First, I'm a total newbie at Linux. I can struggle my way around Windows well enough to get by. My file server, however, uses OS/2 Warp. I installed Red Hat 9 on a PII 400MHz. I want to access my file server from my new Linux box.

The only network protocol I have loaded on the OS/2 file server is NetBIOS. Not NetBIOS over TCP/IP or anything else--I mean the old LAN-only NetBIOS. This is intentional. My hope is that by only allowing this single protocol, the server is somewhat more hacker resistant.

I set up the shares on the file server. Note this is not the same as clicking the file and printer sharing on a Windows computer. For one thing, I'm pretty sure there's no broadcasting of resources. Regardless, I'm positive it's not the usual Windows SMB protocol since nothing ever shows up in Network Neighborhood.

After I added the NetBIOS protocol to the Windows computers (OK, Microsoft calls it NetBEUI, same difference) via Network on the Control Panel, I was able to access the network drives shared from the file server. (WinXP complicated matters, but it's still possible to add NetBIOS if you dig deep enough.) Then all I had to do was map a drive letter to \\SERVERNAME\SHAREDDRIVENAME and click the reconnect at logon checkbox.

Now I want to access my shared network drives from this Linux box in the same manner. I Googled "NetBIOS Linux" but didn't see anything that wasn't talking about NetBIOS over something routable. On the other hand, I'm not sure I know enough about Linux to be confident I'm searching for the correct keywords, or even recognize the answer when I find it.

1) Can I add the native NetBIOS protocol to Linux? What I want is the LAN only protocol; not encapsulated NetBIOS or NetBIOS over another protocol.

2) How do I map the network drive? Ideally, I'd like Linux to refer to it as [something?]/SERVERNAME/SHAREDDRIVENAME, but I'll take what I can get.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

I believe that you can do this using samba. Use the mount command.

mount -t smbfs -o username=<name>,password=<password> //path/to/server's/share /directory/to/mount/share

Thanks for responding.

I logged on as root and started a terminal session. I substituted the names I had defined for those in your suggestion. I don't have any usernames or passwords set up for the OS/2 shares so I left them blank.

BTW, this Linux thing is pretty cool. It let me copy and paste from a terminal screen. Try that with a MS-DOS session on a Windows box--IT WON'T WORK!

Here's what I did. (Well, almost. I'm using generic names for this discussion instead of the actual names of my resources.)

[root@localhost root]# mount -t smbfs -o username=,password= //SERVERNAME/SHAREDDRIVENAME /home/mainusername
1417: Connection to SERVERNAME failed
SMB connection failed
[root@localhost root]#

The Windows box that's connected to the same network switch as this Linux computer has no difficulty connecting to \\SERVERNAME\SHAREDDRIVENAME and both can access the internet, so it's not a physical connection problem.

I still don't think the OS/2 file server is using the SMB protocol. According to the Red Hat Linux 9 Bible, when using SMB on a Linux file server, you have to configure a Windows machine to use NetBIOS over TCP/IP or at least NetBEUI AND TCP/IP. This allows the Windows computer to access the Linux file server through Network Neighborhood. However, this is NOT what I do to connect the Windows computer to my OS/2 shares. The TCP/IP protocol is not necessary to connect my Windows boxes to my file server--only NetBEUI. (I installed TCP/IP only to get to the web.) Since the shared resources on my OS/2 file server NEVER show up in a Windows Network Neighborhood, it makes sense to me that I need the NATIVE NetBIOS protocol, not the encapsulated one that SMB appears to use.

1) If "smbfs" is what selects the SMB protocol, is there something else I could use instead that would select native NetBIOS?

2) Where can I find a reference that explains "1417: Connection to SERVERNAME failed"?

Thanks again for any help you can provide!

I still need help with this problem, although my hopes dim.

I spoke with my OS/2 expert friend this weekend. He said that as far as he knew, there have been no non-routable network protocols implemented for Linux. What's worse, IBM owns the copyright on NetBIOS. It is doubtful they have released a Linux version. If this is so, then what I'm trying to do is probably not available. But he's an OS/2 guy, not a Linux guy, and he agreed with me that I surely can't be the first person to want to connect a Linux computer to an OS/2 server via plain-'ol vanilla NetBIOS. Hope springs eternal!

Can anyone confirm any bad news?

If you have ever tried to do what I'm trying to do (refer to my earlier posts for details) please report your success or lack thereof in a reply to this thread.

Thanks in advance.

The only thing that I can think of is to take the hard drive out of the )S/2 machine and put it in the Linux machine. Then copy over all the data that you want to save.

While I've not done much (well, any) research on this, I think you're going to be out of luck.

Linux is dependant on an ip stack, and while you can definately get netbios over ip (as you know) I'm not aware of any native netbios support. And your OS2 isn't talking IP.

The smbfs mount is going to try to mount it over IP, but it's not going to see your OS2 server at all, simply because your OS2 doesn't have IP, and your Linux doesn't have native netbeui.

So.. I did some more research, and came up with this :
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache...art=2&ie=UTF-8

Procomm started developing an netbeui stack for Linux, but apparently got stuck somewhere before actually getting it working and released it as public domain.

A kernel developer (A.C. de Melo) picked it up and ran with it, and apparently got something workable out of it.

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache...art=6&ie=UTF-8

And here is a page with some blurb from someone who managed to get it to work, but unstably.

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache...art=8&ie=UTF-8

So... apparently it can be done. However, no-one is really very interested in this sortof thing anymore, because... 'fraid to say it - no-one really uses OS2 anymore and Windows long since migrated to Netbios over TCP/IP (first implemented in Windows for Workgroups 3.11)

Likewise IBM no longer develops OS2, and are, in fact... going the complete opposite direction and TCP/IP enabling everything else.

There's good reason for this. NetBios sucks.. It's non-routable, it's chatty, it's limited in functionality, and suffers performance problems under high loads. The *only* way to get it across segments is to encapsulate it in a routable protocol (IP, DecNet, what ever you like) and it's caused me no end of headaches in the past.. I realise that this is *exactly* what you want, but would suggest that rather than go the route of using an obsolete, nasty protocol for the sake of security, you bite the bullet, and see if you can advance your OS2 machine to the current century (put IP on it) and connect to it that way. You can deal with your security issues by filtering your IP traffic at your network ingress the same as everyone else (and for which there are now zillions of easy-to-use tools).



Slick.

Thanks so much for your responses. This is just what I am looking for, assuming I can get it to work. (I guess I should have googled "NetBEUI Linux".)

Slick, I agree with most of what you say. Microsoft and IBM are both moving away from NetBIOS. In Windows XP you have to find the software on the disc and install it before you can install NetBIOS. In previous versions the protocol was automatically there, you just had to pick it from a list to install it.

However, while IBM may be doing relatively little *development* on OS/2, it is by no means defunct. I think the latest version is Warp 4.5 and they have kept up with the most of the latest device drivers. I've been told that several major European banks absolutely refuse to let OS/2 die. Installing TCP/IP would be no problem if that's what I wanted to use.

From a cursory reading, it appears that the instability is introduced when trying to access a Linux server from a NetBIOS requester. I am only interested in going the other way. I never actively run programs on my file server--it mostly sits in the corner with the monitor turned off.

I may switch to a Linux file server down the road if my needs change or I see a feature I gotta have. But, being a Linux newbie, for now OS/2 and NetBIOS are ideal. I don't have to fool with usernames, passwords, IP addresses, security, nada--for new Windows clients I just install a protocol, map drives, done. Hopefully, soon I'll be able to say the same for Linux clients.

If and when I get this working, I'll post what I did for the next noob.

Thanks again for your help.

I have used Linux for maybe a total of one month over the past five years. I would like to connect between a linux machine and a windows machine using netbeui. Samba will not let me. I have to use tcp/ip.
I am interested in doing this. I use the windows machine on the internet. I do not bind the ethernet card for my LAN to tcp/ip just netbeui. This is supposed to keep my LAN more secure from being hacked from the internet. Eventually I will use the linux machine on the internet while being connected to my LAN, but for the meantime I would like to leave my LAN as it is except for the inclusion of a Linux machine.
I do noot want to put the Linux machine on the internet until I am more familiar with using it.
Any info related to using Netbeui and Linux would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Hello,

I think there is no way around TCP/IP / SMB in Linux.
To keep yyour server as secure as possible just leave the Default/Standard-Gateway blank
or use an adress, that is not in use. With this configuration the box can't access the internet.

HTH

karpi, you are correct. I never found a way to load a standalone NetBIOS/NetBEUI protocol onto any version of linux.

While OS/2 was a phenomenal operating system in its day and had features early on that neither Windows nor Linux include still today, a lack of upgrades finally did it in. Somewhere, deep down, OS/2 has a finite table for file names. Once you run out of entries in the file name list, you can't store any more files. Suffice to say, this is not an ideal limitation for a file server.

Since I started this thread, I have replaced OS/2 with CentOS on my file server. I am somewhat less worried about internet attacks after installing a firewall router. Problem solved.