Tinyirc problem and nslookup doesn't work

[toncho11]

Are you able to use tinyirc?

There is no DNS in ELKS, right?

So I use tinyirc 185.30.166.38 6667 to connect to irc.freenode.org, but it never connects.

Also nslookup is not working.

[ghaerr]

There is no DNS in ELKS.

Are you able to use tinyirc?

I've never used it. I would doubt anyone has run it in the last 20 years. It looks to have been created between 1991-1996.

Also nslookup is not working.

Have you looked at or changed /etc/resolv.conf? Nslookup uses that to get its DNS data; it likely needs updating. Due to additional long-name issues with FAT filesystems, this should be tested on a MINIX filesystem. The ".conf" extension can be opened, but not searched with ls on FAT, IIRC. Also, netstat has a compiled-in nameserver address when /etc/resolv.conf is missing, which may want to be updated, and perhaps /etc/resolv.conf removed from the distribution.

Volunteers needed for fixing these older utilities. If they can be proven non-operational, perhaps they should be removed from the distribution until fixed?

[toncho11]

There are not may things one can do with functional network ... so it will be better to fix tinyirc. Maybe I can work on this in the future. Tinyirc can connect only to plain-text connections, not TLS.

[ghaerr]

Maybe I can work on this in the future.

You might take a stab at nslookup, its a lot simpler. I'm thinking if it could be made working, we could rename /etc/resolv.conf to /etc/resolv.cnf also, that would solve the FAT issues above. If you start on it, I will help you if needed.

Tinyirc can connect only to plain-text connections, not TLS.

Oh, so tinyirc works otherwise?

ELKS won't likely ever have TLS support, the crypto libraries are way too large.

[toncho11]

I tried two small IRC clients to compile, but:

• C++ is not supported in ELKS?
• some headers were missing in the compiler when trying a C IRC client

[ghaerr]

some headers were missing in the compiler when trying a C IRC client

Which ones? Unable to tell whether they are standard headers or library headers.

[ghaerr]

Hello @toncho11 and @tkchia,

C++ is not supported in ELKS?

I've never used C++ on ELKS, so I don't know - @tkchia, can you comment on that?

Thank you!

[tkchia]

Hello @ghaerr,

I've never used C++ on ELKS, so I don't know - @tkchia, can you comment on that?

Yes, C++ is not yet supported with the ELKS target --- in fact, even for the MS-DOS target, C++ support is still rather incomplete. The main problems I am facing for now are these:

• The GNU C++ Library (libstdc++) which comes with GCC is very bloated. I have been trying to tweak it to get a simple std::cout << "Hello world\n"; to fit in a small model program, without much success.
• I am also having trouble getting the medium memory model to work with the C++ language middle-end. The middle-end thinks that all pointers have the same size, which is not the case with the medium model.

Thank you!

[toncho11]

One more IRC client:

https://github.com/retrohun/mTCP/tree/master/APPS/IRCJR

Although for DOS it is recent and one that is proven to work (on non TLS servers).