Notes on Slipkt and Cslpkt -------------------------- Slipkt and Cslpkt are Frank Molzahn's new packet drivers for SLIP. While they are still in the beta stage, they appear to work quite well, and they use the least memory of any packet driver, SLIP or PPP. SLIPKT.COM is the packet driver for SLIP, and CSLPKT.COM is the driver for compressed SLIP (CSLIP). Both emulate class 1. You will need a dialer and packet driver terminator, since these drivers come with neither. Both can be found in the Dospppd distribution: CHAT0.EXE is a generic dialer that can be used with SLIP, and TERMIN.COM is a generic packet driver unloader. You can also use another dialer such as Netdial if you prefer, or any standard communications program, so long as that program is capable of exiting while leaving the connection open (i.e., leaving DTR up). Slipkt and Cslpkt include RARP emulation, but not BOOTP. RARP needs to be configured by giving the IP address on the command line. You can use Ipread (also from Frank Molzahn) to get the IP address - see below. To dial and open my SLIP connection, I use the following batch file: @echo off chat0 -b 0x2e8 -i 5 -s 38400 -V -f chatopen.scr if errorlevel 1 goto failed ipread "IP address is" > setip.bat call setip.bat cslpkt /p 2E8 /q 5 /h /d /b 3 /i %MYIP% echo my_ip=%MYIP% > ipaddr.cfg set ip=%MYIP% goto end :failed echo Dialup failed. goto end :end I have a 14.4k modem with data compression that I run at 38.4k bps. The modem is at I/O port 2E8h, IRQ 5 to avoid conflicts with two other serial ports I have, so I always have to give the I/O port and IRQ instead of the COM: port when I set things up. I use CHAT0.EXE to dial the modem and log in, using script CHATOPEN.SCR (see below), and check the ERRORLEVEL returned by CHAT0.EXE to make sure connection was successful since SLIP doesn't have any way of checking that (PPP would fail during LCP negotiation if not dialed in successfully). When I log in, my ISP displays "Your IP address is 111.222.333.444" on the screen. Molzahn's Ipread reads the screen and creates a batch file that will set the MYIP environment variable to 111.222.333.444. I call that batch file (requires DOS 3.3 or later, as does "@echo off"). Now that my dynamic IP address is in the variable, I can use the variable to configure RARP on the Cslpkt command line. I use RARP to configure my NCSA and CUTCP applications. The MYIP variable itself will work with Minuet or PC Gopher III (using a batch file in Gopher's case - see pcg3note.txt). I generate IPADDR.CFG, which is include'd in my WATTCP.CFG for WATTCP apps (see README). I set the IP variable from MYIP for those programs that prefer that. See SLIPKT.DOC for information on the command-line options. One option, /b, deserves greater explanation, though. /b sets the divisor for the baud rate on the serial port (the computer-to-modem rate, or DTE rate). Some people will not need to use it, since Slipkt or Cslpkt will just continue to use the current serial port speed if /b is not specified. I have two DOS machines, though, completely different systems, and both of them needed /b, so I think it is safer to explicitly set the speed. So anyway, here are some divisors: Rate Divisor ---- ------- 600 192 1200 96 1800 64 2000 58 2400 48 3600 32 4800 24 7200 16 9600 12 14400 8 19200 6 23040 5 28800 4 38400 3 57600 2 115200 1 More simply, you can just use /s to set the rate. My dialing script for CHAT0.EXE, CHATOPEN.SCR, looks like this: TIMEOUT 10 "" \d\d\dATZ OK \d\d\dATDT9733710 TIMEOUT 60 ABORT BUSY ABORT "NO CARRIER" ABORT "NO DIALTONE" ABORT "NO ANSWER" CONNECT "\d\d\d\d\d" TIMEOUT 30 name:--name: d\d\duserid ssword: \d\d\dpassword -gw> \d\d\dslip system. \d\d (See CHAT.MAN in the Dospppd archive.) To unload the packet driver and hang up the phone, do this (if /d was specified on the Slipkt or Cslpkt command line): termin 0x60 One final note. Slipkt and Cslpkt have limitations on the size of MSS. Most apps have a default size of 1024 for MSS. You will need to set it lower - say, 512.