danielw@wyn386.UUCP (Daniel Wynalda) (10/19/89)
I recently installed SCO Xenix-Net and Excelan LAN workplace software on two 80386 machines and I must say I like it. There are alot of "perks" having your WHOLE FILESYSTEM mounted on a remote machine -- for example you can read/write any terminal on the other machine just by opening a filename. (I know this wont seem like much to those of you that use bigger machines or NFS/RFS, but this is new to us micro folks). Now that I am impressed with this system, is there anyone out there who's tied DOS machines into this type of network and used the SCO Xenix machines as file servers. The reason I ask is this: I have a DOS ONLY application that monitors production equipment and updates logs/files in MSDOS to keep track of information regarding production. I'd like to put these files on a XENIX fileserver so I can access/create the files with the dos machine (full time dedicated) and still be able to get into the files on our Xenix hosts -- to generate some custom reporting. Before someone says "why don't you just get the monitoring program running under Xenix", I went to Chicago yesterday and asked. That is a ways down the road for them and I don't get source to this graphics/monitoring program for Printing Press equipment. However, if I could get at it's files it'd be great. What I'm looking for is input from anyone running LAN workplace and Xenix-Net from a DOS machine to use files on a Xenix filesystem under DOS. Your help, as always, is appreciated. -- In fact this network is becoming more and more invaluable in this field. Daniel Wynalda -- Daniel Wynalda | Telephone: (616) 866-1561 X22 Ham: N8KUD Wynalda Litho Inc. | Network: danielw@wyn386.UUCP ..sharkey!wyn386!danielw 8221 Graphic Ind Pk. | Diskclaimer: If you find a disk with no label, it is Rockford, MI 49341 | the one I lost. I say what I say for me ONLY here.
root@taumet.UUCP (Super user) (10/20/89)
In article <124@wyn386.UUCP> danielw@wyn386.UUCP (Daniel Wynalda) writes: >I recently installed SCO Xenix-Net and Excelan LAN workplace software >on two 80386 machines and I must say I like it. > > [Stuff deleted] > >Now that I am impressed with this system, is there anyone out there who's >tied DOS machines into this type of network and used the SCO Xenix >machines as file servers. > We have 5 DOS machines connected to a single Xenix-Net file server through Excelan LAN workplace software. Using the Xenix machine as a virtual disk to run DOS programs works. However, it can be painfully slow. For most applications it takes too long for a file on the Xenix file server to be copied into memory on the DOS machines. We mostly use the Xenix file server as a common location to backup important files on our DOS machines. If we need to use a file on the file server we usually copy it over to a hard disk on our DOS machines beforehand. Michael S. Lueke Taumetric Corp., San Diego
jlydiatt@jlami.wimsey.bc.ca (Jeff Lydiatt) (10/21/89)
In <124@wyn386.UUCP>, Daniel Wynalda says: > I recently installed SCO Xenix-Net and Excelan LAN workplace software > on two 80386 machines and I must say I like it. There are alot of > [ Text omitted ] > Now that I am impressed with this system, is there anyone out there who's > tied DOS machines into this type of network and used the SCO Xenix > machines as file servers. The reason I ask is this: > As a pilot project, I diverted some funds to buy an el-cheapo '386 system running SCO Xenix. I also bought SCO Xenix-Net on spec, but only had enough cash to run it under Async-Net - an SCO package that lets you run Xenix-Net as an asynchonous LAN. Friday, I hooked the '286 pc at my desk running MS Dos 3.3 into the '386 Xenix machine through Async-Net running at 38400 BPS through a computone intelligent serial board. I still have some tuning to do, but here are my first impressions: o I agree, I like Xenix-Net too. Having a large drive available on a server is real nice. I can finally share files. However like you, I have to admit to being a newcomer and not really familiar with PC-NFS. o The convention for mapping dos file names to xenix names seems to work well. Lower or upper case names in MS Dos map to lower case on the xenix system. Upper case names in xenix, or file names not legal to MS Dos are invisible to xenix-net. This gets around a potential problem where programs like Javelin and lotus 123 fold the file names to upper case automatically. o The dos commands and applications I did try worked successfully on the server. I tried xcopy, dir, cd, lotus 123, javelin, and harvard graphics). The application packages were located on the dos machine with the data for them located on the server. I did sucessfully run the Javelin spreadsheet package from the server, but with the low speed of the asynchronous LAN, I would not do it again unless I was desperate. o I was able to successfully use the xenix printer spooler from MS Dos, lotus, harvard graphics and javelin by reassigning the DOS printer device "LPT1:". o On the downside, the documentation was not quite as polished as the established Xenix products. The installation provided by SCO collided with computone's initialization setup, and it took a little playing around to get async-net to work properly with the intelligent serial card. There were no hints given in the docs. o Xenix-net seemed to have a problem copying large directories. I tried "xcopy c:bigdir /s" where "bigdir" was a directory containing 10 megabytes in files up to 3 subdirectories deep. For both times I tried it, the server froze at exactly the same spot. There were no error messages or any other indication. o The asynchronous mode seem too slow to be really useful. I can't wait to get an ethernet card to replace async-net. -- --- "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla", I screamed. // Jeff Lydiatt: jlydiatt@jlami.wimsey.bc.ca | From the desk \X/ UUCP {uunet,cs.ubc.ca}!jlami.wimsey.bc.ca!jlydiatt | of Tom Swiftie.