Here are some notes to help anyone trying to get going from scratch with 
NT. Many thanks to Derek Knight for letting me include them here. They 
were written before the full release of NT version 3.5 but the should be 
sufficient to help get you started.

Needless to say, you need to have TCP/IP working properly before it 
makes sense to even try Windis32.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guide to setting up Daytona Remote Access Client for Demon access

The instructions which follow are from my first-hand experiences with
setting up Remote Access to communicate with Demon. It took me some time
to get it all working, but now it works very reliably. I am using the
Beta test version of Windows NT Daytona, specifically Build 756, the
Release Candidate. I believe this solution will work with Beta 2, it
probably won't work with Beta 1, but with some perseverance, you might
get that to work too. I understand Daytona will be released within the
next month or so (as Windows NT 3.5). Hopefully this solution will work
there too.

There are two steps to setting up Remote Access (RAS) to act as an
internet gateway from Windows NT to Demon. Firstly a script file needs
to be created, this has the commands which you might type in in response
to Demon's login and password prompts. Secondly a Phone Book entry needs
to be created to actually do the dialling. A dialogue mechanism provided
by Microsoft may be used for the second part, but the first part
requires some magic trickery on your behalf. Some systems, eg. the
Macintosh have software to create these scripts for you, this saves you
getting your hands dirty, It wouldn't be a difficult job for someone to
write...

The file you must create is called SWITCH.INF and lives in the
SSYETMS32\RAS directory beneath your Windows NT directory. This file is
initially empty, but should be changed to be like the example included
here (cut out everything between the brackets in your favourite editor)

(START OF FILE)
;--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
[Responses]
; This section is temporary.

;--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
[Demon]

[Demon]

; The next two lines ignore logon banners
COMMAND=

OK=<match>"login:"
LOOP=<ignore><cr><lf>
COMMAND=YOUR_DEMON_ID<cr>
OK=<match>"YOUR_DEMON_ID<cr><lf>

OK=<match>"Password:"
COMMAND=YOUR_DEMON_PASSWORD<cr>

OK=<match>"Protocol:"
COMMAND=PPP<cr>
OK=<match>"PPP"

COMMAND=
OK=<ignore>

COMMAND=
OK=<ignore>

CONNECT=<match>"HELLO"


(END OF FILE)

cut the text from here and paste into your editor, then we must change
the file.

The two places where I have written YOUR_DEMON_ID must be changed to
your demon id (eg: if your mail address is eric@myhouse.demon.co.uk
your demon id is myhouse. Just replace YOUR_DEMON_ID with myhouse. Don't
touch any quoteation marks or anything.

Likewise where I have written YOUR_DEMON_PASSWORD, you must change this
to the password you use when you connect to Demon. Again just replace
the text, don't touch the <cr> or anything.

Save the file and I'll explain what it does. It's helpful to have an idea
what all this stuff does, so if it goes wrong, or you need to improve it,
you have a fair chance of understanding it.

Lines starting COMMAND= are actual characters which will be sent via your
modem to the modem you are connected to, <cr> means send a carriage-
return. The lines are send verbatim, hence my comments about leaving
quotes and things intact.

Lines starting OK= are actual characters RAS will look for to indicate
everything is fine.

Lines starting ERROR_NO_CARRIER= are actual characters RAS would see if
the modem carrier signal was lost.

You'll see the OK and ERROR_NO_CARRIER lines have <match> in them. This
means look for a line with any characters at the start, but ending with
the characters in the quotes following the <match> string.

So, initially RAS and the Demon machine synchronise with each other. If
all's fine, Ras sees a line ending login:. It then sends your Demon id.
It looks for a line ending Password: and sends your Demon password. It
looks for a line Protocol and sends PPP. Demon then replies by echoing
your Demon id again. RAS then waits until it sees a line saying HELLO.
This means you have connected. The file can probably be improved and
there are some things I don't fully understand about it, but this at
least works for me and presumably the person who sent it me, "If it
works, don't touch it" seems a good motto.

That's the first part done, now for the second part.

Start up Remote Access (RASPHONE.EXE)

Click on the Add button in the toolbar to bring up the Add Phone Book
Entry dialogue

Click on the Advanced>> button beneath Cancel. The dialogue will then get
a few more buttons and this button will change to say <<Basic

Supply an Entry Name: (eg: DEMON-LONDON) must have no spaces and will be
capitalised

Supply a phone number (eg: 0813434848)

Supply a description (eg: Demon London) can be anything

Make sure the "Authenticate using current..." toggle is marked

Select the Port which has your modem.

Click on the Network button at the bottom of this dialogue to bring up
the Network Protocol Settings dialogue.

Select the PPP Radio button - this will cause the upper group of buttons
to become ungreyed.

Select the TCP/IP toggle

Select the Request LCP extensions ... toggle

Click on the TCP/IP Settings button to bring up the PPP TCP/IP Settings
dialogue.

Click on the Require specific IP address radio button

Type your IP address in the panel there (eg: 158.152.255.255)

Select the Use specific name server addresses radio

Type Demon's DNS server address in the DNS panel. This is 158.152.1.65

Select the Use Default gateway... toggle at the bottom of this dialogue

Select OK from the PPP TCP/IP Settings dialogue

Select OK from the Network Protocol Settings dialogue

You are back in the Edit Phone Book Entry dialogue,

Click on  the Security button at the bottom of the dialogue to bring up
the Security Settings dialogue.

Select the Accept any authentication including clear text radio button

Select [none] from the Before dialling list box

Select Demon from the After dialling list box (Demon is the same name as
you specified in the SWITCH.INF scripts file).

Select OK from the Security Settings dialogue

Select OK from the Add Phone Book Entry dialogue

You are now back in the Remote Access main dialogue, now you can try
this stuff.

Highlight the Demon London entry in the list box.

Click on the Dial button in the toolbar.

A progress dial will come up informing you what is happening. Your
modem should start doing things. Eventually you'll get a message
saying the connection has been successful and the envelope next to the
entry will change to a yellow telephone. If things fail (either because
the line is busy, or the script is wrong), RAS will try and redial

That's it you are connected to Demon, I have tried Mosaic, Gopher, ftp
and Archie with this setup and they work fine.

If you have any problems with these instructions, please try and fix
them yourself. I'm not being nasty or anything, but if it takes a day
for me to get mail and reply to you to get round every small problem, it
could take you a long time to get connected. I think the instructions
are complete, but would be glad to hear of your impressions. I don't
think there is a "how to" at Demon for this, so maybe I'll pass it on to
them. Of course if you do get totally stuck (and are happy to hang
around a while 'til I reply a solution, please drop me a line).

A few notes:
The instructions are based upon a connection to Demon's London number.
It should not be too hard to work out where to change things for any of
the other nodes. You can use the Clone button to duplicate a phone book
entry and use that as a basis for a new one.

By using [terminal] in the After dialling list box, a terminal window
pops up with which you can manually log onto Demon. This is not as neat
as the automatic method, but is a good fallback if nothing seems to be
happening.

It is possible to turn on diagnostics, this requires use of the Registry
Editor and is left as an exercise for the reader. This will create a
file DEVICE.LOG in the SYSTEM32\RAS directory showing the commands back
and forth until the connection is successful. I think the Daytona
release notes explain how to do this.

My instructions use PPP, but RAS will work with SLIP too. Since Demon
support PPP and it's a leaner protocol anyway, I haven't explained how
to do SLIP.

If Demon had a Machine running Remote Access Server, things would be
much easier!


       Derek Knight                                   
email: derek@meerkat.demon.co.uk                      Cambridge
 work: Derek.Knight@Smallworld.co.uk                  England




