RPCEmu and USB

Documentation… ah, yes, no, well…

It doesn’t appear to have any built in Help worth the name. But you’ve already discovered that.

You have at least one Risc PC. Does its User Guide contain anything? (I appear to have thrown my user manuals out, probably prior to moving house, so I can’t answer my own question.)

Double-click !Omni so you see “Net” on the icon bar. Menu → Mounts → LAN Manager. Fill in the boxes with details of a known working server and it should connect, “Name” is the name you’ll see on the icon bar for the share; “Server name” is the DNS name for the server, or I think the IP address should work; “Directory path” is the path within the server from its root to the share you want. In my case, I have two shares “usbshare1” and “usbshare2” on one server, whose name (which appears in my Hosts file, as I don’t use DHCP) is “usbstation2”.

I’ve just tried the above instructions; they work for me.

Edit: I can confirm that the IP address does work in place of the server DNS name.

If you want all of that along with some pretty pictures, have a look at this online copy of an old version of the OmniClient User manual.

For RO5 OmniClient documentation, the place to look is in the RO5 User Guide, Chapter 16.
Lots of (up to date) pictures as well!

the place to look is in the RO5 User Guide, Chapter 16.

Hmmm, point to a link on the web site – bearing in mind that Dave is a regular RO6 user and sometime RO5 user and therefore not likely to have been purchasing the item in print.

Basically a nice idea that appears to have one small flaw.

Basically a nice idea that appears to have one small flaw.

Yes, the discussion on how to handle the “licenced font” pretty much went nowhere. <shrug>

I notice the Style Guide, BASIC manual, and something else (I forget) are available. These were created using a different layout to the PRM?

The font issue is a bit of a smokescreen ¹. The fact is ROOL don’t want to release a free user guide for reasons they’ve not yet stated.

They’d rather make a hardcopy version which comes with lots of additional costs, meaning is has to be chargeable.

¹ 1) they release all the other guides with the same fonts in 2) you can just change the fonts to free ones … framemaker will handle it fine.

Thanks for the bits n’ bobs of info folks, I’ll get to that tomorrow as I’m a bit busy ATM. (Absolutely nothing to do with sport).

The only RO User guides I still have are the ancient RO 3 User guide and a bundled RO 6 cut down User guide, and TBH. I can’t see me spending lolly on the RO 5 User guide when I’ll probably only look at it once. (RO 5 is only a small part of my RO using experience.)

Thanks

Dave

Double-click !Omni so you see “Net” on the icon bar. Menu → Mounts → LAN Manager. Fill in the boxes with details of a known working server and it should connect, “Name” is the name you’ll see on the icon bar for the share; “Server name” is the DNS name for the server, or I think the IP address should work; “Directory path” is the path within the server from its root to the share you want. In my case, I have two shares “usbshare1” and “usbshare2” on one server, whose name (which appears in my Hosts file, as I don’t use DHCP) is “usbstation2”.

Unfortunately for me this does not work.
Regardless of what I put in, the error is always the same: “Bad parameters”.

Obviously I understand very little of the references…

Name: BF-FStik

Server name: blackfan or 192.168.0.4 (IP address). [Tried both]

Dir path: F (That is where I want it to end up so I can see/read/write the memory stick).

I have no idea what “usbshare1” and “usbshare2” are… My Hosts file has a reference to blackfan 192.168.0.4 and the other computers on the LAN.

?

Dave

Well, I can’t help you with the level of detail you want, as I don’t use Windows – my shares are from Linux.

The server I have is called “usbstation2”. This is exactly the equivalent of your “blackfan”. So far, so good.

On my server are two drives that are shared out as “USBShare1” and “USBShare2”. That’s where I can’t help you any further – you’ll have to substitute the name by which your drive is shared. This name is specific to the server and the shared drive, and is the same regardless of whether you’re connecting to it by LanMan98, LanMan (from Omniclient), or anything else. All I can suggest is to look at the settings on a drive that you have been able to connect to, and work back from that. The name must be visible somewhere in Windows.

I can only hope this helps.

Dave, thanks for your thoughts, appreciated.

Now to business…

Blackfan has multiple SSD harddrives, drive D is called Data and using LanMan98/2.08 I can Share it (Read/Write from within RPCEmu) as D.

LanMan98/2.08 is now completely quit.
-—————————————————

I shall use this drive D as the test case in Omni.

Omni-Protocols select Lan Manager.

Name: BF-D
Server: blackfan
Drive path: I’ve tried both D and Data

In both cases failure with “Bad parameters”.

Start again…

Omni-Protocols select LanMan98.

Name: BF-D2
Server: blackfan
Drive path: D

This works and I have a share with drive D.

What now I ask. ?

Thanks
Dave

I’m sorry, but this has reached the limit of my knowledge.

I’m assuming you must have used the same username and password in the LanMan and LanMan98 cases, so I can’t understand any better than you why one should work but not the other.

Ah well, such is life…

Thanks anyway.

Dave

Sunday early AM.

New test…

Moved to one of the other computers where running RPCEmu and LM98/2.08 works with an F memory stick.

Check… Yes stand alone LM98/2.08 still works with the F memory stick.

Test 1:
-——

Omni-Protocols configure LM98.

Name: Lap-Fstik
Server: Lappy
Drive path: F

This works and I have a share with drive F. (Can be opened/Read/Write.)

Test 2:
-——

Omni-Protocols select Lan Manager.

Name: Lap-Fstik2
Server: Lappy
Drive path: I’ve tried both F and “Transport” which is the stick name.

In both cases failure with “Bad parameters”.

So it appears Omni and Lan Manager will not be the solution to the problem…. :-(
Insert suitable expletive of choice.

?

Dave

Blackfan has multiple SSD harddrives, drive D is called Data
Name: BF-D
Server: blackfan
Drive path: I’ve tried both D and Data
In both cases failure with “Bad parameters”.

The ‘Bad parameters’ error isn’t a reference to what you typed (those give more meaningful errors like ‘Server not found’), it’s almost certainly that the ethernet interface wasn’t found, or has vanished, or hasn’t set Inet$EtherType correctly. Given this is an emulator I’m not sure which, but seeing if Inet$EtherType is set to the name of the interface is easy to do. For example, if the interface was EtherH it would contain eh0. If it’s unset, set it manually and RMReinit LanManFS.

Drive path: I’ve tried both D and Data

There’s no such box in OmniClient, maybe you meant Directory path. If so, as Dave H mentioned, type the share name in there, nothing else. It’s perfectly possible to have the drive letter (C:\) different to the drive name (WinSDD) to the share name (MyShare). So you need to find out what Windows shared it as from the Windows end. In the exceptional case of sharing an entire drive Windows will give it a hidden share name with some dollars in (eg. MyPC$C for drive C:\ on MyPC) but LanManFS doesn’t attempt to connect to such things – just the unhidden sharename.

If you want to see what shares there are on the domain, make sure LMNameServer is set to the address of the domain controller (or the PC in question if there’s only 1 thing on the network).
Then wait a minute or so for a browser election (not necessary if you have a domain controller) then you can do *-LanMan-ListFS.
The only slight flaw in that plan is that if there’s no domain controller and no guest account enabled you’ll just get ‘Access denied’ and a paradox that you can’t find the share names to log on because you’re not logged on.

What version of LanmanFS is this? it is one from RO5 and not something from the ROL branch?

…if Inet$EtherType is set to the name of the interface is easy to do.

*Show Inet$EtherType presents Inet$EtherType : rpcemu

But I have no idea How or What it should be set to?

There’s no such box in OmniClient, maybe you meant Directory path.

Yes sorry, typo on my part it should be “Directory path”.

As for the rest, sorry don’t understand…

All I know is the name of the test Drive is Data(D:) I’ve tried D then Data in the box and both fail.

With regard to…
*-LanMan-ListFS
Machine name : RISCOSPI
Driver name : rpcem
Name mode : 2
OmniClient : started
Workgroup/domain : WORKGROUP
Username : GUEST
Home directory : (unset)

1 error(s) locating network resources
Last error – Can’t find master browser or DC for WORKGROUP: Cannot find given server

?

Appreciate the thoughts Sprow, but am out of my depth.

Dave

D.J.R asked: What version of LanmanFS is this? it is one from RO5 and not something from the ROL branch?

Sorry, No Idea, I just use the damn computer and expect it to work. :-(

CLI shows…

Help LanManFS
==> Help on keyword LanManFS
Module is: LanManFS 2.62 (11 May 2020) deletefix.1

No idea who it came from.

Dave

Hi Dave

On my ARMX6 and Iyonix the “Machine name” comes back in the following format:

ARMIPCXXXXXXX

This is with each machine getting its network IP address and details via DHCP.

Using LanManFS 2.66 and 2.65.

The machine name in LanManFS is not the same as set in the RISC OS network settings>host names section.

Where it gets this I am not sure as I have not ever set it to that format?

If I connect to the drive on a PC using LanManFS and then disconnect and run the same commands it will also give me the details of the server name, its IP address and the port it connects to namely Port 139/netbios-ssn using tcp/udp.

Hope this helps in some way but have a feeling it may add further confusion :-)

I just use the damn computer and expect it to work. :-(

Stupid forum kicked me off, so I’ll keep this rewrite terse.

You said at the beginning that you’re using RISC OS 5.28 on RPCEmu, right? If that’s the case, you are intentionally loading an older version of LanMan.

LanManFS 2.62 (11 May 2020) deletefix.1

This doesn’t match up with any of the Git versions, so I’m guessing Colin Granville gave you a test version to fix something?

You’re going to have to rummage around to find where that’s being loaded, as the one you should have in ROM (if RISC OS 5.28) is LanManFS 2.66 (31 Aug 2020).

but have a feeling it may add further confusion :-)

I tend to find LanMan/98/Omni is mostly incapable of finding any shares on the LAN. It can remember ones it has already connected to (thankfully), but that means putting the right incantations in the right boxes and hoping it’s right.
It’s not particularly user friendly, and the lack of a manual only serves to highlight this.

You’re going to have to rummage around to find where that’s being loaded, as the one you should have in ROM (if RISC OS 5.28) is LanManFS 2.66 (31 Aug 2020).

Good catch Rick, Verma informed me of an active 2.62 in RMA and a dormant 2.67 (19 May 2021)in ROM.

A bit if searching in “places” turned up the 2.62, now excised and a reboot of RPCEmu results in the ROM version 2.67 being active.

Just remembered… The version of RO I have installed is 5.29 (15 July 2021)

Doesn’t make and difference to the problem though.

Dave

Dave, have you tried downloading the Easy start RISC OS Direct RPCEmu distribution (http://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/easystart.html) to ‘blackfan’ and seeing if that can connect to your shy share (without adding any extras to it)?

On my ARMX6 and Iyonix the “Machine name” comes back in the following format:

ARMIPCXXXXXXX

OK did some more testing in that LanManFS 2.66 gives the above ARMIPCXXXXXXX format but loading LanMan2.67 produces the machine name as used in the RISC OS Network >Host Names section.

Nothing like being consistant unless 2.67 corrects an non complaint behaviour.

Still noticed it did not help Dave but at least we are finding out things about LanManFS.

Can’t wait to see what an updated LanManFS brings once the bounty has been completed.

have you tried downloading the Easy start RISC OS Direct RPCEmu distribution

Indeed, I already have the installer stored on this machine (Blackfan) and it is the version I’ve been running since its release last year.

When that came out I decided to dump all my old RPCEmu RO 5.nn installs and start from scratch.

I’ve kept the discussion to RPCEmu where it is a major problem, however the same problem exists on my VRPC-DL RO 6.20 install also on this machine… But that in itself is not a big problem because I can create a HostFS Mount for the Drive F memory stick that works okay.

Good thought though. :-)

Dave

Right, done some more tests…
Omni in this situation is useless.
Using the LanManager it cannot even access the USB SSD Harddrives that LM98/2.08 can access, so not a chance in hell of accessing a memory stick.

I’ve been banging my head against this problem since 2018 (And earlier) and still no solution.

Time I moved on or I’ll go mad…

Thanks one and all. :-)

Dave