Kali Documentation (c) Copyright 1995 by Jay Cotton All right reserved. (comments: jay@kali.net) updated 11/16/95 Introduction Most games only support IPX networks and modem/direct serial link play; TCP/IP networks are not natively supported. With the right software, however, most games designed to be played over IPX LANs can be fooled into operating over the Internet. Kali uses the UDP protocol to send game information between multiple machines on the Internet. Kali has been used to play Descent, Doom, Doom II, Heretic, Hexen, Command & Conquer, Apache, Rise of the Triad, Terminal Velocity, Warcraft, VR Pool, Super Karts, Mortal Combat 3, and other games over the Internet with opponents from all over the world (not all games will be fast enough from modem connections). Getting Prepared - Hardware To use Kali, you will need the following hardware: * If your site is directly connected to the Internet (NOT connected through a modem!), you'll need a network interface card (NIC) for your machine. And not just any old NIC, mind you - your NIC must be supported by a packet driver if you wish to use it to play Internet games. Usually this means that your NIC must be an ethernet card, although Kali has been successfully played over token ring. We will assume that your PC is already equipped with a suitable NIC, although it may currently be in use for some other non-TCP/IP function (such as a node on a Novell network). As long as your NIC is supported by a standard packet driver, your machine can be readily converted into a Kali "playstation." * If you are not directly connected, you'll need a high speed modem (the faster the better) as well as an account with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) which has suitable dialup facilities. NOTE: Users with "shell accounts" or who use SLIP emulators such as TIA and SLiRP can also use Kali. See the section "Using Kali with a shell account." *If you're currently using SLIP or PPP, but your drivers operate from under Microsoft Windows (such as Trumpet Winsock), you MUST obtain a DOS SLIP or PPP driver; your Windows-based drivers will NOT work for Kali. Kali will NOT work in a DOS windows under Windows 95. A version of Kali written to work with Win95's built- in TCPIP drivers is in development. Please don't email and ask when it will be finished. I just don't know yet. Getting Prepared - Software In addition to the hardware requirements, some software is also required to complete your setup. Before you can play, you'll need to pick up the following: * A packet driver. The packet driver is a standardized interface that lets Kali "talk" to an ethernet card or modem. PPP users can use Merit's etherppp (ppp.zip) or Klos's PPP driver (pppshare.zip). SLIP users can use slipper or cslipper (slippr15.zip). * Kali, the TCP/IP network driver for IPX games. * Some basic network diagnostic tools, such as a PING and TCPINFO program. These are not absolutely necessary, but can definitely be useful for debugging and testing your setup (apps.zip). Finding Kali and Related Files ------------------------------ To obtain Kali, log on to one of the following ftp sites (using anonymous ftp). Change to the specified directory (e.g. cd /pub/kali). Download the file kali12k.zip. This is the latest version of Kali as of this writing. ftp://ftp.kali.net/kali/ ftp://ftp.axxis.com/pub/kali/ ftp://ftp.internexus.net/pub/kali/ The following Web sites also include information and some files: http://www.axxis.com/kali/ http://www.internexus.net/kali/ http://www.teleport.com/~caustic/ http://gremlinx.bevc.blacksburg.va.us/ http://www.kali.net/ (under construction) Finding ethernet packet drivers (not needed for modem use) ----------------------------------------------------------- Many ethernet cards come with the appropriate packet drivers on a utilities diskette packaged with the card. If your card does not come with a packet driver, there is an excellent collection of freely available packet drivers called the Crynwr Packet Driver collection. You can obtain it via anonymous ftp from: ftp://oak.oakland.edu/simtel/msdos/pktdrvr/pktd11.zip ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtel/msdos/pktdrvr/pktd11.zip Most of the Kali ftp sites mentioned above also carry this collection of drivers. Finding slip or ppp packets drivers ----------------------------------- SLIP (or SLiRP) users should get the file slippr15.zip and PPP users should get the file ppp.zip. Both of these files can be found at the Kali sites listed above. Diagnostic Software ------------------- If you need basic network diagnostic utilities, the WATTCP applications are freely available and include a PING program. Look for a file called apps.zip on your favorite ftp site, or find it and other wattcp sources at: ftp://dorm.rutgers.edu/pub/msdos/wattcp/ NOTE: people using SLiRP will not be able to use ping utility. Setting up the Hardware Setting up your computer to use a DOS packet driver can be complicated for people who aren't network gurus. This section will attempt to show you all the steps needed to get the packet driver installed and functioning properly. Ethernet Setup Procedure (NOT for modem users!) ----------------------------------------------- Step 0: START WITH A CLEAN BOOT!!!!! Set up your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to load as few drivers as possible. Some definite things to EXclude are memory managers (HIMEM, EMM386, QEMM, etc.) and network drivers (e.g. LSL, IPXODI). Most games don't need the former, and the latter will probably conflict with the packet driver. We recommend that you prepare an alternate configuration (the multiple configuration facility built into MS-DOS is ideal for this purpose; see your DOS manual for details) specifically for Internet games with a CONFIG.SYS portion containing only a FILES=20 line, and an AUTOEXEC.BAT portion containing only the line "prompt=$p$g". Be sure to include the line which loads your mouse driver (if you play your game using a mouse). Step 1: Set up the packet driver. If you do not already have a suitable packet driver installed on your machine, now is the time to install one. Start by determining your ethernet card's IRQ setting, it's base I/O port setting, and it's memory address setting (if any). You should be able to determine this by looking at the card itself and consulting the user manual. You'll need some if not all of this information, depending upon which packet driver you use and/or type of hardware you have (for example, some IBM computers with theMicroChannel bus can determine the settings on the card automatically without you having to supply them on the packet driver command line). Unzip the appropriate driver from Crynwr Packet Driver collection archive. In our example, the packet driver is called SMC_WD.COM. By looking at the jumpers on the card and consulting the manual, I determined that the card has been set to IRQ 7, Base I/O port address 300h, and the base memory address is at segment d800h. For this example, I have chosen to use interrupt 60h for the packet driver. Packet drivers typically operate on an interrupt in the range of 60h to 80h inclusive; since nothing else in my sample system happens to be using the first available interrupt (INT 60h), I chose that. Thus, to load my packet driver, I use the command line SMC_WD 0x60 0x7 0x300 0xd800 where 0x60 is the packet driver interrupt, 0x7 is the IRQ setting on the card, 0x300 is the I/O port base address, and 0xd800 is the memory base address (NOTE: all numbers are in C-style HEX notation). Don't worry if you don't understand what all this stuff means - as long as you use the correct numbers, your packet driver should work. NOTE: If your PC is currently part of a Novell network (e.g. Netware, Netware Lite, Personal Netware) the parameters you need can be found in a file called NET.CFG, usually located in your \NOVELL, \NWLITE or \NWCLIENT subdirectories (along with all the other drivers needed by Novell). Add the proper command line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT for your Kali configuration so that the packet driver will be loaded automatically whenever you boot using the Kali partition. When successfully loaded, the packet driver should give a sign on message and report the ethernet address of your NIC when you load it. Chances are that if your NIC has been functioning properly for other tasks (e.g. as a node on a Novell network) then you'll have no problems here. If not, or if there are any error or warning messages, something is wrong (D'OHH!). One possibility is that one of the settings on your NIC is in conflict with those of another expansion card in your system. No two cards can have the same IRQ, I/O port, or memory address settings, nor can the memory areas of two cards overlap. Whatever the cause, you'll need to find and correct the problem before continuing. SLIP Setup Procedure -------------------- This procedure assumes that you are using the cslipper SLIP driver mentioned earlier. If you are using a different driver, you'll need to change the commands which follow accordingly. Step 0: Obtain Internet access from a service provider who allows SLIP connections on their terminal server. A "shell account" (where you log in to a remote UNIX host and type commands such as "telnet" and "ftp") will require a SLIP emulator called SLiRP (read the SLiRP section below before continuing). H...
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