Can anyone tell me how to set up gopher, mosaic, or other
"advanced" Internet software to work with Michnet and PPP?
I have a Michnet authorization account, and Merit's PPP stacks
for Mac and DOS (fairly old ones -- is that a problem?).
I can use Fetch on the Mac and NCSA's FTPBIN from DOS.
But the gpher documentation I downloaded from Minnesota
says to use some other stacks or drivers (I think Clarkson's
SLIP for DOS).  My Mac II hung and trashed the finder when
I tried to run Turbogopher client.
I guess what I'd really like to know is, can these varoius free
components be made to work together without spending a week
fussing and tweaking, or should I go buy "internet in a box"
or something from one of the commercial providers.
Is there a FAQ or cheat sheet somewhere that spells out which
versions work with each other, and what memory and operating
systems versions are needed?  

110 responses total.

If you've got NCSA Telnet and ftpbin working with Michnet & PPP,
don't screw with it.

Actually I wish I could do what you are attempting charlesm, but I
don't have the authentication. You'll never get Turbogopher or
Mosaic to run using SLIP, because Michnet treats SLIP like 
unauthenticated PPP, and those clients will only run if they can
get out from MichNet.

Since you said you can run Fetch, I think you probably already know
this, but just in case:  PPP is not a protocol stack (packet driver)
for the Mac, it is a LAP or mdev. You must also have MacTCP which is
an Apple product and costs $. If you have it, have you selected PPP
in the MacTCP control panel, and specified your authentication in the
'config PPP' control panel?

If you don't have MacTCP, you can most easily get it (I believe) by
purchasing Adam Engst's book on the internet as seen from a Mac.
I forget the title, but it comes with a disk containing MacTCP
and a lot of other stuff like fetch, etc.

charlesm must have MacTCP (now up to ver. 2.0.4), if he runs Fetch
over MacPPP. I haven't gotten all the jargon straight, but I think
I have the "picture". MacPPP is the TCP/IP modem-network interface,
(as is SLIP), and MacTCP is the MacPPP-Mac interface. Lots of clients
invoke MacTCP and run over MacPPP. I now use Fetch, Versaterm FTP
Client (or Client Tool), Telnet, and am trying to get the ARNS client
up (ARNS = AppleTalk Remote Network Server) but need to turn on a
UM network host AppleTalk server. I'm interested in learning Mosaic,
but haven't found a comprehensible introduction yet. One thing I will
say - it will be nice when consistent interfaces are created for these
various clients: Fetch and VT FTP Client launch from apps, but ARNS
launches from the Network CP, the VT Client Tool from VT, and in most
of them one has to hang up in the MacPPP CP. I get confused. 

You're right rcurl, he must hace MacTCP. MacTCP also provides the
API for programs to call to use TCP/IP. THus it fills the role of
the "sockets" API on unix, and Winsock on Windows. The API is
different though.

I am sure I could figure out Mosaic. I got the client program,
MacTCP and PPP. It won't work though, because it can't send packets
outside of MichNet because I'm not on the faculty at UofM.
Merit wants an awful lot of money for an authentication account.

This item has been linked from Info 88 to Internet 3.

Tell us more about mosaic, srw: maybe a new item?

Re 5: Are those road numbers on the info superhighway???

1.  yes, I have a copy of MacTCP as well as Merit's PPP for mac.
I don't know if there are possible version conflicts.
2.  I have a Michnet authorization account so I can access sites
outside of Michigan.
3.  I read that WinMOSAIC needs Winsock but don't know where to get that.
(I assume I can get MOSAIC from NCSA in Illinois.
Any advice appreciated.  Mark Charles

WinSock is Microsoft's version of theSockets API for Windows.
I think it is built into NT, but I believe you may have to buy
a commercial package to get it under Windows 3.1.

Of course this is not an area that I have a great deal of expertise
in. I am just parroting what I think I overheard at work.
(I do Macs, not PCs)

charlesm, you need to pick a platform! In reading MTS conferences, it
is evident that it is much more difficult to get PPP up on a PC, than
MacPPP on a Mac. So, if you have 1 and 2, forget Winsock, and launch
Telnet, Fetch, which launches MacPPP and MacTCP does its thing. If
something doesn't work, e-mail me all your configurations in MacTCP,
and your MacTCP DNS IPs, and I might have some ideas.

In #10, I meant your configurations in MacPPP too. 

Rane, thanks for the offer.  I think you missed my statement that I have
Fetch, macTCP, and PPP working.  I've since found out that Turbogopher
and macMosaic require Mac system 7, so I'm stuck on the Mac side until
I can get access to a newer mac.
 
On the Intel side, I'm running Merit's PPP stack with their "tweaked"
version of NCSA telnet and ftp for DOS.  The documentation I have
for UMN's DOS Gopher is that it needs the Clarkson packet drivers, which Iuse
SLIP.  Also, NCSA's WinMosaic documentation comes with a shareware version of
Winsock (from trumpet) that also requires SLIP.

I guess my next step is to ask someone at Merit if they are planning to
provide special versions of gopher, Mosaic, or Winsock that will work
with their DOS PPP stack.  Can anyone suggest who I should talk to
at Merit?

(one reason i got my Merit authorization account was to use gopher
and Mosaic.  At that time I didn't know about SLIP/PPP conflicts.)

I've got System 7 but not the Authorization account.
Maybe we should get together, Mark.

re #12:
What did you do to configure Merit's PPP to work?  It keeps crashing my system.

The latest plan -- to be tested this weekend:
on the Mac:  System 7
  MacTCP 2.0.2
  Merit's MacPPP
  Dartmouth's "Fetch" (ftp client)
  Minnesota's TurboGopher
  NCSA's MacMosiac
dial-up to Michnet (9600 baud); Merit authorization account
Several sources say this will work.  I'll let you know.

On the PC side, we're planning to test the following:
  MS-DOS 5.0, MS-Windows 3.1
  Chameleon (commercial software) for PPP and WINSOCK.DLL
  Hgopher 2.0 (a gopher client for MS-Windows)
  NCSA WinMosaic 1.0

The key info, for Windows, is that you need a version of WINSOCK.DLL
that is specific to SLIP or PPP or your specific ethernet card --
whatever you're using for the network connection.  (this is explained
in the Hgopher docs.)

As far as I know, Merit does not have a winsock to go with their DOS PPP
so we're planning to use the commercial software, Chameleon.

Thanks to all who have helped me puzzle this out.
I'll let you know how it works.

I'm still trying to get PPP for DOS (I don't have Windows) to work.  My
computer tends to crash after it's been running for about five minutes.

I can help.  I get ppp to work with no problem with ka9q.

First off:  No flames!  This is my first post on the grex machine bbs, so...

1)  MAC PPP
You shouldn't need any special version of MacTCP, or MacPPP, for the
drivers to work properly together.  It is recommended that you use the
latest version of each, though.  I don't know what version that are on
with MacTCP.  Using MacPPP, you should be using v2.? or later.  I guess
that they (michnet) had some problems with the authentication for the
previuos versions.  It worked most of the time, but someone found a
loophole or something.

If you already have fetch working, then everything else whould be working
as well.  The only things that I have come accross as problems when
setting up MacPPP on people's computers is when trying to do something
that requires authorization at the other end.  

I don't know how, but I have run across some servers (mostly news and irc)
that won't let you connect to them with your local client because you
don't belong to a certain select group?  I am not sure how to get around
this, but t is the most common problem that I have found using MacPPP.

2) DOS PPP (!@#$%^&*)
The University of Michigan DOES NOT support DOS machines.  That is what I
have found out in the years that I have dealt with them.  There are a
certain few DOS gurus at the UofM that can answer even the toughest
questions about DOS machines, but the majority of the UofM community like
to use the (yech!) mouse.

At first, when I set up the PPP driver for the DOS machine, I was using
the tweaked version that Merit (or had they changed to Michnet by then?  I
forget.) provided.  It was good for what I needed to do then (telnet from
site to site) but as I got more into the other aspects of the Internet, I
found that it became very limited, and has too many bugs to be useful.  So
I put is on the shelf for the better part of a year.  When I looked into
it again just recently though, I found that someone had made the driver
into something that is easitly used. 

Now I am using it to do basically everything that I do on the internet.
->Gopher
->Mosaic
->telnet
->Readnews
->POPmail (discussed later)
->et al

The version of the driver that I am using is v1.97.  This version emulates
an ethernet board exactly (or really close), so that you can use any
program that uses can get your address from the bootp protocol.  If anyone
is interested, I can put the code into our FTP archives here.  (Do we have
FTP archives here?)  I will also put up the tweak that I had to make to
NCSA Telnet to make that work.  Everything else that I have used has been
able to be used right out of the \bin.

3)  My turn to ask a question...
Does GREX have a POPMail server up and running.  I am not to sure about
the specifics of the server, but I know that the old machine where I got
my mail from I used to be able to use my POPMail client to get my mail
from the machine where I forwarded everything for storage.  I like to be
able to read messages at my leisure, then reply to them directly from my
home machine.  But when I tested out my POPMail program, it wouldn't let
me get to the mail that I had on grex.

Any gurus out there know whether users of grex have the ability of using a
POPMail client?

SHould this discussion be continued in the info conference?

Now how do i get out of here.  Trumpet is so much easier...Ah here we go
(xed-fingers)

Answering my own post... How foolish!

I asked whether grex has a POPmail server up.  I looked on the
/etc/services file, and I found that, yes, port 109 is designated as the
Post Office Protocol- level 2 socket.  If this is true shouldn't the
protocol work for all users, or has the kernel been modified to let only
members use this protocol?

Are there any gurus that can answer this second question?  Or do I need to
become a member before I can test out this assumption?

How does a user sitting in his or her own home with a computer and modem
reach out and get to port 109 on Grex's internet connection?

I will have to let a staff guru answer the question about whether
it would actually work. Incoming internet is generally unlimited.

The latest MacPPP is ver. 2.0.1, and the latest MacTCP is ver. 2.0.4. THE
recent upgrade to MacTCP concerned some obscure features. However, 2.0.3
was essentially skipped, as it was buggy.

We don't have a POP server installed here.  If there is demand for
it, we could see about installing one.

Did you disable the protocol when you modified the kernal?  If so, it won't
be that easiy to get it going again.  I am going to become a member, so
that I can try out the theory that it is only disabled because i don't have
the ability to create an outgoing telnet socket, but now I need to figure
out who to contact in order to give them money, and get my name onto the
super user list.

So, who should that be?  Who takes the money for the memberships?

Our trusty treasurer, Dan Romanchik (danr).  Type "!support" at the
next prompt and you'll see some text displayed listing full details
on rates and where to send money.

This response has been erased.

Uh.... Thanks....


Uh.... Err...  Which one were you refering to?  The message from the IP
list, or the info on PPP?

POPmail:  reading up on it, it should be something along the lines of FTP
or NNTP or SMTP.  So, unless something specific was done to the OS
software, it should work if I become a member.  I will find out anyway,
since I think that this is a good cause to be contributing to. 

INTERNET CONECTION:  Is the technical information on the link that grex
has to the internet available anywhere?  I am just curious what type of
connection do we have.  T-1, T-3 (ya right! 8^), or 56kbps?  
 

We wish.  The line is a 14.4K dialup slip line, to be upgraded when the
modems are ready for it to 19.2K. Maybe 28.8K tops. We do manage to
squeeze a lot through that tiny tube. 

Oh wow!  So my machine at home has the same connection to the
internet that grex does?!?!  That seems amazing.  But I guess that I can
see why things get so bogged up when multiple people start passing varying
packets down the link.  

I had been telneting here from MichNet through their 19.2Kbps SCP,
because that reacted faster than using MacPPP through the NAS with
Port Speed set at 14.4Kbps. But I had misunderstood that aspect of
configuring MacPPP, and just learned I could set the Port Speed at
57.6Kbps. This really speeded things up, but it is even more apparent
that this works with packets: blocks of screen writing are almost
instantaneous, but with halts and stutters, while my packets are
queued. This just got worse in the last few minutes, when I think
someone started to read news. At least I've accelerated my direct
PPP access to the Whole Internet.

This response has been erased.

Unfortunately, Curby, you won't be able to install a POP server even if
you become a member.  This is because the POP server needs to run
on a privileged port, as well as access everyone's mailbox, so it must
run as root.  On the other hand, if staff were to set up a POP
server, any user (not just members) could use it to read their mail,
since it would be an incoming connection.

This response has been erased.

When you say that it can access everybody's mailbox, I assume that doesn't
mean a POP user would be able to read other people's mail.

I don't know anything about POP, but if it sends mail to other people
(in the sense of actually putting stuff in their boxes instead of going
through the mailer daemon) it would have to have access.  Is that what
it does?  In any case, lots of programs (most servers/daemons, in
particular) have to have access to everyone's files - think of the
mail daemon mentioned before, which has to add stuff to everyone's in
boxes.  The software has to be written so as to prevent this capability
from letting unauthorized users gain access; software that doesn't do
so adequately is what people mean when they say "security hole".  This
is why even a system like Grex needs a somewhat restricted staff and
staff needs to be the people who install software that needs root
privileges.  If Joe Blow turns over some program, already compiled,
with all sorts of useful features, and we run it as root (or suid root),
and Joe modified it to allow you to bring up a shell (still as root)
whenever you enter the command xxyyzz, Joe now can do anything.  Send
messages apparently from scg, edit any of your files, whatever.  And
relatively untraceably, unless someone is suspicious in advance & goes
to some trouble to set up stuff to monitor.

1)  I realize that grex is not running a POP2 server.
2)  The POP2 protocol requires that you log in as yourself, (using port
    109), then it allows you access to your incoming mailbox.  This allows 
    users the ability to then download their mail to their local machine,
    then read it at there leisure.
3)  I realize that the staff would be wary of using a program that is
    given to them by a user, but sometimes it is better then making the
    staff do all the homework themselves.
4)  I have (, I think,) the source code and the compiled version of the
    POP server deamon sitting in my home directory.  I would like the
    staff to look it over and see if this is somthing that they can put on
    the system.  
5)  Who should I give the source code to to get it approved for setting up?

-----

On a different note, I have been looking a little at the imap protocol.  I
know that we have the man page for it here on grex, but is it running on
grex?  If so, I should be able to use a different program to get my mail
using the imap setup.  I have more reading to do about it, but If anyone
has any suggestions, or ideas about how to set up either imap, or pop, I
would be glad to here them.

ps:  I just recieved a message today saying that UofM Consulting has
revised some of its documentation dealing with imap, so I am going to get
those quicknotes and read over them.

I've unpacked pine3.89 and built it for "sun."  I don't know much about
this and I seem to have done something wrong.  But if I can get some help
fixing it, you'll have your imap.  See /usr/local/src/pine/pine3.89/bin
which is a directory containing pine, pico, and imapd.  I have not 
been able to test imapd, but pine and pico don't seem to work right.
I'm not sure what's wrong, so I guess you shouldn't try running those
binaries if you don't know what you're doing.

Hmmm...  I know that we are running SunOS, but what version are we
running? 

We're running SunOS 4.1.1 with several patches installed.

Could one of the patches that we installed make a program not be able to
write a new file in a users directory?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss