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Network backup

josephdaniel

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2012
Messages
317
Location
Florence, Texas, United States
Curious, is it possible to back up a IBM 5160 with a functioning network card to a local NAS or possibly some sort of remote back up server? If so how would Someone go about getting it to work?
 
Oh sure... probably the easiest way would be to use an FTP client to connect to the FTP server on the NAS and dump the files into the directory (or zip them up first and then dump the zip on there).
 
Oh sure... probably the easiest way would be to use an FTP client to connect to the FTP server on the NAS and dump the files into the directory (or zip them up first and then dump the zip on there).

Yeah, I would look into mTCP from Mike's site, I have never tried, but I believe his FTP client supports scripting, so in theory, you could write a batch script to do it all for you, one command to backup the machine right to your NAS (my NAS has a built in FTP server). Add PKZIP into the loop and you could have your script compress the files into a single ZIP and then FTP the ZIP, so theres all kinds of ways you could approach this.
 
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This is exactly what I do to move things to/from my vintage systems; I created a file transfer-only user on my NAS to facilitate it, and for convenience I also share the directory via samba so I can drag'n'drop files from Windows into the dir for transfer to vintage systems.

The only change I'd suggest is to use -e0 on the pkzip command-line so that no compression is used if the computer doing the compression is very slow (ie. 8088/8086). This is because the time it takes to compress is an order of magnitude longer than the time it takes to transmit uncompressed data.
 
Another option is to install Microsoft Network Client, map a NAS drive, and copy files to it (e.g. using xcopy). This works nicely with Linux and Samba too...
If I recall correctly Microsoft Network Client requires MS-DOS 3.2 or later.
 
I've been toying with an idea for a modified FTP client that knows how to backup an entire DOS partition. You would use a special filename on the client side to signal that you are backing up the entire DOS partition, not just a file. It would then use FTP to stream the file over to the FTP server. On the FTP server side you would wind up with a binary image of the partition, or even possibly the entire hard drive.

Think of it as the equivalent for Ghost for an XT, except it's using an FTP server as the target for where the partition/drive gets saved.
 
Another option is to install Microsoft Network Client, map a NAS drive, and copy files to it (e.g. using xcopy). This works nicely with Linux and Samba too...
If I recall correctly Microsoft Network Client requires MS-DOS 3.2 or later.

I have tried this, MS-NET client requires a 286, and it wont work with a NEC V20/30, its checking for a REAL 286, at least in the version I have, but I do go this method on my 286 and faster boxen, they all map drive letters to my NAS box for file transfer/backups.
 
...The only change I'd suggest is to use -e0 on the pkzip command-line so that no compression is used if the computer doing the compression is very slow (ie. 8088/8086). This is because the time it takes to compress is an order of magnitude longer than the time it takes to transmit uncompressed data.

Good point, I left that off figuring that for backups, time wasnt real critical, but yeah, if this is going to be a daily type of backup you may want to nix the compression to save time, because it will be slower than slow compressing data at a blazing 4.7mhz ;-)
 
I have tried this, MS-NET client requires a 286, and it wont work with a NEC V20/30, its checking for a REAL 286, at least in the version I have, but I do go this method on my 286 and faster boxen, they all map drive letters to my NAS box for file transfer/backups.

Well, it's strange problem. MSLANMAN works fine with a V20-equipped system. I wonder if the issue with MS-NET is simply the installation program...

tar is available for MS-DOS, which gives you a portable way to archive your files:

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/
 
I have tried this, MS-NET client requires a 286, and it wont work with a NEC V20/30, its checking for a REAL 286, at least in the version I have, but I do go this method on my 286 and faster boxen, they all map drive letters to my NAS box for file transfer/backups.

Johnathan Disney came up with a method for doing this on 8088 that used DOS 3.30, Microsoft LAN Manager v2.2c, and NetBEUI only (so it required a custom windows 2000 or NT server, but this can probably easily be solved nowadays with virtualization). He had a network drive working on a PCjr with a single floppy disk and a Xircom PE3PD, and the memory usage wasn't super-terrible.

He wrote up a very long, nice document with complete steps but I'm having trouble locating him -- he never gave me permission to distribute it, so hopefully I can track him down and get his permission to share the doc.
 
Well, it's strange problem. MSLANMAN works fine with a V20-equipped system. I wonder if the issue with MS-NET is simply the installation program...

tar is available for MS-DOS, which gives you a portable way to archive your files:

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/

Installer would actually install, it was upon reboot loading the network that it complained about needing a 286, but it might have just been the version I was using, never dug much deeper. Just used mTCP on my 8086 (with V30) box.

Johnathan Disney came up with a method for doing this on 8088 that used DOS 3.30, Microsoft LAN Manager v2.2c, and NetBEUI only (so it required a custom windows 2000 or NT server, but this can probably easily be solved nowadays with virtualization). He had a network drive working on a PCjr with a single floppy disk and a Xircom PE3PD, and the memory usage wasn't super-terrible.

He wrote up a very long, nice document with complete steps but I'm having trouble locating him -- he never gave me permission to distribute it, so hopefully I can track him down and get his permission to share the doc.

If you get permission for that doco, it would be a great resource.
 
Thanks guys. I currently have PC-DOS 2.1 I am hoping to get 6.22 on there for greater compatibility/flexibility. I have mtcp but I coulden't figure out how to get the FTP server to work...

I think the instructions are pretty good - I've spent days on them. What part did you have problems with?
 
Thanks guys. I currently have PC-DOS 2.1 I am hoping to get 6.22 on there for greater compatibility/flexibility. I have mtcp but I coulden't figure out how to get the FTP server to work...

I think the instructions are pretty good - I've spent days on them. What part did you have problems with?

You've got the masters attention now, he helped me sort out my network card resource issues and get mTCP working on my machine, I was VERY close, sometimes it just takes another set of eyes on it ;-)
 
Johnathan Disney came up with a method for doing this on 8088 that used DOS 3.30, Microsoft LAN Manager v2.2c, and NetBEUI only (so it required a custom windows 2000 or NT server, but this can probably easily be solved nowadays with virtualization). He had a network drive working on a PCjr with a single floppy disk and a Xircom PE3PD, and the memory usage wasn't super-terrible.

He wrote up a very long, nice document with complete steps but I'm having trouble locating him -- he never gave me permission to distribute it, so hopefully I can track him down and get his permission to share the doc.


I've pinged Jonathan about that very document in the last few months. He is still out there and remembers it. It will come eventually.
 
I have both lanman (netbui) and ipx working on my 8088 systems. I an using a vmware server for both the Xp and netware 3.12 file servers. The xt instance is setup with a simple file share.

Matt
 
If there's a crynwyr packet driver for your card, any of the "old time" TCP/IP tools ought to work, heck you could probably even use KA9Q. All possibilities.
 
Johnathan Disney came up with a method for doing this on 8088 that used DOS 3.30, Microsoft LAN Manager v2.2c, and NetBEUI only (so it required a custom windows 2000 or NT server, but this can probably easily be solved nowadays with virtualization). He had a network drive working on a PCjr with a single floppy disk and a Xircom PE3PD, and the memory usage wasn't super-terrible.

He wrote up a very long, nice document with complete steps but I'm having trouble locating him -- he never gave me permission to distribute it, so hopefully I can track him down and get his permission to share the doc.
I've pinged Jonathan about that very document in the last few months. He is still out there and remembers it. It will come eventually.

Hi! I'm Jonathan, I'm the very one you speak of, and yes, I'm still alive!

For those of you who don't know what Mike and Jim are referring to, they're talking about a thread that I started years ago here. Basically, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, I found a way to get my trusty ol' PCjr to network to my Windows Server 2003 machine using NetBEUI. I used PC-DOS 3.30 on the Junior with 736KB conventional RAM and a Xircom PE3-10BT NIC while using only 1 bootable 360KB diskette. It takes a LOT of slimming down files on the diskette to make it work, but it's possible. I also found that you can use TCP/IP to perform the same thing; however, it will cost more in terms of conventional RAM and disk space.

About a year ago, I used the exact same diskette to boot up my dad's old 5160 PC-XT and 5161 Expansion Unit to copy some files off those old flaky 20MB drives to a Windows XP virtual machine I set up in VMware (ironically, on the same Windows Server computer).

Version 2 of my article is coming along VERY slowly but surely. I'll be sure to make an announcement once it's complete. For legal reasons, I must request that the original article NOT be published freely (the reasons are for another thread on another day). If anyone wants to try out v1 of my article for their personal use, feel free to PM me your e-mail address. This also goes for the people who originally messaged me years ago, yet I didn't have a chance to respond back.

Sorry to steer the thread a bit off course!

Back on topic: you know, I'm trying to remember if the INTERLNK and INTERSVR combo worked with DOS 2.1. I recall that INTERLNK needed at least DOS 3.1, but I believe INTERSVR could run with DOS 2.1, including the INTERSVR /RCOPY command. It's been so long since I've done this. To the OP: do you have a method to connect a null-modem serial cable or a parallel-port Laplink-style cable between your 2 machines? If so, using the programs I mentioned might give you a quick and dirty way to copy those files from your XT to your main computer. Then, once your data is safe, we can deal with getting DOS 6.22 on the XT.

Or, is there a way to connect your 360KB drive to your modern machine? It'd be pretty complicated to perform all the steps, but if you can, there might be an oddball chance that you could create a bootable 360KB DOS 6.22 diskette that way.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Jon
 
Installer would actually install, it was upon reboot loading the network that it complained about needing a 286, but it might have just been the version I was using, never dug much deeper. Just used mTCP on my 8086 (with V30) box.

That is a very misleading error. It is not MS LANMAN that is erroring out, it is the driver for your NIC. MS LANMAN works fine from 8088 and up. In fact both Client and LANMAN will run on an 8088. I had the same issue on my 5170 except I was getting a "req. 80386" error. It turns out, in my case, the drivers for the 3COM 3C515-TX (fast Ethernet 16bit ISA NIC) will only work on a 386 and up not a 286.
 
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That is a very misleading error. It is not MS LANMAN that is erroring out, it is the driver for your NIC. MS LANMAN works fine from 8088 and up. In fact both Client and LANMAN will run on an 8088. I had the same issue on my 5170 except I was getting a "req. 80386" error. It turns out, in my case, the drivers for the 3COM 3C515-TX (fast Ethernet 16bit ISA NIC) will only work on a 386 and up not a 286.

It has been some time since I tried, but I was almost certain it was the MS stuff that was tossing the 286 required error on me. Maybe this weekend I can try again and see which piece it was giving the error, and I can see which version of MS-NET I was using (I THINK it was 3.0, but I don't recall).
 
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