SMB support, maybe?

[Zylyx]

I expect this will probably be too resource-intensive for your liking, but I figure I might as well ask. Any hope of LaunchELF adding SAMBA support so we can just point it to fileshares for file transfers or elf booting? I think that would pretty much obsolete host and FTP entirely for me.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by Zylyx

I expect this will probably be too resource-intensive for your liking, but I figure I might as well ask. Any hope of LaunchELF adding SAMBA support so we can just point it to fileshares for file transfers or elf booting? I think that would pretty much obsolete host and FTP entirely for me.

We are not particularly worried about 'resource-intensive' stuff. It's up to each user whether to enable such things or not.

The only thing we are 'obsessive' about is to not add pure 'eye-candy' features, that would bloat the program size without adding any real functionality. A file-sharing system like Samba does not fall into that category.

However, I haven't been able to make Samba work as supplied with myPS2, for which it was written, even though I have myPS2 working error-free otherwise. Until I can make that Samba implementation work with the program it was developed for, I can't really consider it for inclusion in LaunchELF.

If you have any advice or info that might help make it work, please share it.

Best regards: dlanor

Samba and myPS2 was easy!

Remember that you must save the file in UNIX format.


/Edit: i would love UlaunchELF with smb support.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by riceri

Samba and myPS2 was easy!

I asked for info, not for boasts...
Here it still doesn't work. That entire drive is setup as shared in WinXP Pro, and I have entered my normal login name and password from the XP into the samba.xml file stored in the same folder as MYPS2.ELF.

I have the following in samba.xml:

<shares>
<!-- example entry -->
	<share>
		<name>RA1 M-Drive (SMB)</name>
		<path>smb://my_WinXP_username:my_WinXP_password@192.168.65.64/M/</path>
	</share>
</shares>

In the above, 'M' is the share name assigned to the sharing of the entire 'M:' drive in WinXP, a sharing that works well from other parts of my network (mainly my router and a Win2k-server PC on a different subnet, but the subnet shouldn't matter, as the workgroup spans both my subnets). The IP "192.168.65.64" is the address of my main PC (with the shared drive), as accessed on the subnet it shares with the PS2. That IP address is also set up as WINS server in the Samba settings page of myPS2, where I have also set the name of the Workgroup correctly.

During initialization myPS2 shows that 1 share is processed, and a correct entry for it exists in the browsers too ('My Files' etc). Unfortunately that entry never works. I see two brief flickers of the hub leds, but that's all. No directory is ever opened, not even an empty dummy.

Remember that you must save the file in UNIX format.

I have tried that, though it really shouldn't be necessary. After all, the original samba.xml supplied in the release RAR used CR+LF everywhere... But I did try changing them all to LF without CR, and it had no effect at all.

/Edit: i would love UlaunchELF with smb support.

If that can be done with reasonable efforts, then I'm all for it, but first I'd like to see this Samba implementation work in the program it was designed for.

Best regards: dlanor

Now i see you got past the problem i had

I can't help you then.

[E P]

Originally Posted by dlanor

However, I haven't been able to make Samba work as supplied with myPS2, for which it was written, even though I have myPS2 working error-free otherwise. Until I can make that Samba implementation work with the program it was developed for, I can't really consider it for inclusion in LaunchELF.

Neither have I. It won't read in it's own config file but I'm running the program from mass. I really don't want to have to make the +MYPS2 partition if that's what requires to get it working properly. Maybe it's time to compile my own version of myPS2 to do the testing.

The only thing I noticed you didn't mention before was the:
- Create an lmhosts file with appropriate settings for your network and upload it
to mc0:lmhosts

I don't like the idea of keeping files in the root of a memory card.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by E P

Neither have I. It won't read in it's own config file but I'm running the program from mass.

It never worked right from mass for me either. I think that it assumes MC residence if it can't find the hdd strings in its config, and putting all of it on MC is out of the question, considering both its size and the folder structure. (I still refuse to have subfolders on MC...)

I really don't want to have to make the +MYPS2 partition if that's what requires to get it working properly.

It is, but I know how you feel. I felt the same way until I upgraded to my new HDD, getting another 100GB of free space. I wanted to use +MYPS2 space for AVIs as well (with SMS of course), so I ordered myPS2 to make an 8GB partition. I'm not sure if that worked right though, as LaunchELF only shows it to be 4GB in size. (Can we even handle larger APA partitions...?!?, considering that max abs value of a 32bit int is 4G-1...)

Anyway, for me hard disk partition mounting in myPS2 gets mucked up if it can't mount the first two partitions as expected, meaning that it needs +myPS2 as pfs0:, and bootup partition specified in the config as pfs1:.

Maybe it's time to compile my own version of myPS2 to do the testing.

That might be a good idea, as the demand for those partitions can probably be changed into an option instead, like it should be. And of course, that weird dependency on unix-style LFs definitely has to go. Not even the original author sticks consistently to that style...!

The only thing I noticed you didn't mention before was the:
- Create an lmhosts file with appropriate settings for your network and upload it
to mc0:lmhosts

That's because I somehow missed that info...
But I don't see why it would be needed when I used numeric IP in the samba.xml file... But OK, I'll try it and report results later.

Edit:
Nope. I added a proper "lmhosts" file (the "hosts" file from my PC, renamed) in the root of mc0:, but that made no difference whatever. All I get when attempting to open the Samba share in myPS2 is a couple of flickers of the hub leds, nothing else. I suppose I could try with a shared folder instead of a shared drive, but that's crazy really, as it means I have to abandon my current sharing policy just to please a PS2 program. I don't share individual folders, but only full drives. My LAN is secure, so I have no reason to fiddle with separate folder share settings. And I have plenty reason to avoid it, as just the one drive that I wanted to share in this experiment contains 35435 folders. Individual folder share settings simply aren't practical for such amounts.

I don't like the idea of keeping files in the root of a memory card.

Me neither. That's almost as bad as having deep folder trees on MC. Not quite as bad, since a simple file is at least not hiding any space that could be lost without the users knowledge, but still pretty bad as it can't be handled by the original MC tool (the built-in PS2 browser I mean).

Summing up:
For me the Samba lib still doesn't work with myPS2, the program it was designed for, so adding it to LaunchELF now would be pointless. I still invite any info on how to make it work, so please, if any of you have it working specify what you did, and how it differs from what I've done, so I can try the same.

Best regards: dlanor

[E P]

Originally Posted by dlanor

It is, but I know how you feel. I felt the same way until I upgraded to my new HDD, getting another 100GB of free space. I wanted to use +MYPS2 space for AVIs as well (with SMS of course), so I ordered myPS2 to make an 8GB partition. I'm not sure if that worked right though, as LaunchELF only shows it to be 4GB in size. (Can we even handle larger APA partitions...?!?, considering that max abs value of a 32bit int is 4G-1...)

It's not really space for me but order. I do have four partitions that I could rename and use. All of them are clean at the moment. 8 GB partitions are not valid as has been mentioned at the ps2dev forums. I think someone mentioned it is an issue with the PFS driver lacking the functionality. Currently 4096MB is the largest and 128MB is the smallest working partitions one may have.

Originally Posted by dlanor

Anyway, for me hard disk partition mounting in myPS2 gets mucked up if it can't mount the first two partitions as expected, meaning that it needs +myPS2 as pfs0:, and bootup partition specified in the config as pfs1:.

Yeah I saw that it like tries to mount 4 partitions. How many can be mounted at a given time? The ps2ftpd driver looks for up to 16 in it's driver loop. Of course, it stops evaluating the expression as soon as it doesn't find one. I would really like to adjust this value in the future to a more sane value.

I believe the author of myPS2 wanted to auto-mount partitions within the program itself. I still like my method for ps2ftpd although if my newer version is used with myPS2 there are bound to be many issues.

In regards to the lmhost's thing, I agree I wouldn't want to fiddle around with my own network structure either.

Originally Posted by dlanor

Me neither. That's almost as bad as having deep folder trees on MC. Not quite as bad, since a simple file is at least not hiding any space that could be lost without the users knowledge, but still pretty bad as it can't be handled by the original MC tool (the built-in PS2 browser I mean).

Yeah, I see lots of strange implementations. I can tell that the structures used are by someone who hasn't fully understood the current ways of doing things with ps2dev. I'm not trying to knock the program only point out that somethings were done without the knowledge we and most others at ps2dev have. Sometimes it's hard for new developers to understand the limitations of the system or how to handle them.

I can just see someone trying to delete the file with the PS2 browser because it would list the lmhosts file as corrupt.

[wallacee]

Ok i had the exact problems you guys were having but i seem to have resolved the issue now and SMB is working fine, im going to go back and manually change all the things i tried till i find out what broke it and ill let you know.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by wallacee

Ok i had the exact problems you guys were having but i seem to have resolved the issue now and SMB is working fine, im going to go back and manually change all the things i tried till i find out what broke it and ill let you know.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I really want to get this working, as it would be a terrific addition to LaunchELF as well, being able to participate in the real file sharing as an equal partner to the PC. And once it's configured properly it should be easier to use too, as no special client program will be needed on the PC side.

That has always been the weakest point of the HOST implementation, especially since those clients eat a lot of CPU time on the PC (even when not doing any transfers).

Best regards: dlanor

[des2]

My XP computer was on a domain so I did the following to make my setup work:

1) disabled the netbios over tcp
2) changed the workgroup in MyPS2 to reflect the XP computer name
3) double checked share as well as file permissions - ended up using local administrator account to make sure I had the necessary privs.

Hope this helps someone

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by des2

My XP computer was on a domain so I did the following to make my setup work:

1) disabled the netbios over tcp

What? But that is insane!

If you have to do that, and have a LAN without DHCP (like I do), then you lose the capability to share files entirely, as such a LAN needs netbios over tcp/ip. (At least that's what Microsoft says, and they should know.)

Fortunately I have a separate subnet for the PS2, so I can disable it only for that subnet, without affecting the subnet with other PCs. But that is merely for testing, I will NOT consider coding similar stuff for LaunchELF.

Seriously, if it can't support TCP/IP networking, then I'm not really interested...
Edit:
As it turns out, Microsoft docs are misleading on this issue, and sharing works fine with "Netbios over TCP/IP" disabled, even without any DHCP server. This change alone was enough to make my samba setup functional.

2) changed the workgroup in MyPS2 to reflect the XP computer name

That too is crazy. A workgroup name is not the same as a computer name. It can be made so, in a limited LAN, but it's still wrong.

I'll try it, of course, but if this is required it means I can only reach a single computer on my LAN. Still, the lack of netbios over tcp/ip probably makes it impossible to reach the others anyway, so it may not matter much.

Edit:
The samba lib does work with proper workgroup names. That you had to use the computer name is probably due to some default setting of XP for simple LANs, reusing the computer name as default workgroup name.

3) double checked share as well as file permissions - ended up using local administrator account to make sure I had the necessary privs.

That is necessary for full access of course (assuming normal sharing security), so I've already done that too.

Hope this helps someone

I hope so too, and will add an 'Edit' to this post with my results a bit later.

Edit:
My samba setup does work now, and I can access both my main WinXP system and my Win2K server from the myPS2 browsers. So this functionality will eventually be added to LaunchELF as well.

Thanks, and as always:
Best regards: dlanor

[des2]

From my understaning, you don't need netbios if you are running Windows 2003, 2000 or XP operating systems. So far my shares are working fine with this change.

It would be nice if someone could figure out how to authenticate with the domain for example:

smb://domain\useridassword@host IP\share\


Would be interested to see what you find out.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by des2

From my understaning, you don't need netbios if you are running Windows 2003, 2000 or XP operating systems. So far my shares are working fine with this change.

Hmm, in that case the docs by Microsoft are grossly misleading, but then again, it wouldn't be the first time that happened...
I'll try it, on both my subnets, and let you know my results later.

It would be nice if someone could figure out how to authenticate with the domain for example:

smb://domain\useridassword@host IP\share\

As there's no such example with the release, it's quite likely that this syntax isn't supported yet. That's the kind of thing you'd need to check either in the lib source code (or maybe the app source of myPS2), or with the author himself.

Best regards: dlanor

[zabolyx]

Most things I've read on network security state that NetBIOS is a good thing to eliminate if you have the chance....

I don't have it on in my network... but it has been a while since I've setup sharing... I'll take a look around and see if I can find anything

[zabolyx]

Here's some stuff... seems that 2000 and up don't need NetBIOS... but it can cause problems in the system....

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/...1/netbios.html

So more or less it's not needed unless you have older machines.... but still needed for certain functions to work. Sounds more like it is still needed than an optional function... damn M$... can't do anything right...

Originally Posted by some dumbass M$ guy

it's optional to use this if you want, but your machine will explode.

[des2]

I played with this some more.

I was able to put the domain name in as the workgroup within MyPS2 and then used a domain user account and password within the samba.xml. This worked but I still needed the Netbios over TCP disabled on the Host computer.

[dlanor]

Originally Posted by zabolyx

Most things I've read on network security state that NetBIOS is a good thing to eliminate if you have the chance....

I suspect that's hogwash..., honestly.
Why would NETBEUI be superior in security to similar stuff done over TCP/IP ?

It makes no sense, except possibly that more programmers are well familiar with TCP/IP.
But that is no protection against skilled hackers, who study whatever special protocols they need.

I don't have it on in my network... but it has been a while since I've setup sharing... I'll take a look around and see if I can find anything

There's no need, really. I've tried it on my LAN, where all IPs are static and all DHCP servers are disabled. That's just the kind of setup which Microsoft describe as requiring "Netbios over TCP/IP". But it works fine with that setting disabled too. All my shares work fine, in all directions, spanning both subnets even without 'connection sharing', just like it should be...
So once again Microsoft were just misleading us about a LAN setup requirement.

To be honest I suspect M$ are trying to rewrite history slightly, to cover up for some of their bad design choices. (Not to mention some of their HORRID business ethics, though that's an unrelated and off-topic subject.)

Best regards: dlanor