How to run multiple network applications concurrently on FreeDOS?

[Andrew Pennebaker]

Hello,

I am trying to setup a base box for FreeDOS. The good news is, many critical sysadmin applications, including a telnet server (rmenu), FTP server (FTPSRV from mTCP), wget, ping, a DHCP client, and so on, are provided by the retro programming community. With these tools in hand, it doesn't seem a stretch to create a Vagrant box with a lot of functionality available, such as `vagrant ssh` using a telnet communicator, `vagrant rsync`, as well as file and shell script provisioning.

However, I quickly discovered that network applications do not appear to function when run on FreeDOS via telnet. They only work when run directly from the top-level COMMAND.COM shell. Could this be a glitch specific to rmenu, or is DOS unable to allow multiple simultaneous network applications to run?

[Andrew Pennebaker]

Currently using FDNET to connect the guest to the VirtualBox network, in case that matters.

[Antony Stone]

On Sunday 18 August 2019 at 05:34:45, Andrew Pennebaker wrote:

> I quickly discovered that network applications do not appear to function
> when run on FreeDOS via telnet. They only work when run directly from the
> top-level COMMAND.COM shell. Could this be a glitch specific to rmenu, or is
> DOS unable to allow multiple simultaneous network applications to run?

DOS was never designed as a multi-tasking operating system.

It was single user (no concept of file ownerships etc) and apart from the
rather special case of TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs, was never
designed to run more than one application at a time.

For the purposes you've stated, I think you'd be better off with something
along the lines of http://tinycorelinux.net/

I would previously also have mentioned http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ but this
project seems to have stagnated about 7 years ago.


Regards,


Antony.

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