Networking error

Yesterday, I sent the message below to the RPCEmu mailing list. Not having received my copy from the list, I’ve just checked the list and find that the message has been received, and archived. Not very helpful. I hope that someone here can help.

I have installed RPCEmu 0.8.15 / RO 6.20 on Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, running on an HP3500 desktop machine. The installation is fine, apart from a lack of networking.

I carefully followed the instructions in the RPCEmu Networking Guide, using OpenVPN v2.3.8 to create the TAP driver. Following installation, ifconfig -a , and *show inet , return believable results, however *ping shows no connection.

On booting RPCEmu, there is no error message to indicate connection failure, however the RPCEmu log, below, contains multiple error messages, near the end of the file. I should be grateful for advice as to the cause of these errors, and how to fix them.

From the log, I note that the TAP driver is 32 bit. Could running this on a 64 bit machine lead to the errors?

Tony

[ log follows ]

RPCEmu 0.8.15 [DYNAREC NO_DEBUG]
Build: 32-bit binary
Compiler: GCC version 4.6.2
OS: Microsoft Windows
OS: PlatformId = 2
OS: MajorVersion = 6
OS: MinorVersion = 1
OS: ProductType = 1
OS: SuiteMask = 0×100
OS: ServicePackMajor = 1
OS: ServicePackMinor = 0
OS: ProcessorArchitecture = 9
OS: SystemMetricsServerR2 = 0
OS: ProductInfoType = 48
Allegro version ID: Allegro 4.4.2, MinGW32
Desktop Resolution: 1920 × 1080
Host Colour Depth: 32
Working Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\RPCEmu\RPCEmu_815_620
loadconfig: bridgename = “rpcemu”
loadconfig: model = “RPCSA”
loadconfig: mouse_twobutton = “0”
loadconfig: network_type = “ethernetbridging”
loadconfig: mouse_following = “1”
loadconfig: cdrom_type = “0”
loadconfig: cdrom_enabled = “1”
loadconfig: refresh_rate = “60”
loadconfig: stretch_mode = “1”
loadconfig: sound_enabled = “1”
loadconfig: vram_size = “2”
loadconfig: mem_size = “128”
loadconfig: cpu_idle = “1”
romload: Loaded ‘Select6i00’ 6291456 bytes
romload: Total ROM size 6 MB
initpodulerom: Successfully loaded ‘hostfs,ffa’ into podulerom
initpodulerom: Successfully loaded ‘hostfsfiler,ffa’ into podulerom
initpodulerom: Successfully loaded ‘SyncClock,ffa’ into podulerom
RPCEmu: Machine reset
Tap-Win32: device name: rpcemu
Tap-Win32: device path: \\.\Global\{2CCFC6E6-8B1C-4F45-925C-001E478499A1}.tap
Tap-Win32: File opened
Tap-Win32: version: 9.21.0
Tap-Win32: status set
Tap-Win32: tap_win32_overlapped_init done
Tap-Win32: Thread created
RPCEmu: Machine reset complete
HostFS: Registration request version 3 accepted
Tap-Win32:
ERROR_IO_PENDING – beforeTap-Win32: ERROR_IO_PENDING – afterTap-Win32:
[ the line above is repeated a further 20 times ]
tap_cleanup

[ end of log ]

I’ve just checked the list and find that the message has been received, and archived. Not very helpful.

Correction – the message has been received and archived and emailed to everybody in the list. Give the people time to respond…

I’m pleased to know that other RPCEmu list members have received their copies. As I said, above, my copy hasn’t arrived, so I assumed that other members did not receive their copies. Sorry for the dupliciation, for list members who also read this forum

I’m not on the list, but that’s how a mailing list works. It seems rather variable whether or not you’ll get a copy of your own message. To me it seems quite sensible, but…I guess not everybody agrees. There’s one list I used to use that I had to habitually BCC myself.

I posted here to ask for advice concerning an RPCEmu networking problem, not to discuss the merits of its mailing list.

I posted here to ask for advice concerning an RPCEmu networking problem,

Should that be “touché”, or perhaps “touchy”?

Should that be “touché”, or perhaps “touchy”?

To be honest, where the subject is RPCEmu and networking the words flakey and temperamental are probably a better choice, unless you’re describing the person trying to make the networking work reliably in which case a modified use of annoyed is a reasonable bet.
There is a reason I’ve done a few revisions of the wiki page for RPCEmu on RO5 but not added a networking guide:- I’m not going to write up something I can’t reproduce reliably.

I’m not going to write up something I can’t reproduce reliably.

Quotable quote, that. Something a professional technical author would often love to be able to say – and which he can say with great alacrity after he’s retired!

Quotable quote, that. Something a professional technical author would often love to be able to say

20 something years ago I described matching the needs of BS5750 / ISO9001 as being simple because all you had to do was document what you were going to do and the do what the document said¹
I’ve always followed the routine my father did of using bullet point lists and ticking things off.
If you run through it several times and it always works then hand the document to a professional idiot and see if they can break the procedure when following the instructions exactly. IdiotPro is in short supply round here so I do that bit as well as the writing.

¹ That’s exactly what it requires, i.e. if you say you’re going to do a sloppy job in the document then you have to do a sloppy job to be compliant. More recent standards check that your documented procedures actually achieve a decent standard of result.

if you say you’re going to do a sloppy job in the document then you have to do a sloppy job to be compliant

Yup. I worked for a while with a company doing ISO 9001 accreditation. My opinion is it was a huge scam. “Quality” meant sod-all – you would be compliant if you shredded all customer complaints if this is what the document said was supposed to happen. But, wait, the number of hoops you’d have to jump through to ensure “quality continuance” if you took in non-ISO9001 stuff (hey, mandatory quarantine!) meant that for a smooth process, everybody downstream of you needed to be ISO9001 as well. Even if their actual quality was crap and their procedures nonsensical, as long as it was all documented and approved.

I rank Quality Auditors somewhere between door to door conservatory salesmen and jehovah’s witnesses…

More recent standards check that your documented procedures actually achieve a decent standard of result.

That’s good to hear, but I will still detest QA because I’ll be you anything that the change in standard was not their idea, it was a panic reaction to their money train running out when people started realising “why are we paying to get audited? this is crap!”. After all, those are the people that managed to put in place a complicated long-winded “quality assurance” process that did absolutely nothing of the sort. Following documents != Quality (in any definition of the word “quality” that I would use, including but not limited to a brand of chocolates…).

Did you do all the weak* commands after the installation of the bridge?

Yes, I did, but that wasn’t related to the errors.

After some time with Google, I found a thread, ‘Another connection problem’, on the RPCEmu mailing list. from a couple of years ago, in which you note the same error messages! The solution then, as now, was to downgrade OpenVPN to version 2.1.3 , which creates Tap-win32 version 9.7.0. This seems to be compatible with Win 7 Pro, whereas later versions are not.

All sorted now. Many thanks for your response.

All sorted now. Many thanks for your response.

So the downgrade trick still works? I thought it was solved.
It’s really time for a second networking option: user mode.
Much simpler to install.