Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!microsoft!alistair
From: alistair@microsoft.UUCP (Alistair BANKS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2
Subject: Re: LAN Manager Questions
Message-ID: <53520@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 12 Mar 90 22:01:40 GMT
References: <27348@cup.portal.com> <52069@microsoft.UUCP> <27727@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: alistair@microsoft.UUCP (Alistair BANKS)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 45

In article <27727@cup.portal.com> Will@cup.portal.com (Will E Estes) writes:
>>  There's two answers to your question.  The question is "Can msdos-based
>> servers serve file requests from lan manager based clients?"  The answer to
>> that one is yes.  You can set up a network of msdos based servers and have
>> them serve requests from os/2 or msdos clients.  
>
>Well, actually, I intended my question to be "Can MS-DOS computers act
>as *application* servers to client programs, where both client and server
>are running under an unmodified version of LAN manager."  So would it be
>possible to set up an MS-DOS application that accepts named pipe requests
>from either OS/2 or MS-DOS client programs?
>
>Thanks,
>Will              (sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Will)   


Named pipes must be 'created' on the net to be 'opened'. DOS based machines
cannot 'Create' named pipes, but can 'open' them.

Thus DOS machines can only be clients to a named pipe 'created' on a
server.

Server operating systems that may 'create' named pipes using either
LanManager or a ported version are:-

OS/2 - LanManager, Net One, IBM LanServer, 3+Open, Compaq LanMan, etc etc
VAX VMS - Dec's have ported LanMan to VMS
AT&T Unix - AT&T have ported LanMan to Unix
(LM/X, jointly developed by Microsoft and HP is our name for the
portable version of LanManager)
HP have LM for their Unix flavour.
IBM MVS - I've forgotten the name, but someone else has announced they
are porting LM to MVS.

... and so the list goes on...

The common factor for servers, and 'creation' of named pipes is multi-tasking.

DOS cannot wait around in a second task when a client signals an open
on a named pipe, so creation makes no sense.

Hope this clears things up.
Alistair Banks
OS/2 ISV Group
Microsoft