Setting up RAS on Windows 2000

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Setting up Remote Access Services on Windows 2000 to allow the Palm to establish a PPP connection

As with the FreeBSD info, this document contains instructions on how to connect a Palm Pilot to a Windows 2000 machine for Dial-in style connectivity. (All work was carried out on Windows 2000 Server (build 2195) - I presume the RAS setup will be similar on Win2k Professional). Note this doc is a bit heavy with images.
Important, please read the Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 information

Pre-requisites

Windows 2000
Palm Pilot
Link Direct
Networking

Windows Setup

Navigate to the Phone and Modem options section in the Control Panel
From the Phone and Modem Options, install a null modem (Comms Cable between two computers) cable connection. If this is your first attempt at this, Windows will probably whinge to setup the area codes. For the baud rate, set it at 19,200 for debugging attempts. If and when you get it working, you can jack the connection rate up to 56,700bps (If you're using Link Direct of course)
Since this is a direct cable connection, and no modem is actually being used on this machine at all, I'd just enter some duff data for this section.
Once you've got the null modem driver installed, point it to the port you've you the hotsync cradle on. In this case, COM1.
From within the "Network and Dial-Up Connections" section in control panel, select "Make New Connection".
Set it up to Accept incoming connections. (The "Connect Directly" setting is the opposite of what we are doing here, its the Win2k box doing what the Palm is doing in this instance)
Point the connection to the Null modem device we just setup. You can set the baud rate and other comms settings from the properties tab. Make sure Hardware flow control is set, and the hardware settings are 8N1.
Don't select allow VPN connections.
I've allowed my local user account to use the connection.

However, after configuration of all this, I went back into the Users tab of the Incoming Connections entry in "Network and Dial-Up Connections" and checked the "Always allow directly connected devices such as palmtop computers to connect without providing a password". This means I don't have to stick a uid and password in the palm. If this is unchecked, and you do not provided the correct user id and password on the palm, you will get the error message "Error: incomplete setup. Check phone number & username. (0x121A)". Sticking the NT username and password will enable it to login. An advantage of this setting is during connection you will get an icon in the Network section with the user ID you've logged in as. Otherwise you'd just get the "Unauthenticated User" icon. A disadvantage is it appears the password is stored as plaintext within the NetworkDB palm database file. I used Insider V3.90.1 to have a look at the password for the Win2k connection made below and sure enough it was readable.
Bang a couple of IP addresses in here. It needs a range of at least 2 to work. Make sure "Allow callers to access my local area network" is checked, otherwise you'll only be able to use resources on the Win2k box you're connected to.
If they ain't started already, start the "Remote Access Connection Manager" and "Routing and Remote Access" services from within the Services applet (Hidden in the Start\Programs\Administrative Tools\Services instead of the control panel).
That should be the Windows part setup. Remember to go back and check the "Always allow directly connected devices..." option if you aren't going to enter a password.

Palm Pilot Setup

As with the other Palm to ... articles on this site, the device is configured with a static IP address from the 192.168.2.* pool. I may try DHCP sometime in the future, but at present there is no need for it.

From the Network entry in Prefs, tap the phone number item and add 00 as the number. (This tells the pilot to access the serial port directly). Like unix, User id is not required, unless you really, really want to use it. Remember the palm seems to store it plain text.
Tap the details button and fill in the IP and DNS details. The DNS is again the FreeBSD machine, and the IP address is the same used by the unix pppd setup
The login script on the palm side needs to be:
```
Send:		CLIENT
Send:		CLIENT
Wait for:	CLIENTSERVER
End:
```

Now all you have to do is click connect...

If you have logging turned on for the serial port (recommended), you should see entries like these in the ModemLog_Communications cable between two computers.txt file in the windows directory:

03-25-2000 16:24:21.058 - Recv: CLIENT
03-25-2000 16:24:21.058 - Interpreted response: Ring
03-25-2000 16:24:21.058 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINE_NEWCALL
03-25-2000 16:24:21.058 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_OFFERING
03-25-2000 16:24:21.058 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINEDEVSTATE_RINGING(0x1)
03-25-2000 16:24:33.065 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_IDLE
03-25-2000 16:24:33.065 - TSP(0000): Closing Call
03-25-2000 16:24:43.991 - Recv: CLIENT
03-25-2000 16:24:43.991 - Interpreted response: Ring
03-25-2000 16:24:43.991 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINE_NEWCALL
03-25-2000 16:24:43.991 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_OFFERING
03-25-2000 16:24:43.991 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINEDEVSTATE_RINGING(0x1)
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - Recv: CLIENT
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - Interpreted response: Ring
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINEDEVSTATE_RINGING(0x1)
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - TSP(0000): Answering Call
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - Answering the call.
03-25-2000 16:24:44.982 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_ACCEPTED
03-25-2000 16:24:44.992 - Send: CLIENTSERVER
03-25-2000 16:24:44.992 - Connection established at 19200bps.
03-25-2000 16:24:44.992 - Error-control off or unknown.
03-25-2000 16:24:44.992 - Data compression off or unknown.
03-25-2000 16:24:44.992 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_CONNECTED

Without the second CLIENT send, the win2k box will sit idle for a few moments and then drop the line, as shown by this dump from the modem log.

03-04-2000 17:24:41.930 - Recv: CLIENT
03-04-2000 17:24:41.930 - Interpreted response: Ring
03-04-2000 17:24:41.930 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINE_NEWCALL
03-04-2000 17:24:41.930 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_OFFERING
03-04-2000 17:24:41.930 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINEDEVSTATE_RINGING(0x1)
03-04-2000 17:24:53.617 - TSP(0000): Dropping call
03-04-2000 17:24:53.637 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_DISCONNECTED(0x1)
03-04-2000 17:24:53.637 - TSP(0000): LINEEVENT: LINECALLSTATE_IDLE
03-04-2000 17:24:53.637 - TSP(0000): Dropping call
03-04-2000 17:24:53.637 - TSP(0000): Closing Call

Networking information

The ROUTE service seems to require the NETBIOSGROUP service installed and running (Thanks to Omric for pointing this out). This is generally installed with a network card. If you haven't got a network card, you may be able to install it by adding a modem and setting up an ISP connection.
Note: You may be able to get around this by unchecking the "Allow callers to access my local area network", although I haven't tested this.

Service Pack 1 information

A number of users have contacted me regarding a problem connecting various palm devices to Windows 2000 machines with service pack 1 installed. The serial port log will show the characters <ae> or <ae> instead of the usual CLIENT line. Jeremy Bailey has come up with the solution:

On the palm:
Home -> HotSync
(from top menu) Connection Setup
Direct Serial & Edit
Details
Set Flow Ctl to "On", the default is Automatic
as soon as i changed that, it worked
also on this screen is the speed, which was set to 115,200
so i bumped up my win2000 speed and they are both using 115,200