An IPv4+IPv6 TCP/IP stack for classic AmigaOS, with the network commands that go
with it. It provides bsdsocket.library, the socket API that Amiga network
software already speaks, on top of
Eclipse ThreadX NetX Duo. It
drives existing SANA-II network cards, and ships three SANA-II drivers.
It gets a DHCP lease, configures itself by SLAAC, answers ARP and neighbour discovery, and pings its gateway. It resolves DNS, moves TCP in both directions, does HTTPS, and accepts incoming connections from other machines. It scores 142 of 142 on the independent
bsdsocktestconformance suite.sshandscprun on it, and so do NFS mounts and ixemul programs.
AmigaOS has never included a TCP/IP stack. Networking has always come from a third-party shared library, and each existing option has a limitation. AmiTCP 3.0b2 is free and dates from 1994. AmiTCP 4.x and Miami are proprietary and effectively unobtainable. Roadshow, the one modern stack, is commercial and closed.
AmiNetXDuo is MIT-licensed, with the exceptions named under Licence. It speaks the same socket API and reads the same configuration files as Roadshow, so existing software and existing habits carry over. It also speaks IPv6: on a network with an IPv6 router, a machine picks up an address without being configured for one.
Any 68000 or better, AmigaOS 2.04 (Kickstart 37) or newer, 1 MB of RAM, and a SANA-II network card. One binary serves every 68k: the library picks the code for the processor when it opens, and nothing has to match the machine.
The archive carries three stacks. The installer asks which one to put on.
| Stack | Leaves out | RAM while up |
|---|---|---|
| Full | nothing | 442 KB |
| Minimal | IPv6, .local lookups, the packet filter, HTTPS, IPv4 multicast, the ARexx host, TCP: |
272 KB |
| Micro | all of that, plus getaddrinfo/getnameinfo, ancillary data, out-of-band TCP and less-used administration calls; carries one interface and no route or address-allocation calls. DHCP, the classic resolver and raw sockets work |
243 KB |
The installer offers these cards by name: A2065, Ariadne, Ariadne II,
AmigaNet, LAN Rover, X-Surf, X-Surf 100, PCMCIA (cnet.device,
etherlink3.device for the 3Com 3C589, or prism2.device), ZZ9000
(ZZ9000Net.device) and uaenet.device for emulators. Any other driver name
can be typed in.
anxnet.device, the classic-card SANA-II driver AmiNetXDuo builds itself,
drives the A2065, Ariadne, Ariadne II, AmigaNet, LAN Rover, X-Surf, X-Surf 100,
X-Surf 500, NE2000-compatible PCMCIA cards, 3C589 and the two supported
Megahertz/3Com LAN+modem cards. anxgenet.device, the same driver core with only
the Raspberry Pi 4/CM4's own Ethernet in it, drives that port behind a
PiStorm32 running Emu68 (DEVICE=anxgenet.device, UNIT=0). anxzz9000.device
is the same core for the MNT ZZ9000's Ethernet (DEVICE=anxzz9000.device,
UNIT=0): one copy from the card's window into the reader's buffer with the
checksum summed on the way, INT6 served without a helper task, and on the
firmware fork at github.com/tinic/zz9000-firmware (branch aminetxduo) a
transmit that does not stall the bus; an A3000/030 receives 8.0 Mbit/s against
3.1 with ZZ9000Net.device 2.2 (docs/plans/zz9000-ethernet.md has the
measurements and what the fork changes in the card's firmware). It is not in
the release archive yet (the A3000 still freezes under a long receive on it;
build with -DAMINETXDUO_ZZ9000=ON to ship it). The installer offers to put
the supplied drivers in DEVS:Networks; on Emu68 it reads the device tree and
creates definitions for the supported Ethernet and Wi-Fi devices it finds, and
on a ZZ9000 without MNT's driver it names anxzz9000.device when the archive
carries it.
An interface file selects one with DEVICE=. anxgenet.device needs Emu68
1.1 alpha.1 or newer: that is the
first release line that maps GENET's /scb range into the Amiga address space.
Emu68 1.0.3 is not supported.
anxwifipi.device is the same machine's Wi-Fi: the Pi 4's own Broadcom 43455
on SDIO, behind a PiStorm32 running Emu68 (DEVICE=anxwifipi.device,
UNIT=0). It is the MPL-2.0 fork of Michal Schulz's WiFiPi.device kept at
github.com/tinic/WiFiPi.device (branch gcc16, submodule
third_party/wifipi), built here with the tree's toolchain, with the
single-copy receive path above and counters behind S2_GETSPECIALSTATS. It
needs the Wi-Fi firmware Emu68 installs in DEVS:Firmware, and a supplicant
to join a network -- WirelessManager from Aminet's driver/net/prism2v2 reads
ENVARC:Sys/Wireless.prefs and associates through the SANA-II wireless
commands; the interface file names the device as any other. On an A1200 +
PiStorm32 Lite on a 5 GHz network at -69 dBm: 34-36 Mbit/s in, 52-61 out,
6 ms round trips.
anxwifipi.device is experimental. It needs nothing beyond Emu68: it
polls. The card's interrupt line is shared with the SD card host, and the
gic400.library in the Emu68 ROM takes one server per line, so the driver's
offer of an interrupt server is refused and it runs without one: a task at
the lowest priority watches the card's status register while frames flow
(it takes whatever CPU is idle during a transfer, and a CPU meter shows it),
and a timer tick looks otherwise -- 0.4% of the machine idle, up to 20 ms on
the first frame of an exchange after a quiet second. An interrupt path would
need a gic400.library that allows shared lines
(github.com/tinic/emu68-gic400-library, branch shared-lines) built into
the Emu68 ROM; a copy in LIBS: changes nothing. NetDevStats anxwifipi.device shows "card interrupt line (GIC)": 4 means refused and
polling. WirelessManager 1.3 (the Emu68 image) and 1.5 (prism2v2) both
join. One Wi-Fi driver per boot: wifipi.device and anxwifipi.device
drive the same chip, and switching between them without a reboot hangs
WirelessManager. Association, roaming and power-save behaviour have been
exercised on one access point.
Receive offload (GRO). The stack verifies and matches contiguous IPv4 and
IPv6 TCP segments after an ordinary SANA-II read, then hands TCP one segment
where the wire carried up to sixteen. A driver's negotiated VERIFIED checksum
result avoids the verification walk, but is not required: GRO is the same
stack-side path for every SANA-II driver. A 1 Gbit/s GENET behind a PiStorm32
Lite receives 900 Mbit/s this way and sends 580 (iperf; 142 and 65 before the
receive and transmit offloads). Those GENET figures use the negotiated
AmiNetXDuo extension path. The optional direct-placement, checksum, held-ring
handoff and ring-capacity extensions are published in
Developer/include/aminetxduo/anxs2ext.h; they are negotiated additions to
SANA-II, not a replacement network API.
What the numbers in this file come from, and what CI boots. A card or a machine not in this table is not known to fail; it is not known.
| Machine | Kickstart | Card and driver | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1200 + PiStorm32 Lite, Emu68 1.1 | 3.1 | GENET, anxgenet.device (AmiNetXDuo extension path) |
900 in / 580 out Mbit/s |
| A1200 + PiStorm32 Lite, Emu68 1.1 | 3.1 | 3Com 3C589 PCMCIA, anxnet.device |
8.3 Mbit/s |
| A1200 + PiStorm32 Lite, Emu68 1.1 | 3.1 | Broadcom 43455 Wi-Fi, anxwifipi.device |
34-36 in / 52-61 out Mbit/s, 5 GHz at -69 dBm |
| A3000, 68030/25 | 3.9 | X-Surf 100 (Zorro III), anxnet.device |
3.8 in / 3.3-3.7 out Mbit/s |
| A3000, 68030/25 | 3.9 | ZZ9000, ZZ9000Net.device 2.2 |
3.6 in / 3.5-3.7 out Mbit/s |
| Amiberry, A1200 (68020) | 3.1 | A2065, anxnet.device |
4.8 in / 4.4 out Mbit/s |
| Amiberry, A3000 (68030) | 3.1 | X-Surf 100 (Zorro III), anxnet.device |
30 in / 31 out Mbit/s |
| Amiberry, A600 (68000) | 2.05 | NE2000 PCMCIA and cnet.device |
boots, DHCP, transfers (CI) |
| Amiberry, A500+ / A2000 (68000) | 2.04, 3.1 | A2065, Ariadne II | boots, DHCP, transfers (CI) |
| Amiberry, 68060 | 3.1 | A2065 | builds and boots (CI arm) |
The separate emulator workflow boots Kickstart 2.04, 2.05 and 3.1 guests on
68000 and 68020 and runs DHCP, TCP and UDP transfers, Online/Offline, the
installer and the card-eject path. Release end-to-end testing consumes the
exact candidate archive produced by CI rather than rebuilding it. Roadshow and
AmiTCP_NG coexist on the same disk, selected at boot (SYS:Stacks).
Download the .lha from Releases,
unpack it, and run Install-AmiNetXDuo. It asks:
| Question | Default |
|---|---|
| Which stack: Everything, Minimal, Micro | Everything |
| Install the three supplied network drivers | yes |
Where the AmiNetXDuo drawer of documentation and examples goes |
any drawer; nothing in it is needed for the network |
Into the system (LIBS:, C:, DEVS:), or into its own drawer, added last to those assigns; refused if LIBS: already has a bsdsocket.library (Intermediate and Expert) |
into the system |
| Which card, and the interface name | the driver found in DEVS: |
Answer to <hostname>.local on the network |
no |
| DHCP, or a fixed address, netmask and gateway | DHCP |
| The machine's name | amiga- and the card's last three address octets |
| Start the network at boot | yes |
Start httpd at boot, exposing mounted volumes with a browser file manager and Shell, on which port |
no |
The configuration follows the layout of Roadshow: DEVS:NetInterfaces/<name>
defines an interface, DEVS:Internet/routes, DEVS:Internet/name_resolution
and the /etc-style netdb files hold the rest. A definition does not start
its interface. S:Network-Startup does, one AddNetInterface line per
interface, and S:User-Startup runs that file. An installation from 0.26.x or
earlier needs that one line added.
The archive also holds Docs/AmiNetXDuo.guide, the manual; Examples/, a
commented copy of every configuration file; and Developer/, the headers that
the NDK does not declare and the CPU profiler.
NetSetup |
ask the questions for one interface, and write the configuration files |
NetPrefs |
Workbench editor for interface, address, device and tuning settings; preserves comments and unknown keywords |
AddNetInterface, RemoveNetInterface |
start an interface from its file, and take one out of the running network |
Online, Offline |
put a started interface on the wire and take it off |
ConfigureNetInterface |
change the address or MTU of a running interface, renew or release its DHCP lease, turn .local answering on |
ShowNetStatus, netstat |
interface state, addresses, routes, connections, multicast groups, counters |
ShowNetServices |
what else on this network is offering something |
ping, host, nslookup |
reachability, name lookups, and one kind of record from a named server |
arp |
the machines on this network that have answered, IPv4 and IPv6 |
sntp |
set the clock from a time server |
fetch |
retrieve an http:// or https:// URL |
httpd |
expose mounted volumes over HTTP and WebDAV, so other machines mount them as one drive. -F adds a browser file manager, -T a Shell, and -C the machine's display |
nc |
connect or listen, TCP and UDP, port ranges, timeouts |
iperf |
measure throughput against an iperf server, or act as one |
telnet |
negotiates the options that a real server requires |
ssh, scp |
Dropbear's clients, public-key authentication, scp in both directions and recursive |
NetCapture |
capture what is on the wire to a .pcap file, filtered by host, port or protocol |
NetTrace |
the same file for a transfer it runs itself, with the throughput number beside it |
traceroute, tftp, whois |
trace the path to a host, and small TFTP and WHOIS clients |
CheckNetConfig |
read the configuration and report what is wrong with it |
CheckNetDevice |
what anxnet.device or anxgenet.device found and why a card was refused |
NetDevStats |
every standard and driver-specific SANA-II counter for one unit |
CreateAmiNetXDuoStatusReport |
versions, settings and counters in one file to attach to a bug report |
AddNetRoute, DeleteNetRoute |
where packets go that are not for this network |
GetNetStatus, NetShutdown |
status for scripts, and a clean shutdown |
hostname |
the name of this machine, and where the name came from |
The installer copies all of them into C:; a system installation also places
the NetPrefs program and icon in SYS:Prefs. Every command that resolves a name
takes -4 and -6.
httpd -F serves a file manager at http://<address>/files. It browses the
mounted volumes and opens, uploads, creates, renames and deletes files and
drawers through the same WebDAV interface that desktop file managers mount.
Its CodeMirror editor provides line numbers, undo and redo, search, and
Ctrl/Cmd+S saving without leaving the browser. Saves carry the file's ETag,
so a copy changed after it was opened is refused instead of overwritten.
It detects extensionless Amiga text such as startup-sequence, while keeping
binary files as downloads.
Nothing is fetched from the Internet; the whole page is about 107 KB compressed.
Starting httpd with an explicit drawer, such as httpd Work:Public 8080 -F,
keeps the older restricted-share form and exposes only that drawer.
httpd -T serves an AmigaDOS Shell at /shell, beside the volumes that it
already shares. httpd -C serves the machine's display at /console, chipset
and RTG screens alike. The installer offers to start the volume server, file
manager, Shell and display when the machine boots.
On a Zorro III MNT ZZ9000, /console can move both
framebuffer readback and delta encoding from the 68k to the card's ARM processor.
httpd detects the console-encode service automatically and falls back to its
normal 68k path when the service is absent, so there is no setting to maintain.
On the 25 MHz A3000 this raised a continuously dragged ZZ9000 Workbench from
about 0.5 to about 10 frames per second. The required firmware, a ready-to-flash
BOOT.bin, installation instructions and rollback instructions are in the
AmiNetXDuo ZZ9000 firmware fork.
The Shell is a real console, not a pipe. Ed and More work, and so do the
cursor keys and the history. A program that asks how big the window is gets an
answer. On an A1200 the prompt appears in 44 ms, and a press of Return shows
the output about 23 ms later.
There is no password. Anyone who can reach the port gets the Shell, the display and every mounted volume.
For automation, the host-side remote-control tool turns a Shell command into JSON output with an exit code and timeout, transfers files through WebDAV, and captures or controls the display with PNG feedback.
The Amiga answers to <hostname>.local on the local network, so another
machine reaches it by name with no DNS server and no configuration. .local
names resolve from the Amiga in the other direction too. This matters most
when there is no DHCP server at all: the machine gives itself an address and is
still reachable.
The responder is per interface and off until asked for, because it costs time
on a slow machine. The installer asks. The setting is MDNS=YES in
DEVS:NetInterfaces/<name>, or ConfigureNetInterface <name> MDNS=YES on an
interface that is already up. The minimal and micro stacks do not carry it.
ShowNetServices lists the kinds of service that answer on the network; a
named kind lists the machines behind it with their addresses and ports; ALL
lists every instance of every kind. Printers, NAS boxes, media players and
anything that runs Bonjour or Avahi appear without being configured anywhere.
fetch handles https:// URLs. Certificates are checked against Mozilla's
root set. The cryptography is in tls.library, a separate library with its own
SDK that also runs on Roadshow, AmiTCP and Miami, and that handles the server
side of a handshake and ALPN as well.
A first handshake is the cryptography, not the network: about 4 to 9 seconds
on a 68020, a minute or two on a 68000. A second connection to the same site
takes under a second, because the session is kept in
DEVS:Internet/tlssessions and survives a reboot. The minimal and micro stacks
do not install tls.library.
ssh needs no special configuration at the far end and reaches the prompt in
about five seconds on an A1200. Keys must be in Dropbear's own format; an
OpenSSH key copied straight across is not read. Name the key with -i, and
generate it on a PC, which has the entropy and the speed for it. The manual
has the exact commands.
Software that resolves a name with getaddrinfo() and connects to whatever it
returns works over IPv6 without being changed. Software written for IPv4 keeps
working over IPv4. A program is IPv4-only when it resolves with
gethostbyname(), keeps an address in 32 bits, or reads a dotted quad out of a
configuration file; for such a program the change is to resolve with
getaddrinfo() and hand the result to connect().
usergroup.library reads an existing AmiTCP 4 passwd and group as they
stand. AmiNetXDuo does not claim AmiTCP:; ixemul programs that use the literal
AmiTCP:libs/usergroup.library path are satisfied by the already resident
library, while an existing AmiTCP assign remains untouched. NFS mounts with
ch_nfsc authenticate. The full, minimal and micro profiles carry four, two
and one interface respectively, and the first one named to AddNetInterface
owns the default route.
In the full profile, the whole of AmiTCP's socket_lib.fd (45 vectors) is
implemented. Of
Roadshow's 125, 21 answer ENOSYS: the tunables API (ObtainRoadshowData
and friends), the IP filter/NAT API (ipf_*) and the kernel-memory API
(mbuf_*); SBTC_HAVE_* reports each truthfully, and
docs/GAPS.md lists every one with what a program loses.
crypt() is a stub: a ported server that authenticates against passwd
cannot. A survey scanned 5,907 Aminet archives
(docs/aminet-survey); among the strictly attributed
binaries it found no caller of any of the 21. Attribution covers 399 of the
559 archives that contain a bsdsocket binary (71%), so that absence is strong
evidence, not proof.
docs/DEVELOPMENT.md covers the build, its options, the test suites, continuous integration, the measurement method and the CPU profiler.
The project-priority matrix records the current support, compatibility and release-safety priorities separately from the known-defect backlog.
Thanks to Rondoval for a detailed external review of the SANA-II extension design. His criticism prompted the move of GRO into the stack, relocation of private commands out of the NSD-reserved range, and replacement of borrowed SANA-II fields with a versioned private extension record.
AmiNetXDuo is an independent implementation of a published ABI. No
implementation code from AmiTCP, AROSTCP, Miami or Roadshow has been used,
copied or disassembled. The ABI comes from interface definitions and
documentation that exist to be read: Olaf Barthel's freely distributable
Roadshow SDK headers and autodocs, the NDK's pragmas/bsdsocket_pragmas.h,
and the .fd and .sfd function-descriptor files that AmiTCP and Roadshow
publish.
MIT, with these exceptions, each confined to the files it names:
| What | Licence | Where |
|---|---|---|
| ThreadX and NetX Duo | MIT (Microsoft and the Eclipse ThreadX contributors). Both are maintained forks, pinned by the submodules; docs/UPSTREAMING.md records their divergence and upstreaming plan |
third_party/threadx, third_party/netxduo |
The NE2000 core of anxnet.device |
BSD-2-Clause, adapted from NetBSD's dp8390 driver |
src/netdev/dp8390.c, ne2000.c, ed.c, netdev_mcaf.c |
ssh and scp |
Dropbear's MIT-style licence | third_party/dropbear, clients/dropbear |
The /files text editor |
CodeMirror 6 and its support packages, MIT | bundled into src/tools/web/files.html; notice in src/tools/web/vendor/codemirror |
| The CA root set | MPL 2.0, Mozilla's, file-scoped | DEVS:Internet/certificates, from third_party/cacert |
anxwifipi.device |
MPL 2.0 (Michal Schulz's WiFiPi.device, forked; ISC Broadcom/OpenBSD headers and an Apache-2.0 register header inside it, listed in its NOTICE). File-scoped: its sources are the submodule's and are published there | third_party/wifipi, built by src/wifipi/CMakeLists.txt |