Telegard And Telnet v1.0 1.0 Introduction ---------------- This document was compiled due to the rising demand of Telegard sysops to have their BBS's on the internet via Telnet. I cannot guarantee this will work on your system, but it has been tested on other systems besides mine and has been proven to work. Also, to make it easier for me, I use the following acronyms throughout this document- ISP - Internet Service Provider (ie. IStar, Netcom) PPP - Point-to-Point Protocol TCP/IP - TeleCommunications Protocols/Internet Protocols (?) SLIP - Serial Line Interface Protocol (like PPP) IAK - Internet Access Kit (Comes with Warp and Warp Connect) 1.1 Requirements - OS/2 2.1 (With TCP/IP for OS/2), OS/2 Warp or OS/2 Warp Connect If you purchase Warp ($65-$75 Canadian) it comes with the Internet Access Kit, as does Warp Connect, thus you will not need the TCP/IP for OS/2. If you only have OS/2 2.1, then you must either go out and purchase a copy of Warp (Recommended) or TCP/IP for OS/2, which is very costly. - SIO COM Drivers (Ray Gwinn) These are the recommended communications drivers by most OS/2 Sysops, and to have a telnetable BBS, these are required. To get a copy, you can either telnet to vmbbs.gwinn.com, Ftp them the SIO FTP Server (vmbbs.gwinn.com/dl02/sio153.zip) or FREQ them from my system (1:259/230) as either SIO153.ZIP or the magic name of SIO. - A Dedicated SLIP/PPP Account With A Local ISP A dedicated account is needed so that you can be found at all times (A regular account will have a different Address everytime you connect). If there is a computer paper/magazine that is specific to your city/region/area code then watch for an issue that lists local ISPs and their rates (ie. In Toronto, there is Toronto Computes, The Computer Paper and We Compute) If you are providing the internet as an option to your users and you don't want anyone telneting into your BBS, only out from your BBS, a regular account will do. I recommend an UNLIMITED TIME account so you don't run out of time. These go for about $27.00 (Canadian) per month or $270.00 a year. You may also want to look for an ISP that offers a NBS (No Busy Signal) Policy or a low user-to-line ratio. If this is the case, you can skip section 2.3, as you won't need any internet nodes using virtual ports for anyone to call in to. 2.0 Installation ------------------ 2.1 SIO COM Drivers To install the SIO Replacement com drivers, unzip them into a directory called SIO. If you already have them installed in another directory, whenever I mention C:\SIO, replace it with the directory that is on your system. Proceed to run the Install.Exe file, it will ask you a few questions and it will then automatically insert SIO into your Config.Sys and AutoExec.Bat file. Now, to set-up SIO properly with your system (Assuming you have a mouse on COM1 and a Modem on COM2. This leaves COM3 and COM4 free to use. If so, replace the current SIO lines in your config.sys to the following - DEVICE=C:\SIO\SIO.SYS (COM2:38400,2F8,3,-) (COM3,INTERNET:3E8,NONE:4) (COM4,INTERNET:2E8,NONE:3) NOTE - Word wrapping was in effect so the above is ONE CONTINOUS LINE For definitions of settings, see SIO.TXT and VMODEM.TXT in your C:\SIO Directory. What you have just done is set-up SIO for use with Vmodem. Vmodem is a utility written by Ray Gwinn which echoes the output from your virtual port(s) through to your modem, and out on to the internet. The opposite happens when anything comes from the internet. You can have up to 16 virtual ports, as SIO can only handle 16 ports (registered version, shareware version only supports 4). Now that you have that line in your Config.Sys, save your Config.Sys and then reboot. You'll notice that when SIO loads it says COM3 and COM4 are now virtual ports! 2.2 VModem Now, through the IAK, start your internet connection. At this point you don't need a dedicated SLIP or PPP account, as you are now just testing Vmodem for use. This can be done on any SLIP or PPP account, but when you are ready to put your BBS up on the internet for people to telnet in you'll need a dedicated account so you'll have the same IP Address. Now that your are connected to your ISP and the internet, load up an OS/2 Session (Window or Fullscreen, doesn't matter), switch to your SIO directory and type VMODEM. VModem will now load if you have everything set-up correctly, if not go back through this document and make sure everything is set-up properly. You should now see that it is set to the COM port(s) you specified earlier, COM3 and COM4 by my example. One thing I must point out is that VMODEM is not using REAL COM ports, so even a machine that is only capable of 4 COM ports can have up to 16. But coming back to reality, on a 28.8k/33.6k Connection, you aren't going to be able to support more than 2 or 3 without VERY noticable slowdown on the users internet connection. Though if you install an ISDN line and you are connected at 128k, you'll easily support 16 virtual ports. You can use VModem with almost ANY program that makes use of the modem (Ie. Your BBS, Your favourite comm program, DoorWay). If you want to test this while you are still connected, go into your favourite comm program, be it OS/2, DOS or EVEN WINDOWS, change the settings for the communications port to reflect your SIO Virtual port settings (COM3 or 4, in my example) and then initialize it by typing ATZ. You should get an OK, if not go back and figure out where it went wrong, as a simple spelling error could make the biggest of difference. Now type ATDT Vmbbs.Gwinn.Com and it will connect you right to Ray Gwinn's Telnet Site! From there you can send a thank you to Ray Gwinn for writing VModem, and if you want you can even register VModem online so you can have up to 16 active Vmodem virtual ports! For more information regarding Vmodem or a list of telnettable BBS's, read VMODEM.TXT in your SIO directory. 2.3 Telegard (Version 3.02) As you probably already know, I run Telegard, and thanks to Tim Strike's ingenious thinking and the great .MDF file feature, it will make this alot easier! But right now, you must add 2 nodes (or your equivilant, according to how many virtual ports you set-up) to Telegard one on COM3 and one on COM4 (or by your virtual port settings) as well as the IRQ Setting. Now, for the modem strings, you can use the following VModem.Mdf, which was given to me by Andrew Ziem. === Begin vmodem.mdf === MODEM Virtual Port SPEED 28800 LOCKED 115200 INIT ATH0Q0V0E0M0X4S0=0S2=1S10=60&C1&D2 ANSWER ATA HANGUP ~~~^A^A^A~~~ATH0 OFFHOOK ATM0H1 OK OK ERROR ERROR RING RING NOCARRIER NO CARRIER DELAY_CMD 5 DELAY_ASW 5 DELAY_DTR 5 CONNECTARQ ARQ FLAGS === End vmodem.mdf === At this point you are going to NEED to have a dedicated account, if you don't already have it. Now, if you want to test it, load up one of the telnet nodes and telnet in from your comm program (set up for the virtual ports) using ATDT . This is a PERFECT way to test your RIPScript Screens and Lightbars! Now that you have Telegard set-up, you are going to want to do a few more things to finish it off and put the "icing on the cake". 2.4 IBM Dial Other Internet Providers You may (or may not) have already noticed that the IBM Dial Other Internet Providers needs human interaction to get it up, and that won't be good for a bbs that is telnetable. What you are going to want is something that will dial your ISP, and start Vmodem as well as your Telnet nodes, all at the same time. This can easily be accomplished with the aid of a couple REXX Scripts and PPPDIAL Version 2.7 by Don Russell. PPPDIAL lets you dial into an ISP from an OS/2 session, thus eliminating the need for the Dial Other Internet Providers application. You'll have to read the documentation included with PPPDial and get it working on your system. Your also going to need a small REXX Script to help you accomplish that, and you can get the script from the PPPDial Web Page - "http://www.cam.org/~tomlins/pppdial.html" (without quotes). PPPDial can do a couple of things. It can start an application after a connection is made, and you can also get it to load up VModem and your BBS. Please make sure that Vmodem is up and running before the BBS Nodes start up, or else there is complications. 3.0 Internet Mail (E-Mail and UseNet) ------------------------------------- I've never actually tried these out, but from what I understand, you will require a program to logon to the NNTP Server and upload/download SOUP Packets. A program called SOUPER will do this. Then you will need FTNSoup, which is much like GEcho, it takes the SOUP packet and tosses the messages into directories that you specify for each newsgroup that you want to carry. I'm unsure of what formats it exports to besides *.Msg. 4.0 3rd Party Utilities ----------------------- There are many doors out there that will aid you in allowing your users to use Telnet, FTP, Gopher, IRC, WWW, etc.. in TEXT Mode. I can't think of any right now, but you can find them either at Bob Juge's Telnet Site (juge.com), his FTP Site (ftp.juge.com) or at Walnut Creek (ftp.cdrom.com). Also, you can point your web browser to the Lora-BBS WWW site as it carries LOTS of OS/2 Internet programs (Http://www.mars.superlink.net/pjmurphy/lora). As for the WWW and other graphical utilities, that is a bit too complicated to get into for this document, as it would require you to network your OS/2 Machine to a Linux/Unix Machine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- If anyone wishes to add/correct/comment the above text, feel free to leave me a message. Thanks!, Michael Thorndyke [Team OS/2] ! Origin: DataLink BBS (905) 457-0889 - CANADA (1:259/230)