I just updated the content since supported boot protocols I could identify meanwhile

I'd be pretty intested too by that.
I wrote a post about this 4 years ago but sadly I had no answers How to setup an RPL boot server under linux ?
The only piece of info I've found is this http://www.madingley.org/james/rpld/index.html
but this leaves a lot to be desired and lacks many infos to get how it works/how to set it up ...

Funny. There is a difference between IBM RPL and Novell RPL I read. So be careful.

Im using pxelinux at the moment with other devices. Would be best if you could simply add Novell RPL as Option there

Yeah that's what the documentation says, although I remember managing to send *some* bytes to my 486 (because with this I managed to get some text to appear on my 486) but that's it.
if only there was more documentation about how it works on the web ...

NT Server 4 supports RPL boot server. Probably you would like to test that using a VM, instead fiddling with linux or Novell/IBM stuff, which is harder to configure.

Yes good idea. Already did it or better tested it with remote boot service. I got stucked in the detailed profile setup unfortunately 🙁
So if anyone has a good link for a how to...

Marco wrote on 2020-06-29, 22:51:

Yes good idea. Already did it or better tested it with remote boot service. I got stucked in the detailed profile setup unfortunately 🙁
So if anyone has a good link for a how to...

Hi Marco,

This is quite an old topic so I don’t know if the question is still unanswered, but I recently found a decent YouTube guide on WinNT RPL server and dos boot. It is very detailed and I did manage to replicate the experience on my own hardware, all works fine if I run NT4 server inside a VM Box on Linux host, real retro PCs boot, I even managed to make 5150 display « Starting MS-DOS » but it hangs after tha, I will need to play more. 386/486 machines boot fine over RPL
Here is the video
https://youtu.be/RxyFOyJzEug

Now finding RPL boot ROMs for various network adapters is a challenge. Luckily, D-Link has ROMs in its ftp archive. AMD does as well. I did find Lanworks that boots my Etherlink III but it is a bit buggy. Realtek has ROMs on their website too. I also have ROM for Intel erheexpress 8/16 but my card does not boot…

Wow much appreciated. Indeed I bypassed this topic by getting a pxe boot nw card and emulating that service via a freeware tool in windows 10. Very easily done.

Anyway thanks a lot. I keep this in mind for future winter days.

Br

GPA wrote on 2022-02-02, 16:52:

Hi Marco, […]
Show full quote

Marco wrote on 2020-06-29, 22:51:

Yes good idea. Already did it or better tested it with remote boot service. I got stucked in the detailed profile setup unfortunately 🙁
So if anyone has a good link for a how to...

Hi Marco,

This is quite an old topic so I don’t know if the question is still unanswered, but I recently found a decent YouTube guide on WinNT RPL server and dos boot. It is very detailed and I did manage to replicate the experience on my own hardware, all works fine if I run NT4 server inside a VM Box on Linux host, real retro PCs boot, I even managed to make 5150 display « Starting MS-DOS » but it hangs after tha, I will need to play more. 386/486 machines boot fine over RPL
Here is the video
https://youtu.be/RxyFOyJzEug

Now finding RPL boot ROMs for various network adapters is a challenge. Luckily, D-Link has ROMs in its ftp archive. AMD does as well. I did find Lanworks that boots my Etherlink III but it is a bit buggy. Realtek has ROMs on their website too. I also have ROM for Intel erheexpress 8/16 but my card does not boot…

Hey Hi, i been messing with this thing recently, there is any possibility that you can tell me where is the bootrom in the D-Link ftp? i been looking but maybe in the wrong directory, also if you can share the 8/16 boot rom i would like to test it too, maybe something in my net environment can work with that

I've written some notes (mostly just screenshots of the process) on RPL booting DOS from a NetWare (4.11) server. Lately I've been trying to RPL boot Windows 95 but only gotten as far as the Windows 95 splash screen before it hangs. Not sure if its because of the CPU speed bug in Windows 95 or if its because VirtualBox emulates a PCI NIC (which is apparently not supported for RPL booting windows 95). I'll have to get some real hardware out of storage before trying again I think. (Edit: eventually figured it out, it was the PCI NIC - Successful Network Booting of Windows 95 and OS/2 here)

I have also started collecting up a list of RPL ROMs. Not much so far though - I think Boot ROMs were usually something you had to pay extra for so not a lot of companies seemed to provide them for download. AMD and Realtek, however, both did. I've tested the AMD one with VirtualBox and it works well. I tried the RTL8029 one with 86Box but it gives an error when it tries to initialize the card. If someone can provide details on how to do it I could try dumping some ROMs from some other NICs I've got.

GPA wrote on 2022-02-02, 16:52:

I also have ROM for Intel erheexpress 8/16 but my card does not boot…

I looked into this a bit just now (I've got some of these cards in storage) and it looks like the FLASH chip may contain an old-style IPX boot rom by default - I think these only support booting from NetWare. Intel apparently released a newer flash image built with the Novell RPL SDK (like the AMD and Realtek ROMs) but I've not tried it yet. You've also apparently got to use the softset utility to enable the ROM.

kiwa wrote on 2022-03-01, 00:46:

Hey Hi, i been messing with this thing recently, there is any possibility that you can tell me where is the bootrom in the D-Link ftp? i been looking but maybe in the wrong directory, also if you can share the 8/16 boot rom i would like to test it too, maybe something in my net environment can work with that

Oh dear this risks t be very late answer, but i still will try:

https://ftp.dlink.ru/pub/Bootrom/Firmware/

Nice find! A quick peek inside one of the ROMs (224c100.arj), I see: Novell RPL BootROM v1.00 (920626) so that one at least is indeed a Novell RPL ROM.

I don't recognize any of the card models though - I've got plenty of DE-220CT but I've not seen a DE-224 and can't find any references to a DE-224 card existing. I suspect these models are actually for the ROM itself you would have ordered from D-Link as looking further inside the ROM image it appears to have been linked against the DE-220 ODI driver: "VeRsIoN=D-Link 16-bit DE-220 Ethernet Driver MLID v2.02 (931102)"

I'm going have to update my little page of RPL ROMs!

Had a look at the D-Link site and there are Novell RPL Boot ROMs for: DE-220, DE-528 PCI (Realtek 8029), DE-530CT (DC21x40), DFE-500 (DC21x40), DFE-530TX, DFE-538TX, DFE-540TX, and DFE-550TX. They should support Windows NT and OS/2 LAN Manager as well as NetWare.

I've grabbed a mirror for safe keeping and updated my table which now covers 18 cards:
https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/client/rpl_rom.shtml

Hello,

Raspberry PI server to the rescue.
What is needed:
- rpld - comes in 202208 raspbian repository, but longtime removed from x86 ubuntu/debian or others (debian oldoldstable doesn't have it)
- marsnwe (Netware server "emulator") - compiled from a repository (https://github.com/davidrg/mars_nwe.git), but seems to not like latest GCC (11 failed in ubuntu; raspbian was successful, I think it uses 9).
- kernel support for IPX - there is a git repo, https://github.com/pasis/ipx , which are the modules removed from kernel. Seems active, having a commit for kernel 5.18+.
The "server" (Raspberry) only needs rboot.rpl from Netware. The client, of course, is Netware Client (I used 16-bit, as 286 was my target).

The advantage of Raspberry is that you can mount a NFS/SMB share from your NAS and share it under mars_nwe. Basically you don't need a 2nd copy of all your DOS retro apps (well, backups are not discussed here).

Cards I tried:
- unknown 8019AS (ISA) - working great with RPL ROM from realtek.com(.tw??). Sometimes I did not see the ROM prompt, and system seems to hang after BIOS info screen, but I recall pressing a boot number and working (i.e.: just the BOOT ROM menu not displaying).
- 3c509B (ISA) - TriROM - can't seem to switch to RPL. I guess it needs to rewrite the flash, and I can't find a DIP AT29C256.
- 3C905 (PCI) - ROM was soldered and TriROM works - boots RPL fine, but loading VLM.EXE hangs the boot. So some kind of RPL/ODI conflict. But you can netboot a floppy image with no network support just fine.

I still have some ISA cards for which I search for ROMs (DEC204, TE-16XP/CT, Intel 595FX). Saw an Intel ISA ROM in the links which I'll try. I have bought lots of ROM/flash chips for this project.

This seems the best solution. Funny how I use 2 Raspberry PIs to play on my 286 (Netware server and MT-32).

As a backstory, my goal with this was to go lower than 386 for network booting. With iPXE requires 386 architecture (actually working on 486DLC by recompiling iPXE and syslinux, but not on 386DX).
As an advantage, Netware is better for DOS networking than anything I managed with PXE (for some reason, vlm.exe does not like memdisk).
Edit: forgot to say that I used 802.2. I think rboot.rpl forces that, but since PI is my only NW server, no problems there. My network switch has no problems with it.

Good to hear network booting works with Mars NWE - I never attempted it myself (though I've network booted DOS, OS/2 and Windows 95 from NetWare 4.11). If you end up networking any 386s or newer to Mars NWE, Client32 uses a lot less conventional memory which makes a lot of things much easier. Apparently its possible to use Client32 with network booted machines too but it was never officially supported - notes from novell.

Shame about Mars NWE not building with the latest GCC though - I wonder if it's easily fixable. I recently discovered this which looks promising too: https://github.com/zhmu/nwserver - no recent development activity though, but the author previously built a MarsNWE equivalent for FreeBSD (frommel)

Edit: For the TriROM hanging when loading VLM, IIRC the 3Com TriROM is a LanWorks BootWare ROM. You'll probably need to load rplodi.com between lsl.com and the ODI driver for the hand-over to work correctly. I've got some notes here: http://www.zx.net.nz/netware/client/dos-netbo … /bootware.shtml

davidrg wrote on 2023-01-23, 22:29:

If you end up networking any 386s or newer to Mars NWE, Client32 uses a lot less conventional memory which makes a lot of things much easier.

Thanks for the info, but my goal was for easy deployment on local HDDs or benchmarks/tests. So conventional memory is not a priority, but having a single disk for any system is. But that is my case.

davidrg wrote on 2023-01-23, 22:29:

Shame about Mars NWE not building with the latest GCC though - I wonder if it's easily fixable.

The error is related to logging and probably needs other symbols. Maybe I will try later. GCC 11 (from 10??) removed an old way to do system logs. But that's about all I searched since rpld package was missing (so too much effort to try and compile that also, with a functioning R PI over POE).

davidrg wrote on 2023-01-23, 22:29:

Edit: For the TriROM hanging when loading VLM, IIRC the 3Com TriROM is a LanWorks BootWare ROM. You'll probably need to load rplodi.com between lsl.com and the ODI driver for the hand-over to work correctly. I've got some notes here: http://www.zx.net.nz/netware/client/dos-netbo … /bootware.shtml

So I tried again...the problem is actually the driver. Once it loads, the RPL looses the floppy and can't cointinue. I also tried rplodi and still fails (maybe rplfix, but I give up). Another problem is Intel E100 that fails getting the image at all.

However, I booted PXE again and was successful. Maybe previous PXE-NW problem was using PNW client, whereas now I changed the files to NW3.11 and no problems with memdisk.

So, using the same floppy image, I can use ISA cards with RPL (well, only 8019 for now) and PXE with anything that can use PCI (already tried Intel E100, 3C905 and 8139 on 486).

PS: I have a single boot disk with 16 network drivers with menu to choose one on each boot.

Ah, yes - I've done something similar. I've got a floppy disk that will boot a machine, attach to a NetWare Server, and if there is no DOS installed launch the DOS 6.22 installer (using a floppy drive emulator to mount the DOS 6.22 disk images as the installer insists on being fed disks). If there is DOS installed, it gives the option to copy install files for Windows, the netware client, etc, to the hard disk. Lets me go to a blank hard disk to a fully networked DOS+windows PC with one floppy and a few reboots.

I used this as a basis: https://www.veder.nl/nwdsk/