From: bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 09:44:47 PST To: macgifts@mac.archive.umich.edu Subject: how-to-tia.txt How to TIA (revision of 31 December 1994) by Brian Kendig (bskendig@netcom.com) I've seen a lot (and I mean, a LOT) of posts from Mac users who are completely baffled as to how to get TIA working with their Macs. For a while, I was one of those baffled users. I spent some long hours puzzling over it before I finally got it working, so I put together this information to help other people avoid the same problems I stumbled through. It's really not a difficult process, but it can be confusing if you haven't done it before. (Thanks very much to Bill Arnett (billa@netcom.com) for his revisions to my original instructions!) In case you're wondering what TIA is, let me explain -- it's a Unix program that you run on a normal dialup shell account in order to have TCP/IP access very similar to what SLIP gives you. In other words, if right now you run a terminal program and dial in to your Unix system over a modem, then TIA will let you run Telnet, ftp, NewsWatcher, Mosaic, Netscape, and other networking software on your Macintosh, all at the same time, as if you had a full (but slow) connection to the Internet. For more general information about what TIA is and how to get it, check out "http://marketplace.com/" (by running "lynx" on your Unix system or using Mosaic or Netscape if you have access to them), or ftp to marketplace.com and read the file "read.me" in the "tia" directory. ---------------- First, here are some steps you can do before you register for your fourteen-day TIA evaluation copy. These are things you'll need to do anyway before you can use TIA at all, so it makes sense not to start the evaluation period counting down until after you've done them. You might want to start by buying a copy of Adam Engst's book _The Internet Starter Kit_. It comes with a floppy that contains MacTCP, InterSLIP, and other handy software, and the book itself is especially good for novices. If you purchase this book with its accompanying disk, you won't have to worry about finding the software below from other sources. Here is the software you'll need to have to start out with: o "MacTCP", Apple's networking software. This is the ONLY commercial software you'll need for any of this. MacTCP comes with System 7.5, and it can also be purchased separately from Apple or gotten with Adam's book. It is not available for ftp on the Internet. o "InterSLIP", a free product from Intercon Systems which lets you run TCP/IP over your phone lines. You can download InterSLIP from any of the usual Mac ftp sites; on the sumex mirrors (try ftp.hawaii.edu; it's fast) it's info-mac/comm/tcp/inter-slip-installer-101.hqx. InterSLIP is also available with Adam's book, or directly from InterCon (ftp.intercon.com) in "InterCon/sales/InterSLIP" as "InterSLIPInstaller1.0.1.hqx". o Get a copy of NCSA Telnet 2.6. This is available from zaphod.ncsa.uiuc.edu in Mac/Telnet/Telnet2.6/Telnet2.6.sit.hqx. Telnet is a good TCP/IP program to use to test whether your connection is working. On your Unix system, find out what your name server addresses are. There will be probably one, two, or three computers set up to figure out what the real IP addresses are of any host names you use, and you'll need to give the numeric IP addresses of those computers to MacTCP and InterSLIP. Contact your Unix administrator if you need help with this. Also, find out the numeric IP address of the computer you normally log into, so you can tell NCSA Telnet where to find it later if it can't get to the name servers for some reason. (For example, here on Netcom, the nameservers are netcomsv.netcom.com at 192.100.81.101 and ns.netcom.com at 192.100.81.105, and I also jotted down the address of netcom7.netcom.com, which is 192.100.81.115.) ---------------- Install InterSLIP by running the installer you've downloaded, reboot, then go into the "InterSLIP Setup" program. Select "New" from the File menu, enter any name for your new configuration, then double-click on the name when it appears in the main window. In the ensuing modal dialog, you'll probably only need to set a few things: o Your baud rate. For a 14.4kbaud modem, try setting this to 19200 (it worked for me); if that doesn't work you can always try 9600 later. o An IP address. You can enter anything here, since TIA doesn't set up an individual IP address for you. This field usually gets ignored. You should probably set this to "192.0.2.1", which is an address that is actually defined to mean "nothing". Setting it to something simple such as "1.1.1.1" should also be okay. o The numeric IP address of one of your name servers (preferably your "primary" name server), which you found a few paragraphs ago. o The "MTU Size". TIA documentation recommends setting this to 1500. Leave the "Dial Script" and "Gateway" set to "Direct Connection". ---------------- Now, install MacTCP, reboot, and open its control panel. Click on the InterSLIP icon that appears there, then click on "More". o Set the radio buttons under "Obtain Address" to "Server". I don't think this matters, but this is what has worked for me. o Set the "Class" under "IP Address" to "C". o The entries for "Domain Name Server Information" can be a bit tricky. First let me show you what I set mine to, then I'll explain. Remember that I found out my nameservers are 192.100.81.101 and 192.100.81.105: netcom.com 192.100.81.101 . 192.100.81.101 . 192.100.81.105 The first line should give your default domain (usually the last two parts of your hostname, such as "netcom.com" or "princeton.edu") and the address of your primary nameserver. Each line after that should give a dot (".") and the addresses of each of your nameservers. This means that if I try to connect to a system ("netcom4") but I don't give its complete name, it will tack on the default domain (hence "netcom4.netcom.com") and look it up with the primary nameserver. If I try to connect to a system by giving its complete name, the nameservers by the "dot"-entries will be used to look it up. Click the "Default" radio button by the first entry in your list. After all this is set, just click "OK", then reboot to apply the changes. ---------------- Now your Mac should be all set! After it reboots, you can go about setting up TIA on your Unix shell account. The TIA documentation is very thorough and helpful about how to do this. Register for your fourteen-day evaluation license, and get to the point where you can run "tia" from your Unix prompt and have it reply "Ready to start your SLIP software." Note that if you ever want to stop TIA and get back to a Unix prompt, just type Control-C slowly five times, such that more than two seconds go by between the first Control-C and the last one. Oh, and make sure that your terminal program isn't set to automatically hang up when you quit out of it; you will need to be able to quit out of your terminal program without killing your dial-in connection to your Unix host. (I know for a fact that there's an option in Zterm, MacLayers, and Microphone that tells them not to hang up when you quit; look for something like "Drop DTR on Quit" and turn it off.) Right now, quit out of your terminal program then run it again, and if you find yourself still going as if you had never quit, then you should be okay. Okay. Now for the moment of truth. At a Unix prompt, run "tia" (or whatever the executable is named). It should reply "Ready to start your SLIP software." Quit out of your terminal program, open "InterSLIP Setup", make sure the name of the configuration you created earlier is selected, and click the "Connect" button. If all goes well, then the word "Connected" should appear at the top of the window. Note that as long as this says "Connected", you will not be able to run your terminal program, since InterSLIP has grabbed the serial port. For example, my copy of Zterm will hang if I try to run it while InterSLIP has the serial port. Now run NCSA Telnet. Try to open a connection to the Unix host you usually connect to. If it fails to connect, then try again, this time giving the numeric IP address of the Unix host; if it fails with the name but works with the number then this means that you haven't set your name servers correctly in the MacTCP control panel or in InterSLIP. If you've run into problems before this point (InterSLIP doesn't connect, or NCSA Telnet gives you errors), and you can't figure out what the problem is, then post on comp.sys.mac.comm to ask for help. Describe exactly what step of the installation you got up to before things started going wrong. On the other hand, if things work for you, then you're all set! Disconnect from InterSLIP and go back into your terminal program to download a copy of Dartmouth's "FTP" program from a Mac ftp site, and try to use that to download a copy of Netscape. Being able to finally run Netscape on your Mac is a fitting reward for getting all of this to work successfully. ---------------- You might also want to set up InterSLIP to dial in automatically for you and run tia without any need for intervention on your part. One example of how to do this is available via ftp to ftp.netcom.com, as "/pub/mealiffe/netcom/tia-interslip-script". Put that file into the folder "System Folder:Preferences:InterSLIP Folder:Gateway Scripts" on your Mac. You might have to change its type/creator to CNFG/ISLP. It's a text file, so you can edit it if necessary. Make any necessary changes to your Unix .login file so that you will always automatically get to a Unix prompt when you log in. If your prompt does not end in a percent ('%') character, then use a text editor to edit the script you just downloaded to put the correct character there (it tells you where to make the change). I also had to add an extra zero to the number after every "matchread" statement in the script (for example, where it said "matchread 50" I made it "matchread 500") to prevent my connections from timing out so easily before they had finished connecting. Also, make sure that the TIA application on your Unix account is named just "tia", since that's what the script will try to automatically run for you (unless you change the script). Go back into the InterSLIP Setup application and edit your configuration: set the Dial Script to "Hayes Compatible" and enter the Unix dial-in phone number, and set the Gateway Script to the script you just downloaded and edited. If all went well, then whenever you try to run any TCP/IP application on your Mac when you're not already connected, InterSLIP will automatically dial in for you and establish the connection. Easy as that. :-) ---------------- Don't forget to post to comp.sys.mac.comm for help if you can't get this to work -- if you run into a problem, chances are other people have, too. A lot of people have sent email directly to me asking for help with all sorts of TIA issues; so many people, in fact, that I've been TOTALLY swamped, and I'm sorry to say that I won't reply to any future requests for help setting up TIA unless you want to pay me for it. ;-) I'm not the only person on the net who knows how to set this up! If there are any unclear or incorrect parts of these instructions, though, please don't hesitate to let me know, and I'll fix them. Good luck, and happy SLIPping! -- _/_/_/ Be insatiably curious. Je ne suis fait comme aucun /_/_/ Ask "why" a lot. de ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire _/_/ n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent. / Brian Kendig Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre. / bskendig@netcom.com -- Rousseau ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/bs/bskendig/home.html