A strong case for IPX support in Samba and smbfs

[Josh Hoffmann]

I would benefit from IPX support in both Samba and smbfs.

I subscribe to Road Runner, a cablemodem service run by Time Warner
Cable.  The cablemodem hooks up to an ethernet hub.  The ethernet hub is
hooked to three computers.  One of those computers runs Windows 98.  The
other two can dual boot between Windows 98 and Linux.  TCP/IP works
perfectly on all the computers, in both Win98 and Linux (Redhat 6.1).

After any of the computers boot up, Road Runner's DHCP server assigns an
IP address to that computer automatically.  In the past, when all three
computers were on, all three IP addresses would usually fall in the same
subnet.  I used to be able to get sharing working perfectly across all
three computers using just SMB over TCP/IP, regardless of which
operating system was running on each of the computers.

Then Road Runner changed the way IP addresses were automatically
assigned.  Nowadays, my three computers almost always get IP addresses
on different subnets.  Now under Windows 98, I "must" bind the file
sharing to IPX/SPX.  Under IPX, all three of my computers always fall
into the same subnet, because they are all on the same ethernet hub.

If all my computers were running Windows 98 all the time, I would be
happy with just binding the file sharing to IPX/SPX.  If all my
computers were running Linux all the time, I would be happy with NFS(?)
over IPX.

I tried setting up a private TCP/IP network with 192.168.0.x style
addresses.  But Windows 98 won't let me assign more than one IP address
to the same ethernet card, unlike Linux and Windows NT.  Is it possible
to assign more than one IP address to the same ethernet card under
Windows 98?  If so, how is it done?  I looked all over the Internet and
couldn't find any information about this.

If not, then I would like to do whatever I can to help get IPX support
into Samba and smbfs.  How hard would it be to do this?  If it's hard,
why?  Is there anything I can do to accelerate getting IPX support into
Samba and smbfs?  I wish I could modify the source code myself, but at
the moment, I'm not famaliar with the SMB protocol and communicating
using IPX.  (I do know how to make C programs that communicate with
TCP/IP.)

Meanwhile, after I send this email under Linux Netscape, I'll be booting
back into Win98 so I can access a game on one of my other computers. 
I'd like to just walk over to the other computer, to avoid booting out
of Linux on this computer, but that computer is in another room, and I
might wake somebody up by accident.  At other times in the day, other
people are using the other computers.  So I really need the sharing, but
I'd like to avoid any Bill Gates-related stuff at the same time.


Josh