Vircom DMA Client ICO v1.02

[Kyau]

As I have said before, it is not me doing this work. As such I only have marginal say in what route we take. I am merely the output for the machine. That being said the end goal for us with DMA is to remove the duplicate activation check as well. We originally thought that would be server-side and because of it honestly I kind of jumped the gun releasing this one (got a little excited). Especially since after the fact we found out that check is not server-side. We knew this was already cracked though, sorry for the bad inside joke.

As far as other modules, stuff is in the works but I cannot make promises on anything..

In regards to the organization comment, I have already done this, but only for WG3x, expect to see something posted soon. Not sure if I will take a stab at the MBBS625 stuff (organization that is).

P.S. There is a DMA server code on major.butt.care, so if the client is cracked properly we will not need to crack the server.

[Shadoron]

Any progress is good progress, just happy to see people tackling this stuff again. Keep up the good work.

I'm a little confused on the DMA client for NT being the barrier on running multiple copies of the same DMA server. I have to admit, it's been a few years now since I initially setup my DMA stuff and really tested all this. I want to say that the DMA Servers themselves complained about the multiple servers sharing the same keys, long before the DMA client on WGNT comes into play. If I'm remembering correctly, you could have two VMs, each assigned a different local LAN IP, and both using the same MBBS reg and DMA server code. Depending on the order you booted them up, the first copy (VM1) would initialize correctly, and when you brought VM2 online, it would see the other DMA server on the network, and complain about it in the MBBS audit trail. If you then shutdown both servers, and reversed the order, VM2 would initialize successfully, and VM1 would then spit out an error. Again, this was before ever loading up WG NT or the DMA client on it. There's a section in the manual for the DMA Server software that outlines how to have multiple copies running, using the same MBBS reg number. You change an option in the hardware and security menu on the second DMA server, which tells it that it is a second sub server, and then Vircom would assign another DMA Act code that would work with the same MBBS reg + the number assigned to the sub DMA Server. Are we talking about the same thing, but using different terminology? Or am I just completely mis-remembering how the DMA stuff was reporting the duplicate servers error?

[Kyau]

I didn't mean the NT one in particular, I merely meant the problem with getting error (Code 4) with the DMA stuff. We could like you said get another code that works with other sequences numbers (sub-bbs numbers you call them). Or the server itself could be cracked I guess, but that is a lot harder.

I have not gone as far as to even attempt to run a Gamesnet as most of the software that supported those is not cracked. We do currently have 2 DMA test servers online with a couple different BBS clients testing them.

Currently you can run multiple DMA servers all with that activation code and on sequence 01, but which ever one you connect to first is the only one you can connect to without restarting the client BBS. At which point you can connect to another one, but this will then lock you out of the others and so on. The error code it gives is Code 4.

We are pretty sure that error comes from the client and not the server, and is in direct regard to the sequence number the server returns.

We enabled the internal DMA debugging code server-side. I can show you exactly what I am talking about ...

Code: Select all

06:12 04/06/18BBS UP: V6.25/X25/LAN-256        Console             (Ready to service users)
06:12 04/06/18TCPLIB [2.10-E] DMA-22           Chan 01             Inet addr:1.2.3.4 nbTCP: 1024/255 SWI:FF BTU:P
06:12 04/06/18TCPLIB                           Chan 01             Listening for 255 telnets
06:12 04/06/18TCPLIB-I                         Chan 01             Detected Version: 625
06:12 04/06/18Blox v1.01                       Console             Copyright (c)2018 Soft Arts Ltd.
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 inconn 01 rbu:1
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 inconn 01 read 1 rbu: 0
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 switching to _state=20
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             inconn 20
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             dmalogin OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             dmabbscon TRUE
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkuid == LONOK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkpwd OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkacc OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             lonstf OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             autospcoff
06:13 04/06/18DMA-Debug                        Chan 01             rstrxf sb: 24 sf: 24
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             gopage FILES
06:13 04/06/18BBS SHUTDOWN                     Console             (Going down to DOS)


06:13 04/06/18BBS UP: V6.25/X25/LAN-256        Console             (Ready to service users)
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB [2.10-E] DMA-22           Chan 01             Inet addr:1.2.3.4 nbTCP: 1024/255 SWI:FF BTU:P
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB                           Chan 01             Listening for 255 telnets
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-I                         Chan 01             Detected Version: 625
06:13 04/06/18Blox v1.01                       Console             Copyright (c)2018 Soft Arts Ltd.
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 inconn 01 rbu:1
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 inconn 01 read 1 rbu: 0
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             sn:254 switching to _state=20
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             inconn 20
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             dmalogin OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Console             dmabbscon TRUE
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkuid == LONOK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkpwd OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             chkacc OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             lonstf OK
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             autospcoff
06:13 04/06/18DMA-Debug                        Chan 01             rstrxf sb: 24 sf: 24
06:13 04/06/18TCPLIB-DMA-Debug                 Chan 01             gopage FILES
06:14 04/06/18BBS SHUTDOWN                     Console             (Going down to DOS)

The first section is a successful connection to the DMA server, the second one is a failure with Code 4.

Which is what prevents you from connecting to two different DMA servers with the same sequence number selected. According to the DMA server the connection was successful, which leads us to believe this issue is client-side.

Anyway that is what I meant about giving another stab at the client.

[Shadoron]

I just cloned one of my servers and tested this out again, and I definitely was remembering wrong. No errors logged until the client itself tries to connect. Good catch on the client being what prohibits multiple servers with the same keys. Here's hoping it can be nailed down and patched. I was initially trying to work around MajorMUD's secondary DMA Server activation issues, as well as setting up multiple DMAs. I think I jumbled it all together in my memory. Definitely wasn't questioning what you were explaining, I hope it didn't come off that way. The code you pasted might as well be martian, it's all foreign to me. I was just trying to logically follow what you were talking about. It makes sense now.

Also, great job on finding and saving the source for SoC and LoC. I know Swords of Chaos has always been the more popular game, but I've always been partial to Lords of Cyberspace. Hopefully one of the guys over at the MBBS Resto project can recompile it for WGNT in the future, like they have done with similar DOS only modules. One less mod that has to be hogging up DMA Server resources. Kudos again.

[BearFather]

So now for my next question, do you run this in VM and how do you deal with the time drift? Currently it's horrible and drifting instantly after I set it. Normally you setup vm-tools, but this is dos. This is causing issues with cleanup not running or turns popping in correctly.

I setup the dos net tools, but can't run those while the bbs is running, even from it's dos plugin.

I'm looking at making an app that just log's into the dma server and will just set the time every 5 min.

[BearFather]

So what I ended up doing was creating a hidden menu option to drdos on the dma, and made an app to login and sit at the prompt and send "time (current time) every 3 min.

Now time stays in sync and games are working as they should.

[Kyau]

I have not tried these, but you could look into something similar:

http://www.josh.com/SNTPC/
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP_Sntp.html

[BearFather]

I got the MS network client which can run ntp commands, but you can't access any exe from the ds-dos that is in mbbs. So killed that thought. The ds-dos does have a time command, and I got my little program just setting the time every min, with some trickery to keep the bbs on time and everything running.

I would need to find a mbbs ntp module, but back in those days this wasn't an issue cause virtual servers where never thought of.

[Shadoron]

I had the exact same time drift issue. Was able to solve it using options under WG2 / Virtual Box. I honestly can't remember which part finally fixed it - but here's what I think did it.

Under hardware Setup for WG2:

"Need to Run server under Windows, Deskview, etc?" (Option 378) NO
"Should software accelerator routine be activated?" (Option 383) YES

Under virtual box hardware setup:

Set chipset to be PIIX3
Enable I/O APIC

All three DMA servers are always within 1 minute of real time. Before this, they drifted by hours each day.

[BearFather]

First I will look into these and check it out. But I run MBBS for dma, I was told there was no crack for the WG version of DMA crack.