eComStation Boot Floppy Creator Beta release 2005-03-09

eComStation Boot Floppy Creator Beta release 2005-03-09

The Boot Floppy Creator is a program for creating bootable eComStation floppy

diskettes.  With it, you can create three types of bootable diskette set:

 * Boot diskettes for local installation off the eComStation 1.2 CD.

 * Boot diskettes for installation of eComStation 1.2 over a NETBIOS network.

 * Boot diskettes for a local command-prompt only (i.e. maintenance boot).

REQUIREMENTS

An eComStation 1.2 installation CD, or a complete local directory tree of the 

files from such a CD.  (eCS 1.1 and earlier are not supported.)

The program must be run on a system running eComStation (any version) or OS/2

(Warp 3 with FixPak 35 or later, Warp 4 with FixPak 5 or later, or WSeB/ACP/

MCP).  This system must have both floppy and CD drives.

When performing remote installs, the CID server with the installation CD (or 

directory tree thereof) must be located on the same LAN subnet as the target

system, and both must have working NICs installed.  The server must be running

the NETBEUI protocol.  You MUST also select to install NETBEUI on the target 

system during installation.

INSTALLATION

Unzip the program archive into an empty directory (e.g. c:\ecs\system\bootflpy).

Optionally create a program object for BOOTFLPY.EXE called 'Boot Diskettes' (or

something similar).

REMOTE INSTALLS

To perform a remote install, you must set up the server manually.  Insert the

eComStation 1.2 installation CD into the system to be used as the server, and

copy all the files from \CID\SRVIFS on the CD to a directory on the hard drive.

Next, create a file SERVICE.INI in the same directory, which should have the

following contents:

; Sample SERVICE.INI

;

Adapter       = BOTH

MaxClients    = 5

MaxFiles      = 102

Name          = CIDECS

Groupname     = No

ClientWorkers = 6

Path          = S:\

perclient     = No

PermitWrite   = No

Alias         = ReadOnly,Single,CDROM,S:\

;

; End of sample SERVICE.INI

Replace S:\ with the path to the root of the eComStation 1.2 CD.

To start the server, run SERVICE.EXE from the same directory.  If the program

aborts, check your \IBMCOM\LANTRAN.LOG file for error messages.

You can query the server status by running 'SERVICE /S'.  Stop the server by

pressing Ctrl-C from the SERVER.EXE window, or by running 'SERVICE /Q'.

OTHER NOTES

The 'maintenance boot' floppies (the third option) are simple boot floppies 

ONLY.  The diskettes created do not contain any utilities such as LVM; if you

require such things, you are responsible for placing these utilities on floppy 

disks yourself. 

CURRENT LIMITATIONS

 * Although the hooks for national language support are present, only English is

   available as a supported language at the moment.

 * No tool yet exists to configure or run the server for remote installation.

   Manual configuration is required.

 * Online help has not yet been implemented.

 * The remote install feature supports NETBEUI networks only.  TCPBEUI is not

   supported (because the necessary support files for TCPBEUI are too large to

   fit on diskette).

 * Support for adding non-listed third-party SCSI and/or PCMCIA drivers is not

   implemented.

SPECIAL NOTICES

BOOTFLPY.EXE and accompanying documentation are (C) 2005 Alex Taylor.  Other 

included software is (C) IBM, (C) Veit Kannegieser, and/or possibly (C) other 

third parties as well.

DO NOT distribute this program or any of the accompanying files.  In particular,

the DRIVERS subdirectory contains several privileged files from IBM OS/2 software

maintenance (i.e. Softare Choice) which MAY NOT distributed to the public at 

large.