servers and
 gateways and such. I exited and was told to reboot. I did and tried to
 mount a network drive. Computer name does not exist  is what I was told. I
 thought that maybe I could get away with just using TCP/IP.  Then I
 remembered reading some-where that you needed an NFS client unless you were
 using a Microsoft type network, which to me meant so mething like Netware.

 I decided to do a regular install of PC-NFS Pro. That went fine until I got
 to the part about which kind of network card driver to choose. My choices
 were NDIS drivers or packet drivers and  I didn't know what an NDIS driver
 was!  I had been using packet drivers, but there were none listed for my
 card, except for one that was similar. You guessed it.  I used that. I
 filled out some more configuration stuff, more addresses, server names and
 when done was told to go into Windows setup and specify PC-NFS Pro as my
 primary network.  Okay I clicked. Cannot find Windows setup  said my
 machine. Okay so I went back to the network control panel to Add, Client,
 Sun, PC/NFS-Pro, except it wasn't there! So I just selected PC-NFS again
 and did what I could to set it up.  I exited, rebooted, and I began to see
 the PC-NFS Pro Login startup until I got an error message to the effect
 that Windows couldn't initialize my network card! Of course I went through
 the configurations many times looking for an elusive typo I must have made.
 Nope!

 Pretty frustrated at this point it dawned on me that perhaps I
 should check the Sun Forum on Compuserve, for someone else who has tried to
 do this.  And of course I discovered dozens of others who had been beating
 their heads against the same wall.  I confess to relief when I found out it
 wasn't just me. I also learned that  Sun "has been waiting for Win95 to
 gain a larger market share before upgrading NFS for Win95" said the forum
 spokesman. In the meantime they have a neato workaround! I must download a
 patch and proceed with some specific setup instructions and it should work
 like magic - a direct quote! Part of the patch were two *.inf  files to
 copy into Win95's \windows\inf directory.  Of course, with my lack of
 documentation I didn't know that the INF directory is hidden. Eventually,
 it dawned on me that it was and accomplished this challenging task! The
 *.inf files tell Win95 w hich files are needed for setup and they also add
 the items  PC/NFS-Pro under Add,  -Client  in the Network control panel.

 Other parts of the setup included disabling the Win95 TCP/IP stack and
 configuring Pro to use a packet driver but instead of supplying real
 commands to run the driver, users were to put the words Echo I am not a
 packet driver into the configuration window.  I read through all the
 messages in the PC-NFS forum.  Some people got it to work, others didn't.

 Others suggested alternate NFS clients. I couldn't get it to work!  After a
 day of toil, I decided to reload windows 95 and network software from
 scratch. Maybe the OEM hadn't loaded it right. Another day spent loading,
 getting drivers right, and reloading Pro. It still didn't work. I gave up
 and then tried an alternatives mentioned on Compuserve,  - FTP Software's
 Interdrive 95.  If this one didn't work there were several others mentioned
 as well.

 Interdrive95  was  found on FTP's web site at http://www.ftp.com
 where they have a section just for evaluation software. I downloaded the
 file and ran its install program very easily. The only thing Interdrive
 required was a working TCP/IP stack and uses Win95's built-in one. It gave
some instructions on mounting network drives and it worked! I could access
a network drive. Absolute elation.  I then tried to setup some printers but
printing - ha!- was not supported in the beta version. Crippleware?

 I tried two other alternates,  both free betas. One was Integraph's
 DiskAccess and the other was Locus Computing's PCI.  DiskAccess was easy
 to install, but sparse on documentation, forcing me to figure out the
 setup by reading the bug fixes. I was only able to load network drives
 from a DOS window, but again no printers would load. The Locus product, I
 was to learn, didn't use the pcnfs software on the Unix end but required
 its own proprietary NFS server. The cost, $255. Too much, considering that
 three name-brand products using the public domain pcnfsd server couldn't
 do the job. (Note: at this time Locus does have an NFS client which
 supports the use of pcnfsd. There is a free eval copy at their web site,
 www.locus.com).

 So there I was, back at the drawing board. I kept checking Compuserve for
 any new developments and downloaded everything pertinent from
 comp.protocols.nfs for some insight into this problem. I removed my
 network software and card and tried again.  This time I used a previous
 version PC-NFS 5.1, using DOS TSR's to load the network drivers.  And it
 still didn't work. Probably just as well, because I didn't like having all
 those TSRs running anyway. I wanted a better solution and I decided I was
 going to get Pro working, whatever it took!

 I'm not sure what I did differently than the first time out but I did
 finally get Pro to work. I was able to mount drives and got sporadic
 printing to occur. However, I did make a big mistake.  I setup Dial-Up
 networking to access the Internet.  I wanted 32-bit browsability and I had
 to setup TCP/IP to do this. Needless to say I lost the ability to use Pro.
 Setup everything again with no dialup and was not happy.

 The time for evaluation was over, got a out a purchase order and purchased
 Interdrive 95 from FTP Software. Jim Gets on the Network This software is
 really easy to use. It's a subset of a networking suite for Windows 95
 called On Net.  Interdrive comes on one disk and sets up in minutes. You
 need to get Microsoft's TCP/IP up and running. You can tell if it's
 running if you can ping another host on the network. There is an online
 FAQ available at http://www.aa.net/~pcd/slp95faq.html recently updated 19
 Nov '95 for setting up your TCP/IP stack as well as an article by Phil
 Leonard in Issue 8 of WindoWatch. Interdrive 95 has two functions: Mapping
 Unix file systems to drive letters and defining network printers.



 Mapping Unix File Systems Let's assume that you have a Unix machine with
 the host name of silver which has a disk partition with a path of
 /ext1/tech_manuals/review and another path of /export/home/users which you
 wish to access from your pc. The person in charge of  the Unix machine has
 properly allowed these directories to be shared over the network. There
 are several ways to mount these directories. I usually do it from the file
 manager. Under Disk, select Connect Network Drive. You will need to know
 the directory on the Unix end. Dialog box will present you the next drive
 letter available to mount. You can select any available drive letter. In
 the space below the drive letter type in the directory preceded by the
 Unix host name in this fashion: \\servername\/directory/sub-directory. To
 mount the two directories to drive E: and F: we'd be defining them as
 \\silver\/ext1/tech_manuals/review and \\silver\/export/home/users.

 Another way to mount Unix directories is via Network Neighborhood. As you
 browse through the Neighborhood, the Unix machine you select will display
 its network resources: directories and printers. You can select which
 directory you want, and map to an available drive letter. Shown below are
 my servers with a display of comp4's exported directories and printers.

 An interesting item in Network Neighborhood: As you browse your way down
 to your work, I found that you can access your files there without
 manually mounting any drives. One problem is that these files can only be
 accessed with Win 95 applications. I could access a Word document with
 Word 7 but could not open a WordPerfect 5.1 docu-ment or a Pagemaker 5.0
 document by double-clicking the document's icon in Network Neighborhood.
 Nonetheless, it's a decent start!

 Connecting to Unix Printers You can connect Unix printers in various ways:
 hardwired via serial/parallel cables or networked through Appletalk or
 TCP/IP protocols. However they are configured on the Unix end, you will
 see them as printer names in the Network Neighborhood (see screen above).
 When you double click on a printer in Network Neighborhood, you are asked
 if you want Windows to setup the printer and if you say Yes, you will
 start up the same dialog as when you click on Add Printer in the Printers
 applet of the Control Panel. You will be asked for the path to the network
 printer. You do so in this fashion: \\servername\/printername. If we had a
 printer called LaserWriter configured on our Unix machine silver, we would
 type in \\silver\/LaserWriter. From there you follow the printer setup as
 you normally would.

 Summary
 The lesson to be learned in all of this is that Win95 is new and there
 isn't a lot of proven system software out there that supports it, - yet!
 In polling members of the comp.protocols.nfs newsgroup about the
 PC-NFS/Win95 situation, I found nearly all were in the same boat as
 myself. There was a lot of hustling about to resolve the situation, and
 nothing quite worked as well as it should. One suggestion, not tried as
 yet, was to use a public domain program called Samba. This runs on the
 Unix end and emulates a Microsoft network server allowing you to use the
 Win95 Microsoft client. This is on my list. Hopefully, in the next six
 months we'll see more NFS support for Win95. After all, I'll be upgrading
 our departmental computers and eventually the company's office machines as
 well. I need something solid. Hey Bill, why not include a built-in NFS
 client for Windows 96?

 Jim Plumb is a regular WindoWatch contributor and the author of many
 articles in- cluding an Acrobat tutorial.  He was the original Home Page
 Editor and literally put WindoWatch on the Internet map.  He is in the
 process of being promoted to Systems Administrator for his company.  We
 wish him well!

                                       ww





