Author Topic: OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.  (Read 10354 times)

David Kiley

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OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.
« on: February 14, 2020, 09:50:30 am »
Below is a long post I had posted on the old forum about how to connect OS/2 networking with windows (either workgroups or domains).
I was looking for it for my own reference but couldn't find it - and realized it was on the old forum.

So posted it here if it's helpful to anyone, including me   ;D

Also this was written with the networking tools included with ECS and older Windows - not sure if this has drastically changed with ArcaOS and the newer Windows 8/10.


I haven't actually tested connecting an ecs machine yet to my office 2003 server via workgroup. I have connected my ecs machine to a windows 2000 server via workgroup however, so I think it should be about the same.. and I have connected several macs & XP home machines to my office 2003 server via workgroup with similiar methods so combining my knowledege I THINK this should work for you or at least get you going in the right direction-

I believe this is the default setup for windows 2003 servers: (or at least this is how we have managed to set it up at my workplace) A normal domain is something like domainname.net, which the domain computers connect to for full active directory access. But we have some computers in the office (such as windows xp home and mac machines) that do not have the ability to connect to the domain and can only have peer-to-peer workgroup access.  In such cases they login as a workgroup, with the workgroup name domainnamenet instead (so basically take whatever your domain name is and remove the . to get your workgroup name).

On the Windows 2003 server side you would-
(1) In the servers tcp/ip settings you would want to allow netbios over tcpip. I think this is already setup on all windows systems by default, unless an admin turned it off, so you might want to just leave things as they are and test if it works before changing things :).

(2) The shared folders on the server that "workgroup" computers can access have to be given read/write permissions set to allow "Everyone" to work (or just read permissions if you don't want to write). If the folder only has access to specific domain users, I think you would be locked out.

(3) Windows requires some registry changes to allow networking to work with ECS. This is a change I needed to make on windows to connect to a win2k server:
--
For W$ 5.0 you need SP4 (and for W$ 5.1 SP1). Additionally, you have to
add a registry setting:

| 1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
| 2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
|    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
|    \Services\lanmanworkstation\parameters
| 3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD.
| 4. Type EnableDownLevelLogOff, and then press ENTER.
| 5. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
| 6. Type 1, and then click OK.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;323582
--
There might be others that you need for windows 2003 unfortunatly that I am not aware of.

(4) On any Windows Guest macines or other Windows machines on your LAN, make sure you go into regedit and search for all entries of LMANNOUNCE and change the values from 0 to 1 which will make that macine show up on the NET VIEW command or on the network browsers for both Windows and OS/2

On the ECS/os2 machine you would:
(1) You need to make sure "netbios over tcpip" is added to your network card. I believe ECS does this by default during installation if it auto detects your network card. If you set it up manually you can add it by running MPTS (located in the OS/2 System->System Setup folder). Just edit ethernet adapters. Click on your network card and click on "IBM NETBIOS OVER TCPIP" on the protocol list, and click "Add". You'll then see it appear under your network card in the bottom window as "0- IBM NETBIOS OVER TCPIP". You then click that entry and click "Change number" and enter a new number (as 0 is usually already used by another entry already under the network card, so change it to 1, 2, or 3 for example).

(2) On os2 & ECS you need to setup your network unique username and "workgroup" to be setup as the same as your windows 2003 server network workgroup.
To do so you run Local system>install/remove>Post Istallation. On the post installatio program there is a tab for network username and workgroup. Just enter something unique for the username (for example I used davidos2), a password, and then enter the workgroup for your windows 2003 server as I decribed above (such as domainnamenet).
Save the post installation task.

(3) If you did all of the above you should be able to now login via running local network/lan login (workgroup). It will prompt you for a username and password to login to the workgroup, just enter the username and password from step 2 above and click to login. Hopefully in a few seconds it will report that login was successful.
You then click to load "start file and print client" in the same networking program list (under local network) and wait for the file and print client to load up.

(4) You can now browse shared folders using the "file and print client browser" to view public folders on the other workgroup computers including the windows 2003 file server.
You can add a network drive letter by running local network/sharing and connecting. This will show all of the computers available on the workgroup, allowing you to browse for a specific folder and assign a drive letter.
You can also share any os/2 file folder to the rest of the windows computer now by right clicking on the folder you want to share and choose "properties". If you're logged on to you workgroup you can click on "Shares" and there you make the settings for sharing the specific folder (allow everyone access).

Hopefully the above is useful in some way :). I was pretty vague on some details so if anything is unclear feel free to ask for more.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 10:10:26 am by David Kiley »

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2020, 03:50:41 pm »
It's good to see a piece about connecting the old IBM File and Print with Windows. Thanks! This ought to be in the OS/2 World Wiki.

About 10 years ago, I switched to SAMBA on the OS/2 side. Now OS/2 is the host. No changes are needed on the Windows side, or Mac, or iOS, or Android, or Linux. If OS/2 can't open a file, I have many choices of other platforms to use while keeping storage on OS/2.

It's worth noting that Windows has many security defects over what they call SMB networking that can never be fixed. Generally, SMB is now banned on commercial networks. It's still fine at home behind a firewall. But a virus in your printer, or in your security camera could use SMB to compromise your Windows machine.
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David Kiley

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Re: OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2020, 09:40:27 am »
Totally agree with you on the lack of Windows SMB security. When I wrote that originally I worked with a small corporate IT company, and unfortunately they used windows servers which I had to make work with many different operating systems.

It's a cool idea to use os/2 as the filesystem host! Sounds much better.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2020, 09:53:10 am by David Kiley »

David Kiley

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Re: OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2020, 09:41:59 am »
Also it seems like ArcaOS has made some leaps ahead on the networking front, so this article might not be useful in relation to that.

Oleg V.Cat

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Re: OS/2 File sharing with a windows server or windows workgroups.
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2021, 07:31:43 pm »
Is it possible to connect (access) to standard OS/2 4.52 share from Windows 10 from different network segment? I do all known tricks, and I can map share as drive, but can't see any drive content :(