UNIX to NT Resource Center

<body> <h2><b>Welcome to the FAQ for Porting from UNIX to NT </b></h2> <h2 align="center"><b>Warning! This FAQ is out-dated. You are seeing it only</b></h2> <h2 align="center"><b>because your browser does not support frames!</b></h2> <h2 align="center"><b>We apologize for the inconvenience.</b></h2> <p><u>Summary:</u> This FAQ contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions about how to port UNIX applications to Microsoft's Windows NT. It should be read by anyone who intends to, or is actively porting UNIX applications. It is a working document. Suggestions, questions, answers are welcome. </p> <p>Last update: 04 July, 1995, First draft: 16 May, 1995 </p> <p>Trivial revision: 05 July, 1996 with pointers to new web site.</p> <p>Update frequency: as necessary </p> <p>Editor: <a href="mailto:wihl@shore.net">David Wihl</a> (wihl@shore.net) Check out the <a href="http://www.nentug.org/">New England NT Users Group</a>!! </p> <p>Availability: This is available via WWW from http://www.nentug.org/unix-to-nt </p> <p>We welcome your contributions and comments on this FAQ. We also encourage you to send us any additional information you would like to see added to this document. Send your comments to the editor via the email address listed above. If you include attached files use MIME or UUENCODE for the attachments. MIME is preferred for attachments. </p> <p>Standard Disclaimer: There is no guarantee that the information in this FAQ is correct, nor can anyone contributing to this FAQ be held responsible for the information which they contribute. </p> <hr> <h2><a name="contents">Contents of the FAQ:</a></h2> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#section0">Section 0</a>- General</h3> <p>Some important <b>general</b> information about developing for NT can be found <a href="http://www.nentug.org/nentug/developr.htm">New England NT Users Group Developer Info. Page</a>. Information specific to UNIX is found here. </p> <p>0.0 What Internet resources are there for the UNIX porter </p> <p>0.1 Some General Porting Opinions </p> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionI">Section I</a> - NT's POSIX</h3> <p>I.1 Where can I get Microsoft's POSIX subsystem for NT? </p> <p>I.2. What are the restrictions of NT's POSIX? </p> <p>I.3. Why is the POSIX subsystem so brain-damaged? </p> <p>I.4. How do I get vi to run? </p> <p>I.5 Where can I found more about NT's POSIX subsystem? </p> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionII">Section II</a> - Porting Aids</h3> <p>II.1 Where can I find GNU for NT? </p> <p>II.2 What other toolkits are there? </p> <p>II.3 What if my codebase is already on Windows? </p> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionIII">Section III</a> - Porting Standard UNIX Code</h3> <p>III.1 Using stdio </p> <p>III.2 Setuid and Security Aspects </p> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionIV">Section IV</a> - Porting Socket and Network Code</h3> <p>IV.1 Availability of ONC/RPC/XDR under NT </p> <p>IV.2 DCE RPC under NT </p> <p>IV.3 Mimicking accept() and select() in NT </p> <p>IV.4 WinSock Apps http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~neuroses/xwin95.html@@@ </p> <h3><a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionV">Section V</a> - NT Versions of UNIX and TCP/IP Utilities</h3> <p>Where is..... </p> <p>V.1 Tcl 7.3 and Tk 3.6 </p> <p>V.2 NIST and USNO Time Client </p> <p>V.3 NFS Client and Server, Samba </p> <p>V.4 FTP Client, FTP Server, Ping, Traceroute, Telnet Client, Telnet Server </p> <p>V.5 NNTP Server </p> <p>V.6 DNS/BIND </p> <p>V.7 SMTP and POP daemon </p> <p>V.8 Perl </p> <p>V.9 Listserv </p> <p>V.10 Finger Daemon </p> <p>V.11 CRON </p> <p>V.12 HTTP Server </p> <p>V.13 X Client and Server </p> <p>V.14 Displaying Windows applications on X servers </p> <p>V.15 SendMail, BLAT </p> <p>V.16 Bash </p> <p>V.17 C-Shell </p> <p>V.18 Kerberos </p> <p>V.19 EMACS</p> <hr> <h3><a name="section0">Section 0 </a>- General</h3> <p><u>0.0 What Internet resources are there for the UNIX porter</u> </p> <p>Directly from <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a>, via FTP there are a number of <a href="ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/UNIX-to-Windows">UNIX to Windows Presentations</a> in Powerpoint and text format. Also there is a relatively complete <a href="ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-docs/catalog/">catalog of 32 bit applications</a>. </p> <p><a href="http://www.ora.com">O'Reilly and Assoc.</a> has an interesting <a href="http://www.ora.com/gnn/bus/ora/features/ntInterview/intro.html">interview with Microsoft's liaison to the UNIX community</a>. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bristol.com">Bristol</a> (makers of Wind/U) maintain an excellent <a href="http://www.bristol.com/Bibliography/bibliography.html">bibliography</a> that contains a number of useful pointers, especially with regards to GUI portability. </p> <p><u>0.1 Some General Porting Opinions</u> </p> <p>During discussions on the various NT newsgroups, some general opinions come up about porting from UNIX to NT. Edited citations will appear here: </p> <p><b><u>Regarding your general porting strategy:</u></b> </p> <p><u>From: hamilton@BIX.com (hamilton on BIX); on: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32; Date: 22 May 95</u> </p> <p><cite>mansionj@gstldn9.merrill (James Mansion LADS LDN X4923) writes:</cite> </p> <p><cite>>Arguably, Consensys and Datafocus are doing it right.</cite> [Using a UNIX style library that are maps to NT native calls] </p> <p><cite>I think you meant: "Consensy and Datafocus www.datafocus.com NuTCRACKER argue they're doing it right." The question is how many others agree. While there may be certain cases where the porting library approach makes sense (e.g., for in-house developers with a captive "market" and pressure from management to absolutely minimize the porting effort and source changes), I can't find any reason to recommend this to anyone working in a more competitive environment. I'm fully satisfied that you can invariably get a better product with a native port. Your performance will be better, your functionality will be better and your "fit" with NT will be better. I've had several occasions to help a number of vendors begin their ports from UNIX to NT at the Microsoft porting lab (at Microsoft's request) and at the vendors' locations. Invariably, the best indicator of their early success has been the choice of a native vs. a porting library approach. Folks choosing to use a porting library invariably get totally balled up learning to deal with the ideosyncracies of the porting library. At the end of should have been an intensive week-long learning experience, they still know next to nothing about Win32. Instead, they've flittered the time away trying to do things that should have been simple, like using the debugger: with one of these packages, for example, you try stepping into main() and instead of just stopping at the first executable statement, you're off and running because the library's startup routines have fired off God knows how many threads to handshake with their "kernel" process. Everyone except those involved can see what's going on: </cite></p> <p><cite>"Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"</cite> </p> <p><cite>"Don't do that."</cite> </p> <p><cite>"But I've really get this working but it hurts when I do this."</cite> </p> <p><cite>I can't help but suspect that the reason so many seemingly intelligent, flexible developers might get sucked in to these porting library approaches is because they don't have enough confidence in themselves to learn a new API. Believe me, it can be done. People dumber than fenceposts have done it and you can, too. And as you learn Win32 and as you begin to consider the particulars of your own porting problem, most likely you'll find solutions popping right out at you as ways to get your native port done quickly.</cite> </p> <p><cite>If you think you need to be competitive, you will have to do a native port. Period. If you don't think you need to be competitive or if you think it's going to be all that much faster with a porting library, you are probably wrong. Regards,</cite> </p> <p><cite>Doug Hamilton KD1UJ hamilton@bix.com Ph 508-440-8307 FAX 508-440-8308</cite> </p> <p><cite>Hamilton Laboratories, 21 Shadow Oak Drive, Sudbury, MA 01776-3165, USA</cite> </p> <p><b><u>Regarding Shell Usage:</u></b> </p> <p><u>From: feoh@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Chris Patti); on: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32; Date: 24 May 95</u> </p> <p><cite>Foisting a UNIX shell on NT is IMNSHO the wrong thing for most people's needs. Shrouding yourself in an ever-so-thin veil of UNIX will only make you that much more keenly aware of the fact that you're NOT using UNIX to begin with :)</cite> </p> <p><cite>I would strongly suggest that you at least take a look at 4DOS/NT. It provides just about all of the functionality of a UNIX shell (at least all of it that makes sense under NT.) and a MUCH comfier environment that's tailored to the environment you're in as opposed to the one you'd like to be in.</cite> </p> <p>[4DOS, and the similiar Command/32 V1.0 are available at The <a href="ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/nt/shells">SimTel archives</a> -Ed] </p> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> <h3><a name="sectionI">Section I - NT's POSIX</a></h3> <p><u>I.1 Where can I get Microsoft's POSIX subsystem for NT?</u> </p> <p>NT has a built-in protected subsystem for POSIX. It starts automatically when a POSIX application loads and stays active until shutdown. The process name is psxss. </p> <p>Microsoft provides a series of POSIX utilities, including source code, in the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com">Resource Kit</a>. Some of the included utilities are: <i>ar, cat, chmod, vi, ls, mv, rm, </i>and <i>sh</i>. </p> <p>The Resource Kit can be purchased from Microsoft (US$149 before May 31, 1995, $199 after), Software Spectrum (US 800-824-3323 US$84, Canada 800-624-6224 CDN$118 , part number M24265). </p> <p>You can also <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/BackOffice/ntutil.htm">download the utilities</a> for free. </p> <p>The Reskit is not enough to develop POSIX applications - you really need the SDK from, again, MSDN Level 2 (See <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Section 0</a>). </p> <p><u>I.2 What are the restrictions of NT's POSIX?</u> </p> <p>The POSIX subsystem that is supplied by Microsoft with NT has several important limitations. </p> <p>To quote the Resource Kit: </p> <blockquote> <p>With this release of Windows NT, POSIX applications have no direct access to any of the facilities and features of the Win32 subsystem, such as memory mapped files, networking, graphics, or dynamic data exchange. </p> </blockquote> <p>That one sentence says a lot! No networking means no Winsock or any other communication protocol. No graphics means that you restricted to only console-based (Command Window) applications. No memory mapped files restricts one of the methods of communicating between processes under NT. Simply stated, applications using the POSIX subsystem of NT can't do a whole lot. To do anything interesting, you need to access Microsoft's Win32 API, or at least wrap a series of Unix-like calls around the Win32 API. See <a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionII">Section II</a>. </p> <p><u>I.3 Why is the POSIX subsystem so brain-damaged?</u> </p> <p>The general consensus is that Microsoft put in the POSIX subsystem in order to bid NT on U.S. government contracts where POSIX can be a requirement. The NT implementation is a strict implementation of the POSIX.1 standard and nothing more. So, the subsystem isn't so much as brain-damaged, but severely handicapped by not adding anything beyond the specification. </p> <p>The unfortunate result for those wishing to port UNIX applications, is that unless the application needs no more system resources than <i>cat</i>, the POSIX subsystem is useless. In fact, attempting to port to the POSIX subsystem will probably be a complete waste of time as any one of several brick walls will be hit very quickly. The alternative is to start with the Win32 API and one of several porting aids listed in the next section. </p> <p><u>I.4 How do I get </u><i><u>vi</u></i><u> to run?</u> </p> <p>Ah yes, one of the great secrets of the NT POSIX subsystem. See also Knowledge Base article <a href="http://198.105.232.5:80/Support/KBSL/bussys/winnt/Q108581.htm">Q108581</a>. </p> <p>First, you need to create a termcap file: </p> <pre> li|ansi|psx_ansi|:\ :co#80:li#25:\ :am:pt:ms:bw:\ :cl=\E[2J:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:ce=\E[K:cd=\E[J:\ :sf=\E[S:sr=\E[T:\ :ho=\E[H:sc=\E[s:rc=\E[u:up=\E[A:d=^J:nd=\E[C:le=^H:\ :ku=\E[A:kd=\E[V:kr=\E[C:kl=\E[D:kb=^H:\ :so=\E[7m:se=\E[m:mr=\E[7m:me=\E[0m:\ </pre> <p>Second, you need to a bunch of environment variables: </p> <pre> SET _POSIX_TERM=on SET TERM=ansi SET TERMCAP=location of termcap file in POSIX file format which is case-sensitive. e.g. SET TERMCAP=//D/RESKIT35/posix/termcap SET TMP=//C/TEMP </pre> <p>Important note: setting the TMP environment variable in POSIX style renders it incompatible with a lot of other applications, including Visual C++. So you should have a separate command window just for vi. All the other variables may be permanently set in the Control Panel\System applet. </p> <p>That should be it. </p> <p><u>I.5 Where can I found more about NT's POSIX subsystem?</u> </p> <p>In the NT 3.5 Resource Kit, Resource Guide, Chapter 17 - POSIX Compatibility. </p> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> <h3><a name="sectionII">Section II - Porting Aids</a></h3> <p><u>II.1 Where can I find GNU for NT?</u> </p> <p>At <a href="ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/microlib/nt/gnu">U. of Texas</a> which has a version that was compiled under NT 3.1. You should also look at <a href="ftp://ftp.cs.yale.edu/pub/gnat">Yale University's GNU archive</a> to find GCC and GNAT for NT. Also, if can connect you'll be able to find a mirror at <a href="ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/nt">CICA</a>. </p> <p><b>One caveat:</b> when using WinZipNT to extract the GNU archives, disable CR/LF translation or you else you will get the "not a valid executable" when attempting to use the binaries. Thanks to <a href="mailto:garth@pisces.systems.sa.gov.au">Garth Kidd</a> </p> <p>A commercialized version, called <b>Toolbuster</b> is made by <a href="mailto:support@congruent.com">Congruent</a>, and can be purchased from The Programmer's Shop (+1-617-740-0101 US$180). </p> <p>According to <a href="mailto:feoh@gnu.ai.mit.edu">Chris Patti</a> : </p> <blockquote> <p><cite>The GNU tools [Congruent] offered for ~$250 CLAIM to be fully supported but my company has been SORELY dissappointed with their performance so far.</cite> </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><cite>They include a version of emacs that's among the worst ports I've ever encountered. Many of the other GNU tools barely work (e.g. less exhibits all sorts of bizarre behaviour, etc)</cite> </p> </blockquote> <p><u>II.2 What other toolkits are there?</u> </p> <p>Since there is a similarity of function between numerous UNIX calls and NT services, a number of bright people have the idea of mapping UNIX calls to NT. This can simplfy life in some respects or complicate it. See the Opinion question of <a href="oldfaq.htm#section0">Section 0</a>. Having said that, the following toolkits may be of use to you. </p> <p>Of course <a href="http://www.mks.com">MKS</a> sells its popular toolkit for NT. </p> <p><a href="mailto:hamilton@bix.com">Doug Hamilton</a> has an excellent <a href="oldfaq.htm#CShell">C-Shell</a> port that includes many utilities. </p> <p><a href="http://www.datafocus.com">Datafocus</a>, with its NuTCRACKER product, has one of the most complete UNIX-like libraries available for NT. </p> <p>According to an old Microsoft list, <a href="mailto:hippix-info@hippo.com">Hippix</a> also sells a package similar to Congruent, but alas it seems that Hippix has gone out of business. Hippix can still be purchased from <a href="http://www.pht.com">Pacific HiTech</a> for very cheap. </p> <p>There is a brave solo attempt to wrap many NT routines in UNIX-like jackets. There is considerably more work to be done in this area, but you can find the current state of affairs at the <a href="ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/kn/knauss/downhill.html">DOWNHILL project</a>. </p> <p>There is also Unite, a product from Consensys. It claims to be a direct port of UNIX System V Release 4 source code and includes over 100 commands and the C and Korn shells. [pointers, please! -Ed.] </p> <p><u>II.3 What if my codebase is already on Windows?</u> </p> <p>As alternative, you can maintain your code on Windows, and then port from there to other platforms. </p> <p>There are also several products that help your Windows code run on UNIX. The general idea is to take Microsoft's class hierarchy, called MFC or Microsoft Foundation Classes, and port them to various other platforms including UNIX. Microsoft does maintain greatest control this way. </p> <p><a href="http://www.mainsoft.com/">Mainsoft</a> publishes one that includes mapping to X calls. - Thanks to <a href="mailto:david@mainsoft.com">David Herron</a> of Mainsoft </p> <p>Another, called Wind/U, is produced by <a href="http://www.bristol.com">Bristol</a>. </p> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> <h3><a name="sectionIII">Section III - Porting Standard UNIX Code</a> </h3> <p><u>III.1 Using stdio</u> </p> <p><a href="mailto:ykchoi@fast.kaist.ac.kr">Choi Young-Kyu</a> asked the following straight-forward questions in the comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 newsgroup and received three excellent replies: </p> <p><u>Questions</u>: </p> <p>1. Is it impossible to generate a console command which display an image onto the screen such as "xv" in UNIX ? For example in UNIX: </p> <pre> % cat image.gif | ...image-processing... | xv - </pre> <p>2. If 1 is possible, what are those tools available in network ? </p> <p>3. If not, what is the best approach to separate console commands and GUIs ? </p> <p><u>Reply 1 - </u><a href="http://www.ultranet.com/~charlieb/"><u>Charlie Beerman</u></a><u>:</u> </p> <p>Choi, if you are writing a console-mode application you have to get the handles to the standard input/output/error streams. Here is an example: </p> <pre> HANDLE hStderr; HANDLE hStdin; HANDLE hStdout; hStderr = GetStdHandle( STD_ERROR_HANDLE ); hStdin = GetStdHandle( STD_INPUT_HANDLE ); hStdout = GetStdHandle( STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE ); </pre> <p>Then you can read from stdin and write to stdout/stderr using the ReadFile and WriteFile API calls. (The first argument to these calls is the appropriate file handle from the example.) </p> <p>I haven' t tried passing non-text data through this mechanism though, so I'm not certain what will happen if your data contains a byte with value 26 decimal (CTRL-Z). </p> <p>The main difficulty in what you are trying to do is to pipe data to a Windows application. In DOS and Windows 3.1, a "pipe" is implemented by a temporary file, so the input must be complete before the output can go to the other end of the "pipe". This is not true on NT, though. If XV can read data from the standard input, great. Otherwise, you have to trick the pipe into using a temporary file. </p> <p>I just wrote a program to do something similar. What I had to do was to read the standard input using the mechanism I described above, and write the data to a temporary file. Then I could use CreateProcess to start my Windows application with the temporary filename as a command-line argument. Of course, I need to delete the temporary file at some point. I used the API call WaitForInputIdle to wait until the Windows app finished initializing. You can also use GetExitCodeProcess to find out if the Windows app has terminated and wait for that before deleting the temporary file. </p> <p>If you want this program send me mail and I'll make it available to you. Let me know if you want the source and/or executable. The program is called PIPETO and is used as in this example: </p> <pre> C:> dir | pipeto notepad </pre> <p>in which case the output of the DIR command is sent to the Windows NT Notepad. Like I said, I haven't tried it with binary data. </p> <p><u>Reply 2 - </u><a href="mailto:hamilton@bix.com"><u>Doug Hamilton</u></a><u> (author of the Hamilton C-Shell)</u>: </p> <p>No problem. You can write such an app under NT also. Even graphical apps inherit stdio handles, which they can retrieve with GetStdHandle. The only limitation you should bear in mind is that if the handle being passed to the graphical process is to a console window, it will not be valid outside that console window. </p> <p>Let me give you an example: Suppose you write a graphical app that tries to use printf. You start it from the DOS command prompt running in a console window. No output shows up. Why? Because the handle you've passed it isn't valid in that new graphical window. Same thing if the graphical app had tried to read stdin and you'd passed it a handle tied to the keyboard in you console window. </p> <p>But if the handles you pass are tied to any other kind of thing you might normally use with stdio, it'll work just fine. In your example, your xv app will have no trouble reading data from stdin because stdin will be tied to the output end of a pipe, which is certainly inheritable to a graphical app. </p> <p><u>Reply 3 - </u><a href="mailto:adrian@refine.demon.co.uk"><u>Adrian Milliner</u></a><u> </u></p> <p>There is nothing to stop any console process from opening windows and reading the message queue. For example the following is quite OK: </p> <pre> #include <stdio.h> #include <windows.h> void main(int argc, char*argv[]) { if (argc > 1) MessageBox(NULL,argv[1],argv[0],MB_OK); } </pre> <p>Obviously you have access to stdin, stdout etc. For graphics data, you'd have to set the the translation mode to binary using something like: </p> <pre> _setmode(_fileno(stdin),_O_BINARY); </pre> <p>If you wanted to access stdin/out through a normal GUI application, then you can access HANDLEs to these streams using GetStdHandle(). </p> <p>If you already had an NT application that reads images from files, you could make it read from a pipe by writing a simple console app that copies stdin (in binary mode) to a temp file, then call the other app with that file as it's parameter... </p> <p><u>III.2 Setuid and Security Aspects</u> </p> <p>Well, finally as of NT version 3.51, the Security APIs have been made public. Since the final commercial release, build 1057, they actually work (the beta version, build 944, had some problems). </p> <p>As an example, see the source <b>code of an </b><a href="ftp://ftp.shore.net/members/wihl"><b>NT version of UNIX's su command</b></a> written by <a href="mailto:wihl@shore.net">David Wihl</a> (editor of this FAQ) and <a href="mailto:skrause@informatik.hu-berlin.de">Steffen Krause</a>. </p> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> <h3><a name="sectionIV">Section IV - Porting Socket and Network Code</a></h3> <p><u>IV.1 Availability of ONC/RPC/XDR under NT</u> </p> <p><a href="http://www.netmanage.com">NetManage</a> sells an RPC/XDR-SDK for NT, among other very useful TCP/IP products for Windows. </p> <p>Noblenet (+1-508-460-8222) also has ONC RPC for NT. Thanks to <a href="mailto:noblent!billd@uunet.uu.net">Bill Duckett</a> of NobleNet. </p> <p>Also, GMD in Germany has a free version available (click <a href="ftp://ftp.gmd.de/GMD/I5.RS/SUNRPC.ZIP">here</a> to download it). </p> <p><u>IV.2 DCE RPC under NT</u> </p> <p>[coming soon -Ed] </p> <p><u>IV.3 Mimicking accept() and select() in NT</u> </p> <p>WaitForMultipleObjects works fine with <b>connected</b> sockets, it will not work with bound but non-connected sockets (the sort that you could do an accept() on in UNIX). This means if you have a select() loop that processes requests and also (under UNIX) will return on requests for new connections you can't use WaitForMultipleObjects(). You have to use another thread doing the Winsock select() and then cascade it up to the WaitForMultipleObjects via a pipe.... (tacky) - Thanks to <a href="mailto:jra@vantive.com">Jeremy Allison</a> </p> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> <h3><a name="sectionV">Section V </a>- NT Versions of UNIX and TCP/IP Utilities</h3> <p>Where is..... </p> <p><u>V.1 Tcl 7.3 and Tk 3.6</u> </p> <p>The latest location is at <a href="ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/winnt">Berkeley</a> A mirror of TKNT3.6 is available at <a href="ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/distrib">Alcatel</a>. </p> <p><a href="ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/winnt">Tk 4.0</a> is also available. Expect is not supported under NT. </p> <p>- Thanks to <a href="mailto:chaffee@bugs-bunny.cs.berkeley.edu">Gordon Chaffee</a> </p> <p><u>V.2 NIST and USNO Time Client</u> </p> <p><a href="http://www.somar.com">Somar</a> (from Mr. Ramos, get it?) has one utility as shareware. They published a number of other useful tools as well. </p> <p>Tardis can read the time off of a remote NTP server, this is not the protocol that it delivers in turn for you to use with local clients on a LAN. Also it does not use the NTP protocol, but the old RFC 868 TIME protocol. NTP is more accurate and won't allow the time to go backwards (and cause file dates, etc. to get messed up). </p> <p>There is also <a href="mailto:avents@btco.com">Todd Aven's </a>NTPDate program. From its README: </p> <blockquote> <p><cite>NTPDATE.EXE is an NT (Intel) port of the ntpdate program which comes as part of the xntp distribution. NTPDATE will query one or more NTP servers and set the local clock based on a statistical interpolation of the 'real' time.</cite> </p> </blockquote> <p>Apparently <a href="ftp://louie.udel.edu/pub/ntp">xntp</a> has been ported to NT. Thanks to <a href="mailto:aroby@cix.compulink.co.uk">Anthony Roby</a>. </p> <p><u>V.3 NFS Client and Server, Samba</u> </p> <p>If ever something needed to be put in a FAQ: Check out <a href="http://lake.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/">Samba's Web Site</a>, (or you can <a href="ftp://nimbus.anu.edu.au/pub/tridge/samba">download it directly</a>) for a great GNU freeware package that allows your UNIX machine to participate in a LAN Manager network. It consists of a pair of services which can be run on a UNIX machine to allow said machine to export its local file system and printers as SMB shares. In other words, if you build Samba and install it on a UNIX box, your lanman clients (including Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT) will be able to access the file system and printers on the UNIX machine in a manner you configure. Thanks to <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/johnmil/">John L. Miller</a> </p> <p>There are several commercial NFS versions: </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.intergraph.com">Intergraph</a> </li> <li><a href="http://www.netmanage.com">NetManage</a> </li> <li><a href="http://www.bws.com/admin/bw32nfs.htm">Beame and Whiteside</a> </li> </ul> <p>There are probably others. Thanks to <a href="mailto:csawyer@eciad.bc.ca">Cal Sawyer</a>. </p> <p><u>V.4 FTP Client, FTP Server, Ping, Traceroute, Telnet Client, Telnet Server</u> </p> <p>All of these are built-in to NT. Traceroute can be found in %systemroot%\system32\tracert.exe. <b>Security Warning: </b>Don't overlook the built-in "guest" account. If you set up FTP server, anyone can log into the guest account by giving any name/any password. Fix this by "disabling" guest account under User Admin. </p> <p>An excellent FTP client called WS_FTP32 is available from many archives including <a href="ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/winsock">CICA</a>. </p> <p>A GUI Ping, WSPING32, is available at <a href="http://www.bhs.com">BHS</a>. </p> <p>Ataman produces <a href="ftp://rmii.com/pub2/ataman/products">Rlogind, Rexcd and Telnetd Services (for Intel)</a>, written by <a href="mailto:brian@ataman.com">C. Brian Sturgill </a>, President of Ataman. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bws.com/">Beame and Whiteside</a> also produces a Telnet Server. </p> <p><a href="http://www.seattlelab.com">Seattle Lab's</a> also has a Telnet Server, as well as several other related packages (job scheduler, serial port server) that will be useful to anyone who needs a TelnetD. Check it out. Thanks to <a href="mailto:don@seattlelab.com">Donald D. Meek</a>. </p> <p>A Telnet server for Windows NT 3.5 by Software Innovations will be available soon (call 1-800-946-6688 for more information). </p> <p><u>V.5 NNTP Server</u> </p> <p><a href="mailto:Coffler@jeck.wa.com">Jeff Croffler</a> has an excellent NNTP server for available at both a <a href="http://www.net-shopper.co.uk/software/nt/nntp/index.htm">primary</a> (info and program) and <a href="ftp://ftp.wa.com/pub/local/ntnews">alternate</a> (program only) site. </p> <p><u>V.6 DNS/BIND</u> </p> <p>Microsoft supplies a port of DNS in the Reskit (See <a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionI">Section I</a>). Unfortunately, it does not work very well. </p> <p>The current alternative is using a DNS/BIND port from <a href="http://www.metainfo.com">Metainfo</a>, or <a href="http://www.netmanage.com">NetManage</a>, or <a href="http://www.cci.net">Corporate Computer, Inc</a>. </p> <p><u>V.7 SMTP and POP Daemon</u> </p> <p>So far, five have been discovered. There must be others: </p> <ul> <li>A popular shareware version called <a href="http://www.net-shopper.co.uk/software/ntmail/index.htm">NTMAIL</a> is available, written by <a href="mailto:brian@net-shopper.co.uk">Brian Dorricott</a> </li> <li>Another version can be found at <a href="ftp://ftp.metrics.com/smtp">Metrics</a>. If you need more information, send <a href="mailto:winsmtp@wildside.kwnet.on.ca">e-mail</a> or ask for a <a href="mailto:info-winsmtp@wildside.kwnet.on.ca">description</a>. </li> <li><a href="http://www.ie.com">Information Electronics </a>has several mail gateway products including SMTP, UUCP, NNTP, POP3, Microsoft Mail, Lotus Notes, QuickMail (and others). Thanks to <a href="mailto:tm02109@po3.cobe.com">Tate Moore</a> . </li> <li>Also a secure post.office program is currently under beta test from <a href="http://www.software.com">Software.Com Inc</a>. Thanks to <a href="mailto:blandry@questar.com">Bill Landry</a>. </li> <li><a href="http://www.connectsoft.com/products/email.html">ConnectSoft</a> has fairly complete e-mail router between MCI Mail, CompuServe, MAPI, Netware MHS, the Internet, GEnie, X.400, and America Online </li> </ul> <p><u>V.8 Perl</u> </p> <p>At <a href="ftp://ftp.intergraph.com/pub/win32/perl">Intergraph</a> there is a free version of Perl version 4.0. Some very useful NT specific extensions were added, especially with regards to reading and writing the Registry. </p> <p>There is finally a <a href="ftp://ntperl.hip.com/ntperl/">beta of Version 5</a> of perl commissioned by Microsoft. If you want further announcements, you can subscribe to <a href="mailto:majordomo@mail.hip.com">ntperl Mailing List</a> (put 'subscribe ntperl' or 'subscribe ntperl-announce' in the body). For more info, contact <a href="mailto:Dick_Hardt@hip.com">Dick Hardt</a> at hip communications Inc (604-685-0124, FAX: 604-654-9881) , or <a href="http://www.hip.com/info/">Hip's Web site</a>. Thanks to <a href="mailto:joc@netaxs.com">Joseph Casadonte</a>. </p> <p><u>V.9 Listserv</u> </p> <p>LISTSERV is a commercial product made by <a href="http://www.lsoft.com/listserv.html">l-soft</a>. </p> <p><a href="mailto:brian@net-shopper.co.uk">Brian Dorricott</a>'s <a href="http://www.net-shopper.co.uk/software/ntmail/index.htm">NTMAIL</a> also has listserv functionality. </p> <p>Also, you may want to look at <a href="http://directory.net/ipswitch">Ipswitch's Web Site</a> or send <a href="mailto:info@ipswitch.com">e-mail</a> (personal, non-automated response) for a description of their product. </p> <p><u>V.10 Finger Daemon</u> </p> <p>Finger32.exe is also available at <a href="http://www.bhs.com">BHS</a>. </p> <p>According to <a href="mailto:bluerose@umich.edu">Bobby L. Rose</a>, you can find a better port at <a href="ftp://pmip.dist.maricopa.edu/pub/nt/">Marcopia</a> (look for fingerd-i386.zip). It is very much like the Unix finger daemon. It uses individual .plan and .project files and can enumerate users. </p> <p><u>V.11 CRON</u> </p> <p>There is of course a built in scheduler under NT called 'at'. There is also a freeware <i>crond</i> service for NT called ntcrnl.exe available at <a href="http://www.bhs.com">BHS</a> and at a <a href="ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/packages/ibmpc/windows3/nt">UK Mirror</a>. Thanks to <a href="mailto:mark@swsoft.co.uk">Mark Woollard</a>. </p> <p><u>V.12 HTTP Server</u> </p> <p>Anyone interested in an HTTP Server for NT should first check out <a href="http://www.emwac.ed.ac.uk/">EMWAC</a>'s Internet Toolchest. It is <b>the</b> starting point. Having said that, here are some alternatives. </p> <p>First, the freeware: EMWAC's HTTP Server is supplied in the NT Reskit (See <a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionI">Section I</a>). </p> <p><a href="http://website.ora.com">Website</a> from O'Reilly and Assoc.supports CGI, and Win-cgi, which allows you to run 16 bit windows applications. </p> <p><cite>"I have done a lot of work with VB in this way and its really nice."</cite>- <a href="mailto:daler@crnstn.spk.wa.us">Dale E. Reed Jr</a>. </p> <p><a href="http://www.process.com/prodinfo/purvdata.htm">Purveyor</a>, (based upon the EMWAC server) from <a href="http://www.process.com/">Process Software</a> has a 30 day evaluation copy. </p> <p>There is also the <a href="http://wwwserver.itl.saic.com/">SAIC HTTP-server</a>. </p> <blockquote> <p>"We used to be running the EMWAC-server but we changed to SAIC HTTP because it has more features when it comes to allowing/disallowing access to specific www-pages. It also has some other nice features which the free EMWAC-server lacks (I really like the EMWAC-server, but i think SAIC's is better)." <a href="http://www.pol.umu.se/html/ac/hemsida.htm">Arne Carlsson</a> </p> </blockquote> <p>There is also a <a href="http://oradb1.jinr.dubna.su/Software/ORALink/">gateway between Oracle and an NT Webserver</a>. Thanks to <a href="http://oradb1.jinr.dubna.su/Albert/">Albert Rybalkin</a>. </p> <p><u>V.13 X Client and Server</u> </p> <p>The r6 <b><i>client</i></b> can be found at <a href="ftp://microlib.cc.utexas.edu/microlib/nt/x11r6">U. of Texas</a>. To quote <a href="mailto:loflin@emx.cc.utexas.edu">Don Loflin</a>, the Microlib/NT librarian: </p> <blockquote> <p>Please note that x11r6bin.tar.Z includes Windows NT (Intel) binaries only for the X clients included in the standard x11r6 distribution, which can be found on ftp.x.org and its mirrors. There is no X server for NT in the package, nor is there an xterm for NT. </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>To unpack x11r6bin.tar.Z, you'll need a 'compress' and 'tar' program for NT. Check the microlib/nt/gnu directory for suitable NT/Intel versions. </p> </blockquote> <p>There also commercial versions from: </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.hummingbird.com/products/NT.HTML">Hummingbird</a>'s eXceed </li> <li><a href="http://www.digital.com">DEC</a>'s eXcursion </li> <li><a href="http://www.starnet.com">Starnet</a>'s xwin (for Win32s). Thanks to David Robinson.@@@ </li> <li>There is the shareware pc-xdemo.zip, that apparently has performance problems. </li> </ul> <p><u>V.14 Displaying Windows applications on X servers</u> </p> <p><a href="http://www.tek.com">Tektronix</a> has come up with an innovative product that lets you display Windows applications on an X server. The product, <a href="http://www.tek.com/Network_Displays/Products/windd.html">Win DD</a>, places a lot of hooks into the operating system that translate MS-Windows messages into the X protocol. The problem: there may be so many hooks that the service packs (maintenance releases) will not be compatible. </p> <p><a href="http://www.connectsoft.com/products/xwin.html">ConnectSoft</a> is about to release "Xwindows Connection" software that will allow you to login to an NT system from a Unix X system/term and run MS-Windows apps and display them on the Xwindow System. Thanks to <a href="mailto:btadlock@ti.com">Bob Tadlock</a>, </p> <p>Citrix may have a similar product (305) 755-0559. </p> <p>There is also a <a href="http://www.fim.uni-linz.ac.at/win32/remdesk.htm">Remote Desktop</a>, which is not X, but at least allows remote viewing of the desktop. Thanks to <a href="mailto:b.backhaus@dortmund.netsurf.de">Bernd Backhaus</a>. </p> <p><u>V.15 SendMail, BLAT</u> </p> <p>blat for NT can be found at the <a href="ftp://press.southern.edu/ftp/public/WindowsNT/Internet">College Press</a>, or <a href="ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/nt/mail">SimTel</a>. Thanks to <a href="mailto:james@press.southern.edu">James Nelson</a> and <a href="mailto:djgruber@simtel.coast.net">Dave Gruber</a>. </p> <p><u>V.16 Bash</u> </p> <p>bash can be found at <a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/winnt/">Sunsite</a> (look for the bash_nt-xxx directory). Here is the announcement: </p> <blockquote> <p>Mountain Math Software announces the Beta site release of a port of `bash' the `born again shell' to Windows NT 3.5. This port is based on GNU code and uses some of the Downhill Project code but it is solely the responsibility of Mountain Math Software. </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Although this is a somewhat crippled and not fully compatible `bash' it is still immensely superior to `cmd.exe'. There are many things one needs to do, especially in working with large software projects, that require a fully functioning command line shell. This port of `bash' is a freely distributable (under the GNU General Public License) shell that meets that need. </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>There are three archives: </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>bash_nt-1.14.2_bin_tar.gz -- executables and installation instructions </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>bash_nt-1.14.2_src_tar.gz -- source code </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>bash_nt-1.14.2_doc_tar.gz -- postscript format documentation </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>HTH, <a href="mailto:ubrown@pipeline.com">Ulysese Brown</a> (ubrown@pipeline.com, ubrown@bug.com) </p> </blockquote> <p><u>V.17</u><a name="CShell"><u> C-Shell</u></a> </p> <p><a href="mailto:hamilton@bix.com">Doug Hamilton</a> has an excellent C-Shell for all architectures supported by NT. A demonstration version is available at several archives. A commercial version can also be ordered from Hamilton Laboratories (Sudbury, MA, USA - +1-508-440-8307, FAX: +1-508-440-8308). Here is an extract from the marketing material: </p> <blockquote> <p>Hamilton C shell recreates the original UNIX C shell and utilities, adding numerous enhancements. Over 130 commands, utilities and built-in functions including alias, cat, chmod, cls, cp, cron, cut, diff, dirs, dskread, dskwrite, du, eval, fgrep, grep, hashstat, head, history, kill, more, mt, mv, popd, printf, ps, pushd, rm, sed, sleep, split, strings, tabs, tail, tar (supports tape drives), tee, time, touch, tr, uniq, vol, wc, whereis and xd. Designed from scratch. Carefully follows all Windows NT and Windows95 (Chicago) conventions. Fanatical quality. </p> </blockquote> <p><u>V.18 Kerberos</u> </p> <p><a href="http://www.cybersafe.com">Cybersafe</a> (Redmond, WA, USA) has a version. Thanks to <a href="mailto:jeffo@mail.isc-br.com">Jeff Oberlander</a>. </p> <p><u>V.19 EMACS</u> </p> <p>Besides the GNU tools listed in <a href="oldfaq.htm#sectionII">section II</a>, there is at least one other version of EMACS floating around: </p> <ul> <li><a href="ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/notgnu/">NotGNU</a>. Thanks to <a href="mailto:ROTHENBERG@bsp03c.primerica.com">Howard Rothenberg</a> </li> </ul> <p>Back to the <a href="oldfaq.htm#contents">Contents</a> </p> <hr> </body>