NOVELL TECHNICAL INFORMATION DOCUMENT TITLE: NetBIOS and PERSONAL NetWare DOCUMENT ID: TID021233 DOCUMENT REVISION: A DATE: 09JUN94 ALERT STATUS: Yellow INFORMATION TYPE: Issue README FOR: NA NOVELL PRODUCT and VERSION: PERSONAL NetWare 1.0 ABSTRACT: This document explains what NetBIOS is and how to load it with PERSONAL NetWare 1.0. It does not cover programming and development issues with NetBIOS. This document is to expand on any other documentation provided by Novell, Inc. rather than replace it. ------------------------------------------------------------------ DISCLAIMER THE ORIGIN OF THIS INFORMATION MAY BE INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL TO NOVELL. NOVELL MAKES EVERY EFFORT WITHIN ITS MEANS TO VERIFY THIS INFORMATION. HOWEVER, THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR YOUR INFORMATION ONLY. NOVELL MAKES NO EXPLICIT OR IMPLIED CLAIMS TO THE VALIDITY OF THIS INFORMATION. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ISSUE NETBIOS DESCRIBED By itself, PERSONAL NetWare does not make use of NetBIOS. PERSONAL NetWare does, however, provide the NetBIOS driver if you need it. NetBIOS stands for Network Basic Input/Output System. It is a standard developed for the IBM PC Network program. Its purpose is to provide a generic set of Application Programming Interface (API) calls that an application developer can use to make two machines communicate together as peers. The only time that NetBIOS is needed is when you are running an application or driver that specifically calls the APIs NetBIOS provides. IBM's NetBIOS used to be very popular as a generic means of creating network aware applications, so there may still be applications available that make use of this API. To determine if your application needs NetBIOS, you should contact the application developer. The original NetBIOS has several limitations. Primarily, it does not provide a facility for inter-networking, or passing NetBIOS packets across multiple networks. It will only work on a single local network. In other words, IBM's NetBIOS packets cannot cross a Novell router or similar device. To provide users with the flexibility required, Novell developed a compatible NetBIOS. As far as the application is concerned, it is the same NetBIOS provided by IBM. It provides the same APIs as IBM's NetBIOS, and a few more. Novell's implementation of NetBIOS was designed to run on the IPX/SPX protocol. IBM's NetBIOS ran on their own protocol. When Novell designed this implementation of NetBIOS, the ability to traverse inter-network routers was included. Also, where the original NetBIOS' default configuration allows one workstation to have up to 6 sessions in use simultaneously, Novell's default configuration will allow 32 sessions (that limit can be increased by using the NetBIOS RESET command). Because Novell's implementation of NetBIOS is designed to run on IPX\SPX, and other vendors' versions run on other protocols, all nodes wishing to communicate together through NetBIOS must run the same vendors NetBIOS. That is to say, if one machine is running IBM's NetBIOS and another machine is running Novell's NetBIOS, the application running on the one machine will not communicate or see the other machine. For most implementations, the Novell NetBIOS default configuration is sufficient. However, many configuration options are available through the NET.CFG file. In that file, you can configure the short and long machine type, timeouts, delays, names, buffers, and so forth. For details on what parameters can be configured in the NET.CFG, see your PERSONAL NetWare documentation, Appendix C; or, for Novell DOS 7 users, see the DOSBOOK online documentation on NET.CFG. LOADING NETBIOS Loading NetBIOS is very simple. It rides on top of IPX/SPX, so you simply load the NETBIOS.EXE program anytime after the IPXODI.COM driver has been loaded. NetBIOS comes in all of Novell's client kits as well as PERSONAL NetWare and Novell DOS 7. The latest version can be found in DOSUPx.EXE (where x is replaced with the latest version number). DOSUPx.EXE is available on the technical support area of Novell's on-line services (such as NOVFILES on CompuServe, the World-Wide Web server www.novell.com, the Gopher server gopher.novell.com, and through Email from Novell Technical Support). An example of loading NETBIOS.EXE in your STARTNET.BAT may look like this: LSL NE2000 IPXODI NETBIOS SERVER VLM After the NetBIOS driver is loaded into memory, it sits parallel to SERVER.EXE and the VLMs, and above IPXODI. The following diagram shows this relationship. SERVER.EXE The VLMs NETBIOS.EXE | | | +-------------------------+------------------------+ | IPXODI.COM | LSL.COM | MLID (for example, NE2000.C0M) | Network Interface Card (hardware) MEMORY USAGE NETBIOS.EXE takes about 24,402 KB of available contiguous memory to begin loading. After it is loaded, in its default configuration it takes about 30,816 KB of memory. Modifying various configuration parameters in the NET.CFG can increase or decrease the size of NETBIOS.EXE in memory. To get it to load in upper memory, you will have to have a large enough available contiguous upper memory block to satisfy the load requirements of the program (that is, the size of the program on disk, or the ultimate size of the program in memory, whichever is greater). NETBIOS.EXE was developed before the availability of DPMS.EXE, and has not yet been modified to make use of these protected mode services, so all of it will have to go into the first 1Mb of RAM. Because NetBIOS can take a considerable amount of memory, we strongly recommend that it not be loaded unless you are sure you need it, or are sure that one of your applications requires it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Any trademarks referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners. Consult your product manuals for complete trademark information. ----------------------------------------------------------------