Network Supervisor's Toolkit

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Text File | 1996-07-10 | 16.4 KB | 433 lines

Computer Tyme BestNet * Version 1.6 * Release Date: 09-30-91 Copyright 1990-91 by Marc Perkel * All Rights Reserved Computer Tyme * 411 North Sherman, Suite 300 * Springfield Mo. 65802 (800) 548-5353 Sales * (417) 866-1222 Voice * (417) 866-1665 Data This program sets an environment variable NET to the best network shell based on the dos version and the presence of either EMS or XMS memory. You can then load the net shell by putting %NET% in your batch file. If both EMS and XMS are available, EMS is selected. Usage: BESTNET (/I/X/L) BESTNET > NUL ;This stops BestNet from writing to the screen. /I Ignore XMS and EMS Shells. /X Selects XMS over EMS where both exist. /L Includes QEMM LoadHi command if LOADHI.COM is available. BestNet also sets an environment variable NETD that contains the drive letter of the first network drive. This also can be used in a batch file to switch to the network drive and log in. A batch file to login might look like this: IPX BESTNET %NET% ;might contain EMSNETX.EXE %NETD% ;might contain F: LOGIN Price: $35/Server, $250 Unlimited Setting NET=EMSNETX.EXE Setting NETD=F: ------------------------------------------------------------------ This program helps take some of the pain out of booting up into netware. One of the problems on a network is that some people are running different verstion of dos that others. Some have EMS memory and some have XMS memory. Novell provides several shells for different computer environments. BestNet helps choose the best net for your machine to load. Thus making installation easier. Here's how you use it. Your AUTOEXEC.BAT might look like this: @Echo Off IPX SET COMSPEC=X:COMMAND.COM BESTNET %NET% SET NET= F: LOGIN The SET COMSPEC command has nothing to do with BestNet. It's a trick I learned that eliminates DOS going back to the floppy for command.com. Setting the comspec before loading the net shell fixes this problem. Another trick is to create a file called LOADNET.BAT as follows: BESTNET %NET% SET NET= F: STARTUP AUTOEXEC.BAT ----> LOADNET.BAT ----> STARTUP.BAT The idea here is that each AUTOEXEC.BAT on the net ends with the command LOADNET. This causes the AUTOEXEC to jump to LOADNET. LOADNET is exactly the same for all workstations. You also put LOADNET in the LOGIN directory. LOADNET loads the best shell and then branches to a batch file called STARTUP which does your login. The reason for 3 batch files is as follows. If you are booting from a boot rom, you can have different AUTOEXEC for each user. These branch to LOADNET which makes the transition from rom to the login directory. As soon as the net shell loads the rom disappears and the LOADNET file continues in the login directory. The idea is that LOADNET never changes. You can change the AUTOEXEC and the STARTUP bat files any way you want and still make a smooth transition from your boot drive to the network. Other Computer Tyme Software: ====================================================== The Computer Tyme Dos ToolBox... Makes DOS easier for the novice, more powerful for the professional. DIRECTORY MASTER is a powerful hard disk managment utility. It brings up your hard disk files and allows you to mark selected files so you can copy them, delete them, or move them. It also allows you to rename files, change dates, and change attributes. You can also run programs or set up your function keys to run programs on selected files. DOLIST makes being at DOS easier. It gives you full line editing, like a word processor, for your commands. It also stores commands so that you can re-execute them. It remembers subdirectories and allows you to go back to them by pressing the TAB key. It offers programmable function keys, DOS extensions, multiple execution, and many more features you have got to have. PICK DIRECTORY allows you to move through the directory system by displaying a graphic tree and letting you use your arrow keys to move around. It also lets you create, delete, rename, and hide directories. TEDIT (from SemWare) is a powerful, easy to use full screen editor. MARXTSR is a set of memory and TSR management utilities that let you load and unload TSRs (Terminate and stay resident programs) from memory. Utilities to list menory allocation and turn TSR's on and off. And many more ... Also includes is D, a fancy directory listing program; WHEREIS, for finding stuff on you hard disk, SORT, MOVE, FIND, FREE, PIPEDIR, VERSION, and many more. The Dos Toolbox sells for $59.95. ====================================================== We are also selling QEdit from Semware. QEdit is a professional editor from Semware. TEdit is a mini version of QEdit. If you like TEdit, You'll love QEdit. 1-800-548-5353 Order Line 1-417-866-1222 Voice Line 1-417-866-1665 BBS Data line * 1200/2400 * 8N1 * ANSI or VT100 MarxMenu comes with MarxEdit and MARXTSR manager and a few goodies out of the DOS ToolBox. The Network Survival Kit is a network version of almost every utility I've ever written. It's sold on a per fileserver basis. _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| APPROVED VENDOR ========================================== Make Check Computer Tyme Order Form 2.26 Payable To: 411 North Sherman Suite 300 Springfield Mo. 65802 (417) 866-1222 (800) 548-5353 Please send me Computer Tyme Software. ============================================================= Name: ________________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________________ City/St/Zip: ________________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________________ Computer: ________________________________________________ Got From: ________________________________________________ Comments: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Single User Version: ___ Enclosed is $59.95 for MarxMenu. ___ Enclosed is $59.95 for the DOS ToolBox. ___ Enclosed is $99.95 for MarxMenu, the Dos ToolBox and DM3. Network Version (1 per file server): ___ Enclosed is $495 for Network Survival Kit. ___ Add $3.00 for Shipping and Handling. ___ I need 3 1/2 Inch Media. Credit Card Number: _______________ Expiration Date: ________ Signature: __________________________________________________ Master Card __ Visa __ Discover __ * We do not take American Express * ============================================================= Since the article about this program appeared in LAN TIMES, I've decided to copy a few paragraphs about logging in and logging out of NetWare that are out of my MarxMenu manual. This may help you solve a lot of other problems with NetWare. MarxMenu can be used to completely replace Novell login scripts! NOVELL USERS: Novell is the most popular network on the market. We have added many enhancements for Novell networks to support things like logging in and logging out, drive mapping, group support, software metering, and status information. Although Novell is a high quality solid product it has its own "Personality" and many undocumented features otherwise known as bugs. Most people who are having trouble with MarxMenu under Novell are really having trouble with Novell. Quite frankly, we do more Novell support than we do MarxMenu support. Having said that, I own two Novell networks. One at the lab and one at home and I love my networks. But, I have spent hundreds of hours learning all the tricks. And to save you a phone call, and me a lot of time, I've decided to share these tricks here in my manual. Some of these tricks are from the Great Network Gurus themselves who are so advanced that they no longer exist in physical form. These people live in another dimension of total mental existence and can only be reached my modem. Some of them hang out on Compuserve. I therefore strongly recommend that if you are a serious Novell user that you join Compuserve and hang out in the Novell section. And just because not everyone on Compuserve is a real person doesn't mean that you should feel uncomfortable asking them any question about your network that you need to ask. LOGGING IN WITH MARXMENU If there is any one thing that's trickier than logging out of a Novell network, is logging in. I have spent MANY hours struggling with Novell trying to get it right and I have finally figured it out. Much of this comes from the Novell gurus who hang out on Compuserve and know everything there is to know about Novell. The first thing you need to do is make up your mind that you are going to do it right. The technique here might seem somewhat cumbersome, but it works well and will keep you out of trouble. MarxMenu has the ability to log you into a network, map your drives, and set your environment strings without having to touch a Novell utility to do so. MarxMenu can completely eliminate the need for Novell login scripts. The advantage to using MarxMenu in the login is that you have the power of 500 commands to work with instead of just 25 or so. THE CONFIG.SYS FILE The place to start is the place where DOS start when DOS boots. You MUST create a CONFIG.SYS file on your boot disk. The CONFIG.SYS tells DOS how many files and buffers to create, what device drivers to load, and the size of the Master Environment. Unless you are using special drivers, BUFFERS=40 and FILES=40 is a good place to start. STACKS 0,0 will gain you an extra 3k of ram. But the most important command is the shell statement. A CONFIG.SYS file might look like this: SHELL=COMMAND.COM /P /E:400 BUFFERS=40 FILES=40 DEVICE=ANSI.SYS This sets up enough environment space to allow MarxMenu and DOS SET commands to work properly. You will also want to load any other device drivers like QEMM386.SYS or 386MAX.SYS to take advantage of other features of your computer. If you don't know about CONFIG.SYS files, read the DOS manual. Note: If you don't have a local hard disk and are booting from a floppy drive, set BUFFERS=4. If you are booting from a diskless workstation, set BUFFERS=1. BUFFERS are used for local drives only and have no effect on network drives. You save 1k of memory for every 2 buffers you don't use. THE AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE After the CONFIG.SYS is loaded the AUTOEXEC.BAT runs next. Here you load up your TSRs and network drivers. There are some important tricks to be used here as well. First of all, never load your network shell from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Always have it branch to another batch file called LOADNET to load the network shell. Use the autoexec.bat only to load special TSRs and the IPX. An autoexec.bat might look like this: @Echo Off Cls IPX SET NET=NET4.COM SET COMSPEC=X:COMMAND.COM LOADNET The two SET commands are very important. The first sets a variable called NET to NET4.COM. This will be used later in LOADNET.BAT. By using this variable, you can have users running many different versions of DOS and still use the same LOADNET.BAT file. You could also use a command SET NET=LOADHI EMSNET4.EXE to take advantage of advanced memory manager software. Another trick is to run BESTNET from the Network Survival Kit. BestNet will automatically pick the best network shell and set the NET environment variable for you. You would use the command BESTNET instead of SET NET=NET4.COM in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The SET COMSPEC=X:COMMAND.COM is important if you are booting off of either a floppy drive or a diskless workstation. This assumes that X: will eventually be mapped to a directory on the network that has a valid COMMAND.COM in it. It is important to set the comspec BEFORE loading your NET shell. This prevents a problem where Netware wants to go back to the boot disk even after you change the comspec. I don't know why this works but it does. Trust Me. If you are going to use COMMAND.COM on drive C:, ignore this paragraph. Now we go to the LOADNET.BAT file. @Echo Off %NET% SET NET= F: STARTUP The big concept behind LOADNET is that this file is NEVER CHANGED. You put in on all your workstations and in the LOGIN directory and it is EXACTLY THE SAME for every computer in your network. Any changes to individual computers are made in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. So why is this important. Because if you are running diskless workstations what happens is that while you are booting you have a mythical drive A:. As soon as your NET shell loads this drive dissappears out from under you and you end up in F:\LOGIN. If you are running LOADNET.BAT when this happens you drop out of A:LOADNET.BAT and land in the middle of F:\LOADNET.BAT. And if your LOADNET.BAT is exactly the same file as the LOADNET.BAT in the \LOGIN directory, you take off running like the transition never occured. Even if you are not running on diskless workstations now, you might go to it someday. It also creates good programming habits and helps you boot up cleanly. Lets see what LOADNET does. The first line is @ECHO OFF, that's easy. The second line %NET% executes the network shell that you specified with the SET NET=NET4 command. This actually loads the network shell. The third line clears the NET variable freeing up space for other environment variables. F: switches you to drive F if you aren't there already. And finally STARTUP is the name of yet another batch file you jump to. The STARTUP.BAT file controls what happens AFTER LOADNET runs. This file can be freely changed so that LOADNET.BAT can stay the same. This lets you modify what happens AFTER the network shell is loaded. If you are using Novell's login program STARTUP.BAT might look like this: @Echo Off LOGIN THE SHELL.CFG FILE The SHELL.CFG file is used by Netware to configure the Netware shell. You should read the manuals on this to see if you need any of the many option available. I suggest you at least have the following commands in your SHELL.CFG file. cache buffers=4 show dots=on The master network gurus tell me that cache buffers are just a waste of memory and do not provide any better performance. Every 2 cache buffers not used saves you 1k of memory. Show dots makes your network compatible with more software utilities and should be set on unless you have some other reason not to. USING A MENU FILE TO LOG IN If you are going to use MarxMenu to log in instead of Novell's utilities, you will want to print out the sample file LOGIN.MNU on your MarxMenu disk and study it. Your STARTUP.BAT file might look like this: @Echo Off SET BOOTUP=LOGIN MarxMenu Login %BOOTUP% If MarxMenu works correctly, it will change the environment variable %BOOTUP% to point to a file that it creates. If for some reason it fails (you make a mistake in the login), it will execute Novell's login and let you get in and fix it. One word of caution. After modifing this menu, always run MARXCOMP LOGIN to compile it. Otherwise, if you boot up into it you won't have enough access rights to recompile automatically. THE NOVELL MENU TRANSLATOR One nice bonus with Novell networks is that MarxMenu can translate your Novell menus to MarxMenu. This saves you the time of having to recode your system. What you do is type: MARXMENU NOVTRANS <menu> This translates your Novell MNU file to a MarxMenu MRX file. Your MNU file is unchanged. MarxMenu creates a TMP file containing the source code for the MRX file. Once you are satisfied with the MarxMenu file, you just delete the MNU file and rename the TMP file to MNU and forget that you ever had a Novell menu. Once the menu is translated you run it by typing MARX <menu> instead of MENU <menu>. MarxMenu can run Novell's menu better than Novell runs their own.