Amiga Unix Wiki

Out of the box Amix only supports the Commodore A2065 Ethernet adapter (full-length Zorro expansion card from 1990).

With the Gateway UNIX CD's (520 MB) drivers the Village Tronic's Ariadne card also works. The Ariadne is also claimed to be 20% faster in receiving than the A2065 (presumably under AmigaOS).

The A2065 only has BNC (coaxial 10Base2) and an DB15 (AUI) ports. If you buy an AUI Transceiver and plug it into the AUI port, you can have RJ45 connectivity. Ardiane, being four years newer, has RJ45 on board making it easier to plug in into modern networks. Modern switches might however have issues with either board negotiating the port speed to old 10Mbps. If you have issues, you might need to set the switch ports manually or use an older 10/100Mbps hub or switch in-between.

If you're into vintage networking you can also go ahead and build your own coaxial 10Base2 network! Old 10BaseT (RJ45) hubs often have an uplink port with BNC (coaxial), or you can buy media converter for BNC-to-RJ45 conversion. Old ethernet gear is usually readily available on eBay (but not always cheap).

During the installation, you are asked if you want to configure network. Same can be done later in amixadm, it will ask you to give IP addresses and host names of the local machine and a remote machine (anything in your local network, this will be put to /etc/hosts). The IP address set here will be the IP address the machine will take during booting.

You can check the status of the network and the currently used IP address with ifconfig aen0

Out of the box, Amiga UNIX doesn't do DNS lookups but looks at local files (/etc/hosts) only. To enable DNS access:

ln -f /usr/lib/libsockdns.so /usr/lib/libsocket.so
mv /etc/netconfig /etc/netconfig.TCP
ln -f /etc/netconfig.DNS /etc/netconfig

If you put your nameserver into /etc/resolv.conf this will get DNS working for at least some applications, like ping. Others such as nslookup appear to expect a nameserver to be running on the local system.

To easily configure your system, download couple of config files from here: amix_dns.zip

Place named.boot in /etc, and everything else into /var/named. Edit /etc/named.boot and replace the IP address on this line with the DNS server you use for your net connection:

forwarders 192.168.1.1

Then start named by running in.named with no arguments. Edit the file /etc/resolv.conf to contain this line:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

You can verify this is working by using nslookup to find google.com's IP:

nslookup www.google.com
Server:  localhost
Address:  127.0.0.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.l.google.com
Address:  74.125.67.147
Aliases:  www.google.com

You've now got DNS working as well as I can get it to work, currently.

The route is set in the file /etc/inet/rc.inet. Assuming your gateway is 192.168.1.1, you need to add the following to this file:

/usr/sbin/route add default 192.168.1.1 1

Don't forget the extra “1” at the end, that's the metric and it's required.

You can remotely log in into the Amix system by using rlogin or telnet and the IP address of the machine: rlogin 192.168.0.44 telnet 192.168.0.44

If backspace doesn't work over the remote session (produces chracaters instead of deleting), fix it by typing stty erase (backspace)

Oh yeah, there's some weirdness for sure. I'll update this once I determine what can be done about named. One thing: leave your domain unset, or set it to “nodomain”. If it is “properly” set, it appends your domain to every lookup request for at least the ping utility. The file to edit is /etc/domain. You can unset your domain without a reboot by executing:

domainname nodomain

Copied for safekeeping from eab.abime.net discussion by vintageBytes

Download and copy the drivers to the Amix machine.

• Log in as root user.
• Copy the install.ariadne script to / and execute it: sh install.ariadne The script can throw a few warnings, normally these are only for file permissions and can be ignored as you are logged in as root.

• After the script execution you need to compile a new kernel. So type: cd /usr/sys

and start compiling with make This will take a while. After compiling you will find the new kernel in this path: /usr/sys/relocunix

• This file must be copied to /stand: cp /usr/sys/relocunix /stand/relocunix

and then be installed into the boot partition: cd /stand

• make bootpart KERNEL=relocunix
• After the installation you need to reboot the system: cd / and shutdown -i6

• After reboot, Ariadne can be found under /dev/aen0. Without any settings, typing ifconfig aen0

should display something like this:

aen0: flags=23<UP, BROADCAST, NOTRAILERS>

	inet 127.0.0.1 netmask FF000000 broadcast 127.255.255.255

One of the easiest ways to share files between your Amix machine and other machines, is to use an NFS share. It is an old standard and still widely supported (even some modern NAS boxes offer it out-of-the-box).

First you need to have a compatible network card and configured it correctly. Then, create an NFS share on your network. Easiest way is to create it without username/password. Or create an user with identical credentials as your Amix user account. Then on your Amix machine, create a directory where you want the network share to appear (here /home/joe/NFSmount).

On your Amix machine the syntax to mount NFS is: mount -F nfs (IP-address):/(name of the share) /(path where to mount it)

Example: mount -F nfs 192.168.0.68:/amix /home/joe/NFSmount (Where 192.168.0.68 is a machine in the local network that has an NFS share called “amix”)

Now you can access the files as an ordinary local directory. Unmount happens when the system is shutdown, or manually by unmount /home/joe/NFSmount. To have a look of currently mounted file systems (both local and remote), use mount -p.

Notes: some NAS/network gear let you adjust the MTU (maximum transmission unit) to enhance transfer speeds. At least one user reported that raising this value (from the default value of 1500) caused problems with Amix: a mount was possible but any access to files on the NFS share caused “NFS not responding, still trying” errors. Putting back the default value restored operation.

For those interested, there is also a short tutorial on using Amix as a NFS file server

By David Miller - Unix Technical Support Specialist, CATS

Copied for safekeeping from amigadev.elowar.com

You've just added an A3000UX to your ethernet and you can rcp and ftp files between UNIX and AmigaDOS using the AS225 TCP/IP software. Great! But what about the AS225's Network File System (NFS) client software? Under AmigaDOS, the NFS software lets your Amiga mount the drives of a NFS server as normal DOS volumes, but how do you set up a server?

NFS allows one machine to share files with other machines connected to a network. NFS lets multiple machines access the same files, so only one copy of the data is necessary. A client machine (a client is any machine that can mount a shared directory) can free some of its disk space by moving common programs to the server's disk (a server is any machine that shares a part of its disk with other machines).

There are however limitations when sharing files between machines with different operating systems. For example;

• Filenames - UNIX S5 filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14 characters. If you copy files from AmigaDOS to UNIX, make sure that they are unique in the first 14 characters. And don't forget about the “.info” files! If you copy a file that has a “.info” file associated with it, be sure that the name preceding the “.info” does not exceed 9 characters.

• Permissions - UNIX files have permissions for read, write, and execute. There is no delete permission; if you have write access to the directory, you can delete any file it contains. Script and archive bits are not supported either, so setting the script or archive bits, or clearing the delete bit will not work.

• Filenotes - UNIX does not support filenotes. If you copy a file from an AmigaDOS filesystem to a UNIX filesystem, any file notes will be lost. Likewise, you cannot add a comment to a file on a UNIX filesystem. You will not receive any error indication, but the operation will have no effect.

The following notes will walk you step-by-step through the process of configuring and administering NFS on the A3000UX. If you have used NFS before with BSD, Sun/OS, Ultrix, or any other operating system, you should at least skim over these notes, because the implementation is different under UNIX SVR4.

To keep this article brief, I'm making the following assumptions:

• You know how to use one of the editors shipped with Amiga UNIX.
• You know how to log in as root or how to su to root.

If you don't, read the Learning Amiga UNIX and Using Amiga UNIX manuals which come with the A3000UX.

The five examples illustrate how to do some simple file sharing with NFS. Using the concepts discussed in these examples you will be able to select the options necessary to share files while maintaining system security and integrity. But, first, you need to start the networking software on the A3000UX, if it's not already running. To do this, type the following:

 # init 3 

This changes the operating to run-level 3, the networking run-level. Other run-levels include:

      S - single user maintenance mode
      0 - system power off
      1 - single user mode
      2 - multiuser mode w/o networking
      3 - multiuser mode w/ networking
      4 - user defined
      5 - system reboot
      6 - system reboot

To find out what your machine's current run-level is, type:

    # who -r 

The output will look something like this:

    run-level 3  Jun 18 18:40    3    0    S 

Here's what all of that means:

                 run-level 3  Jun 18 18:40    3    0    S
                 -----------  ------------    -    -    -
                      |            |          |    |    |
    This is the   ____|            |          |    |    |
    current state                  |          |    |    |
    of your machine                |          |    |    |
                                   |          |    |    |
    This is when the current ______|          |    |    |
    run-level was entered                     |    |    |
                                              |    |    |
    This is the current run-level ____________|    |    |
                                                   |    |
    This is the number of times                    |    |
    your machine has been in this _________________|    |
    run-level before.                                   |
                                                        |
    This is the previous run-level _____________________|

This is the host table (/etc/inet/hosts on Amiga UNIX and INET:db/hosts on AmigaDOS) that I'll be using for the examples:

    #
    #       TCP/IP HOST TABLE
    #
    #
    127.0.0.1       localhost loghost loopback me
    #
    #
    #       Widget works engineering network
    #
    #
    # IP Number     Name          Nickname      Comment
    #
    192.9.120.1      Hydrogen       H           # A3000UX - in comp center
    192.9.120.2      Helium         He          # A2000   - in room 316
    192.9.120.3      Lithium        Li          # A2500   - in room 321
    192.9.120.4      Beryllium      Be          # A3000   - in room 320
    192.9.120.5      Boron          B           # A2500   - in room 119
    192.9.120.6      Carbon         C           # A2000   - in room 119
    192.9.120.7      Nitrogen       N           # A2000   - in room 204
    192.9.120.8      Oxygen         O           # A3000   - in room 220
    192.9.120.9      Fluorine       F           # A2500   - in room 132
    192.9.120.10     Neon           Ne          # A3000   - in room 307

The host table contains a list of IP addresses with node names for each of those addresses. The machine uses this list to find other nodes by their name, rather than their numeric IP address.

Example 1

Hydrogen has a directory called /home/scratch which is for temporary storage. Everyone should be able to read and write in this directory. To share this with the rest of the net, the administrator of Hydrogen would type:

    share -F nfs -o rw /home/scratch 

where:

share is the command to share files between hosts. -F nfs tells the program share to use the NFS filesystem. -o rw tells the program share to allow all systems both read and write access to the shared files. This is the default if you don't supply any options. I've just included it here for completeness. /home/scratch is the directory to be shared.

Example 2

Hydrogen also has a large disk attached as /storage. To allow other hosts to use this as extra disk space type the following:

    share -F nfs -o rw=Helium /storage/Helium
    share -F nfs -o rw=Lithium /storage/Lithium
            ...
    share -F nfs -o rw=Ne /storage/Neon

where:

-o rw=name tells share to allow <name> to mount this resource and to deny access to everyone else.

This establishes private storage areas for each host. This way all of the hosts can share the disk without having their files readable by everyone on the network.

Note the use of the nickname Ne for the host Neon. Nicknames must be explicitly entered in the host table and may be used interchangeably with the full name of the host.

Example 3

A group of hosts on the first floor of your building are all being used on one big project, so they need a common work area to store files. The administrator could create a work area in /storage called, for example, ff-project, for first-floor-project, then give the hosts on the first floor access to this work area by typing:

    share -F nfs -o rw=Boron:Carbon:Fluorine /storage/ff-project 

where:

-o rw=name[:name]… allows read and write access to the hosts that are listed and denies access to everyone else and

/storage/ff-project is the name of the directory to share.

Example 4

Hydrogen has a directory called /home/public which is full of useful Amiga tools. To share these with the rest of the net, the administrator of Hydrogen would type:

    share -F nfs -o ro /home/public 

where:

-o ro tells share to make the shared filesystem readable to all hosts and writable by no one. The ro stands for read-only and

/home/public is the name of the directory to share.

The files are shared read-only for two reasons. The first is that it prevents temporary files from being created in the shared partition. Also it prevents accidental or malicious removal of shared files.

Example 5

Now, coincidentally, Hydrogen also has a directory called /home/private which is full of special tools used only by the development staff on the 3rd floor. To share these exclusively with the hosts on the third floor, the administrator of Hydrogen would type:

    share -F nfs -o ro=He:Li:Be:Ne /home/private 

where:

-o ro=name[:name]… tells the share program to give the listed hosts read access to the shared files. All other hosts will be denied access to the shared files (Note the use of nicknames) and

/home/private is the name of the shared filesystem.

These options may be combined to allow different types of access. For example:

• -o rw=Helium:Neon,ro Everyone can read shared files, but only Helium and Neon have write access.

• -o rw,ro=Fluorine Everyone except Fluorine may read and write files. Fluorine may only read files.

• -o rw=C:O,ro=N Carbon and Oxygen have read and write access, Nitrogen has read access, and the others have no access.

To summarize:

• -o ro Gives everyone read-only access to the shared files
• -o rw Gives everyone read/write access
• -o ro=… Gives read-only access to the listed hosts
• -o rw=… Gives read/write access to the listed hosts

If a host appears in both a rw= and a ro= list, the host will be given read and write access. The ordering of the options does not matter.

Since you probably want these directories to be shared automatically every time you start Amiga UNIX, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Edit the file /etc/inittab and change the line:

         is:2:initdefault
     to
         is:3:initdefault

     This will make your machine go directly to run-level 3 when you boot
     the UNIX Operating System.


2. Edit the file /etc/dfs/dfstab, and enter one line for each directory
   to be shared.  For Example 1 above, this would be the line:

         share -F nfs -o ro /home/public

     So, the complete dfstab for the 5 examples given above would look
     something like this:

         #
         # For Example 1
         #
         share -F nfs -o rw /home/scratch

         #
         # For Example 2
         #
         share -F nfs -o rw=Hydrogen /storage/Hydrogen
         share -F nfs -o rw=Helium /storage/Helium
         share -F nfs -o rw=Lithium /storage/Lithium
         share -F nfs -o rw=Beryllium /storage/Beryllium
         share -F nfs -o rw=Boron /storage/Boron
         share -F nfs -o rw=Carbon /storage/Carbon
         share -F nfs -o rw=Nitrogen /storage/Nitrogen
         share -F nfs -o rw=Oxygen /storage/Oxygen
         share -F nfs -o rw=Fluorine /storage/Fluorine
         share -F nfs -o rw=Neon /storage/Neon

         #
         # For Example 3
         #
         share -F nfs -o rw=Boron:Carbon:Fluorine /storage/ff-project

         #
         # For Example 4
         #
         share -F nfs -o ro /home/public

         #
         # For Example 5
         #
         share -F nfs -o ro=He:Li:Be:Ne /home/private


3. Run the command:

         shareall -F nfs

     which will share all of the NFS filesystems, and the command:

         unshareall -F nfs

     which will make the NFS filesystems unavailable.

For those interested in more information on UNIX SVR4 networking, either as a user or an administrator, UNIX System V Release 4 - Network User's and Administrator's Guide, published by Prentice Hall is an excellent starting place.

If you have any suggestions for the new Amiga UNIX section of Amiga Mail, please send it to me either via email:

        davidm@cbmvax.commodore.com
                or
        ...!{rutgers,uunet}!cbmvax!davidm

or US Mail:

        ATTN:  David Miller
        Commodore Applications and Technical Support
        Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
        1200 Wilson Drive
        West Chester, PA 19380

or FAX:

        David Miller
        Commodore Business Machines
        +1 215 431 9156

or BIX:

        david.miller