HOW TO USE NC TO MOVE FILES BETWEEN UBUNTU AND FIRTH This is our own approach but acknowledgements transfer programs and info about them on the dos-side at: www.brutman.com www.crynwr.com as well as in the standard folder of the Firth installation as done in standard ways, called C:\ALSOFTP. Here we indicate how it works when Firth is run within standard Oracle Virtual Box on a standard Ubuntu Linux (we tend to use version 11.10 but there is no reason to assume that the intelligent Ubuntu folks will change the standards) set up in the standard way as indicated at our sites e.g. norskesites.org/fic3, without explanining things, just indicating how it is done. The PC must have a working internet ethernet connection operational before starting Firth, involving the normal type of modem or router that assigns, in part dependent on date in the month, suitable numbers NN like 10.0.0.NN (or possibly a whole other number series but with same number of dots) during each startup of Firth, to both the Firth and the surrounding machine as seen from Firth. In any case, the connection operates through a modem/ router, which must be wired or connected to the computer in some way or another even if this router possibly is not connected to the net as such. The address of the Ubuntu as seen from Firth is given e.g. by typing in ip addr > testip.txt more testip.txt and look here for a line that, after blanks, begins with the text "inet" (without quotes) and that typically also has the phrase "scope global" in it. It should be the first number given of the nn.nn.nn.nn type, such as 10.0.0.2, before any slash. Or look at the section that refers to the eth0 or whatever the ethernet card is called. This number is information that firth must have to transfer to Ubuntu. Firth, on the other hand, has a number that Ubuntu needs to transfer to Firth. Note that this number easily varies by each bootup at least for many types of modems. During startup, Y Y is answered to the standard question screen. Then C:\FDOS\MTCP.CFG, which is written to during start-up, will say IPADDR = NN.NN.NN.NN, such as 10.0.0.3 (varying perhaps each time one starts the machine), and this is the number that is to be used by Ubuntu in order to send to Firth. This may easily vary -- typically with each hardware bootup, and according, more or less, to date number and how many other PCs are using the same modem (the notion, as for modems/routers, is to distribute these numbers so that there is a minimum chance of any overlapping). In our examples, then, according to the .CFG file when this was written, firth has is 10.0.0.3, and ubuntu reported 10.0.0.2 for itself. These numbers must be right or else there will be a pause and a program exit inside firth without the transfer happening. Also, the so-called port numbers used here are 1234 from Ubuntu and 2000 from Firth; and the assumption at present is that these port numbers always work in the standard setup, without variation. They also work on repeated use within a session, back and forth with files. I have no information indicating that you need to use other numbers with nc. NOTE: If you like, when giving commands in firth, start up command stars between other commands to reset firth date to its standard of April 10, 2006, 10:00 o'clock, and also to cleanse various aspects of RAM to increase stability of each run involving several programs. The speed is along the lines of moderately fast ethernet or better. In Ubuntu, start up a terminal in the normal way recommended for other work in terminal around in our documentation. FILES FROM UBUNTU TO FIRTH In ubuntu: nc 10.0.0.3 1234 < test1.txt In firth: nc -listen 1234 > test15.txt This transfers, fast enough, the test1.txt from ubuntu to test15.txt in firth. The program nc in firth exits when done. In firth the nc command is impatient every time. In ubuntu, the nc command there is patient as for receiving, but it is, in several cases, impatient when it is transmitting. In other words, to be sure there ought to be some good timing involved. On the other hand, it is effortless enough, especially if these programs are started as batch, to restart them often on both sides when both aspects of the machines are done doing what they are going to do with the files, before further transfers each time, so as to provide something approximating a continous contact though with a bit of pauses sometimes. The timing aspect of this will have some elements of fluctuations as to how fast the programs connect, and possibly there will be some retries for connection some times, but the extra time spent on these things should normally be within a couple of extra seconds, not minutes at all!!!!! Of course, the beauty of nc approach to communicating between Ubuntu and Firth is that is free of needless user id and password logins and other types of things like that, so it is more suitable for processes that can go more or less in the background. Binary files are transferred this way: In ubuntu: nc 10.0.0.3 1234 < test1.zip In firth: nc -bin -listen 1234 > test5.zip There will be texual output in firth in each case even when the > operation is used, as is rather typical (as there are more textual logical output ways). FILES FROM FIRTH TO UBUNTU In ubuntu: nc -l 2000 > test88.txt In firth: nc -target 10.0.0.2 2000 < test1.txt Binary files are transferred this way: In ubuntu: nc -l 2000 > test4.zip In firth: nc -bin -target 10.0.0.2 2000 < test3.zip GOOD LUCK!!!!! ATwLAH, 1::B::2007::7::14, Oslo