26th anniversary of Linux!

As the joke goes:

Happy 25th birthday, Linux! Here’s your f-ing cake, go ahead and compile it yourself.

So it’s always a fun time for me to push my old project Ancient Linux on Windows.  And what makes this so special?  Well it’s a cross compiler for the ancient Linux kernels, along with source to the kernels so you can easily edit, compile and run early Linux from Windows!

As always the kernels I have built and done super basic testing on are:

  • linux-0.10
  • linux-0.11
  • linux-0.12
  • linux-0.95c+
  • linux-0.96c
  • linux-0.97.6
  • linux-0.98.6

All of these are a.out kernels, like things were back in the old days.  You can edit stuff in notepad if you so wish, or any other editor.  A MSYS environment is included, so you can just type in ‘make’ and a kernel can be built, and it also can be tested in the included Qemu.  I’ve updated a few things, first with better environment variables, and only tested on Windows 10.  Although building a standalone linux EXE still requires a bit of work, it isn’t my goal here as this whole thing is instead geared around building kernels from source.  I included bison in this build, so more of GCC is generated on the host.  Not that I think it matters too much, although it ended up being an issue doing DooM on GCC 1.39.

So for people who want to relive the good old bad days of Linux, and want to do so from the comfort of Windows, this is your chance!


Download Ancient Linux on Windows
Download Ancient Linux on Windows

Setting up Windows environment variables for DJGPP (& other GCC based compilers)

DJGPP & other compilers, such as EMX require that you set needed variables with a UNIX style slash convention.  Also it is a pain to hard code the entire path into a command shell.  I know this works on Windows 10, although I’m not sure about earlier versions.

The %cd% variable contains the current directory, so it makes it easy to do something like this:

@echo.
@set tmpdir=%cd%\tmp
@set path=%cd%\bin;%PATH%
@set C_INCLUDE_PATH=%cd%\include
@set _LIBRARY_PATH=%cd%\lib
@echo.
@echo finished.

Which is great, but of course all the paths are MS-DOS style.  There now is the ability to replace strings!

@set _tmpdir=%cd%\tmp
@set tmpdir=%_tmpdir:\=/%
@set _tmpdir=

So in this example I set a temporary variable to the MS-DOS style path, and then using the pattern :(match)=(replace) it will then replace \ with /, giving me the UNIX style path.  I then just set _tmpdir to nothing, unsetting the variable.  So this way I don’t have to hard code any paths, and I can flip the slashes as needed.

Another fun thing is you can do logic blocks..  A simple one if a file doesn’t exist then compile it:

IF NOT EXIST dhyrst. (
echo.
echo Executable missing attempting to compile….
@make -f makefile
echo.
)

I’m sure most people knew about this, but for an old guy used to doing things the hard way, it was nice to see that there finally was some way to do this kind of thing.

Getting the first side of Dark Side of the Moon onto a floppy diskette

Back in 1995, 2 really neat things happened.  First is that 32bit computing to the masses finally happened.  The second is that lousy audio compression started to really really take off.

And like many other people, who weren’t lucky enough to have a SUN or NeXT workstation, we got our first taste through Real Audio.

Back in the day, I was lucky enough to have a ST4766N 676MB SCSI disk, that was actually large enough to decompress a CD-ROM audio disc to, which in the mid 90’s was a rarity!

Big disks making transcoding possible

So with enough disk space, I was able to rip the CD-ROM to uncompress WAV files.  Oddly enough today, this is a trival thing to do.  In this day and age to re-create it, however I’m going to take a FLAC, and downsample it to a 44100Hz WAV file using Audacity.

Once you’ve opened up your source material, in the bottom left drop it down to 44100…

And this will let you start the export process

And this let’s you set it to a signed 16-bit PCM WAV which Real Audio can happily transcode.

437MB of uncompressed audio

And this is why for most people transcoding a CD-ROM would be out of reach, as ripping a CD-ROM would require an enormous amount of hard disk space for someone circa 1995.

Using the encoder, it’s a simple matter of opening up the WAV file, select a destination name, and set the encoder.  In this case I want the smallest file possible, so Im using RealAudio version 2, suitable for 14.4 modem.

And just hit the ‘Start Encoding’ button, and you are good to go!  In the day this whole process would take HOURS and HOURS… I think the encoding ran over night.  But today this only takes a few seconds.

And now it’s super easy to load it up on a player, and listen to it’s…. semi awesomeness.

Side 1 in under 1.44MB

And just as I recalled, I was able to transcode the first 5 tracks in under 1.2MB, enough to fit onto a 5 1/4″ diskette, or a 3 1/2″ disk.

Once Windows 95 was a shipping thing, things like the media player started to get better and more versatile codecs to support u-law, a-law, MPEG-2, and even MP3.  But thanks to an early start Real Audio was up there with flash as one of the first ‘must have’ programs to unleash the new and exciting.  Real couldn’t make the jump to mobile devices, and once MP3 streaming via shoutcast and other ‘DIY’ free solutions took over the market and obliterated the very expensive and proprietary RealAudio servers.  While progressive networks is still around, they are the Yahoo of audio.

One minor thing of interest is that VLC, can play RealAudio files.  I thought it was interesting, although I guess not all that practical.

For anyone who wants to play along, you too can try these files:

4.3BSD syslogd for Windows

Continuing from my TACACS adventure, I also thought it would be nice to capture syslogs, and save them. Oddly enough this is a big business, with even low end products like Kiwi Syslog server costing some $295 USD!

Well that’s too much for me, so I figured that the most wide spread at the time must have been the 4.3BSD syslogd, so I’ll start with that.

Just as before this was a pretty straight forward port, I had to remove all the /dev/kmem and UNIX socket stuff, as they obviously don’t exist on Windows.  Just as the same, you can’t “write to users” to send messages, so by default output is a file.  I suppose I could use the net send functionality to pop up a message, but I find it just as annoying today as it was then.

At any rate in no time I was able to setup a simple config file, and then get my router to turn on full logging & enable full debugging to get a continuous stream of messages.  The only ‘gotcha’ is that this sylogd wants to be able to do reverse lookups, so you really ought to have a DNS with reverse entries, or a good hosts file.

syslogd_win32 -d
off & running....
init
cfline(*.emerg;*.alert;*.crit;*.err;*.warning;*.notice;*.info;*.debug   log.txt)
7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 X FILE: log.txt
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UNUSED:
logmsg: pri 56, flags 8, from jaderabbit, msg syslogd: restart
Logging to FILE log.txt
syslogd: restarted
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2458: 00:24:19: SNMP: HC Timer 619E3D1C fired
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2459: 00:24:19: SNMP: HC Timer 619E3D1C rearmed, delay = 5000
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2460: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2461: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2462: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2463: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2464: 00:24:22: SNMP: HC Timer 61875370 fired
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2465: 00:24:22: SNMP: HC Timer 61875370 rearmed, delay = 20000
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2466: 00:24:22: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=192.168.254.255 (FastEthernet0/0), len 159, rcvd 3
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2467: 00:24:22: UDP: rcvd src=192.168.254.1(17500), dst=192.168.254.255(17500), length=139
Logging to FILE log.txt
cvthname(192.168.254.10)
logmsg: pri 277, flags 0, from testcisco, msg 2468: 00:24:22: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=192.168.254.255, len 159, dispose udp.noport
Logging to FILE log.txt

As you can see, running it in debug mode tells me what is going on.  And the log.txt file contains a nicely formatted log file, just the way that it was done on BSD:

Apr 13 13:11:04 jaderabbit syslogd: restart
Apr 13 13:11:17 testcisco 2458: 00:24:19: SNMP: HC Timer 619E3D1C fired
Apr 13 13:11:17 testcisco 2459: 00:24:19: SNMP: HC Timer 619E3D1C rearmed, delay = 5000
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2460: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2461: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2462: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2463: 00:24:21: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=239.255.255.250, len 202, dispose ip.hopcount
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2464: 00:24:22: SNMP: HC Timer 61875370 fired
Apr 13 13:11:27 testcisco 2465: 00:24:22: SNMP: HC Timer 61875370 rearmed, delay = 20000
Apr 13 13:11:34 testcisco 2466: 00:24:22: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=192.168.254.255 (FastEthernet0/0), len 159, rcvd 3
Apr 13 13:11:34 testcisco 2467: 00:24:22: UDP: rcvd src=192.168.254.1(17500), dst=192.168.254.255(17500), length=139
Apr 13 13:11:34 testcisco 2468: 00:24:22: IP: s=192.168.254.1 (FastEthernet0/0), d=192.168.254.255, len 159, dispose udp.noport

 

I’m sure it’s full of other bugs, but all I tested was that I could log to a file, and it’s doing that much just fine.  If you feel so inclined you can download & compile it, the source is: syslogd_win32.c

TACACS for Windows

So, in my fun and excitement I was putting together a ‘cisco’ network using dynamips that spans a few sites across the world.  I’m using ancient copies of NT for some servers, although I plan on adding in some 386BSD, SunOS SPARC, and maybe even 68010 based, along with other stuff.

I have the routers running fine, but I felt like adding some kind of external authentication service, and TACACS certainly fits the bill!  And to be all vintage as usual, I’m not going to use TACACS+ as it’s simply too new, and too big.  So first things first, I need a copy of the source to TACACS as I’m certainly not going to write my own!  I found this directory on ftp.funet.fi which has a bunch of old cisco related material, and sure enough there is a tacacsd.c

Even better it’s from 1989 which suits my need for something positively ancient, and simple enough to be a single C file.

/*
 * TACACS daemon suitable for using on Un*x systems.
 *
 * Janruary 1989, Greg Satz
 *
 * Copyright (c) 1989 by cisco Systems, Inc.
 * All rights reserved.
 */

Porting it to run on Winsock, really wasn’t all that hard, I had it running as a standalone program within a few minutes, however there is no password file in NT, so as a simple test, I had simply short circutied the username lookup to always suceeded, along with a password compare.

Since I have VMWare Player installed on my machine, I can use the VMNet 8 connection to talk to my host computer.  The hard part of course is trying to figure out which NIC is which, but dynamips -e will give you a list like this:

Cisco Router Simulation Platform (version 0.2.16-experimental(merge uppc smips)Build-1-x86/MinGW stable)
Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Christophe Fillot.
Build date: Dec 15 2016 04:20:41

Pcap version [WinPcap version 4.1.3 (packet.dll version 4.1.0.2980), based on libpcap version 1.0 branch 1_0_rel0b (20091008)]
Network device list:

   \Device\NPF_{D3DF08C4-7A33-4FE2-9351-000153705A30} : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter
   \Device\NPF_{3FB194EF-F3A4-45F2-AFAB-A4ABA98E8FF7} : Qualcomm Atheros Ar81xx series PCI-E Ethernet Controller
   \Device\NPF_{C46B48B8-74E1-4938-9BFE-E407949A7940} : Microsoft
   \Device\NPF_{F72C65CD-C6BC-44FE-9019-C5057DB1D9AB} : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter
   \Device\NPF_{CE75B9C1-8189-4C8F-8EF6-6CEB0C6D0329} : Microsoft
   \Device\NPF_{737A8B62-9A87-4739-9CC2-BF05CDC315D0} : Microsoft

And with that information, we are good to go!  Since I’m doing a simple test here, I don’t need anything other than a single ethernet to talk to my host, so here is a VERY simple cli to run dynamips:

..\dynamips.exe -P 7200 ..\c7200-is-mz.19991126.bin -t npe-200 -p 0:C7200-IO-FE -s 0:0:gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{D3DF08C4-7A33-4FE2-9351-000153705A30}  –idle-pc 0x604f1da0 -X

And I’m off booting!

Cisco Router Simulation Platform (version 0.2.16-experimental(merge uppc smips)Build-1-x86/MinGW stable)
Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Christophe Fillot.
Build date: Dec 15 2016 04:20:41

Pcap version [WinPcap version 4.1.3 (packet.dll version 4.1.0.2980), based on libpcap version 1.0 branch 1_0_rel0b (20091008)]
Idle PC set to 0x604f1da0.
IOS image file: ..\c7200-is-mz.19991126.bin

ILT: loaded table "mips64j" from cache.
ILT: loaded table "mips64e" from cache.
ILT: loaded table "ppc32j" from cache.
ILT: loaded table "ppc32e" from cache.
vtty_term_init
CPU0: carved JIT exec zone of 64 Mb into 2048 pages of 32 Kb.
C7200 instance 'default' (id 0):
  VM Status  : 0
  RAM size   : 256 Mb
  IOMEM size : 0 Mb
  NVRAM size : 128 Kb
  NPE model  : npe-200
  Midplane   : vxr
  IOS image  : ..\c7200-is-mz.19991126.bin

Loading ELF file '..\c7200-is-mz.19991126.bin'...
ELF entry point: 0x80008000

C7200 'default': starting simulation (CPU0 PC=0xffffffffbfc00000), JIT enabled.
mips64_test.s ROMMON emulation microcode.

mips64_test.s Launching IOS image at 0x80008000...
Self decompressing the image : ####()## [OK]

              Restricted Rights Legend

Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is
subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph
(c) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted
Rights clause at FAR sec. 52.227-19 and subparagraph
(c) (1) (ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer
Software clause at DFARS sec. 252.227-7013.

           cisco Systems, Inc.
           170 West Tasman Drive
           San Jose, California 95134-1706



Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) 7200 Software (C7200-IS-M), Experimental Version 12.0(20000110:181554) [otroan-thanksgiving-rel 175]
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Thu 20-Jan-00 15:07 by otroan
Image text-base: 0x60008900, data-base: 0x613D0000

cisco 7206VXR (NPE200) processor with 253952K/8192K bytes of memory.
R5000 CPU at 200Mhz, Implementation 35, Rev 1.2
6 slot VXR midplane, Version 2.1

Last reset from power-on
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
125K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
4096K bytes of packet SRAM memory.

65536K bytes of ATA PCMCIA card at slot 0 (Sector size 512 bytes).
8192K bytes of Flash internal SIMM (Sector size 256K).

         --- System Configuration Dialog ---

Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: no


Press RETURN to get started!

Next I need to take note of how VMWare & Windows have configured my VMNet8 adapter, and configure the router accordingly:

Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet8:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::fcd4:2983:bcba:2d63%19
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.254.1
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

So Im using 192.168.254.1/24 so let’s setup the router.  Let’s give it a .10 for the heck of it.  Also I’m going to turn off DNS name resolution for the moment.

00:00:02: %DEC21140-3-DUPLEX_SPEED: FastEthernet0/0 doesn't support the configured duplexand speed combination
00:00:02: %DEC21140-3-DUPLEX_SPEED: FastEthernet0/0 doesn't support the configured duplexand speed combination
00:00:02: %DEC21140-3-DUPLEX_SPEED: FastEthernet0/0 doesn't support the configured duplexand speed combination
00:00:32: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/0, changed state to administratively down
00:00:32: %SYS-5-RESTART: System restarted --
Cisco Internetwork Operating Sys
Router>
Router>tem Software
IOS (tm) 7200 Software (C7200-IS-M), Experimental Version 12.0(20000110:181554) [otroan-thanksgiving-rel 175]
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Thu 20-Jan-00 15:07 by otroan
00:00:33: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/0, changed state to down
Router>ena
Router#config t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#int fa0/0
Router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.254.10 255.255.255.0
Router(config-if)#no shut
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.254.1
00:01:29: %DEC21140-3-DUPLEX_SPEED: FastEthernet0/0 doesn't support the configured duplexand speed combination 
00:01:31: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/0, changed state to up
00:01:32: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/0, changed state to up
Router(config)#no ip domain-lookup
Router(config)#exit
Router#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#
00:01:39: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console

And if everything is going well, I can now ping from Windows!

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393]
(c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\neozeed>ping 192.168.254.10

Pinging 192.168.254.10 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.254.10: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.254.10: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.254.10: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.254.10: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.254.10:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 31ms, Maximum = 54ms, Average = 36ms

C:\Users\neozeed>

Awesome!  Pinging from the cisco however fails.

Router#ping 192.168.254.1

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.254.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
.....
Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)

This fails as Windows by default has it’s firewall on, which then blocks all incoming traffic. However to see that the ICMP would have succeded, you can look at the arp table, and the .1 address should have been learned:

Router#show arp
Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  192.168.254.1           0   0050.56c0.0008  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0
Internet  192.168.254.10          -   ca00.3730.0000  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0

We can either diable the firewall, or we can add a rule to permit ICMP. To do either you need to go to the firewall control panel in Windows.  In this quick example, I’m going to build a rule using the firewall control pannel.

So hit the advanced settings to the left.

Click on the ‘Inbound Rules’, and now we are going to create a new rule.

Select a Custom Rule

Allow ‘All Programs’

Then set the protocol to ICMPv4

Now we can select the scope of the rule, in this case we are going to allow the 192.168.254.0/24 network to pass icmp traffic to us.  Add it as a source and destination.

In this quick example I’m applying it everywhere.  I suppose a better  setup would be to make sure the VMNet 8 adapter is a ‘Private’ network, and ONLY apply this to the Private domain.

Then give it a name, something like ‘ICMP for VMnet8’

Router#ping 192.168.254.1

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.254.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 20/30/36 ms

And now we can ping!

Now for the fun, I go ahead and compile my hacked up tacacsd.c, and run it, and then permit it to run on all networks:

And now I can configure the router to use TACACS.  Keep in mind, once gain that this is *NOT* TACACS+ so this is done a little differently.  I’m going to simply set TACACS for telnet connections.

Router#config t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#tacacs-server host 192.168.254.1
Router(config)#line vty 0 4
Router(config-line)#login tacacs
Router(config-line)#exit
Router(config)#enable password 0 cisco
Router(config)#exit
Router#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#
00:01:28: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console

And now I’m ready to test!

User Access Verification

Username: user
Password:
Router>who
    Line       User       Host(s)              Idle       Location
   0 con 0                idle                 00:01:11
*  2 vty 0     user       idle                 00:00:00 192.168.254.1

  Interface  User      Mode                     Idle Peer Address

Router>

As you can see I logged in as ‘user’ … and keep in mind my TACACS simply permits anything. As for what tacacsd runs by default:

D:\dynamips\tacacs>tacacsd.exe
server starting
using port 12544
validation request from 192.168.254.10
query for user (pw->pw_gecos) accepted

It’s not exciting, but as you can see it is attempting to look through the gecos to verify the user, but in this case I just allow anything.  And besides just granting anyone the ability to login, let’s take a look on the wire:

WireShark capture of TACACS traffic

As you can see the username & password go over the wire in plain text.  Even the response is simple enough to decode:

Access granted!

Needless to say this is something that you would NEVER EVER EVER run in a real network.  Of course a system that sits on telnet is vulnerable anyways, but I suppose a TACACS server that lets anyone log in, makes either a VERY trusting network, or a good honeypot.  Against my better judgement, here is tacacsd_win32.c  Naturally it could be easily made to verify passwords against pretty much anything.

WSAPoll & MinGW

For some reason if you try to use WSAPoll, you’ll get this fine error on linking:

poll.c:(.text+0x26): undefined reference to `WSAPoll’

Yeah.

Turns out that it’s basically missing from the includes.  Thanks to this hint, just simply add this into your source/header after pulling in winsock2.h and it’ll link.

typedef struct pollfd {
SOCKET fd;
SHORT events;
SHORT revents;
} WSAPOLLFD, *PWSAPOLLFD, FAR *LPWSAPOLLFD;
WINSOCK_API_LINKAGE int WSAAPI WSAPoll(LPWSAPOLLFD fdArray, ULONG fds, INT timeout);

And now you can happily compile and link.

Just for you, lucky Spanish user, GCC 3.0.4 for Windows NT (MinGW)

From Spain!

I cannot understand why you want this, or why I’m even going to do it.  At this point in GCC history the winnt-3.5 target had been dumped in favour of going all in with Cygwin.  So yeah, this does not either clearly configure, or compile.  But a little bit of mashing files, and I have it at least compiling some assembly that can be translated into an object file that a later version of MinGW can actually compile.

All I’ve built is the gcc driver, the cpp pre-processor, and the cc1 aka C backend.

D:\proj\gcc-3.0.4\gcc>xgcc -c -v hi.c
Using builtin specs.
Configured with:
Thread model: single
gcc version 3.0.4
cc1 -lang-c -v -iprefix ../lib/gcc-lib/i386-winnt35/3.0.4/ -D__GNUC__=3 -D__GNUC_MINOR__=0 -D__GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__=4 -Dunix -DWIN32 -D_WIN32 -DWINNT -D_M_IX86=300 -D_X86_=1 -D__STDC__=0 -DALMOST_STDC -D_MSC_VER=800 -D__stdcall=__attribute__((__stdcall__)) -D__cdecl=__attribute__((__cdecl__)) -D_cdecl=__attribute__((__cdecl__)) -D__unix__ -D__WIN32__ -D_WIN32 -D__WINNT__ -D_M_IX86=300 -D_X86_=1 -D__STDC__=0 -D__ALMOST_STDC__ -D_MSC_VER=800 -D__stdcall=__attribute__((__stdcall__)) -D__cdecl=__attribute__((__cdecl__)) -D__cdecl__=__attribute__((__cdecl__)) -D__unix -D__WIN32 -D__WINNT -D__ALMOST_STDC -D__cdecl=__attribute__((__cdecl__)) -Asystem=unix -Asystem=winnt -D__NO_INLINE__ -D__STDC_HOSTED__=1 -Acpu=i386 -Amachine=i386 -Di386 -D__i386 -D__i386__ -D__tune_i386__ hi.c -quiet -dumpbase hi.c -version -o C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\ccpflisr.s
GNU CPP version 3.0.4 (cpplib) (80386, BSD syntax)
GNU C version 3.0.4 (i386-winnt35)
compiled by GNU C version 5.1.0.
ignoring nonexistent directory "../lib/gcc-lib/i386-winnt35/3.0.4/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "../lib/gcc-lib/i386-winnt35/3.0.4/../../../../i386-winnt35/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "D:/pcem/building/MinGW/msys/1.0/local/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "NONE/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "D:/pcem/building/MinGW/msys/1.0/local/lib/gcc-lib/i386-winnt35/3.0.4/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "D:/pcem/building/MinGW/msys/1.0/local/lib/gcc-lib/i386-winnt35/3.0.4/../../../../i386-winnt35/include"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
End of search list.
: warning: "__STDC__" redefined
: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
: warning: "__STDC__" redefined
: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
hi.c: In function `main':
hi.c:3: warning: return type of `main' is not `int'
as --traditional-format -o hi.o C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\ccpflisr.s

D:\proj\gcc-3.0.4\gcc>gcc hi.o -o hi

D:\proj\gcc-3.0.4\gcc>hi
Hello from GCC 3.0.4

So there you go, mysterious internet user!  Download my source dump with binaries in the tree because I’m lazy.

gcc-3.0.4-MinGW.7z

Ssystem 1.6

ssystem logo

With all the talk of a possible ‘rocky’ earth like planet making the news, I thought it would be fun to seek out a really ancient (ha!) OpenGL program that did a basic simulation of our solar system.  I am of course talking about ssytem.

Back in the late 90’s I have to admit that this was pretty incredible to look at!  Although it was using OpenGL in software only, and to be honest the best and more stable way to use ssystem was on Windows of all things.

Microsoft had a deal with SGI around the 1993 timeline, and after the release of Windows NT 3.1 they were able to work out a deal to bring Windows NT to the SGI MIPS computers platform in exchange from OpenGL being made available on Windows NT.  SGI couldn’t see a way to monetize NT on their hardware and the port never actually shipped, evidence of it however is present in the leaked Windows NT 4.0 source code.  However OpenGL would prove very import for Microsoft as workstation style graphics could now run on ‘prosumer’ grade OS Windows NT 3.5, and eventually there was even a runtime for Windows 95!

All the old websites, and archives of ssystem have been wiped out, however I did find a copy of the source code for version 1.6 on a HPUX site of all places.

ssystem-1.6-src-11.00.tar.gz

With a filename tracked down, I was able to locate in archvie.org a partial backup of the main site here: http://www1.las.es/~amil/ssystem/english.html

So I thought I could start there.  Ssystem needs the GLUT toolkit and I found a ‘pre-configured’ version 3.7 that Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 can build on the command line here. Naturally with all the textures, it does rely on the IJG JPEG library (libjpeg) and I used version 6b as ssystem itself dates from 1999.

There was a bit of work to be done with the source code, as I had to massage it to compile with Visual C++, lots of missing headers, and there were some collisions in the lex for parsing the config file, but they were trivial to clean up.  After a bit of going back and forth with a seemingly defective pre-built version of GLUT, re-building it myself got it to link a working executable:

ssystem in orbit around Europa.

ssystem in orbit around Europa.

Of course in this day & age, any machine these days has hardware OpenGL acceleration so it is pretty trivial to run this program.

The artifacts in the picture were common at the time, and it’s how I remember it all those years ago so I’m not to worried about it.

I tried to compile with Visual C++ 4.0 however when trying to link I got this error:

Microsoft (R) 32-Bit Incremental Linker Version 3.00.5270
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1992-1995. All rights reserved.

init.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _glBindTexture
ssystem.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _glBindTexture
stars.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _glBindTexture
init.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _glGenTextures
astrolib.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 2 unresolved externals
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: ‘link’ : return code ‘0x19’
Stop.

I’m not sure why, as I re-compiled with Visual C++ 6.0 and I get a working executable.  More bizarre if I try to link the objects that were compiled with Visual C++ 4.0 with Visual C++ 6.0 it also fails in the same way.

I’ve placed in everything I could find into this archive: ssystem-1.6.7z including a pre-compiled version, and the high resolution images.  Along the way I also did find a backup of the site http://www.wam.umd.edu/~kamelkev/Ssystem which actually has a much smaller download of ssystem 1.6 as ssystem-1.6.zip  You may need to play with ssystem.conf to get a more respectable display.  I have also tweeked it to work find on my machine, using the highest values I could get away with, without running over the 2GB per process limit on 32bit processes.

SetiHomeBanner

Let’s also not forget the SETI crazy of the 1990’s.

Spent some more time messing with NetHack 1.3d revived

1.3d revived and reloaded

1.3d revived and reloaded

And now it runs on Windows 10 (probably lots of Windows NT as well) thanks to EMX+RSXNT.

I put a Windows binary build on sourceforge, with the needed termcap and rsxnt.dll to run.  It works best if installed into the root of a drive, but it doesn’t matter which drive letter (I suppose you could even use subst).  I was patching around the stock NetHack 1.3d, but considering the weird issues I was having with it ‘mostly’ working, it was easier to just lean on the NetHack 1.3d revived project.  I should also say this is what I also used to get NetHack 1.3d running on the x68000.

I’ve been able to save, restore and go up, down and even die without it crashing so it seems OK to me.

It’s kind of cool to build it with GCC 1.40 on Windows 10, and get a native executable.  Maybe pointless in the golden age of emulation / virtualization as you could just as easily build stock 1.3d on a 4.2 BSD VAX, or even 386BSD 0.1 system.

Maybe I’ll finish the work to see if I can get it running on OS/2 or MS-DOS via EMX, but for now the project stuff is on sourceforge.net