Author: Dan Newman
Date: 14:10:43 02/13/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 13, 2000 at 15:36:20, Frank Phillips wrote:
>How do you connect two Windows machines together, so two programs running under
>WinBoard can automatically play against each other?
>
>I have a parallel and a serial cable, either of which enable direct cable
>connection under W98 via the parallel and serial ports, respectively.
>
>I can also run my program and Crafty under XBoard, if connecting two machines
>together under Linux is easier, without buying any special bits.
>
>Simple, step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Frank
I use an ethernet connection. I don't know if I can give a step-by-step
though, because I just fiddled around until I got it working... But,
here goes:
1) Install ethernet cards in each machine. (This may be tricky because
of conflicting IRQs or whatever...)
2) Connect them together with apropriate cable. I'm using 100-Base-T
ethernet cards now, but when I used 10-base-T I just connected them
together directly using coax with BNC connectors. Now (because 100
Base-T apparently doesn't go through coax) I'm connecting them
together with "category 5" cable via a hub. I've seen kits in Micro
Center that have a hub and 2 cards.
3) Next, (and this is the part that I'm a bit foggy about) you go
to control panel, click on the network icon, and fiddle around.
In the identification section, choose a name for the computer and
a workgroup name.
One thing I did was give each machine an IP address of the form
192.168.1.n, with a different n for each machine. IIRC, the
192.168.x.y range is set aside for local/experimental networks.
You do this by going to the configuration section, selecting the
TCP/IP ethernet adaptor, and clicking on properties. Then go to
the IP address section. I didn't fiddle with anything else there.
I suspect I also had to add some network components too, but
I don't really remember...
4) At this point (if all works out) you should be able to get to the
other machine via the "network neighborhood" icon--or at least be
be able to see the machines' names there. (I didn't and had to
keep fiddling...)
5) Now you need rshell daemon (rshd) for Windows. I searched around
on the net and found one that sort of worked. Many that I saw
were for NT only, but I finally found one for Win98. It was time
limited shareware, and didn't really work very well... In fact it
would eat the first few Winboard commands at the start of each
match. I finally figured out (after much trouble) that the initial
rsh stuff and the first few Winboard commands were getting put
into the same packet and that the rshd was simply discarding the
trailing "junk". So I wrote my own. It's not quite an rsh daemon
because it handles only one connection at a time, doesn't do any
security, and generates a Winboard "quit" command under certain
circumstances.
6) Then in the Winboard I just use the /fh and/or /sh (first host
and/or second host) switches to select host(s) for the engines:
/fh 192.168.1.1--the host name might work too.
Anyway, I usually run three machines, 2 for the engines and 1 for Winboard,
but this should work just as well on two.
-Dan.
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